Disclaimer: My view of the harrowing has developed, making this article a bit outdated, but I do think most of the arguments still apply. In addition, I do still love the idea that our souls were harrowed with those of the saints. This makes sense with Ps. 9:17, where the souls of the wicked are "returned," perhaps a reference specifically to the apostate. However, I do think that the saints did experience time in hell just as much as they do in heaven now. The reference to Abraham in Luke 16 is likely a reference to him in Sheol, and the appearances of Moses and Elijah are irrelevant, as they could simply come from Sheol as well. In any case, if you would like to read more about this topic and some of the metaphysical geography of the underworld, I have a new post here. This past October I went up to Fort Wayne for Christ Academy: College, and when I was there, I sat in on a dogmatics course about the harrowing of hell. To be completely honest, it was rather irritating. I remember the professor saying that there is no actual freeing of the souls from hell, but that it's a metaphor. That is simply a ridiculous take, and I wanna talk about why it is rather a doctrine that is true, good, and beautiful.
Now, I want to explain what I mean when I say it. What I am arguing is that Christ freed our souls in a spiritual sense. Notice that I did not say "metaphorical," but "spiritual." I would not argue that our Lord did not actually free the souls of the saints and our souls, but rather say that Christ freed our souls from death. In fact, there is really no way for us to say that Christ rescued us from death in any way but a spiritual sense, as our bodies have not been freed yet until the resurrection. However, this does not free us from confessing, with the scriptures, that our Lord did really descend into hell to free our souls from death's bondage. Some try to use 1 Peter 3:19 to argue for this idea, but I think this is a faulty argument and is instead a reference to Christ preaching to those demons from Genesis 6 that impregnated mortal women. However, 4:6 is much clearer that Christ also preached to the souls of dead men as well: 'For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.' Some have tried to argue that the "dead" is a reference to those spiritually dead by unbelief, however, this makes no sense when it says that they are judged "in the flesh," as the spiritually dead aren't judged in the flesh until the resurrection, and thus those spirits to which Christ preached must have been human spirits. Now, one could also argue that "flesh" is being used in a Pauline sense to refer to one's sinful nature, but this also makes little sense as three verses earlier, Peter refers to Christ suffering in the flesh. What's more, if the dead in the flesh referred to the damned, then how can those who died in unbelief be said to "live in the spirit the way God does?" In this way, we can see Christ fulfilling Isaiah 61:1, which says, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." The gospel which Christ preaches to the dead is the opening of the prisons and the liberty to the captives.
However, these aren't the only passages to draw on. In Colossians 1:13-14, St. Paul says, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” St. Paul is not allegorizing, but he is describing a metaphysical act, namely, that Christ has repatriated us into the true kingdom of God, and the only way for us to be moved from one to the other is...well...to be moved. That is to say, there must be a point in which we were dead and then made alive. And from an objective standpoint, we see this in the harrowing of hell, though it happens subjectively in the sacraments, namely baptism. A place where this scheme fits together clearly is Ephesians 2:1-7:
'And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.'
In this passage, we see that like in Colossians, we were under the tyranny of the devil, as we were following him as our prince. However, here we see another piece of our redemption: we are "seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Notice the past tense. We have been seated with Christ in heavenly places, so that though we live in this world, our souls are already with Christ. It's not that he took our spirits from our bodies, but he took them from the devil's kingdom. Just as our souls are somewhat displaced in the realm of the dead, so our souls are also bound to Christ in heaven now. We see Christ as the "stronger man" who plunders the devil's riches - our souls - from the underworld (Mark 3:27).
I would also add that I do not think those trapped in Sheol actually experience their time there, but because Christ's redemption happened outside of time, their spirits were freed outside of time as well. This is how we can see Moses and Elijah's spirits seemingly free from death's shackles during the transfiguration and Abraham's spirit as greeting the dead in a parable (Luke 16).
What's more, the earliest fathers read the texts above in the same way. Irenaeus of Lyons, who boasts of being the apostle of an apostle of St. John himself, writes "He [Christ] gathered from the ends of the earth into His Father's fold the children who were scattered abroad, and remembered His own dead ones who had formerly fallen asleep, and came down to them that He might deliver them" and "the case was, that for three days He dwelt in the place where the dead were, as the prophet says concerning Him: 'And the Lord remembered His dead saints who slept formerly in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them, to rescue and save them.' And the Lord Himself says, 'As Jonas remained three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth.' Then also the apostle says, 'But when He ascended, what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?' This, too, David says when prophesying of Him, 'And you have delivered my soul from the nethermost hell;' and on His rising again the third day, He said to Mary, who was the first to see and to worship Him, 'Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to the disciples, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and unto your Father.'" (Against Heresies 4.33.1). Hippolytus of Rome, who boasts of having a grandfather who was from the first generation of Christian converts, writes in his treatise on the Antichrist, "He [John the Baptist] also first preached to those in Hades, becoming a forerunner there when he was put to death by Herod, that there too he might intimate that the Savior would descend to ransom the souls of the saints from the hand of death." (On the Antichrist, 45) We clearly see that the testimony of these fathers to the rescue of our souls from hell is without question, so let us not 'move the ancient landmark that [our] fathers have set. ' (Prov 22:28)
O Lord, let us daily resist from the devil and his kingdom so that we would not lose the eternal reward, which is found in You alone. Amen.
Edit: I updated this post with an additional argument from Ezekiel 37, posted here. Enjoy!
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