Preaching to Spirits in Prison

Some have wondered if while Jesus was dead He could have taken the opportunity to preach to other people who were also dead. The question comes from 1 Peter 3:18-20, a passage which now deserves our close attention.

It is always important to remember that the Bible does not contradict itself. Whatever this verse says must be in harmony with what the rest of the Bible teaches on this subject. Otherwise it could not be the inspired word of God.

Isaiah 38:18 says, “The grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.” There would be no point in Jesus preaching to those who cannot have hope.

The Bible also says that “the dead know not any thing” (Ecclesiastes 9:5). Preaching to the dead does not fit in with the Biblical description of death.

Let’s look at 1 Peter 3:18-20 to see what it says and does not say. Verse 18 tells us that Jesus was “put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” The word “quickened” means “brought to life.” It is when they are raised to life again that the dead are “quickened” (John 5:21).

Our passage in 1 Peter 3 does not tell us when Jesus was quickened. We are simply told two things: (1) that Jesus was put to death, and (2) that He was brought back to life. To find out when He was brought to life we must go to the actual account in the gospels. It tells us that He was crucified on “the day of the preparation” (Matthew 27:62), and brought back to life on “the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1). The Scriptural account is clear.

Our passage says that Jesus was quickened “by the Spirit.” That is, the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself declared that “it is the spirit that quickeneth” (John 6:63).

So, by comparing Scripture with Scripture we have a very good explanation of verse 18. Jesus was put to death in the flesh on Friday afternoon, and raised to life again by the Spirit on Sunday morning.

The next three words in our passage are “by which also.” The word “also” indicates the introduction of a different event, the common factor being the involvement of the Holy Spirit. Christ was resurrected by the Spirit, He also by the Spirit preached.

Christ, by the Spirit, preached “unto the spirits in prison.” The word “spirits” in this verse simply means “people.” Often in the Bible a figure of speech is used by which a characteristic part of a thing stands for the whole. Since the spirit or breath of a person is a characteristic part of the person, the word spirit is sometimes used to represent the person. For example, “my spirit” in 1 Corinthians 16:18 simply means “me.” In Galatians 6:18 and 2 Timothy 4:22 “your (thy) spirit” simply means “you.”

The “prison” concept is elsewhere used in the Bible in reference to the condition of those who are entrapped in sin. “The wicked . . . shall be holden with the cords of his sins” (Proverbs 5:22). “For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage” (2 Peter 2:19). The work of the gospel is “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1; See also Isaiah 42:7, 22).

With that thought, 1 Peter 3:19 simply says that it was through His Holy Spirit also that Christ preached to people bound in sin. Notice that verse 19 does not tell us when this preaching took place. To find that out we must go to verse 20 which says: “Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” There it is. Verses 19 and 20 are talking about what happened in the days of Noah!

Noah was called “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5). Through his preaching the Holy Spirit worked upon the hearts of the people. But because of the wickedness of that generation and their refusal to obey God, the Lord said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:3). For 120 years Noah preached. Those people had more opportunity to hear and accept the gospel than any other generation. Yet, “few, that is, eight souls were saved.” When those 120 years were up, their opportunity for salvation was forever gone. They would hear no more preaching.

Peter does not say that Jesus did anything while He was dead. He, by the Spirit, preached to the people in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing. And that’s all the text says. It says nothing about a purgatory. It makes no mention of disembodied spirits. It says nothing about preaching to dead people. First Peter 4:6 tells us that the gospel “was” (past tense) preached to people who “are” (present tense) dead. They are dead now, but nowhere does it say that they were dead at the time the gospel was preached to them. Such a claim would contradict everything the Bible teaches about death, salvation, and the justice of God. “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, . . . the father to the children shall make known thy truth” (Isaiah 38:19).