Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Peter 3:19
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
19. by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison ] We enter here on a passage of which widely different interpretations have been given. It seems best in dealing with it to give in the first place what seems to be the true sequence of thought, and afterwards to examine the other views which appear to the present writer less satisfactory. It is obvious that every word will require a careful study in its relation to the context. (1) For “by which” we ought to read “in which.” It was not by the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, but in His human spirit as distinct from the flesh, that He who had preached to men living in the flesh on earth now went and preached to the spirits that had an existence separate from the flesh. (2) The word “went” is, in like manner, full of significance. It comes from the Apostle who was the first to proclaim that the “spirit” or “soul” of Christ had passed into Hades, but had not been left there (Act 2:31). It agrees with the language of St Paul in the Epistle to which we have found so many references in this Epistle, that He had “descended first into the lower parts of the earth,” i.e. into the region which the current belief of the time recognised as the habitation of the disembodied spirits of the dead (Eph 4:9). It harmonises with the language of the Apostle who was St Peter’s dearest friend when he records the language in which the risen Lord had spoken of Himself as having “the keys of Hades and of death,” as having been dead, but now “alive for evermore” (Rev 1:18). Taking all these facts together, we cannot see in the words anything but an attestation of the truth which the Church Catholic has received in the Apostles’ Creed, that Christ “died and was buried and descended into Hell.” And if we accept the record of St Peter’s speeches in the Acts as a true record, and compare the assured freedom and clearness of his teaching there with his imperfect insight into the character of our Lord’s work during the whole period of His ministry prior to the Resurrection, we can scarcely fail to see in his interpretation of the words “thou shalt not leave my soul in hell,” the first-fruits of the method of prophetic interpretation which he had learnt from our Lord Himself when He expounded to His disciples the things that were written concerning Himself in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44), when He spoke to them of “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Act 1:3). In the special truth on which the Apostle now lays stress, we must see, unless we think of him as taking up a legendary tradition, as writing either what had been revealed to him, “not by flesh and blood, but by his Father in heaven” (Mat 16:17), or as reporting what he had himself heard from the lips of the risen Lord. Of the two views the latter seems every way the more probable, and accepting it, we have to remember also that it was a record in which he was guided by the teaching of the Spirit.
And he “went and preached.” The latter word is used throughout the Gospels of the work of Christ as proclaiming “the Gospel of the kingdom” (Mat 4:23), preaching “repentance” (Mat 4:17), and the glad tidings of remission of sins as following upon repentance. It would do violence to all true methods of interpretation to assume that the Apostle, who had been converted by that preaching and had afterwards been a fellow-worker in it, would use the word in any other meaning now. We cannot think of the work to which the Spirit of Christ went as that of proclaiming an irrevocable sentence of condemnation. This interpretation, resting adequately on its own grounds, is, it need hardly be said, confirmed almost beyond the shadow of a doubt by the words of ch. 1Pe 4:6, that “the Gospel was preached also to the dead.” Those to whom He thus preached were “spirits.” The context determines the sense of this word as denoting that element of man’s personality which survives when the body perishes. So, in Heb 12:23, we read of “the spirits of just men made perfect;” and the same sense attaches to the words in Luk 24:37; Luk 24:39, Act 23:8-9, and in the “ spirits and souls of the righteous ” in the Benedicite Omnia Opera. And these spirits are in “prison.” The Greek word, as applied to a place, can hardly have any other meaning than that here given (see Mat 14:3; Mat 14:10, Mar 6:17; Mar 6:27, Luk 21:12), and in Rev 20:7 it is distinctly used of the prison-house of Satan. The “spirits in prison” cannot well mean anything but disembodied souls, under a greater or less degree of condemnation, waiting for their final sentence, and undergoing meanwhile a punishment retributive or corrective (see note on 2Pe 2:9). Had the Apostle stopped there we might have thought of the preaching of which he speaks as having been addressed to all who were in such a prison. The prison itself may be thought of as part of Hades contrasted with the Paradise of God, which was opened, as in Luk 23:43, Rev 2:7, to the penitent and the faithful.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
By which – Evidently by the Spirit referred to in the previous verse – en ho – the divine nature of the Son of God; that by which he was quickened again, after he had been put to death; the Son of God regarded as a Divine Being, or in that same nature which afterward became incarnate, and whose agency was employed in quickening the man Christ Jesus, who had been put to death. The meaning is, that the same Spirit which was efficacious in restoring him to life, after he was put to death, was that by which he preached to the spirits in prison.
He went – To wit, in the days of Noah. No particular stress should be laid here on the phrase he went. The literal sense is, he, having gone, preached, etc. poreutheis. It is well known that such expressions are often redundant in Greek writers, as in others. So Herodotus, to these things they spake, saying – for they said. And he, speaking, said; that is, he said. So Eph 2:17, And came and preached peace, etc. Mat 9:13, but go and learn what that meaneth, etc. So God is often represented as coming, as descending, etc., when he brings a message to mankind. Thus, Gen 11:5, The Lord came down to see the city and the tower. Exo 19:20, the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai. Num 11:25, the Lord came down in a cloud. 2Sa 22:10, he bowed the heavens and came down. The idea, however, would be conveyed by this language that he did this personally, or by himself, and not merely by employing the agency of another. It would then be implied here, that though the instrumentality of Noah was employed, yet that it was done not by the Holy Spirit, but by him who afterward became incarnate. On the supposition, therefore, that this whole passage refers to his preaching to the antediluvians in the time of Noah, and not to the spirits after they were confined in prison, this is language which the apostle would have properly and probably used. If that supposition meets the full force of the language, then no argument can be based on it in proof that he went to preach to them after their death, and while his body was lying in the grave.
And preached – The word used here ( ekeruxen) is of a general character, meaning to make a proclamation of any kind, as a crier does, or to deliver a message, and does not necessarily imply that it was the gospel which was preached, nor does it determine anything in regard to the nature of the message. It is not affirmed that he preached the gospel, for if that specific idea had been expressed it would have been rather by another word – euangelizo. The word used here would be appropriate to such a message as Noah brought to his contemporaries, or to any communication which God made to people. See Mat 3:1; Mat 4:17; Mar 1:35; Mar 5:20; Mar 7:36. It is implied in the expression, as already remarked, that he did this himself; that it was the Son of God who subsequently became incarnate, and not the Holy Spirit, that did this; though the language is consistent with the supposition that he did it by the instrumentality of another, to wit, Noah. Qui facit per alium, facit per se. God really proclaims a message to mankind when he does it by the instrumentality of the prophets, or apostles, or other ministers of religion; and all that is necessarily implied in this language would be met by the supposition that Christ delivered a message to the antediluvian race by the agency of Noah. No argument, therefore, can be derived from this language to prove that Christ went and personally preached to those who were confined in hades or in prison.
Unto the spirits in prison – That is, clearly, to the spirits now in prison, for this is the fair meaning of the passage. The obvious sense is, that Peter supposed there were spirits in prison at the time when he wrote, and that to those same spirits the Son of God had at some time preached, or had made some proclamation respecting the will of God. Since this is the only passage in the New Testament upon which the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory is supposed to rest, it is important to ascertain the fair meaning of the language here employed. There are three obvious inquiries in ascertaining its signification. Who are referred to by spirits? What is meant by in prison? Was the message brought to them while in the prison, or at some previous period?
I. Who are referred to by spirits? The specification in the next verse determines this. They were those who were sometimes disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. No others are specified; and if it should be maintained that this means that he went down to hell (Hades), or to Sheol, and preached to those who are confined there, it could be inferred from this passage only that he preached to that portion of the lost spirits confined there which belonged to the particular generation in which Noah lived. Why he should do this; or how there should be such a separation made in hades that it could be done; or what was the nature of the message which he delivered to that portion, are questions which it is impossible for any man who bolds to the opinion that Christ went down to hell after his death to preach, to answer. But if it means that he preached to those who lived in the days of Noah, while they were yet alive, the question will be asked why are they called spirits?
Were they spirits then, or were they people like others? To this the answer is easy. Peter speaks of them as they were when he wrote; not as they had been, or were at the time when the message was preached to them. The idea is, that to those spirits who were then in prison who had formerly lived in the days of Noah, the message had been in fact delivered. It was not necessary to speak of them precisely as they were at the time when it was delivered, but only in such a way as to identify them. We should use similar language now. If we saw a company of men in prison who had seen better days – a multitude now drunken, and debased, and poor, and riotous – it would not be improper to say that the prospect of wealth and honor was once held out to this ragged and wretched multitude. All that is needful is to identify them as the same persons who once had this prospect. In regard to the inquiry, then, who these spirits were, there can be no difference of opinion. They were that wicked race which lived in the days of Noah. There is no allusion in this passage to any other; there is no intimation that to any others of those in prison the message here referred to had been delivered.
II. What is meant by prison here? Purgatory, or the limbus patrum, say the Romanists – a place in which departed souls are supposed to be confined, and in which their final destiny may still be effected by the purifying fires which they endure, by the prayers of the living, or by a message in some way conveyed to their gloomy abodes – in which such sins may be expiated as do not deserve eternal damnation. The Syriac here is in Sheol, referring to the abodes of the dead, or the place in which departed spirits are supposed to dwell. The word rendered prison, ( phulake,) means properly watch, guard – the act of keeping watch, or the guard itself; then watchpost, or station; then a place where anyone is watched or guarded, as a prison; then a watch in the sense of a division of the night, as the morning watch. It is used in the New Testament, with reference to the future world, only in the following places: 1Pe 3:19, Preached unto the spirits in prison; and Rev 20:7, Satan shall be loosed put of his prison.
An idea similar to the one here expressed may be found in 2Pe 2:4, though the word prison does not there occur: God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; and in Jud 1:6, And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. The allusion, in the passage before us, is undoubtedly to confinement or imprisonment in the invisible world; and perhaps to those who are reserved there with reference to some future arrangement – for this idea enters commonly into the use of the word prison. There is, however, no specification of the place where this is; no intimation that it is purgatory – a place where the departed are supposed to undergo purification; no intimation that their condition can be affected by anything that we can do; no intimation that those particularly referred to differ in any sense from the others who are confined in that world; no hint that they can be released by any prayers or sacrifices of ours. This passage, therefore, cannot be adduced to support the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, because:
(1)The essential ideas which enter into the doctrine of purgatory are not to be found in the word used here;
(2)There is no evidence in the fair interpretation of the passage that any message is borne to them while in prison;
(3)There is not the slightest hint that they can be released by any prayers or offerings of those who dwell on the earth. The simple idea is that of persons confined as in a prison; and the passage will prove only that in the time when the apostle wrote there were those wire were thus confined.
