John Dehlin showing he is either ignorant and/or deceptive

In a public facebook post, John Dehlin posted the following meme, wherein he argues that the Book of Mormon teaches that the New World was totally uninhabited before Lehi et al arrived:

John Dehlin is just being disingenuous as such texts have been exegeted by LDS scholars for years, so he should know how LDS apologists deal with this text. For instance, addressing 2 Nephi 1:8 (and Ether 2:5) in his article "Nephi's Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations,” Matthew Roper wrote:

Possible Scriptural Objections to the Presence of Others

In seeking possible scriptural objections to the proposition that there were others in the land, some have suggested that two Book of Mormon passages (Ether 2:5 and 2 Nephi 1:8) require an empty hemisphere previous to the arrival of Jaredites, Lehites, and Mulekites.55 However, it is evident that the passage from Ether 2:5, stating that the Jaredites were “commanded . . . that they should go forth into the wilderness, yea, into that quarter where there never had man been,” when taken in context, actually refers to the wilderness through which the Jaredites were to travel in the Old World and says nothing about the populations of the New World at that time. The second reference, from Lehi’s prophecy, reads as follows:

And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever. (2 Nephi 1:8–9)

One reading of this statement could be that Lehi’s people inherited an empty promised land when their ship arrived, but the Book of Mormon allows for other interpretations.56 Is there a distinction, for example, between “nations” and other social groups? Lehi would have been familiar with nations such as Babylon and Egypt that had well-organized armies capable of waging sophisticated warfare and extending their power over large distances. Lehi’s prophecy could allow for smaller societies that did not yet merit the description “nations.” For instance, Sorenson’s model of Book of Mormon geography places the land of Nephi in highland Guatemala near the site of Kaminaljuyœ. At the time Nephi and his people separated from Laman’s followers to found their own settlement in the early sixth century BC, archaeological evidence shows that that region had only scattered, sparsely populated villages.57 Also, to “possess this land unto themselves” does not necessarily mean to be the only inhabitants but can also mean—as it often does in Book of Mormon contexts—that a group has the ability to control and exercise authority over the land and its resources (see, for example, Mosiah 19:15; 23:29; 24:2; Alma 27:22, 26).58 Significantly, however, even Lehi’s statement about “other nations” is conditional. Lehi indicates that the promised protection from threatening nations would be removed when his children dwindled in unbelief. Sorenson has observed that the Lamanites, at least, dwindled in unbelief from the beginning.

How then could Lehi’s prophecy about “other nations” being brought in have been kept long in abeyance after that? Furthermore, the early Nephites generally did the same thing within a few centuries. Their wickedness and apostasy culminated in the escape of Mosiah and his group from the land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla (see Omni 1:13–14). And if the Lord somehow did not at those times bring in “other nations,” then surely he would have done so after Cumorah, 1100 years prior to Columbus. Even if there were no massive armed invasions of strange groups to be reported, we need not be surprised if relatively small groups of strange peoples who were neither so numerous nor so organized as to be rivals for control of the land could have been scattered or infiltrated among both Nephites and Lamanites without their constituting the “other nations” in the threatening sense of Lehi’s prophecy. Thus in the terms of Lehi’s prophecy, “others” could and probably even should have been close at hand and available for the Lord to use as instruments against the straying covenant peoples any time after the arrival of Nephi’s boat.59

Notes for the Above

55. “What about the claim that the Jaredite migration from the Middle East was to ‘that quarter where never had man been’ (Ether 2:5)? Or, Lehi’s claim between 588 and 570 BC that ‘it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations’ (2 Ne 1:8)?” Thomas Murphy, open e-mail to Michael Whiting, 25 January 2003.

56. George Reynolds followed this interpretation, noting, however, that this would not apply to the Jaredites, since “we have no account in the sacred records that God shut them out from the knowledge of the rest of mankind when he planted them in America.” George Reynolds, “History of the Book of Mormon VI: The Contents of the Records,” Contributor 5 (April 1884): 242. See also George M. Ottinger, “Old America: The Phoenicians,” Juvenile Instructor 10 (6 February1875): 33.

57. Sorenson, Ancient American Setting, 85. For an overview of the argument for a limited Book of Mormon geography, see Sorenson and Roper, “Before DNA,” 7–10. For an overview of the evidence of archaeology and other sciences for population diversity in the New World, see ibid., 18–23.

