The Exorcist Files - Christ's Invasion of Hell

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Almost two billion Christians recite the Apostles Creed which states "He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.And one more thing...he descended to hell.In this powerful reflection Father Martins reminds us how brilliant and all encompassing Jesus' victory on the cross was. Hell despite it's best efforts became a pawn in God's scheme and now that which is meant for evil, God uses for good. Thank You To Our SponsorsOneSkin- Get 15% off OneSkin with the code EXFILES at https://www.oneskin.co/EXFILES  Qualia- Magnesium, multiplied. 10 forms for total support. Go to https://qualialife.com/EXFILES to get 50% off and save an extra 15% with the code EXFILESRunewood Rosaries- Get 15% off your order when you use our promo code EXFILES at Runewoodrosary.com.Wild Alaskan- Go to wildalaskan.com/EXFILES for $35 off your first order of premiumBorn Again Identity- Check out the first episode and sign up to receive the latest episodes on Fr. Gregory Pine's incredible reflection on figuring out life!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome back to The Exorcist Files, the pod that hopefully brings you closer to God. I'm your co-host. You won't hear from the most. Today as Father Martens is bringing us the second part of his Easter reflection. We'd love to know what you think of these reflections, so please email us, praise, or haze. Before we start the show, I wanted to once again remind you that we do have dramatic case files coming. We know it's been a while. We really appreciate the patience, but there's a lot of great stuff happening and we can't wait to tell you about it. Lastly, I am excited to finally announce that our new series,

The Born Again Identity, launches June 4th exclusively on EWTN Plus, with my dear friend, whose mind is hard to comprehend, the one and the only, Father Gregory Pine. Have you ever wondered just, what am I doing in life? What should I do? Was I made for something specific? Has God called me to more? What is my purpose?

How do I find that purpose? Well, those are all fantastic questions, and the show is a deep dive into, figuring out the answers to those. The first episode is live and the second launches on June 4th, so check out the Born Again Identity on EWTM Plus or click that link in the show notes. And with that, here is Father Martins. What happened when Christ entered hell was not merely an event, but a rupture. An irreversible invasion of a realm that had until that moment seemed secure forever.

Was it violent? Absolutely. But only from the perspective of the demons. From the perspective of Christ, his entrance into hell and his taking of the souls held in bondage to his father was entirely peaceful. It was no clash, no weapon, no threat, no need even for a raised voice. On the contrary, Christ's emptying of hell of the souls of the just was more effortless than any earthly victory. more beautiful than the finest harmony ever heard. Yet what was effortless for him was, from the demon's side, experienced as devastation, a total and incomprehensible reversal. For them, it was violence in its purest form, the greatest violence imaginable. Last week, I provided a reflection on what Christ might have experienced in his descent into hell. This week, I would like to offer a meditation on what the demons experienced upon Christ's entrance into hell. In simplest terms, they experienced that event as shock, then as humiliation, then as rage, powerlessness, exposure, and finally despair.

Shock. For ages, the demons had ruled in shadow. Not as true lords, but as usurpers. parasites feeding upon the ruin of man. Their dominion was built on accusation, on deception, on that first lie spoken in Eden. For them, the dead arrived as captives. Every soul bore wounds of their lies.

Every soul carried their influence. They owned even the most righteous of souls because even righteousness could not shake off the effects of original sin. Then he comes. One like any other. He is not wounded, not broken. He does not arrive as one processed into their kingdom, but as one who overturns it by his very presence. And in that moment, the demons see what they have never seen before, a man over whom they have no claim. They had seen him before. They had trembled before him during his earthly life. As St. Augustine once observed, they confessed him when they saw him in the flesh. crying out, what have you to do with us, O son of God? And yet they knew him only in part. They perceived something of his power, but not of his mystery. They trusted in their own power more than in the one who resisted them at every turn in a way no one else ever had, drunk on their own certainty.