III. Was the message brought to them while in prison, or at some previous period? The Romanists say that it was while in prison; that Christ, after he was put to death in the body, was still kept alive in his spirit, and went and proclaimed his gospel to those who were in prison. So Bloomfield maintains, (in loc.,) and so (Ecumenius and Cyril, as quoted by Bloomfield. But against this view there are plain objections drawn from the language of Peter himself:
(1) As we have seen, the fair interpretation of the passage quickened by the Spirit, is not that he was kept alive as to his human soul, but that he, after being dead, was made alive by his own divine energy.
(2) If the meaning be that he went and preached after his death, it seems difficult to know why the reference is to those only who had been disobedient in the days of Noah. Why were they alone selected for this message? Are they separate from others? Were they the only ones in purgatory who could be beneficially affected by his preaching? On the other method of interpretation, we can suggest a reason why they were particularly specified. But how can we on this?
(3) The language employed does not demand this interpretation. Its full meaning is met by the interpretation that Christ once preached to the spirits then in prison, to wit, in the days of Noah; that is, that he caused a divine message to be borne to them. Thus, it would be proper to say that Whitefield came to America, and preached to the souls in perdition; or to go among the graves of the first settlers of New Haven, and say, Davenport came from England to preach to the dead men around us.
(4) This interpretation accords with the design of the apostle in inculcating the duty of patience and forbearance in trials; in encouraging those whom he addressed to be patient in their persecutions. See the analysis of the chapter. With this object in view, there was entire propriety in directing them to the long-suffering and forbearance evinced by the Saviour, through Noah. He was opposed, reviled, disbelieved, and, we may suppose, persecuted. It was to the purpose to direct them to the fact that he was saved as the result of his steadfastness to Him who had commanded him to preach to that ungodly generation. But what pertinency would there have been in saying that Christ went down to hell, and delivered some sort of a message there, we know not what, to those who are confined there?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 19. By which] Spirit, his own Divine energy and authority.
He went and preached] By the ministry of Noah, one hundred and twenty years.
Unto the spirits in prison] The inhabitants of the antediluvian world, who, having been disobedient, and convicted of the most flagrant transgressions against God, were sentenced by his just law to destruction. But their punishment was delayed to see if they would repent; and the long-suffering of God waited one hundred and twenty years, which were granted to them for this purpose; during which time, as criminals tried and convicted, they are represented as being in prison-detained under the arrest of Divine justice, which waited either for their repentance or the expiration of the respite, that the punishment pronounced might be inflicted. This I have long believed to be the sense of this difficult passage, and no other that I have seen is so consistent with the whole scope of the place. That the Spirit of God did strive with, convict, and reprove the antediluvians, is evident from Ge 6:3: My Spirit shall not always strive with man, forasmuch as he is flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. And it was by this Spirit that Noah became a preacher of righteousness, and condemned that ungodly world, Heb 11:7, who would not believe till wrath-Divine punishment, came upon them to the uttermost. The word , spirits, is supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean disembodied spirits; but this certainly does not follow, for the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 12:23, certainly means righteous men, and men still in the Church militant; and the Father of spirits, Heb 12:9, means men still in the body; and the God of the spirits of all flesh, Nu 16:22; Nu 27:16, means men not in a disembodied state.
But even on this word there are several various readings; some of the Greek MSS. read , in spirit, and one , in the Holy Spirit. I have before me one of the first, if not the very first edition of the Latin Bible; and in it the verse stands thus: In quo et hiis, qui in carcere erant, SPIRITUALITER veniens praedicavit; “by which he came spiritually, and preached to them that were in prison.”
In two very ancient MSS. of the Vulgate before me, the clause is thus: In quo et his qui in carcere erant SPIRITU venient praedicavit; “in which, coming by the Spirit, he preached to those who were in prison.” This is the reading also in the Complutensian Polyglot.
Another ancient MS. in my possession has the words nearly as in the printed copy: In quo et hiis qui in carcere CONCLUSI erant SPIRITUALITER veniens praedicavit; “in which, coming spiritually, he preached to those who were SHUT UP in prison.”
Another MS., written about A. D. 1370, is the same as the printed copy.
The common printed Vulgate is different from all these, and from all the MSS. of the Vulgate which I have seen in reading spiritibus, “to the spirits.”
In my old MS. Bible, which contains the first translation into English ever made, the clause is the following: In whiche thing and to hem that weren closid togyder in prison, hi commynge in Spirit, prechide. The copy from which this translation was taken evidently read conclusi erdnt, with one of the MSS. quoted above, as closid togyder proves.
I have quoted all these authorities from the most authentic and correct copies of the Vulgate, to show that from them there is no ground to believe that the text speaks of Christ’s going to hell to preach the Gospel to the damned, or of his going to some feigned place where the souls of the patriarchs were detained, to whom he preached, and whom he delivered from that place and took with him to paradise, which the Romish Church holds as an article of faith.
Though the judicious Calmet holds with his Church this opinion, yet he cannot consider the text of St. Peter as a proof of it. I will set down his own words: Le sentiment qui veut que Jesus Christ soit descendu aux enfers, pour annoncer sa venue aux anciens patriarches, et pour les tirer de cette espece de prison, ou ils Pattendoient si long tems, est indubitable; et nous le regardons comme un article de notre foi: mais on peut douter que ce soit le sens de Saint Pierre en cet endroit. “The opinion which states that Jesus Christ descended into hell, to announce his coming to the ancient patriarchs, and to deliver them from that species of prison, where they had so long waited for him, is incontrovertible; and we (the Catholics) consider it as an article of our faith: but we may doubt whether this be the meaning of St. Peter in this place.”
Some think the whole passage applies to the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles; but the interpretation given above appears to me, after the fullest consideration, to be the most consistent and rational, as I have already remarked.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
By which also; by which Spirit, mentioned in the end of the former verse, i.e. by, or in, his Divine nature, the same by which he was quickened.
He; Christ. This notes the person that went and preached, as the former doth the nature in which, and so shows that what is here spoken of the person of Christ, is to be understood of him according to his Divine nature.
Went; or, came, viz. from heaven, by all anthropopathy, by which figure God is often in Scripture said to go forth, Isa 26:21, to come down, Mic 1:3, and go down, Gen 18:21; Exo 3:8; which two latter places are best understood of the Second Person. This therefore here notes in Christ not a change of place, but a special operation, and testification of his presence.
And preached; viz. by Noah, inspired by him, that he might be a preacher of righteousness, to warn a wicked generation of approaching judgment, and exhort them to repentance.
Unto the spirits; souls of men departed, which are frequently called spirits, Ecc 12:7; Act 7:59; Heb 12:23.
In prison; i.e. in hell, so it is taken, Pro 27:20; compare with Mat 5:25; Luk 12:58, where prison is mentioned as a type or representation of hell; and the Syriac renders the word by Sheol, which signifies sometimes the grave and sometimes hell. See the like expression, 2Pe 2:4,5; Jude 1:6.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison. Various are the senses given of this passage: some say, that Christ, upon his death, went in his human soul to hell; either, as some, to preach to the devils and damned spirits, that they might be saved, if they would; and, as others, to let them know that he was come, and to fill them with dread and terror; but though hell may be meant by the prison, yet the text does not say that he went unto it, or preached in it; only that the spirits were in it, to whom he sometimes went, and preached; nor is his human soul, but his divine nature meant, by the Spirit, by which he went and preached to them: and as for the ends proposed, the former is impracticable and impossible; for after death follows judgment, which is an eternal one; nor is there any salvation, or hope of salvation afterwards; and the latter is absurd, vain, and needless. Others, as the Papists, imagine the sense to be, that Christ, at his death, went in his human soul, into a place they call “Limbus Patrum”, which they suppose is meant by the prison here, and delivered the souls of the Old Testament saints and patriarchs from thence, and carried them with him to heaven; but this sense is also false, because, as before observed, not the human soul of Christ, but his divine nature, is designed by the Spirit; nor is there any such place as here feigned, in which the souls of Old Testament saints were, before the death of Christ; for they were in peace and rest, in the kingdom of heaven, in Abraham’s bosom, inheriting the promises, and not in a prison; besides, the text says not one word of the delivering of these spirits out of prison, only of Christ’s preaching to them: add to all this, and which Beza, with others, observes, the apostle speaks of such as had been disobedient, and unbelievers; a character which will not agree with righteous men, and prophets, and patriarchs, under the former dispensation: others think the words are to be understood of Christ’s going to preach, by his apostles, to the Gentiles, as in Eph 2:17 who were in a most miserable condition, strangers to the covenants of promise, and destitute of the hope of salvation, and sat in darkness, and the shadow of death, and, as it were, at the gates of hell; were in the bonds of iniquity, and dead in sin, and had been for long time past foolish and disobedient, serving divers lusts and pleasures, to which they were in bondage. This is, indeed, a more tolerable sense than the former; but it will be difficult to show, that men, in the present state of life, are called “spirits”, which seems to be a word that relates to the souls of men, in a separate state from their bodies; and especially that carnal and unconverted men are ever so called; and besides, the apostle is speaking of such who were disobedient in the times of Noah; and therefore not of the Gentiles, in the times of the apostles: add to which, that the transition from the times of the apostles, according to this sense, to the days of Noah, is very unaccountable; this sense does not agree with the connection of the words: others are of opinion, that this is meant of the souls of the Old Testament saints, who were , “in a watch”, as they think the phrase may be rendered, instead of “in prison”: and said to be in such a situation, because they were intent upon the hope of promised salvation, and were looking out for the Messiah, and anxiously desiring his coming, and which he, by some gracious manifestation, made known unto them: but though the word may sometimes signify a watch, yet more commonly a prison, and which sense best suits here; nor is that anxiety and uneasiness, which represents them as in a prison, so applicable to souls in a state of happiness; nor such a gracious manifestation so properly called preaching; and besides, not believers, but unbelievers, disobedient ones, are here spoken of; and though it is only said they were sometimes so, yet to what purpose should this former character be once mentioned of souls now in glory? but it would be tedious to reckon up the several different senses of this place; some referring it to such in Noah’s time, to whom the Gospel was preached, and who repented; and though they suffered in their bodies, in the general deluge, yet their souls were saved; whereas the apostle calls them all, “the world of the ungodly”, 2Pe 2:5 and others, to the eight souls that were shut up in the ark, as in a prison, and were saved; though these are manifestly distinguished in the text from the disobedient spirits. The plain and easy sense of the words is, that Christ, by his Spirit, by which he was quickened, went in the ministry of Noah, the preacher of righteousness, and preached both by words and deeds, by the personal ministry of Noah, and by the building of the ark, to that generation who was then in being; and who being disobedient, and continuing so, a flood was brought upon them which destroyed them all; and whose spirits, or separate souls, were then in the prison of hell, so the Syriac version renders it, , “in hell”, see Re 20:7 when the Apostle Peter wrote this epistle; so that Christ neither went into this prison, nor preached in it, nor to spirits that were then in it when he preached, but to persons alive in the days of Noah, and who being disobedient, when they died, their separate souls were put into prison, and there they were when the apostle wrote: from whence we learn, that Christ was, that he existed in his divine nature before he was incarnate, he was before Abraham, he was in the days of Noah; and that Christ also, under the Old Testament, acted the part of a Mediator, in his divine nature, and by his Spirit discharged that branch of it, his prophetic office, before he appeared in human nature; and that the Gospel was preached in those early times, as unto Abraham, so before him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In which also ( ). That is, in spirit (relative referring to ). But, a number of modern scholars have followed Griesbach’s conjecture that the original text was either (Noah also), or (Enoch also), or (in which Enoch also) which an early scribe misunderstood or omitted in copying (). It is allowed in Stier and Theile’s Polyglott. It is advocated by J. Cramer in 1891, by J. Rendel Harris in The Expositor (1901), and Sidelights on N.T. Research (p. 208), by Nestle in 1902, by Moffatt’s New Translation of the New Testament. Windisch rejects it as inconsistent with the context. There is no manuscript for the conjecture, though it would relieve the difficulty greatly. Luther admits that he does not know what Peter means. Bigg has no doubt that the event recorded took place between Christ’s death and his resurrection and holds that Peter is alluding to Christ’s Descensus ad Inferos in Ac 2:27 (with which he compares Matt 27:52; Luke 23:34; Eph 4:9). With this Windisch agrees. But Wohlenberg holds that Peter means that Christ in his preexistent state preached to those who rejected the preaching of Noah who are now in prison. Augustine held that Christ was in Noah when he preached. Bigg argues strongly that Christ during the time between his death and resurrection preached to those who once heard Noah (but are now in prison) and offered them another chance and not mere condemnation. If so, why did Jesus confine his preaching to this one group? So the theories run on about this passage. One can only say that it is a slim hope for those who neglect or reject Christ in this life to gamble with a possible second chance after death which rests on very precarious exegesis of a most difficult passage in Peter’s Epistle. Accepting the text as we have, what can we make of it?
