The Preaching to the Spirits in Prison: 1 Peter 3:18-20

Foreword

A considerable part of this treatise is occupied with the discussion of many of the unsatisfactory theories which have at various times been based upon the passage. The discussion involves a certain amount of discursiveness, and it may be well therefore to insert as a preface a brief summary of the interpretation of the text, as expounded by the author.

First of all, it is desirable to note that in the immediately preceding verses (1 Peter 3:8-17) the apostle alludes to the considerable persecution to which these believing Jews were subjected because of their faith in an unseen and heavenly Christ. This fact evidently occasioned difficulties in their minds because such an experience was so definitely contrasted with the ordinary Jewish expectation, based on the Old Testament, of a Messiah who, by His personal presence, would introduce a state of earthly glory, accompanied by deliverance of the nation from servitude to the Gentiles. To help and enlighten his readers, Peter speaks first with relation to the problem of their present suffering, and secondly, concerning the absence of Christ corporeally.

First, then, the apostle explains that if they suffered for righteousness’ sake they were a happy people: this was the mark of true disciples. It was therefore better, if the will of God should so will, that they should suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. They ought not to suffer as evildoers, because Christ suffered once for sins that we might not suffer, though He was the Just One and we the unjust.

In referring to the suffering of Christ for sins, the apostle mentions the guilt of the Jews, namely, that He was put to death in the flesh (cp. Matt. 26:59; Matt. 27:1; Mark 14:55; same Greek word), but, he adds, quickened by, or in the Spirit.

The naming of the Holy Spirit brings the apostle to his second point, namely, the explanation of the power at work during the absence of the Messiah on high. He thereupon shows the present co-operation of God the Spirit with God the Son to be in analogy with what happened in antediluvian times. It was by the Holy Spirit that the gospel was being preached to them, as Peter had said before (1 Peter 1:12), and it was by that same Spirit that God strove with man before the flood (Gen. 6:3). The Spirit of Christ was in the prophets of old Peter had said in the early part of the Epistle (1 Peter 1:11). Now he says that by the Spirit Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison who were disobedient when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. As the Spirit of Christ was in the prophets, so we learn He was in Noah, the preacher of righteousness.

Then the great mass of the antediluvians were disobedient to the warning of Noah of the coming deluge, so the great mass of the Jewish people were disobedient (see 1 Peter 2:7-8) to the warning of the Spirit to save themselves from that untoward generation, doomed as it was to judgment (1 Peter 4:17-18; 2 Peter 2:9; 2 Peter 3:7). Then, too, a few, that is eight souls only, were saved through water, and, to continue the parallel, the Jewish believers found that only a small minority were being brought into the blessings of the gospel.

The Preaching to the Spirits in Prison

It may interest, and I trust also profit, the reader, if we not only examine this scripture but review the questions raised on it for ages. Here many a Christian finds perplexity, rejecting what does not fall in with the analogy of faith, yet unwilling to doubt what seems intimated by the letter of the word. He is ready to suspect himself of failure in spiritual intelligence, and to question whether there might not be some unconscious insubjection of heart and mind to the perfect revelation of GOD. The chief at least of the speculations in which men of reputation have indulged in ancient and modern times will claim a notice, in the hope of satisfying the believer that human thoughts are ever worthless, and that divine writ is clothed by the Spirit with self-evidencing light and power for all who have their hearts opened to the Lord and are self-judged in His sight.

It will be seen, too, by a full enough examination, that the most exact criticism in the details of the clauses confirms the general scope derived from the context as a whole, and that grammatical precision points with equal force in the same direction. Thus from every point of view the truth comes out with a fulness of proofs proportioned to the closeness of our investigation, once we have the right object and aim of the passage clearly ascertained and held firmly before our eyes. There is no ground in the passage for any action of Christ in the intermediate state for saints or sinners, nothing to hold out a hope for those who die in unbelief and their sins. How could there be, if all His words are true?

The true text is ὅτι καὶ Χριστὸς ἅπαξ περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἔπαθεν,¹ δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, ἵνα ἡμᾶς προσαγάγῃ τῳ Θεῳ, θανατωθεὶς μὲν σαρκὶ ζωοποιηθεὶς δὲ² πνεύματι, ἐν ῳ καὶ τοῖς ἐν φυλακῃ πνεύμασιν πορευθεὶς ἐκήρυξεν, ἀπειθήσασίν ποτε ὅτε ἀπεξεδέχετο³ ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ μακροθυμία ἐν ἡμέραις Νῶε κατασκευαζομένης κιβωτοῦ, εἰς ἣν ὀλίγοι,⁴ τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ὀκτὼ ψυχαὶ, διεσώθησαν δι᾽ ὕδατος. Because Christ also once suffered for sins, Just for unjust, that He might bring us to GOD, put to death indeed in [the] flesh but made alive in [the] Spirit, in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, disobedient aforetime when the long-suffering of GOD was awaiting in Noah’s days while an ark was being prepared, in which few, that is, eight souls, were brought safe through water.

