Eternal life is “the age to come kind of life” lived in the here and now by Him through us. We, as Christians, are seated in heavenly places; therefore, the reality of heaven isn’t just something we are waiting for one day. It is an experience, at least at some level, that we enjoy now with our feet still on the earth.
In a similar way, those who aren’t Christians experience a degree of hell with their feet still on this earth. Eternal separation from God tragically awaits those who choose not to believe what Christ has accomplished for them. Sadly, nonbelievers already experience the lostness.
The apostle’s Creed is one of the earliest documents the church used to hold themselves accountable to “what we believe.” It has its roots in the second century and has always been accepted as the baptismal Creed. Those who were to be baptized had to believe the Creed. One of the statements about Jesus in the Creed goes like this, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died and was buried; He descended into hell…”
The early church believed that Jesus embraced the full consequences of our sin, (including hell) as us that we might experience the full consequences of His life in us.
In the incarnation, Jesus came and clothed himself with our broken humanity. In our place and on our behalf, He was tempted in every way. I believe that Jesus’s descending into hell was not just literal hell, but He also gathered into Himself the personal hells that each of us have experienced because of our fallenness and the fallenness around us. He did that so we might be set free from ever going through the hell of our brokenness again. He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, and for that to happen, He had to wrap Himself in our anguish, pain, and sorrow so that the broken, fallen false self could die in Him, obliterated forever. We rose hidden in Christ to enjoy “the age to come – heavenly – kind of life lived in the here and now by Him through us.” He descended into hell so that we would never have to live another day there.