He went and preached ( ). First aorist passive (deponent) participle of and first aorist active indicative of , the verb commonly used of the preaching of Jesus. Naturally the words mean personal action by Christ “in spirit” as illustration of his “quickening” (verse 18) whether done before his death or afterwards. It is interesting to observe that, just as the relative here tells something suggested by the word (in spirit) just before, so in verse 21 the relative (which) tells another illustration of the words ‘ (by water) just before. Peter jumps from the flood in Noah’s time to baptism in Peter’s time, just as he jumped backwards from Christ’s time to Noah’s time. He easily goes off at a word. What does he mean here by the story that illustrates Christ’s quickening in spirit?
Unto the spirits in prison ( ). The language is plain enough except that it does not make it clear whether Jesus did the preaching to spirits in prison at the time or to people whose spirits are now in prison, the point of doubt already discussed. The metaphorical use of can be illustrated by 2Pet 2:4; Judg 1:6; Rev 20:7 (the final abode of the lost). See Heb 12:23 for the use of for disembodied spirits.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
By which [ ] . Wrong. Rev., correctly, in which : in the spiritual form of life; in the disembodied spirit.
Went and preached [ ] . The word went, employed as usual of a personal act; and preached, in its ordinary New – Testament sense of proclaiming the Gospel.
To the spirits [] . As in Heb 12:23, of disembodied spirits, though the word yucai, souls, is used elsewhere (Rev 6:9; Rev 20:4).
In prison [ ] . Authorities differ, some explaining by 2Pe 2:4; Jude 1:6; Rev 20:7, as the final abode of the lost. Excepting in the last passage, the word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament in a metaphorical sense. It is often translated watch (Mt 14:25; Luk 2:8); hold and cage (Rev 18:2). Other explain as Hades, the kingdom of the dead generally.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “By which also.” (Gk. en ho) In or by which (spirit), the Spirit that quickened Christ from the dead (dead corpse of flesh) (kai) also or even.
2) “He went and preached unto the Spirits in prison !! He (Jesus) (G k. poreutheis) going (ekeruksen) preached to the (phulake) in prison spirits — unsaved — this he did thru Noah. Heb 11:7; Gen 6:22; 2Pe 1:21; 2Pe 2:5.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
19 By which also Peter added this, that we might know that the vivifying power of the Spirit of which he spoke, was not only put forth as to Christ himself, but is also poured forth with regard to us, as Paul shews in Rom 5:5. He then says, that Christ did not rise only for himself, but that he made known to others the same power of his Spirit, so that it penetrated to the dead. It hence follows, that we shall not less feel it in vivifying whatever is mortal in us.
But as the obscurity of this passage has produced, as usual, various explanations, I shall first disprove what has been brought forward by some, and secondly, we shall seek its genuine and true meaning.
Common has been the opinion that Christ’s descent into hell is here referred to; but the words mean no such thing; for there is no mention made of the soul of Christ, but only that he went by the Spirit: and these are very different things, that Christ’s soul went, and that Christ preached by the power of the Spirit. Then Peter expressly mentioned the Spirit, that he might take away the notion of what may be called a real presence.
Others explain this passage of the apostles, that Christ by their ministry appeared to the dead, that is, to unbelievers. I, indeed, allow that Christ by means of his apostles went by his Spirit to those who were kept as it were in prison; but this exposition appears incorrect on several accounts: First, Peter says that Christ went to spirits, by which he means souls separated from their bodies, for living men are never called spirits; and secondly, what Peter repeats in the fourth chapter on the same subject, does not admit of such an allegory. Therefore the words must be properly understood of the dead. Thirdly, it seems very strange, that Peter, speaking of the apostles, should immediately, as though forgetting himself, go back to the time of Noah. Certainly this mode of speaking would be most unsuitable. Then this explanation cannot be right.
Moreover, the strange notion of those who think that unbelievers as to the coming of Christ, were after his death freed from their sin, needs no long refutation; for it is an indubitable doctrine of Scripture, that we obtain not salvation in Christ except by faith; then there is no hope left for those who continue to death unbelieving. They speak what is somewhat more probable, who say, that the redemption obtained by Christ availed the dead, who in the time of Noah were long unbelieving, but repented a short time before they were drowned by the deluge. They then understood that they suffered in the flesh the punishment due to their perverseness, and yet were saved by Christ, so that they did not perish for ever. But this interpretation cannot stand; it is indeed inconsistent with the words of the passage, for Peter ascribes salvation only to the family of Noah, and gives over to ruin all who were not within the ark.
I therefore have no doubt but Peter speaks generally, that the manifestation of Christ’s grace was made to godly spirits, and that they were thus endued with the vital power of the Spirit. Hence there is no reason to fear that it will not flow to us. But it may be inquired, Why he puts in prison the souls of the godly after having quitted their bodies? It seems to me that φυλακὴ rather means a watchtower in which watchmen stand for the purpose of watching, or the very act of watching, for it is often so taken by Greek authors; and the meaning would be very appropriate, that godly souls were watching in hope of the salvation promised them, as though they saw it afar off. Nor is there a doubt but that the holy fathers in life, as well as after death, directed their thoughts to this object. But if the word prison be preferred, it would not be unsuitable; for, as while they lived, the Law, according to Paul, (Gal 3:23,) was a sort of prison in which they were kept; so after death they must have felt the same desire for Christ; for the spirit of liberty had not as yet been fully given. Hence this anxiety of expectation was to them a kind of prison.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(19) By which.If by the Spirit had been right in the former verse, this translation might have stood here, though the word is literally in; for in is often used to mean in the power of, on the strength of: e.g., Rom. 8:15. But as that former rendering is untenable, we must here keep strictly to in whichi.e., in spirit. This might mean either of two things: (1) spiritually speaking, so far as thought and sympathy goes, as, for instance, 1Co. 5:3, Col. 2:5; or else (2) in spirit, as opposed to in the bodyi.e., out of the body (2Co. 12:2; comp. Rev. 1:10), as a disembodied spirit. We adopt the latter rendering without hesitation, for reasons which will be clearer in the next Note.