They did not pause to consider who stood before them, the Holy One of God. For a St. Paul declares, had they understood, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 8. And now they are in shock. He stands before them in death itself, yet untouched by death. This is their terror. Here, the church fathers speak with one voice. As St. Augustine writes, quote,

The devil was conquered by his own trophy, end quote. The demons believed they had succeeded. They believed that the Son of God, had they truly understood him, had been silenced in death. But as St. John Chrysostom proclaims, quote, Hell was embittered when it encountered you below. It took a body and met God face to face. End quote. The demons expected a helpless victim.

Instead, they encountered the king. Humiliation. The demons thought the crime. cross was their masterpiece, their final and decisive victory. What they hailed in triumph was, in truth, their undoing. St. Paul delivers the judgment with devastating clarity. Quote, none of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory. First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 8. The church fathers consistently understood the rulers of this age to include not only earthly authorities, but the demonic powers working

through them. What appeared to be their greatest success was, in reality, the moment of their defeat. St. John Chrysostom illustrates this mystery with astounding irony. He does not merely state that the devil was defeated. He shows how the very instruments of defeat were taken up and reversed. In their smug-humored, not only did the demons not foresee what they would lose in their attack against Christ, much worse and humiliating. They could not imagine that they would lose through the very strategy they believed guaranteed their victory. From Chrysostom, have you seen the wonderful victory? Have you seen the splendid deeds of the cross?

Shall I tell you something still more marvelous? Learn in what way the victory was gained, and you will be even more astonished. For by the very means by which the devil had conquered, by these Christ conquered him, and taking up the weapons with which he had fought, he defeated him. Listen to how it was done. A virgin, a tree, and death were the symbols of our defeat.

The virgin was Eve. She had not yet known man. The tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The death was Adam's penalty. But behold again, a virgin. a tree and death, those symbols of defeat become the symbols of his victory. For in place of Eve there is Mary, in place of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of the cross, in place of the death of Adam, the death of Christ. Do you see him defeated by the very things by which he had conquered?

At the foot of the tree, the devil overcame Adam. At the foot of the tree of the cross, Christ vanquished the devil. And that first tree sent men to Hades. This second one calls back even those who had already gone down. Again, the former tree concealed man already despoiled and stripped. The second tree shows a naked victor on high for all to see. And that earlier death condemned those who were born after it. The second death gives life again to those who were born before it. Who can tell the Lord's mighty deeds. By death we were made immortal. These are the glorious deeds of the cross. Have you understood the victory? Have you grasped how it was wrought? Learn now how this victory was gained without any sweat or toil of ours. No weapons of ours were stained with blood.

Our feet did not stand on the front line of the battle. We suffered no wounds, witnessed no tumults, and yet we obtained the victory. The battle was the Lord's. The crown is our. The crown is Since then, victory is ours. Let us imitate the soldiers, and with joyful voices sing the songs of victory. Let us praise the Lord and say, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?

The cross did all these wonderful things for us. The cross is a war memorial erected against the demons, a sword against sin. the sword with which Christ slew the serpent. The cross is the Father's will, the glory of the only begotten, the spirit's exultation, the beauty of the angels, the guardian of the church, Paul glories in the cross. It is the rampart of the saints.

It is the light of the whole world. End quote. This is humiliation, that the very instruments of the demonic victory became the signs of their ruin. That what they devised in cunning became the instrument of their exposure. That what they wielded in hatred became the means of their defeat.

That the cross they celebrated became the sign of their ruin. They are not merely overpowered. They are outmaneuvered. And worse, they are made participants in their own defeat. There is a particular humiliation in being defeated by an enemy.

