Q43 "He Descended Into Hell"

Q. 43. Why is there added, “He descended into hell”?

A. That in my greatest pains and most grievous temptations I may support myself with this comfort, that my Lord Jesus Christ has delivered me (by the unspeakable distresses, torments, and terrors of His soul, into which He was plunged both before and then especially when He hung on the cross) from the straits and torments of hell (a).

(a) Isa. 53:10; Matt. 27:46. Not that He (that is, Christ) went into the place of the damned, but that He went absolutely into the place of the dead. See Dr. Usher in his Body of Divinity, 174 and Mr. Perkins on the Creed.