He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.There are two main ways of interpreting this mysterious passage. (1) The spirits are understood as being now in prison, in consequence of having rejected His preaching to them while they were still on earth. According to this interpretationwhich has the support of such names as Pearson, Hammond, Barrow, and Leighton (though he afterwards modified his opinion). among ourselves, besides divers great theologians of other countries, including St. Thomas Aquinas on the one hand and Beza on the otherit was in spirit, i.e., mystically speaking, our Lord Himself who, in and through the person of Noah, preached repentance to the old world. Thus the passage is altogether dissociated from the doctrine of the descent into hell; and the sense (though not the Greek) would be better expressed by writing, He had gone and preached unto the spirits (now) in prison. In this case, however, it is difficult to see the purpose of the digression, or what could have brought the subject into St. Peters mind. (2) The second interpretationwhich is that of (practically) all the Fathers, and of Calvin, Luther (finally), Bellarmine, Bengel, and of most modern scholarsrefers the passage to what our Lord did while His body was dead. This is the most natural construction to put upon the words in which also (i.e., in spirit). It thus gives point to the saying that He was quickened in spirit, which would otherwise be left very meaningless. The spirits here will thus correspond with in spirit there. It is the only way to assign any intelligible meaning to the words He went and to suppose that He went straight from His quickening in spiriti.e., from His death. It is far the most natural thing to suppose that the spirits were in prison at the time when Christ went and preached to them. We take it, then, to mean that, directly Christs human spirit was disengaged from the body, He gave proof of the new powers of purely spiritual action thus acquired by going off to the place, or state, in which other disembodied spirits were (who would have been incapable of receiving direct impressions from Him had He not Himself been in the purely spiritual condition), and conveyed to them certain tidings: He preached unto them. What was the substance of this preaching we are not here told, the word itself (which is not the same as, e.g., in 1Pe. 1:25) only means to publish or proclaim like a crier or herald; and as the spirits are said to have been disobedient and in prison, some have thought that Christ went to proclaim to them the certainty of their damnation! The notion has but to be mentioned to be rejected with horror; but it may be pointed out also that in 1Pe. 4:6, which refers back to this passage, it is distinctly called a gospel; and it would be too grim to call that a gospel which (in Calvins words) made it more clear and patent to them that they were shut out from all salvation! He brought good tidings, therefore, of some kind to the prison and the spirits in it. And this prison must not be understood (with Bp. Browne, Articles, p. 95) as merely a place of safe keeping, where good spirits might be as well as bad, though etymologically this is imaginable. The word occurs thirty-eight times in the New Testament in the undoubted sense of a prison, and not once in that of a place of protection, though twice (Rev. 18:2) it is used in the derived sense of a cage.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
19. By which Better, In which, namely, his pre-existent divine nature.
He went Literally, having gone. Alford supposes local transference and personal preaching; but the case is parallelled in Eph 2:17, “And came [by the Holy Spirit] and preached [through the apostles] peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.” So Christ went by the Holy Spirit, and preached, through Noah, to the antediluvians. He is the Jehovah who sent his Spirit to do his office of awaking to repentance the ungodly of that generation, (Gen 6:3,) and to speak through Noah.
Preached This is not , the ordinary word for preaching the gospel, but , to proclaim as a herald, to publish, to announce, to preach. It is used sixty times in the New Testament, and in every instance what is preached or published must be sought in the context. It never, in itself, means to preach the gospel.
The spirits in prison The disembodied spirits of men who had been disobedient in the days of Noah, and were in prison at the time when St. Peter wrote. The object is to identify the men to whom Christ preached; and they are spoken of as they were at the time, not of the preaching, but of this identification. The word prison is always used in a bad sense, and denotes the department of hades in which the wicked are shut up, 2Pe 2:4; Jud 1:6; Rev 20:7. To these persons, when on the earth, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” (2Pe 2:5,) under the inspiration of the Spirit of Christ, preached the law of repentance and godly living for a hundred and twenty years, and preached in vain. That the apostle never dreamed of them as enjoying in their prison a second day of grace, is plain from his mention of them as, like the fallen angels, a specimen of those who are reserved (guarded in prison) unto the day of judgment, and a proof as well of the certain perdition of the ungodly, 2Pe 2:4-9. The purpose of this digression was to show that the Christ who suffered and rose again, strove, in the earlier ages of the world, to bring men to God, as well as in the days of his passion; and, perhaps, also, as Wordsworth suggests, to confute the notion of certain heretics that the God of the Old Testament was less merciful than the God of the New.
This passage has received very various interpretations, from Augustine downward; but the weight of interpretation seems to accord with that above given. The descent into hell, with its object, some have thought they found here; and the theories thence resulting very widely differ. Some hold that Christ entered paradise and triumphantly announced his completed redemption; others add to this, the release of the Old Testament saints; some hold that he went to Tartarus as conqueror and judge, denouncing condemnation upon the ungodly there confined; others, that, as redeemer and judge, he preached to both the good and the bad; and others still, as Alford, Fronmuller in Lange, and Wordsworth, that he preached the gospel of salvation to the ungodly antediluvians; the last insisting that it was a unique case, and not repeated or continued, and the first, that it is continued to others who die impenitent. Upon this we remark:
1 . That Christ “descended into hell,” (hades,) though not directly asserted in this passage, nor other scripture, appears plainly from the use of Psa 16:10 by St. Peter in Act 2:27-31. That his human soul, released from its connexion with the body by death, entered the world of departed spirits, as do the souls of all men, and was subject to all the laws and conditions of that world until the third morning, is a true doctrine. But let it not be made to carry what does not belong to it. The one important point in it is, that the soul of Christ did not remain in that world, but on the third day came forth for the resurrection. Yet, be it remembered, our Lord was in paradise, the blessed side of hades, whither the penitent thief accompanied him, as was promised on the cross.
2 . Of Christ’s employment in that world we have no intimation, unless in the present passage, which our interpretation, necessitated by the force of the word quickened, forbids. He entered that world as do other men, with the humble, prayerful cry upon his lips, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” (Luk 23:46,) and with the limitations of a man, as he had passed his whole earthly life. That saints and angels welcomed him as personally, though not yet officially, victorious, and that he partook of a higher bliss than when on earth, we can well believe. But not even his human soul could bridge over the awful, impassable gulf between paradise and the prison-house of hades, of which Father Abraham said to the rich man, “They which would pass from hence to you, cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.” Luk 16:26. This is one of the inexorable laws of the realm of the dead, which some of the above-mentioned theories forget when they imagine Christ’s human spirit crossing to preach to the lost, or the lost accepting salvation and passing the “great gulf” into paradise, which our Lord himself, in the words cited, declares impossible.
3 . If Christ, in person, preached in hades to the antediluvians there imprisoned, by the well-known law, exceptio probat regulam the exception proves the rule the specification of the persons to whom he preached, namely, the disobedient of Noah’s time, excludes all others from the message. This view suggests at once most serious difficulties. Why preach to the antediluvians of Noah’s time, whom St. Peter classes with fallen angels and Sodomites, reserved unto judgment, (2Pe 2:4-9,) and not to all antediluvians? and, indeed, why to antediluvians alone, and not to all who have died disobedient? How should the selection be so effected as to exclude others from the hearing? What was the nature of the proclamation? Was it a message of wrath or of mercy? If salvation was offered, why to those particular sinners who had so persistently sinned against light and long-suffering, to the exclusion of all other sinners? And what would be the judgment of those excluded upon the partial goodness which made so limited an offer? These are pertinent questions that should be answered before the theory is accepted.
4 . These representations of Christ entering the world of spirits as a triumphant conqueror, and there doing the work of judge and saviour, overlook the important fact that he was still in his state of humiliation. “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Php 2:8. He had voluntarily gone down to the lowest depths of self-humiliation in his death on the cross, and there he remained until the moment of his resurrection, the beginning of his exaltation. Death was conqueror, and still held him in its grasp. The shame of the cross was upon him. The curse which he took upon himself had crushed him in the sight of the universe; and he still lay under it where he fell. The atonement, in itself, was complete in his dying; but, however exultingly the wonderful story, soon to be made glorious, might be told in paradise, its application, and the proclamation of it as an accomplished and valid fact, required the precedent deliverance from the curse by the resurrection. Only so, as it seems to us, was the “all power” (Mat 28:18) won to authoritatively condemn as judge, or to offer mercy as redeemer. Then, indeed, was he Conqueror and Lord; and with an authority to be gainsaid by none, his salvation could thenceforth be preached. Some, indeed, hold that his preaching in hades was after his resurrection; but not even that view can remove the difficulties, nor can it be gathered from this passage.
5 . The doctrine here dissented from is contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture, which confines its offers of salvation to the present life, and connects the decisions of the final judgment with the characters and acts of men as they are in this world, and not as they may be formed after death. See Mat 7:21-23; Mat 10:32-33; Mat 25:31-46; Mar 8:38; Luk 16:25-26; Rom 2:6; 2Co 5:10; Heb 9:27; Rev 2:10. An interpretation which is at war with the analogy of faith cannot be safe or true.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘In which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison,’
And it was thus in His spiritual resurrection body, which was the consequence of His obedience unto death, that He went and made proclamation to ‘the spirits who were in prison because they had been disobedient in the days of Noah’. It is the resurrection which gives point to this proclamation. As the victorious king He openly declares His victory to His prisoners-of-war. Here we have a contrast between the One Who was obedient unto death, and was therefore raised from the dead in a spiritual body and was free, and the bodiless spirits who had been and still were ‘disobedient’, and were therefore in prison. Note again how ‘he went to the spirits in prison’ parallels ‘having gone into heaven’, i.e. He then went into heaven (1Pe 3:22).
This is an assurance to his readers, and those who heard them pass on the message, of what the end will be of all those spirits who seek to interfere with mankind, including the ones causing their persecution. For these spirits in prison were the ones whom all knew had sought to break down the God-ordained difference between spirits and men in defiance of God. Now they were faced with One Who had broken down that difference, but in a way ordained by God, by becoming man and then being raised in a spiritual body, so that all men could enjoy full spiritual life. They had chosen the wrong way, the way of disobedience. He had chosen the right way, the way of obedience.
It should be noted in this regard that, in Scripture, when it is not in some way qualified and explained, the term ‘spirits’ always refers to ‘angels’ or ‘sons of the elohim’ (e.g. Heb 1:7; Heb 1:14; 1Ki 22:21-23; Job 4:15; Isa 31:3 with 2Ki 6:17; Eze 1:12; Eze 1:20-21; Eze 10:17; Zec 13:2 where a false spirit of prophesy is in mind).
Partly in mind here may be Isa 24:21-22, where we also have a picture of all supernatural beings who have opposed God being put in prison. Here Peter provides a well known example from the past of where this had already happened. 2Pe 2:4 (which emphasises Peter’s interest in this subject), along with the context here, can leave us in no doubt that this has in mind the ‘sons of the elohim’ (‘heavenly beings’) who sinned in Gen 6:1-4 and helped to bring about a situation which could only be dealt with by the Flood.
However we interpret Gen 6:1-4, and it probably indicates demon possession of an intense kind described in a folksy way, it demonstrates that the ‘sons of the elohim’ had in some way left their initial condition as spirits, that is, ‘their proper habitation’, and had sought to become involved in the physical world, something which was totally forbidden (Jud 1:6). This was why they had to be prematurely ‘isolated’. Thus Peter sees Christ’s visit to the spirits in prison as in the nature of a declaration to these supernatural prisoners of God of the failure of what they had tried to accomplish, namely the ‘taking over’ of the human race, and also a declaration to them of the sure and certain final defeat of their fellow-conspirators and of God’s equally sure final victory.
