12 Die Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt nach der Heil. Schrift, der
altesten Kirche, den Christlichen Symbolen, und nach ihrer
unendlichen Wichtigkeit und vielumfassenden Bedeutung dargestellt,
von Joh. Ludwig Konig. The author presents in this work an
irresistible array of citations and authorities. In an appendix he
gives a list of a hundred authors on the theme of Christ's descent
into hell.

of the explanations of them proposed by Unitarians, and assert
that their genuine force is this. Christ died and rose that we
might be freed through faith from the great entailed consequence
of sin, the bondage of the under world; beholding, through his
ascension, our heavenly destination restored. "God made him, who
knew no sin, to be sin on our account, that we might become the
righteousness of God in him," might through faith in him be
assured of salvation. In other words, Christ, who was not exposed
to the evils brought on men by sin, did not think his divine
estate a thing eagerly to be retained, but descended to the estate
of man, underwent the penalties of sin as if he were himself a
sinner, and then rose to the right hand of God, by this token to
assure men of God's gracious determination to forgive them and
reinstate them in their forfeited primal privileges. "If we be
reconciled by his death, much more shall we be saved by his life."
That is, if Christ's coming from heaven as an ambassador from God
to die convinces us of God's pardoning good will towards us, much
more does his rising again into heaven, where he now lives,
deliver us from the fear of the under world condemnation and
assure us of the heavenly salvation. Except in the light and with
the aid of the theory we have been urging, a large number of texts
like the foregoing cannot, as we think, be interpreted without
constructive violence, and even with that violence cannot convey
their full point and power.

Secondly, in Paul's doctrine of the redeeming work of Christ we
recognise something distinct from any subjective effect in
animating and purifying the hearts and lives of men. "Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law." "In Christ we have
redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."
Nothing but the most desperate exegesis can make these and many
similar texts signify simply the purging of individual breasts
from their offences and guilt. Seeking the genuine meaning of
Paul, we are forced to agree with the overwhelming majority o