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for 50% off and here's a bonus use the code ex-files for an additional 15% off your order that's qualilife.com slash X-Files and use our code EX-Files. Thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. Rage. The complete reversal accomplished by Christ leads not only to shock and humiliation, it ignites rage. And from that humiliation, a terrible rage erupts. Why would it not? For ages, the demons had labored towards this moment. They had stalked humanity from the shadows of Eden onward. They whispered into Cain's ear. They inflamed violence before the flood. They seduced nations into idolatry. They inspired the slaughter of Israel's children. They tormented the prophets. They entered kings through pride and nations through bloodlust. For centuries, everything bent on a single

aim, extinguished the promises of God before they could be fulfilled. Then suddenly, Christ appears in history. the moment of his conception in the womb of Mary, they move against him. Through Herod the Great and the slaughter of the innocence, through temptation in the wilderness, through attempts to provoke premature confrontation, through the betrayal of Judas Ascariat, through the religious leaders, through Pontius Pilate, through the mob, and at last, the cross. Now imagine their fury when they realized the cross was not their triumph, but his. That alone would be enough to produce demonic rage. But it does not end there. Christ descends into their own kingdom and begins emptying it of souls.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem explicitly describes Christ as the stronger man entering the house of the strong man. Quote, he descended into the regions beneath the earth that from there also he might redeem the righteous, end quote. This is what Christ had said in Matthew chapter 12 verse 29, unfolding before their eyes. The verse states, quote, how can one enter into a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? End quote.

Hell is the house. The devil is the strong man. The righteous dead are the goods being carried out. And there is nothing Satan and his legions can do. This is what enrages the most, not merely that they lost, but that Christ remains utterly calm. Christ does not shout.

He does not contend. He offers no reciprocal hatred. The demons rage because rage is all that remains for them. Imagine the screams of creatures who once sought to enthrone themselves above God, now watching Adam walk free, Eve walk free, Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, the righteous of every age, leaving with the very one they crucified. St. Ephraim, the Syrian, imagines death, cry, out in anguish, having consumed what it cannot contain. St. Gregory of Nissa describes Christ's humanity as bait, concealing the hook of divinity, the devil lunging in greed only to discover too late

that he has swallowed his own destruction. But that realization does not produce repentance. It produces infernal rage. They cannot strike him. They cannot accuse him. They cannot tempt him. They cannot shame him. They cannot stop him. They can only watch. their kingdom collapse. And perhaps this is the deepest layer of their rage. They now see that every future defeat they will suffer every baptism, every confession, every exorcism. Every act of repentance, every saint who resists temptation flows from this moment. Holy Saturday is not only a defeat, it is the beginning of the perpetual unraveling of the demonic kingdom. The rage of the demon of the demons does not end in resistance, it ends in powerlessness.

Powerlessness. Powerlessness may have been the most unbearable experience of all for two reasons. The first is that rage at least feels active. Powerlessness is a negative. The second is that powerlessness is what the demons spent history making men feel. Now it is the clothing that they themselves must wear. They made humanity feel trapped in sin, trapped in shame, trapped in death, trapped in fear. The author of Hebrews writes, quote, through fear of death, they were subject to lifelong bondage.

Hebrews chapter 2 verse 15. That bondage had been one of Satan's greatest weapons. Fear of death, fear of judgment, fear of separation. And now Christ enters death and destroys fear from the inside. Hebrews continues, that through. death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil. Chapter 2, verse 14. Notice the precision, not avoid death, not sidestep death, through death.

The very instrument Satan weaponized is ripped from his hands. The demons who once prided themselves on their influence, their cunning, their ability to ensnare and accuse, now stand unable to prevent even a single soul from leaving. The long dominion they exercised over the dead is not overthrown in struggle. It simply ceases to function in Christ's presence. What confronts them is not merely defeat, it is impotence. They cannot hold what they once held. They cannot reclaim what is being taken.

They cannot even slow what is unfolding before them. Every power they relied upon, temptation, accusation, death itself, falls silent. before He who is God. For ages, they had worked through deception and shadow, but now there is no distortion and no shadow. Christ stands within their realm, and everything is revealed. Their accusations find no voice, their claims find no ground, their authority finds no recognition.

