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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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The Plowing Of Hades

When we speculate, it becomes a story. When God speculates, it becomes reality.
R. L. Copple on Apr 15, 2014
4 comments

Resurrection of Christ and the Harrowing of HellThe resurrection of Christ, which we will celebrate this coming Sunday, is the core teaching of the Christian faith. Upon this reality hangs every doctrine, belief, and truth of Christianity. As the Apostle Paul said:

If Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.
(1Co 15:17-19 ASV)

Note the link Paul gives between Christ being raised from the dead and our own hope of resurrection. Without Christ’s resurrection, we have no hope of leaving Hades and avoiding the fires of Hell into which Hades, and all within it, will be thrown into on the day of judgment. (Rev. 20:13-15)

The defeat of death, Hades, and the grave is what the resurrection of Christ accomplished. Likewise, the celebration is also known as The Harrowing of Hades.

For those not familiar, a harrow is a multipronged instrument used to plow the ground. To harrow something literally means to plow it up, or analogically, to disturb it.

Hades is known as the place of the dead. Our term actually comes from Greek mythology, as the Greek god Hades ruled the realm of the dead. In the Old Testament, it was called Sheol. Within its boarders, all who died, both the righteous and the wicked, were held, awaiting the final judgment. Death reigned over Adam and all his descendents until Christ.

The best scripture about Christ going to Hades and harrowing it is the Apostle Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost. Quoting from King David in Psalm 16, he says:

Because thou wilt not leave my soul unto Hades, Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption. Thou madest known unto me the ways of life; Thou shalt make me full of gladness with thy countenance.

Brethren, I may say unto you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us unto this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins he would set one upon his throne; he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he left unto Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we all are witnesses.
(Act 2:27-32 ASV)

One of my favorite liturgical text personifies Hades. Hades swallowed Christ, got a really bad case of indigestion from the Giver of Life, and ended up vomiting out all the righteous.

PlowingDeath was plowed with Life.

Sounds fantastical? Far fetched? Like something out of a novel I or any number of people might make up? To our modern and skeptical world, yeah. But there is one big difference between when we create and when God creates.

When we speculate, it becomes a story. When God speculates, it becomes reality.

This is the hope we celebrate this week: Christ entered death and Hades, plowed life into it, flung open its gates through His resurrection so that we too might rise in newness of life.

As Jesus comforted John upon seeing Him in His glory:

Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
(Rev 1:17b-18 ASV)

So fear not! Rejoice! For Christ has become our Passover Lamb. If we smear His blood over the doorpost of our hearts and souls, death will pass over us as well.

He has the keys to Hades.

R. L. Copple
As a young teen, R. L. Copple played in his own make-believe world, writing the stories and drawing the art for his own comics while experiencing the worlds of other authors like Tolkien, Lewis, Asimov, and Lester Del Ray. As an adult, after years of writing devotionally, he returned to the passion of his youth in order to combine his fantasy worlds and faith into the reality of the printed page. Since then, his imagination has given birth to The Reality Chronicles trilogy from Splashdown Books, and The Virtual Chronicles series, Ethereal Worlds Anthology, and How to Make an Ebook: Using Free Software from Ethereal Press, along with numerous short stories in various magazines.Learn more about R. L and his work at any of the following:Author Website, Author Blog, or Author Store.
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  1. notleia says:
    April 15, 2014 at 4:33 pm

    Man, this is just an awkward metaphor all around. I speak a little Farmer, and I can tell you that harrowing is not deep-level stuff. Harrowing is plowing, but not all plowing is harrowing. It’s what you do after you plow to break up the clods for an even seedbed. It’s also what you do to work fertilizer into the ground. Though the idea of Jesus spreading tons of urea onto Hell is a little funny. I’m not even sure the harrow was invented yet in Roman times.
    So I wouldn’t use this metaphor in depth because it just stops making sense. Besides, I think harvest is a better metaphor for freeing the souls in Hades than plowing. And Jesus already had harvest metaphors going on, so yay.
     
    And what’s that photo from? Because that’s incongruously depressing that they’re hand-pulling a plow meant for horses.

    Reply
    • R. L. Copple says:
      April 16, 2014 at 1:41 am

      Plowing is only one meaning, but related, to the general meaning to disrupt.
       
      Here’s a further etymology of it:
       

      The word “harrow” comes from the Old English hergian meaning to harry or despoil and is seen in the homilies of Aelfric, c. 1000.[6] The term Harrowing of Hell refers not merely to the idea that Christ descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but to the rich tradition that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over inferos (Latin: those below or underworld), releasing Hell’s captives, particularly Adam and Eve, and the righteous men and women of the Old Testament period. (Parentheses added by me)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell#Terminology

       
      Note: The above quote tends to use Hell and Hades interchangeably, but strictly speaking they are two different thing.
       
      I’d take issue that it is an understanding which developed after the Apostles Creed.  Be that as it may, it is obvious from Scripture that Christ rising again gave us the opportunity to join with Him and rise to new life ourselves.
       
      I still like the imagery of Christ’s life plowing up Hades, disrupting it, because His life cannot be contained by Hades and death, nor can it hold the Giver of Life. Not a perfect analogy, but still cool.

      Reply
      • notleia says:
        April 16, 2014 at 7:06 pm

        Strictly strictly speaking, Hades is a Grecian concept that the NewT seems to have borrowed so that dem Gentiles could follow along.
        But I think it’s still awkward, because I can’t associate plowing with destruction, probably because I grew up speaking a little Farmer.

        Reply
  2. merechristian says:
    April 16, 2014 at 3:38 am

    This was a great and informative piece. Thank you.

    Reply

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