Bible Questions and Answers

Can you explain 1 Peter 3:19,20?

1 Peter 3:18-20 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

A literal interpretation of these words of Peter – that Christ having been put to death somehow had a conscious spirit which was able to visit, and preach to, imprisoned conscious spirits of people who died in the flood - is contrary to other plain scriptures.
The scriptures make plain that when we die our faculties – and hence our ability to hear, see, and think – perish. We return to dust, the elements from which we are made.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing,

Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.

Psalms 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of You; In the grave who will give You thanks?

The Gospel cannot be preached after death.

Psalms 88:11 Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction?

The answer of course is ‘no’. The dead are not imprisoned, they are dead. They have ceased to exist.

When Christ died, he was really dead, he spent the time between his death and resurrection, unconscious, in the tomb.

Matthew 12:40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Jesus was restored to life and consciousness on the third day.

If we discount the literal, we are faced with a ‘hard saying’ of Peter, to be understood by reference to other scriptures.

Jesus was made alive by the Spirit i.e. the Spirit of God (not a person, but rather the power of God by which all was created and is sustained).

The Spirit of God enabled the prophets of old to lay out the purpose of God.

A major focus of the purpose of God was upon the promised Messiah who would make possible the forgiveness of sin and a future resurrection to life of those who would make an effort to obey him. The prophets didn’t always understand how God’s purpose would be worked out.

Peter writes of this and introduces us to the idea of a ‘spirit of Christ’ being present in the prophecies. By this it is reasonable to suppose that he means those things which were specifically to do with the promised Messiah upon which salvation hinged.

1 Peter 1:10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who (which) was in them was indicating when He (it) testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

It was by this ‘spirit of Christ’ in the prophets that his future advent was preached prior to the flood. We are told that Noah himself was a ‘preacher of righteousness’(2 Peter 2:5).

Spirits in prison – all mankind since Adam and Eve’s disobedience have been ‘spirits in prison’ awaiting death. Without the light of the Gospel, we all ‘sit in darkness in the prison house’.

Christ’s advent was to open the eyes of the living, not the dead.

Isaiah 41:5 Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it: 6 To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

Luke 4:18,19 The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.

The idea that we have a soul or spirit which continues in a conscious existence after death comes from pagan imagination, not the Bible.

The notion that God imprisons his creation for thousands of years in a conscious existence after death exhibits a complete misunderstanding of God’s character. Similarly, that eternal fiery torments in a conscious existence in ‘hell’ awaits non-believers after death.

The Bible likens death to sleep. We all experience the unconsciousness of sleep.

Those who know not God die and perish forever. Those who come to a knowledge of the Gospel, die and remain unconscious until resurrection and Judgment at Christ’s return. Those rejected will die again (the second death) and perish forever. Those accepted will live forever upon the earth in the Kingdom of God.

Those who lived before Christ, could be ‘released from prison’ by believing God’s promise of a Messiah and living faithful lives. Thus, the ‘spirit of Christ’ was in the preaching which began in Eden and continued before and after the flood and is recorded in scripture for our admonition, that believing God's promises, we might exit the ‘prison house’ of human ignorance.

I hope you find this helpful,

God bless,
Glenn