58. See also John L. Sorenson, Nephite Culture and Society: Collected Papers, ed. Matthew R. Sorenson (Salt Lake City: New Sage Books, 1997), 205–7.

59. Sorenson, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived,” 7–8. For an earlier but similar view, see Gareth W. Lowe, “The Book of Mormon and Early Southwest Cultures,” U.A.S. [University Archaeological Society] Newsletter,no. 19 (12 April 1954): 3.

For more, see, for e.g., Jeff Lindsay, The Book of Mormon and DNA, Appendix One: Book of Mormon Teachings, which addresses the evidence that "others" were in the land and were incorporated into the Nephite and Lamanite populations as well as John Sorenson’s 1992 article, When Lehi's Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There? Indeed, Sorenson in this article provides the following commentary on 2 Nephi 1:8-12:

How much time can we suppose elapsed between the time when Lehi’s descendants “dwindle[d] in unbelief” and when the Lord brought “other nations unto them”? How distant were those “other nations” at the time Lehi spoke? Latter-day Saints generally have supposed that the “other nations” were the Gentile (Christian) nations of Europe who began to reach the New World only 500 years ago. To believe so requires limited imagination.

As for the Lamanites, they dwindled in unbelief within a few years. Alma said that “the Lamanites have been cut off from his presence, from the beginning of their transgressions in the land” (Alma 9:14). How then could Lehi’s prophecy about “other nations” being brought in have been kept long in abeyance after that? Furthermore, the early Nephites generally did the same thing within a few centuries. Their wickedness and apostasy culminated in the escape of Mosiah and his group from the land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla (see Omni 1:13–14). And if the Lord somehow did not at those times bring in “other nations,” then surely he would have done so after Cumorah, 1100 years prior to Columbus. Even if there were no massive armed invasions of strange groups to be reported, we need not be surprised if relatively small groups of strange peoples who were neither so numerous nor so organized as to be rivals for control of the land could have been scattered or infiltrated among both Nephites and Lamanites without their constituting the “other nations” in the threatening sense of Lehi’s prophecy. Thus in the terms of Lehi’s prophecy, “others” could and probably even should have been close at hand and available for the Lord to use as instruments against the straying covenant peoples any time after the arrival of Nephi’s boat.

Archaeology, linguistics, and related areas of study have established beyond doubt that a variety of peoples inhabited virtually every place in the Western Hemisphere a long time ago (with the possible exception of limited regions which may have been more or less unpopulated for the period of a few generations at certain times). The presence of almost 1500 different languages belonging to dozens of major groupings which were found in the Americas when the Europeans arrived can be explained only by supposing that speakers of the ancestral tongues had been in America for thousands of years. The notion that “the Indians” constituted a single ethnic entity is a totally outdated one which neither scholars nor lay people can justifiably believe nowadays. Abundant facts are completely contrary to the idea. The most that is possible is that in some limited territory in a part of America Lehi’s people and those who came with Mulek had their chance to establish their own niches where they could control their own fate. But they were not given thousands of years of isolation to play with. (The Latter-day Saint pioneers in Deseret were allowed only a single generation, from 1847 until the railroad came in 1869, to do the same. After that, competing economic, social, political, and ideological systems directly challenged them, and nearly swallowed them up.)

It seems unavoidable that other peoples were in the land, somewhere, when Nephi’s boat landed on the shore of the “west sea,” and quite certainly some of them were survivors from the Jaredite people, as indicated in the book of Ether.

This is just another instance of John Dehlin being deceptive and/or ignorant.

Bart Ehrman vs Mike Licona Debate 2018

The following is the full video of the debate between Michael Licona (author of Why are there differences in the Gospels? What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography and The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach) and Bart D. Ehrman (author of works such as The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture):

