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Who Are
The Spirits In Prison
1 Peter
3:18-20
We have
arrived at the third article in our series on difficult passages. Last
Sunday we discussed fire baptism and before that baptism for the dead.
This week our focus will be on Christ’s preaching to “the spirits in
prison.” There are two questions that must be answered in order to have
a clear understanding of this passage. First, “who are the spirits in
prison?” Second, “when did Christ preach to them?”
The first
question is perhaps the more difficult to answer because the answer only
leads to more questions. The phrase, “spirits in prison” refers to men
and woman who were once alive but are now imprisoned by death. This may
lead some to derive that Christ preached to the spirits of dead men and
women, but this is not the case at all.
To help
us, let us read verse nineteen from the New American Standard Bible, “in
which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in
prison.” Notice, there is a difference between this reading and the KJV;
both are accurate but the NASB give a clearer understanding. The
spirits to whom Christ preached were in prison (dead) when Peter wrote,
not when Christ went to them.
And so we
have arrived at the second question that must be answered, “When did
Christ go and preach to these people?” The answer is found right in our
text. Verse eighteen tells us that Christ was made alive in the
Spirit. Then verse nineteen says that in the Spirit He went to the
spirits now in prison. Verse twenty tells us that this was done “in the
days of Noah.” Considering that Noah was a “preacher of righteousness”
(2 Peter 2:5) we can understand that this was all accomplished through
the inspired preaching of Noah.
Of course
this was not the only time Christ preached to the lost through men. He
used many prophets throughout the Old Testament to call sinners to
repentance. And, while He no longer speaks to man directly, He
continues to call us to repentance through men who speak according to
His written word.
See you on
Sunday. Love,
Thomas Sneed
Pond Church of Christ
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