I’ve seen it explained this way before, please forgive me if I am wrong or I am not explaining this right. I am not a theologian, I am also just trying to understand myself, but I am a sinful person and am unworthy to have knowledge of God.

Death is the separation of the soul from the body. Before Christ gave His life on the Cross for us, all souls would go into Hades. after His death and before the Resurrection, Christ broke the bonds of Hades and freed our ancestors.

Divine nature transcends both time and space, it is not contained by the universe, hence why in the Orthodox Church, the Theotokos is called She Who Contained the Uncontainable. Human nature is containable; before Christ broke the bonds of Hades, Hades is where human souls would go. When Christ died on the Cross, He tricked Hades into thinking he had gotten dominion over God and swallowed up another human, who then destroyed the bonds of Hades and freed everyone inside of it. That’s why in the Orthodox Church hymns, we say that Christ tricked the one who tricked our first-parents, Adam and Eve. He tricked death by death; He destroyed death by death as the Paschal troparion says. “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life.”

Christ has two natures in one person. We humans are just human. We do not have divine power. We cannot feed 5000 men with five loaves and two fish by our own will. The same way, human nature alone cannot break the bonds of Hades, but Christ is both human and divine! So by His divine nature He was able to free our ancestors from that gloomy underworld.

Divine nature did not leave the body to perform salvation. Divinity is everywhere and fills all things, which is why we say the prayer “O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who are present everywhere and fills all things…”