It is, of course, all put in pictorial terms paralleling how an earthly king might behave as he announces his triumph to his prisoners of war (1Pe 3:19), followed by a coronation and a ceremony where all swear fealty to him (1Pe 3:22). Spirit beings cannot, of course, be locked in physical prisons, nor would Christ need to physically visit them in order to convey the truth. It all takes place in the spiritual world. But the realities behind it are perfectly literal. This was what Jesus had accomplished through His cross and resurrection.
Why then should Peter introduce this idea here? The answer is firstly that it is preparatory to describing Christ’s further triumph over supernatural beings in 1Pe 3:22, secondly it is illustrating to those who are suffering persecution because of the fanaticism of idolatrous demon worshippers that the evil spirits whom these fanatics worship have been defeated once and for all, as is evidenced by these particular well known examples, so that their own suffering will not be in vain. And thirdly it is also an illustration of the contrast between the Obedient One and the disobedient ones in accordance with Peter’s main theme.
It will be remembered that Scripture brings out from beginning to end that there are invisible powers affecting the progress in the world. Beginning with the mysterious power behind the Serpent (Genesis 3), it continues with the equally mysterious ‘sons of the elohim’ (Gen 6:1-4); the powers behind Balaam (Numbers 22-24); the demons behind idols (Deu 32:17); the deceiving of David (the 1Ch 21:2); the lying spirit who interfered at the time of Micaiah (1Ki 22:19-23); the experiences of Job (Job 1-2); the revelations of Daniel 10; the onslaught on Joshua the High Priest (Zec 3:1-5); Jesus’ defeat of evil spirits (Mat 12:28 and often); and so on. And in all God was in control. That is the message of the spirits in prison.
Note On The Spirits In Prison.
Some cavil at this interpretation and see this as referring to angels who sinned before the creation of man, or as referring to the spirits of men. The latter we must reject because nowhere else is the bare term ‘spirits’ without a qualifying genitive ever applied to other than angels.
With regard to the former there is in fact no Scriptural evidence that any angels, apart from Satan, did fall before the creation of man. No indication of date is ever given to the few accounts of when the angels fell.
On the other hand we do have grounds in the very literature which Jud 1:14-15 cites (the book of Enoch), for the idea that the first angelic fall took place in the days of Noah. Thus in the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) we have the following description of the fall of these angels, who are called the Watchers, because they were watching over mankind:
“And it came about, when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children (6:1-3) — And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in to them and to defile themselves with them (7:1). —And again the Lord said to Raphael: ‘Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness (10:4) — bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgment that is for ever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: and to the torment and the prison in which they will be confined for ever. And whoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all generations. And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because they have wronged mankind. (10:12-15) — And then will the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and will all be planted with trees and be full of blessing (10:18-19) — . ‘Enoch, you scribe of righteousness, go, declare to the Watchers of the heaven who have left the high heaven, the holy eternal place, and have defiled themselves with women, and have done as the children of earth do, and have taken to themselves wives: “You have wrought great destruction on the earth, and you will have no peace nor forgiveness of sin, and inasmuch as they delight themselves in their children, the murder of their beloved ones shall they see, and over the destruction of their children shall they lament, and will make supplication unto eternity, but mercy and peace shall you not attain.” (12:4-6).
It will be noted that if we compare these words with Peter we have the ‘spirits in prison’ (1Pe 3:19), compare ‘the prison in which they will be confined for ever’; the ‘committing to pits of darkness to be reserved to judgment’ (2Pe 2:5) and ‘the new earth in which dwells righteousness’ (2Pe 3:13), and in comparison with Jude here we have ‘the angels who left their first principality’ (they ‘left the high heaven, the eternal holy place’) and their resulting ‘everlasting bonds’ (Jud 1:6), and the fact that they dwelt in darkness. Furthermore in 1 Enoch 60:8 we have mention of ‘the seventh from Adam’ (compare Jud 1:14).
The same incidents are described more briefly in Jubilees 4:15; 5:1 ff.; Testament of Reuben 5:6-7; Testament of Naphtali 3:5; Enoch 18; etc. It was clearly havily emphasised in Jewish tradition.
We have only selected a few extracts from the text, but the full text makes quite clear that we undoubtedly have reference here to the events described in Gen 6:1-2.
This is confirmed in 2 Peter. There Peter selects three incidents in Scriptural order, the fall of the angels, the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah. But the only fall of angels even hinted at in Scripture prior to the Flood, apart from that of Satan himself as hinted at in Genesis 3, is that found in Gen 6:1-2.
End of note.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
This confirms who these ‘spirits in prison’ were. Human beings are never spoken of in this way (as spirits in prison), while 2Pe 2:4 confirms Peter’s interest in the angels who sinned in the time of Noah. And we should note that their disobedience and its punishment had taken place against the background of another time when the longsuffering of God was waiting for a response from a sinful people who were under the sway of demonic powers, and when there were eight righteous people who alone were obedient and preached righteousness (2Pe 2:5). In accordance with God’s instructions they built an ark, and all the time that they were building it God in His longsuffering was giving an opportunity for men to repent. For God is longsuffering. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2Pe 3:9). But although He was patient none but the eight responded. However, whatever their sufferings they came through it, and in that ark they were saved ‘through water’, which as it were lifted them up to God, while at the same time that same water drowned the remainder, and the spirits were put in prison.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Pe 3:19. By which also he went, &c. By which Spirit also he, going, preached to the spirits in prison. That is, our Lord, by the Spirit, inspired Noah, and thereby constituted him a preacher of righteousness unto those who were disobedient in that age. See Gen 6:3; Gen 6:22. The inspiration of the prophets seems every where to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit of God, which is the principal reason for our understanding , the Spirit, in that sense, 1Pe 3:18. That our Lord imparted the Spirit unto the Old Testament prophets, see ch. 1Pe 1:11.; and as he had glory with the Father before the world was, even from all eternity; and as by him God made the worlds, and governed his church and people in the early ages; he imparted the Spirit unto Noah and other prophets, before his coming in the flesh. The word going, may be either looked upon as ornamental and giving strength to the idea,as that and other like words are in the scriptures and other authors;or as God the Trinity is represented as doing what he did by his Spirit in the prophets, (Neh 9:30. Isa 48:16. Zec 7:12.) so our Lord is represented as coming (or going) and doing what others did, in his name, and by that Spirit which they had received from him. And in like manner he may here be represented as going, and preaching to that wicked generation which perished in the flood; because he gave the Spirit to Noah, and thereby inspired him to preach to them. He preached by that preacher of righteousness, in whom was his Spirit, which then strove with man. Compare 2Pe 2:5 with Gen 6:3. By the spirits in prison we may therefore understand such persons as are now in the custody of death; and shut up, as it were, in a prison; where they are reserved unto the judgment of the last day: but unto whom Christ formerly preached, by the Spirit, that is, in the days of Noah, when those wicked persons lived here upon earth. For he inspired Noah to preach repentance unto that wicked generation, all the while the ark was preparing. But they continued impenitent, it is to be feared, and therefore perished in the flood; when a few persons, viz. righteous Noah and his family, were saved in the ark: and if, through grace, we have that, which is principally intended by Christian baptism,the stipulation of a good conscience towards God, we shall be saved by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the wicked world shall inevitably perish.
Dr. Fulke has quoted the venerable Bede, as giving the sense of the text in words to the following purpose: he, who in our time, coming in the flesh, preached the way of life to the world; even he himself came before the flood, and preachedto them who were then unbelievers, and lived carnally. For, even he, by his Holy Spirit, was in Noah, and the rest of the holy men who were at that time; and by their good conversation preached to the wicked men of that age, that they might be converted to better manners. This interpretation Dr. Fulke doubted not but that Bede took from the more antient fathers.
To make out this interpretation, let the following things be carefully observed. The word spirit is commonly applied by the antient writers, not to living men, but to men after they are dead. Plato (toward the conclusion of his famous dialogue, entitled Gorgias) terms the place where wicked men are detained after death, , the prison, which they call Tartarus; and afterwards he speaks of wicked men deceased as , in Hades, in prison. Elsner has quoted Aristotle, as using the phrase , to be in prison, concerning the dead. For when Evoesus Syrus had hanged some of the satraps who were about to revolt, he ordered it to be told to their friends, that they were in prison, . But he used the word equivocally: for though he meant that they were dead, yet he designed that their friends should think they were in prison; and accordingly they gave money to ransom them; which when he had received, he brought them out dead. What therefore he said amounted to this, “That they were in custody,” whereby he meant, that they were in the custody of death. But he would not add , spirits, , in Hades, or any like words, because that would have made his meaning clear, which he intended should be obscure.
The persons here spoken of, are termed spirits in prison; that is, who are now in prison; though they formerly lived in bodies upon earth, and were disobedient in the days of Noah, all the while the ark was preparing. We find the word , a prison, used concerning wicked spirits, Rev 18:2; Rev 20:7 and the same word is applied to wicked men after they are dead. The Syriac version has rendered the words thus; He preached unto those souls which were (or are) detained in Sheol, or Hades; that is, to wicked men, who are now spirits, confined in their proper place, in the state of the dead.
Our blessed Saviour cautioned wicked men to repent before death, lest they should be cast into prison; Mat 5:25; Mat 18:30. Luk 12:58. And St. Peter seems here to be speaking of that prison, in which the spirits of wicked men are detained in safe custody; reserved unto the judgment of the last day; as it is said of the fallen angels. 2Pe 2:4-5. Jud 1:6.