Bart Ehrman vs Mike Licona Debate 2018

John A.T. Robinson on evidence for an early date of the Gospel of John

[I]n John there is even less than in the Synoptists that can be taken as reference to the fall of Jerusalem after the event. Indeed the presumption is that it is still standing as the evangelist himself describes it in the three present tenses of 5.2 (though nothing can be built upon them: ‘There is in Jerusalem a place which is called in the language of the Jews Bethesda, having five porches.’ The only forecast is that the Romans would come and destroy the city and its holy place if the Jewish authorities left Jesus at large (11.48) – in fact an unfulfilled prophecy, for they did not and the Romans still came. The threat that the sanctuary would be destroyed is referred by John to the events of 30 (2.19-21), not to those of 70 (contrast Mark 13.2 and pars.). The relations of the Jews to the Romans remain obsequious and collaborationists to the end (19.12-15), with no reflection at all of the revolt of 66. There is no hint of state persecution, which hit the church with Nero in 65, only of bitter Jewish harassment. Certainly in the Epistles there is no evidence of Gnosticizing heresy, but this is no more advanced or elaborate (indeed less) than what we find in the same area in the Epistle to the Colossians, which if it is Pauline, as I am convinced it is, cannot be later than the early 60s or late 50s, and I would say it is earlier. (John A.T. Robinson, The Priority of John [ed. J.F. Coakley; London: SCM Press, 1985], 70, emphasis added)

Apart from being an interesting insight, it also provides further support for the contingent nature of biblical predictions, something I discussed in some detail at:

An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology

Affirming Papal Infallibility while Denying Material Sufficiency

Brian Tierney is the author of an excellent work, Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350: A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty and Tradition in the Middle Ages. For those who wish to study the papacy and its development, this is a must-read.

In his discussion of the infallibility of the papacy as defined in 1870, Peter Chirico, a Catholic priest and scholar, wrote the following in response to Tierney and others:

Brian Tierney has shown that this teaching was first formulated by Pietro Olivi (c. 1248-1298) for what were basically political reasons. From this he concludes that the doctrine can be discarded; for it is post-biblical.

In reply to this, I would say that the initial formulation of a doctrine by a theologian and the intrinsic grounds of its justification are two different things. Tierney assumes that a doctrine has to be present in some way in the Scriptures for it to belong to the deposit of faith. The consistent position of this work is that what is revealed exists often only potentially in the early Church (as an oak in the acorn); later it exists implicitly in the operation of the Church; and the explication of that deposit may come centuries and even millennia later. However accurate Tierney’s historical research may be, the dogmatic conclusions he draws about the nonrevealed nature of the teaching of infallibility do not follow . . . Now many who have undertaken to investigate the history of infallibility (like Küng and Tierney) assume that for a doctrine to be of divine faith it must be articulated in the sacred books, or it must be reducible to articulation from two or more scriptural articulations, or it must be implicit in the actions performed by the scriptural Church. Further, one must be able to trace the understanding of the doctrine through history from the scriptural beginnings. These assumptions, it seems to me, are too facile. They would rule out what I have called “second-order dogmatic meanings,” that is, doctrines which articulate the recurring processes by which first-order doctrines such as the Incarnation and the Trinity come into existence.

The contention here is that the teaching on infallibility is such a second-order dogmatic meaning. It did not appear and could not have appeared in the beginning. First came experience of God in Christ and the effort to live out in the implications of the basic experience of the Resurrection. Then, after a more or less lengthy period, the recurring relationships between man and man, on the one hand, and between man and God, on the other, were articulated. Only after a further period were the doctrines I have called “ontic” articulated. Finally, doctrines such as infallibility represent summations of the conditions under which relational and ontic teachings have come into being. They are thus thematizations of what are already abstract processes. They articulate what is common to the genesis of all certitude in the Church.

The origin of infallibility means that it could not have emerged early. It is a most general doctrine; and, as is well known, the most general teachings inevitably emerge last. It required almost two thousand years of acting and philosophical reflection for the Church to begin even in a rudimentary way to grasp the conditions of infallibility; and the end is not in sight. (Peter Chirico, Infallibility: The Crossroads of Doctrine [Theology and Life Series 1; Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1983], 226-27, emphasis added)

Chirico is forced to argue (1) that the dogma of papal infallibility developed, a la Newman’s development hypothesis, from a seed to the oak tree, over two thousand years. The problem is that the various councils, Vatican I especially, does not allow for the development hypothesis to be applied to papal primacy and papal infallibility. I discussed this at:

The Development Hypothesis and Dogmatic Teachings on the Papacy

Further, Chirco is forced to (2) reject the material sufficiency of Scripture, the mainstream Catholic view of the nature of Scripture, and something popularized by Yves Congar in Tradition and Traditions, which teachings:

The Catholic theory of “material sufficiency” says that the whole content of Revelation is present in Scripture if only implicitly, and denies that extrabiblical tradition offers any separate revelational material. It asserts totum in Scriptura, totum in traditione, as opposed to partim in Scriptura, partim in traditione. However, this does not necessarily mean that what is in Scripture cannot be illumined or amplified by what is in extrabiblical tradition, any more than it means the opposite could not occur. What is implicit in either one may be comparatively explicit in the other. (Philip Blosser, "What are the Philosophical and Practical Problems with Sola Scriptura?" in Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2013], 29-100, here, p. 78 n. 112)

Daniel Wallace on John 5:2 and an early dating of the Gospel of John

In John 5:2, we read:

Now there is (Ἔστιν) at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethseda, having five porches.

