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Jerome
the OT should be seen as Revelation’s primary source text for personifying Death and Hades and presenting them as lords of the underworld (Rev 20:13-14).
So every time Christ is spoken of as being raised from the dead, the original readers would not have thought of him coming back from just the state of death, but that he came back from the realm of the dead, namely Hades.
Isaiah 26:19-20, “But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his
wrath has pas...
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the souls of the dead () are pictured as dwelling in rooms in the underworld waiting for the general resurrection when their souls will be reunited to their bodies.5
Paradise is not used with any hidden or religious meaning, but only to describe parks and gardens.
Therefore,
even though Paradise is equated with the “third heaven” in Paul (2 Cor 12:2, 4), Paradise is not heaven in Revelation, but the eternal city that comes down “out of heaven.”
Paradise is a transferable locale because the presence of Christ is what makes the reality Paradise. The criminal was with Christ in Paradise/Abraham’s Bosom in the underworld on Good Friday, Paul visited Paradise in the third heaven where Christ currently dwells (2 Cor 12:2, 4; Phil 1:21-26; 3:20), and the saints enter Paradise in the New Jerusalem because the lamb (Christ) will dwell there forever and ever (Rev 2:7; 21:22; 22:1-5, 14). Wherever Christ is, there is Paradise.
The Abyss is also predominantly understood as the dwelling place of fallen angels
(demons) in the underworld throughout the interestamental literature.
“Dust” is used in both Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2 which are two of the key passages in the OT cited to support the resurrection of the dead
Tartarus is “a subterranean place lower than Hades where divine punishment was meted out, and so regarded in Israelite apocalyptic as well.”
In short, Christ’s descent to the saints of old and his preaching the Gospel to them is the only way for Peter’s readers to be confident that no matter where the believer is (dead or alive), Christ will be with them.
“he was buried” have implied that Christ’s soul was in Hades?
MacCulloch believes that the title “firstborn of the dead” means that Christ was the first to be delivered from Hades.
Nicholas of Lyra (AD 1329) wrote a commentary on Revelation. He believed Revelation 1:18 not only alluded to the descent, but taught that Jesus released the OT saints from the underworld.
There are three primary elements of what Christ accomplished at his descent. First, Christ released the OT saints from the underworld and transferred them to heaven (Matt 27:52-53; Eph 4:9). Second, Christ preached the Gospel to the dead in the underworld offering them salvation, but the vast majority of the Fathers limited his preaching to the righteous of the OT (1 Pet 3:18-22; 4:6). Lastly, Christ descended to
the depths of the underworld to shatter the bronze and iron gates and to subdue Death, Hades, and Satan. It is this third option that most likely arose due to Revelation 1:18.
to possess keys in the ancient world was symbolic for possessing authority and power.