To conclude.If this part of the present epistle be looked upon as a digression, it was a very pertinent one, and a carrying on of the grand view of the epistle; which was, to encourage the Christians to bear persecution with patience and fortitude, and still to continue to do good. For, Christ, their Lord and Master, did so, and persevered unto the death; but he rose again, and was amply rewarded: inlike manner the Christians also, after suffering with him, might expect, at last, to be glorified together with him. Nay, farther; Christ was always doing good, and particularly endeavouring to render men pious and holy. For, he inspired Noah, and sent him to preach unto the antediluvians, who are now dead; and the effect was much the same with his own preaching in person, or by his apostles, afterwards; that is, some believed, but others were disobedient. It may be asked, “And what became of them?” The answer is, “The righteous few were saved in the ark: the numerous disobedient, who had rejected the admonitions of Noah for a hundred and twenty years, perished in the flood.” What happened during therains, &c. we must leave. And the event will again be analogous; for the unbelieving world must perish. But as righteous Noah and his family were saved in the ark, so they who are baptized with the true Christian baptism, (which is not a mere putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the stipulation of a good conscience towards God,) will finally be saved, if they continue faithful, in consequence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is gone into heaven, and is placed at the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject unto him: 1Pe 3:22.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Pe 3:19 . With this verse a new paragraph extending to 1Pe 3:22 inclusive begins, closely connected by ( i.e. ) with what precedes, and in which reference is made to the glory of Him who was quickened according to the Spirit. It may appear singular that in this passage Peter should make mention of those who were unbelieving in the days of Noah, and of baptism as the antitype of the water of the deluge; but this may be explained from the circumstance that he looks on the deluge as a type of the approaching judgment. It must be observed that it is not so much the condemnation of the unbelieving, as the salvation of believers that the apostle has here in his mind.
. . .] “ in which (spirit) He also went and preached unto the spirits in prison (to them), which sometime were unbelieving when ,” etc. The close connection of these words with what immediately precedes by , sc. , favours the view that refers to an act of Christ which, as the , He performed after His death, and that with reference to the spirits of the unbelievers who had perished in the deluge. This is the view of the oldest Fathers of the Greek and Latin Church; as also of the greater number of later and modern theologians. Augustin, however, opposed it, and considered as referring to a preaching by Christ , long before His incarnation, in the days of Noah, to the people of that generation, upon whom the judgment of the deluge came because of their unbelief. [205] This view, after being adopted by several theologians of the Middle Ages, became prevalent in the Reformed Church. In recent times, it has been defended more especially by Schweizer, Wichelhaus, Besser, and Hofmann. The chief arguments which those who maintain it advance in opposition to that first mentioned, are the following: (1) The idea that Christ preached to the spirits would be an isolated one occurring nowhere else in Scripture; and, further, preaching such as this, if conceived as judicial, would have been entirely useless, whilst, looked on as a proclamation of salvation, it would stand in contradiction to the uniform teaching of Scripture regarding the state of man after death. To this, however, it must be replied, that isolated ideas are to be found expressed here and there in Scripture, and that the reconciliation of the idea of a salvation offered to the spirits with the other doctrines of Scripture, can at most be termed a problem difficult of solution; nor must it be forgotten that the eschatological doctrines comprehend within them very many problems. (2) This view does not correspond with the tendency of the entire passage from 1Pe 3:17 to 1Pe 3:22 , and therefore does not fit into the train of thought. But this assertion is to the point only if those who make it have themselves correctly understood the tendency of the passage, which in this instance they have not done. (3) It cannot be understood how Peter comes so suddenly to speak of the spirits in prison. But, in reply, it may be urged, with at least equal justification, that it is not easy to understand how Peter comes so suddenly to speak of an act of Christ before His incarnation. (4) The want of the article before compels us to translate this participle not: “which sometime were unbelieving,” but: “when they sometime were unbelieving.” This, however, is not the case, since the participle, added with adjectival force to a substantive, is often enough joined to the latter without an article. If Peter had put the words , before , no difficulty would have presented itself in the translation under dispute (“the sometime unbelieving spirits in prison”). The translation to which preference is given is grammatically untenable. [206]
Finally, appeal has been made to the fact that is placed after , indeed even to itself; but a correct explanation offers no justification for so doing. Besides the close connection of the relative clause with that immediately preceding, the following points favour the interpretation attacked: (1) The correspondence of the to be supplied to with the subsequent ; (2) , which must be taken in the same sense as the in 1Pe 3:22 ; (3) The fact that does not stand with , but in 1Pe 3:20 with , which shows that the took place previous to the ; and, lastly, (4) The circumstance that had Peter closed his sentence with , it could have occurred to no one that Peter was here speaking of a preaching of Christ which took place in a time long gone by.
] is not equivalent to ( with reference to , Theophylact); but whilst refers back to , states in what condition Christ accomplished that which is mentioned in what follows,
He accomplished it not (for after the He was put to death), but (for after the He was made alive). stands here in a position similar to that which it holds in Rom 8:8 , where, however, and form an ethical antithesis, which here is not the case. Hofmann wrongly attributes to here an “instrumental force” equivalent to “by means of;” he is induced to do solely by his explanation of the to be supplied. Although it is evident that here must be taken in no sense different from that of the foregoing , Hofmann nevertheless holds it to be identical with the mentioned in chap. 1Pe 1:11 , while he himself says that the subjoined to cannot be understood of the Holy Ghost. [207]
Peter says, then, that Christ, in the Spirit according to which He was made alive, preached to the spirits , which cannot be understood to mean anything else than that He did it as a (in His pneumatical condition). Fronmller erroneously interprets: “in the existence-form of a spirit separated from the body;” for the quickened Christ lives not as a simple spirit, but is in possession of a glorified spiritual body.
] By are to be understood, neither angels (Heb 1:14 [208] ) nor “men living upon the earth” (as Wichelhaus explains), but the souls of men already dead, as in Heb 12:23 , which in Rev 6:9 ; Rev 20:4 , Wis 3:1 , are called . designates not only the place, but denotes also the condition in which the are. Hofmann wrongly because in opposition to the uniform usage in the N. T. denies all local reference to the expression, and would therefore translate by “in durance.” The meaning is, that the were in prison as prisoners. [209] The expression occurs in the N. T. with the article and without it, and its more precise force here is clear from the passages: Rev 20:7 ; 2Pe 2:4 ; Jud 1:6 . It does not denote generally the kingdom of the dead (Lactant. Inst . I. 7, c. 21: omnes [animae] in una communique custodia detinentur), but that part of it, which serves as abode for the souls of the ungodly until the day of judgment. [210] The dative depends, indeed, on , not on ; but the addition of the latter word gives prominence to the fact that Christ went to those spirits, and preached to them in that place where they were. Hofmann is not altogether wrong when, in support of his own view of the passage, he says: “the operation of the spirit of Christ, by which Noah was made the organ of His proclamation, might be termed a ‘going and preaching’ on the part of Christ” (comp. especially the passage, Eph 2:17 : ; see Meyer in loc ., to which Hofmann might have appealed). But that cannot be so taken here is shown by the in 1Pe 3:22 , with which it must be identical in sense. [211] is the same verb as that so often used in the N. T. of the preaching (not the teaching) of Christ and His apostles. Usually it is accompanied by an object ( , , , or the like); but it is frequently, as here, used absolutely, cf. Mat 11:1 ; Mar 1:38 , etc.
It cannot be concluded, with Zezschwitz, from the connection of this relative clause with , that illam spiritualem quasi fundamentum fuisse concionis idemque argumentum; nor does the word itself disclose either the contents or the purpose of that preaching; but since Christ is called the without the addition of any more precise qualification, it must be concluded that the contents and design of this are in harmony with the of Christ elsewhere. It is accordingly arbitrary, and in contradiction to Christ’s significance for the work of redemption, to assume that this preaching consisted in the proclamation of the coming judgment (Flacius, Calov., Buddeus, Hollaz, Wolf, Aretius, Zezschwitz, Schott, etc.), and was a praedicatio damnatoria. [212] Wiesinger justly asks: “This concio damnatoria what does it mean in general, what here especially?”
It is unjustifiable to deny, with some commentators, that the apostle regarded this as an actual reality. [213]
, following , must not be explained, as Schweizer does, in this way, that Peter, wishing to hold up Christ to his readers as a pattern of how they should conduct themselves under suffering, adduces two examples, 1Pe 3:19 ff., His death on the cross, and His preaching; the whole structure of the clauses, as well as their contents, contradicts this. Nor can it be explained, as Hofmann assumes, “from the antithesis between us whom Christ wished to bring to God, and those who as spirits are in durance.” This would hold good only if, in 1Pe 3:18 , it were affirmed that Christ did the same to us as to those spirits, that is, preached to us. It is likewise incorrect to take as equivalent to “even” (Wiesinger, Fronmller); for a distinction between these spirits and others is nowhere hinted at. is put rather in order to show prominently that what is said in this verse coincides with the of 1Pe 3:18 . Zezschwitz: ut notio, quae in enunciatione latet ( . ) urgeatur.
[205] It must be observed, that whilst Hofmann considers the preaching of Christ as having taken place through Noah, Schweizer most decidedly disputes this, and is of the opinion that it was addressed to Noah himself as well as to his contemporaries. In support of this, he very rightly appeals to the fact that Noah is not here as 2Pe 2:5 termed a . But he does not say by whom this preaching must be considered to have taken place.
[206] Hofmann, indeed, says that since the expression is not , the translation should not be “those spirits in durance, which sometime were disobedient;” but he grants that, from a grammatical point of view, it remains doubtful “whether signifies the past as related to the time of Christ’s preaching, or the past as regards the present of the writer.”
[207] Hofmann says that the accusation made against him, that he effaces the distinction between as a term used to designate the precise nature of Christ, and as the third Person in the Trinity, is the result of that confusion of ideas by which “in the Spirit” and “as a Spirit” are understood to mean the same thing. But it must be replied that rather is the identification of two different ideas, contained in his interpretation, the result of the confusion of ideas, leading him as it does to hide the difference by defining as “the Spirit of Christ’s life.”
[208] Baur ( Tb. theol. Jahrb. 1856, H. 2, p. 215) understands it to mean the , 2Pe 2:4 , who, according to Gen 6:1 ff., had fallen previous to the deluge. This interpretation is sufficiently contradicted by ver. 20.
[209] The interpretation of Wichelhaus who by circumlocution explains . as equal to , is altogether erroneous.
[210] Justin ( Dial. c. Tryph. c. 5): ( ) , .
[211] Luthardt so thoroughly recognises the vis of this , that he says he should interpret the passage as Hofmann does, if the did not prevent him from doing so. Besides, it is certain that the coming of the Holy Spirit is at the same time a coming of Christ; but it must not be overlooked that in the N. T. it is nowhere indicated as being a coming of Christ .
