Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,

When He ascended on high,

He led captive a host of captives,

And he gave gifts to men.

(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.” (Ephesians 4:7-10, NASB)

With regard to Jesus’s Descent into Hell, at first glance Ephesians 4:10 appears to be a no-brainer. Most of our traditional English translations follow the NASB’s rendering that Jesus descended into hell when he died. (see KJV, ASV, ESV, NRSV, RSV). But some of our modern theologians and English translations, say, “Not so fast, Buddy Boy!” Listen to Wayne Grudem, professor at Phoenix Seminary who is also the author of Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith:

Does this mean that Christ “descended” to hell? It is at first unclear what is meant by the “lower parts of the earth,” but another translation seems to give the best sense: “What does
“he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” (NIV). Here the NIV takes “descended” to refer to Christ’s coming to earth as a baby (the incarnation). The last four words are an acceptable understanding of the Greek text, taking the phrase “lower regions of the earth” to mean “lower regions that are the earth” (genitive of apposition). An English example is “the city of Chicago,” by which we mean “the city that is Chicago.”

This NIV rendering is again preferable in this context because Paul is saying that the Christ who went up to heaven (in his ascension) is the same one who earlier came down from heaven (v. 10). That “descent” from heaven occurred when Christ came to be born as a man. So the verse speaks of the incarnation, not of a descent into hell.” (Wayne Grudem, He Did Not Descend Into Hell, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, March 1991 at 108)

As Grudem states, the NIV renders the Greek in Ephesians 4:9 completely different from the traditional translations and the (old, Early Church) orthodox view, saying that “descended” is all about the incarnation and not in any sense a descent into hell. The NET Bible, The Message, The New International Reader’s Version, and the New Living Translation all line up behind the NIV. The difference, then, between these traditional and modern translations, all made up by committees of scholars, is no less than a descent into hell which some have lately called blasphemous (Hanegraaff in Christianity in Crisis and McConnell in A Different Gospel) and the incarnation. Question is, “are we left to having the scholars duke it out in dull committee rooms while we all sit on the sidelines with “blasphemer” written on the back of our shirts?” I say that it’s more fun to play in the game, get dirty, but still come out the winner.

The Grammar

The Greek for the latter part of verse 9 is this:

hoti kai katebe eis ta katotera mere tes ges
that also he descended into the lower parts [of] the earth

Where the main difference between the traditional and the modern versions falls is in the phrase tes ges. These two words are “the earth,” but they are in what the Greeks call a genitive form. There are different kinds of genitives and many times in the New Testament what kind of genitive a phrase might be is a judgment call, coin-flip, or majority of the committee vote. For this phrase, this is how the genitives, just looking at the grammar, could come out:

1. The traditional view understands it as a reference to the underworld (hell), where Jesus is thought to have descended in the three days between his death and resurrection. In this case, “of the earth” would be a partitive genitive.

2. A second option is to translate the phrase “of the earth” as a genitive of apposition: “to the lower parts, namely, the earth” (as in the present translation). Many recent scholars hold this view and argue that it is a reference to the incarnation. [This genitive of apposition is sort of like rebadging or renaming: city = Chicago.]

3. A third option, which also sees the phrase “of the earth” as a genitive of apposition, is that the descent in the passage occurs after the ascent rather than before it, and refers to the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost (cf. Acts 4:11-16).

Net Notes (these are notes from the Net Bible that is available on the internet).

If we stopped here we might have to resort to playing Fantasy Theologian (a slight variation from our weekend Fantasy Football), betting just how our pick will carry the day with his vast scholastic knowledge of other dead theologians and nuances of Greek papyri that nobody’s heard of before. Unfortunately for us, our guy probably wouldn’t have Scalia’s chutzpah or Reagan’s persuasive powers to save our orthodoxy from the moderns. Quite a shame since “blasphemer” carries such a sting to it. Fortunately, we don’t have to stop here. (Whew!)

