Where did Jesus go between His death and resurrection?

Jesus died on a Friday and rose on a Sunday. But what about Saturday? For one full day, the body of the Son of God lay sealed in a borrowed tomb, and Scripture tells us almost nothing about that span.

The Apostles’ Creed — the ancient summary of the faith still recited in many churches — confesses that Christ ‘descended to hell.’ That clause is the reason this question gets asked at all. And it is worth knowing that the clause is a late addition to the creed (it appears in none of the earliest forms).

Additionally, the creed itself is simply the early church's confession, gathered over the first four centuries — not Scripture, and not inspired. However, there are two passages that are often tied to this clause:

Ephesians 4:8–10 (NKJV)

“When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended” — what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

1 Peter 3:19 (NKJV)

by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,

So what did Christ do on that silent Saturday? Four answers have been given.

1. “Descended” is not about hell at all.

One argument is that Paul is describing the incarnation (God taking on flesh and coming to earth), not a journey to hell after death. A related version takes the “lower parts of the earth” to mean the grave rather than hell itself, noting that Scripture can call even the womb the “lower parts of the earth” (Psalm 139:15), while hell is more naturally described as under the earth (Philippians 2:10) — a different phrase entirely.

2. It means He truly, fully died.

A second view takes the clause as a statement about death itself. The descent line is first attested in the late fourth century by Rufinus of Aquileia (around AD 390) — and Rufinus himself took it to mean nothing more than that Christ was buried, that He “descended to the grave.”

On this reading the clause was added to underline that Jesus truly died: His body was laid in the grave, His soul departing into the realm of the dead — Sheol in the older language of the Old Testament, Hades in the Greek of the New Testament. These words speak of the state of the dead as a place where a soul actually goes the moment it leaves the body. So according to this view “descended” simply means that Christ really died.

3. He went to paradise, to be with the Father.

A third view takes Jesus’ words to the dying criminal beside Him: “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Moments later He prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). According to this view, Christ's spirit clearly went straight to the Father's presence — not down into hell, but up into glory.

4. He proclaimed to the spirits in prison.

The fourth view rests on a famously difficult passage: Christ “went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient… in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:19–20). Some take this to mean Christ offered the imprisoned dead a chance to be saved. Others — and this is the historic Reformed reading — understand it as a declaration of victory: the triumphant Christ announcing His conquest over death and every evil power, not extending a second chance to the lost.

Where we land

Notice that these views are answering two different questions, and untangling them settles most of the confusion.

The first question is the literal one: where was Jesus on Saturday? Scripture gives a clear enough answer. His body lay in the tomb. His soul was with the Father — “Today you will be with Me in Paradise,” “into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Jesus did not spend Saturday in hell. He told the dying thief otherwise, in plain words, hours before.

The second question is what the creed means by “descended to hell” — and here the Reformed tradition, following Calvin and the Heidelberg Catechism, reads the line not as a place He went but as the depth of what He suffered. On the cross, Christ bore the full curse and wrath of God in our place, enduring in His soul the God-forsakenness of the condemned, when He cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). That is the descent. Golgotha is where Christ went down into hell — and He went there in our place, so that we never will.

Christ’s proclamation to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:19) was not a rescue mission and neither was it a second chance — Scripture is clear that judgment follows death, not further opportunity (Hebrews 9:27). The work of salvation was already finished on Friday (John 19:30) — so whatever the descent means, it cannot mean Christ was still completing our redemption after the cross.

So Saturday was not a day of defeat, and not a day of unfinished business. It was the silence after a battle already won.