Now that he ascended
These words are a conclusion of Christ's descent from heaven,
from his ascension thither; for had he not first descended from
thence, it could not have been said of him that he ascended; for
no man hath ascended to heaven but he that came down from heaven,
( John 3:13 ) and
they are also an explanation of the sense of the psalmist in the
above citation, which takes in his humiliation as well as his
exaltation; which humiliation is signified by his descent into
the earth:
what is it but that he also descended first into the lower
parts of
the earth?
this the Papists understand of his decent into a place they call
Limbus Patrum, which they make to be contiguous to hell; and
where they say the patriarchs were detained till Christ's coming;
and that he went thither to deliver them out of it; and that
these are the captivity he led captive; all which is fictitious
and fabulous: for certain it is, that the place where Abraham was
with Lazarus in his bosom was not near to hell, but afar off, and
that there was a great gulf between them, ( Luke 16:23 Luke 16:26 ) and the
spirits or souls of the patriarchs returned to God that gave
them, when separated from their bodies, as the souls of men do
now, ( Ecclesiastes
12:7 ) nor did Christ enter any such feigned place at his
death, but went to paradise, where the penitent thief was that
day with him; nor were the patriarchs, but the principalities and
powers Christ spoiled, the captivity he led captive and triumphed
over: some interpret this of Christ's descent into hell, which
must be understood not locally, but of his enduring the wrath of
God for sin, which was equivalent to the torments of hell, and of
his being in the state of the dead; but it may rather design the
whole of his humiliation, as his descent from heaven and
incarnation in the virgin's womb, where his human nature was
curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth; and his
humbling himself and becoming obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross, when he was made sin and a curse for his people,
and bore all the punishment due to their transgressions; and his
being in Hades, in the state of the dead, in the grave, in the
heart of the earth, as Jonah in the whale's belly: reference
seems to be had to ( Psalms
139:15 ) where "the lower parts of the earth", is interpreted
by the Targum on the place of (amad aoyrk) , "his mother's womb"; and so it is by
Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melec. The Alexandrian copy
and the Ethiopic version leave out the word "first" in this
clause.
