the geneva catechism 4
deliverance, He had to be reckoned among transgressors (Is. 53:12). I understand so.
60. Is there greater importance in His having been crucified than if He had been put death in another way? Yes, as Paul also shows us when he says that He hanged on a tree to take our curse upon Himself and acquit us of it (Gal. 3:13). For that kind of death was accursed of God (Deut. 21:23).
61. What? Is it not to dishonour the Lord Jesus, to say He was subjected to the curse, and that before God? By no means, for in taking it upon Himself He abolished it, by His power, yet in such a way that He did not cease to be blessed throughout in order that He might fill us with His blessing.
62. Explain the rest. Since death was the curse on man as a result of sin, Jesus Christ has endured it, and in enduring it overcame it. And to show that He underwent a real death, He chose to be placed in the tomb like other men.
63. But nothing seems to redound to us from this victory, since we do not cease to die. That is no obstacle. The death of believers is nothing else than a way of entering into a better life.
64. Hence it follows that we ought no longer to dread death as if it were a fearful thing, but we should willingly follow Jesus Christ our Head and Captain, who precedes us, not in order to let us perish, but in order to save us. That is so.
65. What is the meaning of the additional clause: "He descended into hell"? That He not only suffered natural death, which is the separation of the body from the soul, but also that His soul was pierced with amazing anguish, which St. Peter calls the pains of death (Acts 2:24).
66. Why and how did that happen to Him? Because He presented Himself to God in order to make satisfaction in the