And here is the kicker. It is not stripped from them. It is shown to be empty. And this is the final humiliation, not merely that they are defeated, but that their power is revealed to have always been dependent, permitted, and passing. They cannot force Christ to answer. They cannot provoke him to engage. They cannot draw him into their struggle. He does not conquer as they conquer. He simply is. And in his presence, their dominion, collapses. One by one, the souls they held depart. Not in chaos, not in haste, but in order, in peace, in recognition. They go with him, and the demons remain. No longer rulers, no longer possessors,

only witnesses. Witnesses to the loss of what they cannot recover. Witnesses to a victory they cannot contest. Witnesses to a silence that answers them more completely than any force ever could. And in that silence, they understand. What has taken place is not temporary, not reversible, not incomplete. It is decisive. The kingdom they believed secure is broken open. The whole they believe permanent is ended. The victory they believed theirs is revealed as illusion. And nothing remains for them to do. Hello, friends. Father Martins here. Priests see a certain affliction over and over again,

people feeling overwhelmed, spiritually, emotionally, physically. Many often feel they are alone that they have no defense. But that's not true. The church and her wisdom has given us powerful weapons, and one of the greatest is the rosary. I've seen situations where peace returned to a home simply because someone began to pray the rosary faithfully. I've seen fear give way to clarity, darkness give way to light,

not because of anything dramatic, but because someone picked up those beads and persevered in prayer. The rosary is not just a devotion, it's a lifeline. Besides the Eucharistic liturgy, it is the church's most powerful weapon. That is why I want to encourage you, not just to own one, but to carry one. Keep it close, use it daily.

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At Christ's descent, every lie is exposed, every false promise is exposed, every accusation is exposed, every counterfeit kingdom is exposed. The demons are revealed as frauds, and they hate that exposure. As St. Ephraim, the Syriam so vividly imagines it, death itself cries out in alarm, quote, My ministers and my powers, what is this that has come upon me? A light has arisen in the darkness, and I am swallowed up, end quote.

Ephraim gives voice to that interior collapse, the sudden realization that the kingdom of shadows has been invaded by light itself. And this light does not merely illuminate, it exposes. Every lie is stripped bare and exposed for what it is. Every false dominion is revealed as hollow. The demons see themselves as they truly are.

Not rulers, but defeated rebels whose apparent power depended entirely upon man's separation from God. And now that separation stands revealed in the very one before them. This is what they cannot endure, because here stands a man perfectly united to God, utterly beyond their reach. St. Augustine reflects that the devil was overcome by his own trophy, that is, by the cross itself. What he used as a weapon has become the instrument of his undoing. In slaying Christ, he has overreached.

He has laid hold of one over whom he has no rights, and in doing so, he has lost even the limited dominion he possessed. And now, before them, Christ stands not as a victim, but as they're a conqueror. He does not argue with them. He does not negotiate. He does not need to command, as Moses once did before Pharaoh, because his presence is the command. His being there is the judgment. As the ancient tradition so often expressed it, Christ comes to despoil hell, to strip it, to empty it, to to plunder its captives. And this is not done through struggle, but through sovereignty.

The strong man of whom Christ himself spoke has been bound, not by force supplied from without, but by the arrival of one who is infinitely stronger. St. Arenas had already seen this mystery unfolding when he wrote that Christ bound the strong man and set free the weak, recapitulating himself the entire history of Adam and undoing it from within. And the demons know it.

They know in that moment that the cross was not their victory. It became the trap by which they were undone. They see now that what they orchestrated in hatred has become the means of universal liberation. The death they inflicted has become the doorway through which life himself enters to reclaim what was lost. There is no power left in them, only recognition, only dread, only the irreversible certainty that their dominion has been broken.

They cannot resist him, they cannot obscure him. They cannot bargain with him. They can only behold him. And in beholding him, they are judged. For the one who stands before them is not merely a man, not merely a soul among the dead, not merely one figure passing through their shadowed domain. He is the Holy One. He is the Son. He is the Lord of Glory who has entered their darkness, not to dwell in it, but to shatter it from within. As Christostom declares with finality, quote,

Hell was in turmoil because it was abolished. It took a body and met God face to face. quote. And having met him, it can never be the same again. On Good Friday, the demons believed they had won. On Easter Sunday, the whole world sees that they lost, but on Holy Saturday, the demons were the first to find that out. Despair. Shock shatters the present. Humiliation rewrites the past. Rage lashes out in vain. powerlessness holds every action. But despair goes further still.