[212] Hollaz: Fuit praedicatio Christi in inferno non evangelica, quae hominibus tantum in regno gratiae annunciatur, sed legalis elenchthica, terribilis eaque tum verbalis, qua ipsos aeterna supplicia promeritos esse convincit, tum realis, qua immanem terrorem iis incussit. This interpretation, which, has its origin in dogmatic views, Zezschwitz seeks to found on exegesis by characterizing the idea of judgment as the leading conception of the whole passage, to which, however, the context gives no warrant, and also by maintaining that otherwise Peter would have used the word , or a compound of . It is certainly correct when Schott and Khler say that is not in itself equal to ; but it does not follow that it may not be applied to a message of salvation. It must be remembered that Christ’s aim, even as a preacher of judgment, ever was the accomplishment of salvation, as he declared Luk 19:10 ; Joh 12:47 .
[213] Thus Picus Mirandola says: Christus non veraciter et quantum ad realem praesentiam descendit ad inferos, sed solum quoad effectum. Cf., too, J. R. Lavater, de descensu Christi ad inf. lib. I. c. 9. Many interpreters unwarrautably weaken at least , in so far as to make it synonymous with “showed Himself,” or, at any rate, they say that the preaching of Christ was potius realiter, quam verbaliter. This the author of the article, “Die Hllenfahrt Christi,” in the Erlanger Zeitschrift fr Protest. 1856, should not have sanctioned. Schott is not free from this arbitrary method of interpretation, in that he characterizes “as a bearing witness to oneself, not only in word, but also in deed,” and calls “this bearing witness to and showing forth of Himself by Christ in the glory of His mediatorial person,” a concio damnatoria.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; (20) Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. (21) The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: (22) Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
We have here, in the opening of this scripture, a passage, which hath been a subject to various Commentators of much perplexity. Christ by his Spirit, preaching to the spirits in prison, hath excited great enquiry, and, as may be well supposed, various opinions; especially among men, untaught of God. But wherefore should it be thought a thing more incredible that Christ’s Spirit, should preach before the flood, than by his servants the Prophets after? The Holy Ghost assures us, by Peter, 1Pe 1:11 , that it was the Spirit of Christ which, in the Prophets, did signify, both his sufferings and his glory. And why may we not suppose, that it was the same Spirit which spake in Noah, when he preached the righteousness of Christ by faith? Heb 11:7 .
It is really curious to observe, to what lengths, the pride of human wisdom will go, in those who have never learnt of God. It would tire my Reader to hear, much less would I wish him to turn over, the variety of opinions of the carnal, on this passage of scripture. Some have supposed, that Christ at his death, went into hell, to preach to devils, in order to induce them to repent. Others, that he went there to liberate the souls of his saints, then there. Some, take the words as figurative, and with a freedom of thought peculiarly their own, make the passage to mean no more, than that of the preaching to the Gentiles. And others have considered the prison here spoken of, as the Ark; and that Christ, during the time Noah and his family were shut in, preached the Gospel to them. Reader! what miserable work do all men make of God’s word, untaught by God’s grace! If the Lord be our Teacher, surely there will be no difficulty in learning of the Lord. And in this case, the passage before us will not be attended with any obscurity. Nay, I think, we shall discover in it, a beautiful and striking testimony, to the truth as it is in Jesus. Let us once more read the scripture, under this impression; and looking at the same time up to the Lord, for grace to teach; see what we can make of it.
And first. It is said, Christ by his Spirit went and preached unto the spirits in prison. Now, hence we learn, one grand undeniable truth; namely, that Christ by his Spirit, actually was in the Church before his incarnation; that he was engaged for his Church in personal acts, at the time here mentioned, before the flood; and that he exercised his ministry, by preaching in the instance here recorded. Now, how mysterious soever these things may be, (and how should they be otherwise than mysterious, to creatures such as we are,) surely they most decidedly prove, the Godhead of Christ. For, upon what other ground, can such things be said, or supposed to be done? Pro 8:12 to the end; Joh 1:10 ; Rev 13:8 .
Secondly. Those to whom Christ preached are said to have been sometime disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. Now, this silences at once the foolish notion of those noted just now linked, scripture is the best comment of scripture, and there we learn, from the 6th Chapter of Genesis (Gen 6 ), the truest particulars in relation to this disobedience of men. The old world had corrupted itself, and the Lord in determining the destruction of the ungodly, determined the preservation of the chosen seed, in the person of Noah. In the instrumentality of Noah, (as in the after Prophets, 1Pe 1:11 ,) the Spirit of Christ preached. And as the Holy Ghost bears witness, by reason of Christ’s Spirit preaching in Noah, he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith, Heb 11:7 ; Gen 6:3 .
Thirdly. I beg the Reader, in as particular a manner as any, to notice how the Lord’s distinguishing grace is marked in the person of Noah, and by the Spirit of Christ. Noah is the first person, concerning whom we read of grace. And it is remarkable also, that the first time we meet with the word grace, or covenant, in the Bible, it is in relation to this man, Gen 6:8 and Gen 6:18 . And do not both refer to Christ? For who but Jesus is the grace, or covenant of his people? 2Ti 2:1 ; Isa 42:6 . And what was it but grace which prepared the Ark, or saved those eight persons in it; namely, Noah, and his wife, and his three Sons, and their wives?
Upon the whole, then, I venture to hope, that this sweet scripture, (for indeed it is a sweet one, when opened to us by the Holy Ghost,) will comfort both the Writer and Reader of this Poor Man’s Commentary, when considered abstractedly from human policy, and brought under the standard of divine truth; not as man’s wisdom teacheth, but what the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual, 1Co 2:13 .
I shall not detain the Reader, with a long train of observations, on the close of the Chapter, having already so largely trespassed. But I would just beg to remark, on what the Apostle saith in application of the subject, to the present day of the Church, that baptism is called a like figure to the Ark; for both point to Christ, and are made blessed only in Christ. Noah’s faith in Christ was what the Ark typified, and the baptism of the Spirit is what alone renders that ordinance profitable, being the representation of redemption in Christ. And the return of Jesus to glory confirms the whole work of the cross being done.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
Ver. 19. He went and preached ] Righteousness, i.e. repentance, 2Pe 2:5 , and the faith of the gospel, 1Pe 4:6 , whereby some of those many that perished in the waters arrived at heaven, Nunquam sero, si serio. Christ went to them as an ambassador sent by his Father, and spake to their hearts.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
19 .] in which (viz. , in the spirit, according to which His new life was. , not simply this time: see below) He also went and preached ( of a local transference here, just as below in 1Pe 3:22 , : and of a preaching good news, nearly = , as in all other places of the N. T.) to the spirits in prison (the disembodied spirits, which were kept shut up (Jud 1:6 ; 2Pe 2:4 ) in the place of the departed awaiting the final judgment: in Scheol, as Syr.),
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
By which = In (Greek. en) which (condition).
also, &c. = having gone, He even preached.
preached = heralded. App-121. Not the Gospel, which would be App-121. He announced His triumph.
spirits. App-101. These were the angels of Gen 6:2, Gen 6:4. See App-23, where 2Pe 2:4 and Jud 1:6 are considered together with this verse.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
19.] in which (viz. , in the spirit, according to which His new life was. , not simply this time: see below) He also went and preached ( of a local transference here, just as below in 1Pe 3:22, : and of a preaching good news, nearly = , as in all other places of the N. T.) to the spirits in prison (the disembodied spirits, which were kept shut up (Jud 1:6; 2Pe 2:4) in the place of the departed awaiting the final judgment: in Scheol, as Syr.),
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Pe 3:19. ) in which spirit. Christ had to do with the living, in the flesh; with spirits, in spirit. He Himself has efficacy with the living and the dead. There are wonders in that invisible world. In a subject full of mystery, we ought not to dismiss from it the proper signification of the language employed, because it has no parallel passages. For they, to whom each mystery has first been revealed, have most nobly believed the word of God even without parallel passages. For instance, our Saviour only once said, This is My body. The mystery respecting the change of those who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord, is only once written.–, to the spirits) Peter does not say that all the spirits were in that place of confinement, for many might have been in a more gloomy place; but he means, that Christ preached to all who were in confinement.- , in guard) The guilty are punished in prison; they are kept in guard, until they experience what the Judge is about to do. The expression about the state of those living under the Old Testament, Gal 3:23, bears some analogy to this.-, to the spirits) of the dead. Comp. Heb 12:23. He does not call them souls, as in the next verse.-, going) namely, to those spirits. The same word is used in 1Pe 3:22. Those spirits were not in the tomb of Jesus: He went to them.-, He preached) By this preaching, which followed close upon His being quickened, Christ showed Himself both alive, even then, and righteous. Peter would not say, , He preached the Gospel, if even ever so much the preaching of grace only were here designed: for the hearers had fallen asleep before the times of the Gospel; therefore he uses a word of wider meaning, He preached (or published). Noah, a preacher of righteousness, was despised, 2Pe 2:5; but Christ was a more powerful preacher, who, when quickened in spirit, vindicated His own righteousness, which was not believed by them of former times, and openly refuted their unbelief, 1Ti 3:16. If he were speaking of preaching by Noah, the word sometime would either be altogether omitted, or be joined with the word preached. This preaching was a prelude to the general judgment; comp. ch. 1Pe 4:5; and the term preaching itself is to be taken in its wider sense, that it may be understood to have been to some a preaching of the Gospel, as Hutter says, to their consolation, which is more peculiarly the office of Christ; to others, and perhaps the greater part, a publishing of the law, for their terror. For if the judgment itself shall be a cause of joy to some, assuredly this preaching was not a subject of dread to all. The author of the Adumbrations, which are assigned to Clement of Alexandria and to Cassiodorus, says, They saw not His form, but heard the sound of His voice. Calvin, in his Institutes, 2d Book, ch. 16:9, says, For the context also leads to this conclusion, that the faithful, who had died before that time, were sharers of the same grace with us: because it enhances the power of His death from this circumstance, that it penetrated even to the dead; while the souls of the righteous obtained an immediate view of that visitation, which they had anxiously expected, on the contrary, it was more plainly revealed to the lost, that they are altogether excluded from salvation. And though Peter does not speak with such distinctness, it must not thus be understood as though he mixed together the righteous and the wicked without any difference, but he only wishes to teach, that a perception of the death of Christ was common to both.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
By which: 1Pe 1:11, 1Pe 1:12, 1Pe 4:6, Neh 9:30, Rev 19:10
in: Isa 42:7, Isa 49:9, Isa 61:1, Rev 20:7
Reciprocal: Gen 6:12 – for all Job 22:16 – whose foundation was overflown with a flood Luk 12:58 – into Luk 17:26 – as Phi 3:9 – be 2Pe 2:5 – a preacher
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Pe 3:19. By which (Spirit). The services of the Spirit is still the subject that was introduced in the preceding verse. Christ (in cooperation with his Father) did some preaching through the agency of the Spirit. But since the Spirit never speaks directly to sinful man concerning his personal duty, it is necessary to have also the services of a human preacher. That preacher was Noah, for 2Pe 2:5 says he was “a preacher of righteousness,” which would. mean he did the right kind of preaching. The connection shows that the ones to whom he preached were disobedient persons, hence the preaching consisted in exhortation and call to repentance. In prison. This is a figure of speech drawn from the direct preaching that Jesus did in person to sinners while He was on earth. In Isa 42:7 Isa 49:9 it is predicted that Jesus would preach to people in prision (of sin), and by that same figure the ones to whom Noah preached might be called “spirits in prison.”
