Where, exactly, were Christ's body and soul during the Descendit?

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This will take a bit of work...But thankfully, the work has already been done :)

If you go to Volume 2 of Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, p 591, you will there see a pretty good treatment of Christ's Death and Burial. (Search for "Christ humbled Himself even unto death, and continued under the power of death for a time." minus the quotes in the pdf)

Because Hodge presents various historical views on the subject, I am not game to try and fill in the table for you, but would be very interested to see what others can make of Hodge's treatment of this. I think the table could be filled in from reading Hodge. It certainly helped me with your questions in mind.

Here is a snippet or two from Hodge.... That Christ died is universally admitted by all Christians. That His suffering finished when He died is also held firm for He cried “It is finished”. Hodge then goes on to say that what happened was Christ descended into Sheol (the place of the dead) or the invisible state. He then quotes from the Westminster Larger Catechism “Christ’s humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day, which hath been otherwise expressed in these words, He descended into hell.” This Hodge argues is the correct view of Scripture.

“Hence to be buried, to go down to the grave, to descend into hell, are in Scriptural language equivalent forms of expression”.

“In Scriptural language, therefore, to descend into Hades or Hell, means nothing more than to descend to the grave, to pass from the visible into the invisible world, as happens to all men when they die and are buried." (As an aside, Christ did not go to Hell (Gehenna - the place of torment) as His sufferings finished on the cross. )

“This view is confirmed by the fact that these words were not in the creed originally. They were introduced in the fourth century, and then not as a separate or distinct article, but as merely explanatory. “He was dead and buried,” i.e., he descended into hell. That the two clauses were at first considered equivalent is obvious, because some copies of the creed had the one form, some the other, and some both, though all were intended to say the same thing”.

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