Some have pointed to the use of the present of ειμι as evidence that John was written when this pool was still around, and, therefore, wrote before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. I am rather sympathetic towards dating the gospels pre-70, and I do believe there are good evidence for such, even if such is a minority perspective. Commenting on the use of the present tense, Daniel Wallace, a leading grammarian of the Greek New Testament, wrote:

2) John 5:2

The text reads: ἔστιν δὲ ἐν τοῖς `Ιεροσολύμοις . . . κολυμβήθρα (“Now there is in Jerusalem . . . a pool”). Since εἰμί is nowhere else clearly used as a historical present, the present tense should be taken as indicating present time from the viewpoint of the speaker.⁴⁹ The implication of this seems to be that this Gospel was written before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.⁵⁰ Although many object to a pre-70 date for John’s Gospel, they must, in support of their view, reckon with this text.

Notes for the Above

⁴⁹ So McKay, New Syntax, 40.

⁵⁰ By arguing that ἐστίν is a stative present, we are admittedly going against the tide of NT scholarship. Generally, NT scholars have attempted to circumvent the prima facie force of ἐστίν by adopting one of five approaches in this text: (1) ἐστίν is a historical present (so Schnackenburg, Knabenbauer, Carson, et al.); (2) ἐστίν is an anomalous present (McNeile); (3) the author erred, not knowing that the pool had been destroyed (Bleek?); (4) the pool of Bethesda must have sur­vived the Jewish War (Plummer, Dods, Tholuck, Weiss, et alii suggest this, but prefer the historical present view [but Jeremias assumes it]); (5) the redactional view: John 5:2 belonged to an earlier stratum of the Gospel, only to go uncorrected in the final publication (MacGregor, Brown?). Each of these views has severe problems. See Wallace, “John 5,2,” 177-205.

Source: Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 531

For more on this interesting from Daniel Wallace, see:

John 5:2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel ... again

John 5.2 One More Time: A Response to Andreas Köstenberger

After the Order of the Son of God - Review

Robert Wheadon, a fellow Latter-day Saint, has a short, positive review of my book on the priesthood on his blog:

After the Order of the Son of God - Review

One can purchase a copy of the book on Amazon here.

Christian Baptism as Participation in Christ’s Descent in 1 Peter

Commenting on 1 Pet 3:18-4:6 and the teachings on water baptism, Alyssa Lyra Pitstick wrote:

Christian Baptism as Participation in Christ’s Descent

In this context of the typology of baptism and the Descent, it is appropriate to flesh out how the individual Christian’s baptism unites him to Christ by being a sacramental participation in His descent. Sacramental liturgies are the preeminent mode of participation in the mysteries of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. In them, the Church is configured to her Head by the action of Christ in a real though veiled way. In virtue of this union, she participates in the perfect cult of glory He gave to the Father throughout the mysteries of His life and death, and which He continues to give.

In the most ancient liturgies, the events of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday were not commemorated separately. This liturgical unity reflected the unity of the paschal mystery itself: Christ’s death was not a simple end, but a passover to perfect life. Conversely, His resurrection is necessarily a resurrection from the dead. Given this intrinsic interrelation, the unity of these mysteries as emphasized by the single ancient commemoration is not fundamentally ruptured when the liturgies of the days of the Triduum and Easter each re-present and contemplate one aspect more than the others, as they do today.