Though the original text is not doubtful but sure, the interpretations of ancients and moderns are for the most part precarious and misleading. Why was this? It may be helpful, and it is instructive, to note the unusual uncertainty of the ancient versions. The Greek is linguistically plain, the construction grammatically clear: why, then, should the rendering be variant and confused but by ideas imported from without? So early was the tendency to bad interpretation instead of faithful translation. Thus the Vulgate has, without authority, erant in verse 19, and qui in 20, but the atrocity of expectabant Dei patientiam, which misled so many Romanists into error in the Middle Ages and to the present day; for so it stands in the Tridentine standard of authentic Scripture, impudently false, yet unabashed in its open inconsistency with the passage itself. The Pesch. Syr. was similarly unfaithful in the first errors of the Latin, renders φ. by Sheul, and falsely paraphrases the rest thus, while the long-suffering of GOD commanded that he (Noah) should make the ark upon the hope of their conversion, and eight souls only entered therein and were saved in the waters. The Philox. or Harcleian Syr. is much nearer the truth, as it avoids the error in 19, though not correct in the slighter case at the beginning of 20. As to the Memphitic V., Wilkins gives living for quickened in 18, and its rendering of 19 as In this to the imprisoned spirits also He went, He evangelised, which is sufficiently loose, though not in quite the same way. But verse 20 is well translated except in giving a finished instead of a continuous force to the preparation of an ark. Again, the Aeth. adds Holy to Spirit in 18, and like Pesch. Syr. adds held or shut up to 19. The Erpenian Arabic is everywhere free, and seems peculiar in departed to the spirits which were shut up, which goes beyond and verges into interpretation, if not mis-interpretation. One may remark here that πορ. in verse 22 has εἰς οὐρανὸν, whereas in verse 19 there is a careful avoidance of εἰς ᾳδου or any equivalent, which has been overlooked by those who have argued for the force of 19 from 22. In the Armenian there is little or nothing that calls for notice here.

Nor is the meaning doubtful. The apostle of the circumcision is eminently plain and practical, fervent and forcible. He does not, like Paul, penetrate into root principles or rise into the vast circle of the divine counsels, wherein are some things hard to be understood. He is not like John, profoundly contemplative on the divine nature as revealed in the Son of GOD. Peter is so simple and direct, that the interpreters err greatly who fancy that his words convey what their own speculations import. He would not have the Christian suffer for evil but for well-doing; and this, not for moral reasons only, but in a touching appeal to Him who suffered atoningly on the cross:— Because Christ also once suffered for sins, Just for unjust ones, that He might bring us near to GOD. Let it be ours, objects of His saving grace, to suffer only for righteousness and for His name. If it cost Him everything here up to death, GOD vindicated Him by resurrection, put to death indeed in flesh, but quickened in Spirit (or, as in 1 Tim. 3:16, justified in Spirit); in which [Spirit] also having proceeded He preached to the imprisoned spirits, disobedient as they were aforetime when the long-suffering of GOD was waiting in Noah’s days. As the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead,⁵ so not personally but in the same Spirit also He went and preached to the spirits in prison because of their disobeying the word in Noah’s time, when preached by him.

It is an evident and striking reference to Gen. 6:3, And Jehovah said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for he indeed is flesh; but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. So long would His long-suffering wait; and in result only the patriarch’s family were brought safely through. Thus the persons who then perished, and whose spirits are in ward for judgment at the end of all things, are no less clearly defined than the time in question, and the specific sin of insubjection to the Divine Spirit which wrought in Noah’s preaching. The more accurately the words are examined, in textual criticism or in grammar, the more certainly it will be found that in strict exegesis they admit only of the meaning here assigned, and this in the full harmony of the New Testament with the Old.

The connection and scope is evident. The apostle is exhorting the believers to a patient life of suffering so as to fill with shame those who vented their spite on their good behaviour in Christ. Who could gainsay that it was better, did the will of GOD so will, to suffer while doing well than doing ill; and this because Christ also suffered (but He suffered once, once for all) for sins? This should be enough: we should suffer not for sins, but only for righteousness or for Christ’s name sake. It was His to suffer for us, this once and for ever, Just for unjust persons (for such were we), that He might bring us to GOD. It is ours to suffer at times especially, but in principle always while in this present evil world. The καὶ connects Christ and us as suffering, but the contrast is as striking as it is morally suggestive. To understand with some περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν as a point of comparison between Him and us under such a junction is to miss the reasoning utterly, not to speak of failure in reverence towards the Saviour in that work which stands