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Pe 3:19. in which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison. Here, again, the A.V., following the Genevan alone among these earlier English Versions, wrongly renders by which. The sense is, in which, i.e in the spiritual form of life which has just been noticed. The verb preached is used absolutely here. It is not to be taken, however, in the vague sense of making proclamation, showing Himself, or bearing witness to Himself (Schott, etc.), far less in the sense of preaching judgment, but in the sense which it elsewhere has in the New Testament, where it occurs, both with the object expressed (e.g. the gospel, the kingdom of God, Christ, etc.), and with the object unexpressed (e.g. Mat 11:1; Mar 1:38, etc.), of Christs earthly ministry of preaching, which was a message of grace. The word spirits is used here, as in Heb 12:23, in the sense of disembodied spirits. Elsewhere (e.g. Rev 6:9; Rev 20:4) the term souls is used to designate the departed. On the ground of the statement in 2Pe 2:4, and the application of the word spirit in such passages as Luk 9:39, Act 16:18, etc., some have strangely supposed a reference here to the angels who sinned,which is entirely inconsistent with the historical notice which follows. The phrase in prison has the definite force which it has in 2Pe 2:4, Jud 1:6, Rev 20:7, and is not to be explained away as merely equivalent to in safe-keeping, or in the world of the dead generally.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
1Pe 3:19-20. By which also That is, by which Spirit; he went and preached , having gone, he preached, namely, in and by Noah, who spake by the Spirit of Christ, (1Pe 1:11,) and of the Father, who said, (Gen 6:3,) referring to the men of that generation, My Spirit shall not always strive with man. Hence Noah is called a preacher of righteousness: 2Pe 2:5. By attributing the preaching of the ancient prophets to Christ, the apostle hath taught us, that from the beginning the economy of mans redemption has been under the direction of Christ. To the spirits in prison That is, which were in prison when St. Peter wrote this epistle. They were men in the flesh when Christ preached to them by his Spirit speaking in Noah; but after they were dead, their spirits were shut up in the infernal prison, detained, like the fallen angels, (Jdg 1:6,) unto the judgment of the great day; which sometime , once, or formerly, were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited For their repentance; in the days of Noah During the long space of one hundred and twenty years; while the ark was preparing During which time Noah warned them all to repent, and flee from the wrath to come. Wherein In which ark; few, that is, eight souls Namely, Noah and his wife, with their three sons and their wives; were saved by water Or, were carried safely through the water; namely, the waters of the flood, which bare up the ark in which they were enclosed. Some suppose that the persons here spoken of are said to have been in prison in the days of Noah, by the same figure of speech, by which the persons to whom Christ preached in the days of his flesh, are called captives in prison, Luk 4:18. Christs preaching to the antediluvians by Noah, their destruction for their disobedience to that preaching, and the preservation of Noah and his family in the ark, are all fitly mentioned, to show that it hath been Gods way from the beginning of the world, when the wickedness of men became general, to oppose it, by raising up prophets to reprove them, and warn them of their danger; and after waiting for their repentance to no purpose, to destroy them; while he delivered the righteous from the evils to which they were exposed, by manifest interpositions of his power. These things teach us, that we should not think the worse of the gospel, because it hath been rejected by many; nor of ourselves, because we are persecuted by the wicked. On the other hand, by the punishment of the antediluvians, and of the Jews who crucified our Lord; wicked men and persecutors are taught to dread the judgments of God. Macknight.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 19
He went and preached; an emphatical mode of expression, common in the Hebrew language, meaning he preached. So, in Acts 1:1, “all that Jesus began both to do and teach,” means merely all that Jesus did and taught; and in Matthew 9:13, “Go ye and learn,” &c., means, simply, learn.–Unto the spirits in prison; that is, perhaps to mankind, in their state of guilt and condemnation. See Isaiah 42:7 , where the lost and helpless condition of men is represented as an imprisonment from which the gospel brings release. The meaning seems to be, that Jesus Christ, after suffering death, rose again by the power of the Spirit, and by the same Spirit brought the offers of pardon to mankind, who were under sentence of condemnation by the divine law; in consequence of which, as the writer goes on to explain in the Peter 3:20,21 a few are now saved, through baptism, just as in ancient times, in consequence of the preaching of Noah, a few were saved by the ark. Some suppose that the preaching here spoken of refers not to the general proclamation of the gospel to mankind, but to the warnings given by Noah to his generation, which they consider this passage as showing were inspired by Christ. Others suppose that this passage means that, during the interval between the Savior’s death and his resurrection, he made the offers of salvation to departed spirits in the invisible world. The interpretation first given appears best to accord with the design of the writer in his remarks. In fact, the latter would seem to detach the passage entirely from its connection with what precedes and follows it. Besides, it is impossible to give any reason, if Jesus offered salvation to any departed spirits, why, of all the generations of the dead, the contemporaries of Noah alone were preached to in their prison.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
3:19 {22} By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
(22) A secret objection: Christ indeed might do this, but what is that to us? Indeed (faith the apostle) for Christ has showed his power in all ages both in the preservation of the godly, were they never so few and miserable, and in avenging the rebellion of his enemies, as it appears by the history of the flood: for Christ is he who in those days (when God through his patience appointed a time of repentance to the world) was present, not in corporal presence, but by his divine power, preaching repentance, even by the mouth of Noah himself who then prepared the ark, to those disobedient spirits who are now in prison, waiting for the full recompence of their rebellion, and saved those few, (that is, only eight people) in the water.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Peter here introduced more information about Jesus’ activity in His spirit (i.e., His post-resurrection sphere of life), in addition to what he said about His resurrection from the dead (1Pe 3:18), to encourage his readers.
"In which" refers back to the spiritual sphere of life in which Jesus Christ now lives (1Pe 3:18). The identity of the "spirits in prison" is problematic. The plural "spirits" describes human beings only one other place in the New Testament (Heb 12:23), but it describes evil spirit beings frequently (Mat 10:1; Mar 1:27; Mar 3:11; Mar 5:13; Mar 6:7: Luk 4:36; Luk 6:18; Act 5:16; Rev 16:13; et al.). Thus we would expect that evil angels are in view, but does what Peter said about them confirm this identification? He said they are in prison (cf. 2Pe 2:4) and that they were disobedient in the days of Noah (1Pe 3:20).
Some interpreters believe that the incident involving the sons of God and the daughters of men (Gen 6:1-4) is what Peter had in view here. [Note: E.g., Michaels, pp. 206-13.] But there are some problems with this theory. First, this incident evidently did not take place during the construction of the ark but before construction began. Second, it is improbable that the "sons of God" were angels. [Note: See Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing, pp. 181-83.] Compare also Jesus’ implication that angels do not procreate in Mat 22:30. Nevertheless these "spirits" could still be angels. If they are fallen angels, Peter may have meant that after Jesus Christ arose He announced to them that their doom was now sure. He may have done this either by His resurrection itself or by some special announcement to them.
A more probable explanation is that these "spirits" were the unbelievers who disobeyed God in Noah’s day by rejecting his preaching. [Note: Fanning, pp. 449-50; Raymer, pp. 851-52; Selwyn, p. 199; John S. Feinberg, "1 Peter 3:18-20, Ancient Mythology, and the Intermediate State," Westminster Theological Journal 48:2 (Fall 1986):303-36; and Wayne Grudem, "Christ Preaching through Noah: 1 Peter 3:19-20 in the Light of Dominant Themes in Jewish Literature," Trinity Journal 7NS:2 (Fall 1986):3-31.] They are now "spirits" since they died long ago and their bodies have not yet experienced resurrection. He said the spirits of these unbelievers are in prison now (i.e., Sheol) awaiting resurrection and judgment by God (cf. Rev 20:11-15). One could say that Jesus proclaimed a message to Noah’s unbelieving contemporaries in His spirit (i.e., His spiritual state of life before the Incarnation) through Noah. Noah was preaching a message that God had given him, and in this sense Jesus Christ spoke through him (cf. 2Co 5:20). Just so, Jesus Christ was speaking through Peter’s readers to their unbelieving persecutors as they bore witness for Him in a hostile world. Noah faced the same type of opposition in his day that Peter’s original readers did in theirs and we do in ours.
Another view is that the people to whom Jesus preached were those alive after Pentecost and in bondage to Satan and sin. Jesus preached to them through the apostles. The obvious problem with this view is that Peter linked these people with Noah. [Note: For fuller discussion of these views, see D. Edmond Hiebert, "The Suffering and Triumphant Christ: An Exposition of 1 Peter 3:18-22," Bibliotheca Sacra 139:554 (April-June 1982):151-52.]
God would bring Peter’s readers safely through their trials just as He had brought Noah safely through his trials into a whole new world. God had done this for Noah even though he and his family were a small minority in their day. Furthermore as God judged the mockers in Noah’s day, so will He judge those who persecuted Peter’s readers.
"The phrase ’in the days of Noah’ may well be based on the Gospel tradition and on Jesus’ analogy between Noah’s time and the time immediately preceding the end of the age (cf. Mat 24:37-39//Luk 17:26-27)." [Note: Michaels, p. 211.]
God is so patient that he waited for 120 years before sending the Flood in Noah’s day (Gen 6:3). Today He also waits, so patiently that some people conclude that He will never judge (cf. 2Pe 3:3-4). Relatively few will escape God’s coming judgment, just as only eight escaped His former judgment. The rest will die.