The distinct feature of the liturgy of Holy Saturday, including the current practice of having no celebration of the Eucharist until the Easter Vigil, is the contemplation of the death of the Lord. By death is here meant not His sacrificial dying on the cross (commemorated on Good Friday), but His sojourn in the abode of the dead. What is this sojourn, and what is its significance for mankind? First, the profession that Jesus was buried or, more specifically, descended to those below indicates simply that Jesus was dead. He partook of the general human fate. The simplicity of this observation masks its importance: The confession of Jesus’ death is also a confession that He is really human, i.e., it is a specific affirmation against heresies that deny this fundamental truth of faith. More specifically yet, the profession of Jesus’ death means He descended to those who died before Him: The abode of the dead has no passage out until Christ Himself makes one. His descent is to open the way to heaven, to the Father’s bosom. Still more specifically, because He was perfectly just, He descended to the abode of the holy dead. Christ’s descent will then address the concern, motivated by charity, of whether any were saved from among those who died before Christ instituted the sacraments and established the Church, the ordinary means of salvation. At the same time, to those who hope to join the holy dead in the presence of the Father, death need no longer be a terror.

All that has been said thus far considers the true humanity of Christ, and the specific character of the general human fate of death He underwent. As Christ is also God, however, the significance of His descent cannot be limited to the normal possibilities of human fate: Christ is mankind’s Savior, and descends to the dead having redeemed mankind in the blood of His cross. Hence, in descending to the holy dead, He does so to apply to them the fruits of this redemption. Here another reason is seen why Christ descends in His soul only to the holy dead: In view of the redemption wrought by Christ, God gives every man the grace necessary for salvation, whether he died before Christ’s coming or was born after it. The fruit of salvation is then fitting only to those in whom the divine life of grace took root, lived, and flourished.

It is particularly significant that among these holy dead is Adam, the first human lord of creation but also the cause of the Fall that affected all creation. As a result of his sin, paradise was closed. If heaven is now opened to him, it is, as it were, a return to paradise (albeit an infinitely more perfect one): As suggested by the presence of the Good Thief in some artwork depicting Christ’s descent, this new paradise is wherever Christ is. The whole order of creation is re-established in virtue of the New Adam’s salvation of the old, and creation is set free from the slavery of Satan to celebrate the eternal Sabbath.

The incorporation of the individual man into this new order of creation, with its passage to heaven, is accomplished through baptism. The sacramental baptism of the New Testament is the Christian’s bridge from the prefigurations and shadows of the Old Testament to the eschatology already begun in grace, though yet to be perfectly fulfilled in the final resurrection. Baptism is a passage from death to life, with Christ and in virtue of the archetypal passage made by Him. The person baptized not only dies (sacramentally), but dies specifically the death of Christ and is buried with Him, in order that he may rise with Him. Thus baptism exhibits the same essential unity as the entire paschal mystery, as seen earlier in the quotation of Romans 6:3–4. From this unity derives the possibility and legitimacy of emphasizing links between baptism and the individual mysteries commemorated from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Generally speaking, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the definitive origin of the sacrament and its efficacy: From the side of the paschal Lamb (Ex 12:46; Jn 19:36), blood and water flow forth as a purifying nuptial bath for the Church (Eph 5:25–27), the Bride of the Lamb (Rev 21:9). The effect of the sacrament is seen in connection to Easter Sunday: a new life in God, dead to sin and the world, free from death and the devil. The sacrament itself, however, is typified in connection to Holy Saturday. The Scriptural images for baptism are those connected in the Catholic exegetical tradition to Christ’s descent, because baptism is a sacramental participation in Christ’s descent. Here is the passage through the waters of death, the Exodus from slavery to freedom through the Red Sea, the entrance into the Promised Land through the waters of the Jordan where Jesus will be baptized, the washing of the bridal bath that cleanses the sullied image of God.

The catechumen who dies with Christ in baptism hopes to rise with Him in glory after the end of his earthly life. This desired passage to glory was made already by the holy men and women who were dead with Christ in the flesh but alive in the Spirit. By the sacrament he is about to receive, the catechumen passes from the general fate of mankind to that of Christ and of those conformed to Him by faith. Olivier Rousseau summarizes five principal themes of the primitive catechesis of the Descent that find their echo in the one baptized into Christ:

First, Christ descends into the realm of death, and likewise the catechumen descends into the waters. The waters of death, cleansed by Christ’s baptism, now mean death to sin.

Second, He illuminates the holy dead, and also the catechumen. Developed out of Scriptural language about the sons of light (e.g., Jn 12:35; Eph 5:8; Heb 6:4; 1 Thess 5:5), a very early name for baptism was φωτισμός (enlightening). Baptism as an illumination is imaged in the Easter Vigil, the premiere celebration of baptism in the liturgical year. During the Vigil, the Easter candle is lit for the first time and its base plunged into the water that will be used for baptism. The candle represents the column of fire that led the Israelites through the desert by night, so that, in the words of the Exultet, sung at the Easter Vigil, “The night will be filled with light as the day.” In fact, Christ’s triumphal descent into hell is one of the standard illustrations found on medieval Exultet scrolls.

