A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion/Fifth Article
The Fifth Article.
'He descended into hell, the third day He rose again from the dead.'
(See Short Hist, of Revealed Rel., 27.)
1. What means, 'He descended into hell'?
That the soul of Jesus Christ, after His death, descended into 'Limbo'—i.e., to the place where the souls of the just who died before Christ were detained, and were waiting for the time of their redemption.
'He was put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit; in which also coming He preached to those spirits that were in prison' — that is, announced to them their redemption (2 Pet. iii. 18, 19).
2. Why were the souls of the just detained in Limbo?
Because Heaven was closed through sin, and was first to be opened by Christ (Hebr. ix. 6-8).
3. Why did Christ descend into Limbo?
1. To comfort and set free the souls of the just; and 2. To show forth His power and majesty even there in the lower regions (Phil. ii. 10).
4. What means, 'the third day He rose again from the dead'?
That on the third day after His death Christ reunited, by His own power, His soul to His body, as He had foretold, and rose again from the grave. (Easter day.)
'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But He spoke of the temple of His body' (John ii. 19, 21; comp. John x. 18).
5. How did Christ rise again?
He came forth glorious and immortal from the grave, secured as it was by a heavy stone, and guarded by soldiers.
6. Did Christ retain in His glorified body any mark of His sufferings?
He still retained, in His hands, feet, and side, the marks of His wounds; therefore He said to Thomas: 'Put in thy finger hither [into the place of the nails], and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side' (John xx. 27).
7. Why has He still retained these marks?
1. In testimony of His victory over hell; 2. As a proof that He rose again in the very same body in which He had suffered; and 3. To show them on the day of judgment, for the consolation of the just and for the confusion of the wicked.
8. Whence do we know that Christ rose from the dead?
From the testimony of His Apostles and His Disciples, who often saw Him after His resurrection, touched Him, ate, spoke, and conversed with Him; and who everywhere loudly proclaimed His resurrection, even before the chief council who had condemned Him to death, although by this conduct they drew upon themselves nothing but mortal hatred and persecution.
It is true that the soldiers who guarded the grave, being bribed with a large sum of money, spread the report that, while they were asleep, the Disciples of Jesus came and stole His body. But 1. If they were asleep, how could they see, then, that His Disciples stole the body? 2. Whence did the timid Disciples, who expected now nothing more from their deceased Master, get on a sudden such undaunted courage? 3. How did it happen that not even one of the sleeping guards awoke at the rolling away of the heavy stone? 4. Why were the guards not punished for the neglect of their duty? (Comp. Acts xii. 19.)
If the evidence of the Apostles and the Disciples had not been so certain and quite unexceptionable, they would never have convinced the world, in opposition to the most powerful and crafty enemies of Jesus, that He who, like a malefactor, had been publicly executed and buried, had on the third day risen again glorious from the dead. They have nevertheless so firmly convinced the world of this truth that countless Christian converts endured the most painful martyrdom in testimony of their firm belief in it.
9. What effect ought the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ to produce in us?
It ought 1. To strengthen our belief in His Divinity, and our hope of our own future resurrection; and 2. To incite us to rise from the death of sin to a new and holy life.
1. 'God raised Him up from the dead, and hath given Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God' (1 Pet. i. 21).
2. 'We are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life' (Rom. vi. 4).
Application. He who is still deeply buried in the grave of sin—i.e., in evil habits or sinful desires — is not risen yet to a new life. All our thoughts, all our exertions, should tend towards Heaven. 'If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth' (Col. iii. 1, 2).