It is born of the knowledge that a defeat is everlasting. Until Holy Saturday, the demons could still persuade themselves that history bent, however unevenly, in their favor. Yes, God had made promises. Yes, the prophets had spoken. Yes, Israel endured. But again and again, they, the demons, had disrupted, delayed, and disfigured what God had produced.

They turned Cain against Abel. They corrupted humanity before the flood, enslaved nations into idolatry, led Israel into repeated apostasy, stirred the persecution and slaughter of the prophets, moved through kings, empires, armies, tyrants, and false religions. And at last, they crucified the Messiah, or so they thought. then Christ descends into hell.

And in that moment, a more terrible realization dawns. This is not a single defeat. This is the beginning of an endless chain of defeats. Every future sacrament, every future saint, every future conversion, future martyr, future confession, future exorcism, future act of repentance, every soul pulled back from mortal sin,

every righteous death, all of it flows from this moment. From the moment Christ enters into hell. The demons are not merely losing the souls they once held. They are watching their future losses multiply across time. What was once uncertain becomes clear. The ancient words spoken in Eden now stands fulfilled before them. Genesis 315, quote, I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head. End quote. For centuries, it may have seemed distant, obscure, delayed. Now it is unmistakable, and worse still, it is fulfilled by a crucified man, a bleeding man, a dead man, the very one they believed they had destroyed,

and in him they begin to see what is coming. They see the church. They see the gospel advancing where they once ruled unchallenged. They see idols cast down. They see temples emptied. They see nations baptized. They see Peter proclaiming Christ in the heart of the empire. They see Paul carrying the name of Jesus to the nations.

They see Benedict reshaping a collapsing world through prayer and order. They see Dominic confronting error with truth. They see Francis drawing souls through radical holiness. They see John Vianney tearing souls from their grasp in the confessional. They see countless saints, known and unknown, humbling them again and again. And they know they will never recover what is being lost here. Hell is not an earthly kingdom that can regroup, rebuild, and reclaim. Something irreversible has happened.

Christ has altered the very structure of history. Before him, death was their domain. After him, death becomes for the faithful, not a prison, but a passage, a birth. And this changes everything. Every saint is a reminder, friends. Every sacrament is a wound. Every act of grace is an echo. The demons do not simply remember Holy Saturday.

They relive it again and again across every age. This is their despair, not only that they have lost, but they now know that they will continue to lose, and yet this does not make them passive. If anything, it makes them more dangerous. Like a wounded beast that lashes out without restraint, they act with increased fury precisely because they know their time is limited. As St. John writes in the apocalypse,

Woe to you, O'Worthy, O'Worth and see, for the devil has come upon you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short. Revelation chapter 12 verse 12. Their rage continues, but now it is fueled by certainty, the certainty of defeat. Conclusion. Easter morning will reveal Christ's victory to the world, but Holy Saturday reveals something even more astonishing. The demons know before anyone else that their defeat,

is final. What they thought was triumph on Good Friday has already become their undoing, and what they believed was hidden has been exposed as ruin. The crucified one has entered their realm, not as victim, but as king, a king they cannot resist, and in his presence the old dominion begins to collapse. For the demons, this is not simply loss, it is the end of their illusion of power. they are outwitted, outmaneuvered, and overthrown by the very cross they once celebrated, because Christ has turned their weapon into their judgment and their victory into their exposure. The silence of Holy Saturday is therefore not empty silence, but the silence of sovereignty already at work. And so the mystery of the day stands before us.

Christ descends into death, not to be held by it, but to break it from within. not to bargain with darkness, but to scatter it by his very presence. The first to understand this were not the apostles, but the defeated powers of hell. They saw in terror that the kingdom they had built on deception had been breached forever on Holy Saturday, friends. Heaven had not yet spoken openly, but hell already knew.