Third, Christ vivifies the holy dead in His descent, and in baptism gives the catechumen the new, divine life. Like the holy dead awaiting Christ, the catechumen is disposed by faith and hope to receive the new life Christ brings. This life was glory for the holy dead and is grace for the baptized. Baptism is a return to paradise: Like the miracles of physical healing that are signs of the spiritual healing brought by Christ, resurrection from the death of sin through the life of grace means one is captive no longer to the death that entered the world through sin; baptism and the new life it brings thus are a prelude to the final resurrection of the body. Note here the eagerness, so to speak, of God to share the gift of His life: In virtue of Christ to come, men after the Fall did not have to wait for His actual coming before living again the life of grace. Similarly, although the holy dead awaited Christ’s descent, they did not have to await the end of time before entering essential beatitude. Likewise, the one living in grace now already has a foretaste of glory.

Fourth, Christ triumphs over the strong man in his own realm. Through His perfect human obedience unto the death of the cross, Christ reversed the defeat of mankind through the temptation of the devil that had death as its result. Consequently, He enters the realm of death as victor. The catechumen shares in Christ’s victory in the form of the catechumen’s renunciation of Satan, his pomps, and works; the baptismal exorcism; his reception of the ‘arms’ of God (Eph 6:12–18); and his being ordered by baptism to the ultimate victory.

Fifth and finally, Christ rises again, and so too the new Christian is raised from the waters. Christ’s resurrection reveals its ultimate archetypal form in the Ascension, when He goes to the Father, body and soul; the baptized who abides in the life of God will follow Him.

Thus, in its connection to Holy Saturday, the baptismal descent into the water symbolizes not only dying, but also death as the entrance into the abode of the dead and a sojourn there; the triple immersion recalls the three days before the resurrection; and the coming up from the waters in the new life of grace mirrors the liberation from death of those who belong to Christ. The one plunged into the water and blood from Christ’s side through baptism or martyrdom is cleansed in the nuptial bath of the Church.

Again we see why Christ liberated only the holy dead in the limbo of the Fathers: Only they had washed their garments in the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14), and hence were fit to partake in the wedding feast itself (Mt 22:11–13). As the Descent was the efficacious application of the redemption wrought by Christ on the cross to the individual for the sake of eternal life, so is baptism. Conversely, as baptism is the passage to the new life of grace for the living united to Christ by faith, Christ’s descent meant passage to the new life of glory for the dead united to Him by faith. The profession of faith solemnly made at baptism and during the liturgical vigil of Easter is also relevant in this connection: Those who believe and are baptized reject the slavery of the devil and, being freed from it, are made sons and heirs of the kingdom.

The unity of the paschal mystery, the role of the Descent, and the participation of the faithful in it may be illustrated in a summary way by the Eucharistic liturgy of the Ethiopian Catholic Rite. In the Anaphora of the Apostles, the priest prays just before the Consecration,

He extended His hands to the passion; suffered that He might deliver (redeem) the sufferer who trusted in Him. He offered up Himself of His own will to the passion that He might overcome death, break the bonds of Satan, trample upon hell, lead forth the saints, establish the covenant and reveal His resurrection.

It is by participating in the mysteries of Christ, by being assimilated to Christ as one’s archetype, that one comes to bear the name Christian: Earlier, at the proclamation of the Gospel, the congregation offers praise to Christ, saying,

Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods?… You manifested Your might to Your people and You saved them with Your saving arm. You went into the nether world and set free those who were in captivity. You delivered us once again, for You came and saved us.

Hence to commemorate the Descent is to commemorate not only this mystery of Christ as it reveals His true humanity and divinity, but also its significance for the individual Christian in his baptism, for the larger Church in the salvation of the holy dead, and for the universe in general which, in those liberated by Christ, tastes the first fruits of redemption. (Alyssa Lyra Pitstick, Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007], 42-46)

 For more on 1 Pet 3:18-20 and baptismal regeneration, see the section discussing this passage and Acts 2:38 in the article:

Christ's Baptism is NOT imputed to the believer