Mere

mere tes ges
parts [of] the earth

The first problem for the moderns is that little word mere. Below are a couple of the big boy Greek lexicon definitions of the word:

Louw & Nida: a part in contrast with a whole - “part, aspect, feature”

BDAG: part, in contrast to the whole.

Thayer: one of the constituent parts of a whole; universally: in a context where the whole and its parts are distinguished

Right out of the box, mere gives the incarnation rendering indigestion because it requires a little fine tuning (always a good thing with God-breathed words) in order to make the verse meaningful. Since mere means a part of something and tes ges‚ is a “renaming/re-badging,” you’ve got to add in your own idea of what is being renamed:

That also he descended into the lower parts [of what?], namely, the earth.

Daniel Wallace, in his Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, comes up with this Wylie E. Coyote construction that seems to work:

he descended into the lower parts [of the universe], that is, the earth.

And this appears to be what we see from Grudem:

Paul is saying that the Christ who went up to heaven (in his ascension) is the same one who earlier came down from heaven (v. 10).

The problem with this contrivance is that the Word recognizes three distinct worlds, not just two:

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, (Philippians 2:10, NASB) (emphasis supplied for emphasis)

And from scripture, we know that hell is that third world “under” or in the earth:

And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. (Matthew 11:23, NASB)

And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades! (Luke 10:15, NASB)

for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40, NASB)

So, in order to squeeze out the incarnation, you have to first make up some kind of parenthetical, e.g., “the universe,” which doesn’t appear to be a Pauline word at all. Second, you have to disregard the clear rendering of scripture that hell is a third world which is “under” the earth which, by the way, is very difficult to do since Paul is the author of both Ephesians and Philippians.

At this point in time our fantasy theologian would be rockin’ the committee, but let’s not leave anything to chance. He is, after all, just a theologian.

Captivity Captive

One other clue to the “proper genitive” for verse nine is actually found in Ephesians 4:8. The usual translation of the “captivity” phrase is found in the NASB:

He led captive a host of captives. (Ephesians 4:8, NASB)

The usual exegesis or sermon of this passage is something like this:

The captives were those Old Testament saints who were in Abraham’s bosom. They were captive there until the day of the resurrection. When Jesus rose out of the grave, he had with him all those Old Testament saints - he led captivity captive. When he presented his blood before the Father all the Old Testament saints were with him watching.

(That’s the best of what I remember. Haven’t had a sermon on that in a long, long time. In another blog essay, I demonstrated that Jesus had to be resurrected alone because he had to fulfill the type of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. If this sermon is accurate, I’d have to eat my words and write apology letters to folks in 86 countries.)

So what does that have to do with Ephesians 4:9? Actually, the way that the NASB translates it - not much at all. But when we sit down and take a hard look at the Greek, then we see something that most of the translations have missed:

echmaloteusen aichmalosian
he made captive captivity

The fascinating thing here and why I say that most translations have missed it is because captivity is singular in the Greek. The Greek doesn’t say “captives,” (NIV), “those who were held,” (NLV), “host of captives,” (RSV), or any other kind of plural. The plurals appear to be the translators’ own gloss on what they thought the Greek meant. (I’m not sure where the verb “led” in the way it is used comes from either.) The NRSV gets it right by saying that Jesus took captivity, itself, captive:

When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; (Ephesians 4:8, NRSV)

So how does that affect our exegesis of Ephesians 4:9? When we go through the Word we see that men are held captive, first to death by sin (Romans 5:12 - “death by sin and so death passed upon all men”) and subsequently hell (Luke 16:23 - “in hades he lifted up his eyes”). Consistent with the NRSV rendering of Ephesians 4:9, we see in Revelation Jesus possessing (present tense) the keys of that captivity:

Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades. (Revelation 1:17b-18, NASB)

So, if it looked like our fantasy theologian was going down in flames in committee, we’d only have to pass him this note:

Ask’em, “If he didn’t go to hell, where’d he get those keys?”

[Note: My wife read this one and said, “It’s good, but your fantasy theologian is pretty cheesy.” Just where would we be without cheesy theologians?]