1 Peter 3:18-22 Spirits in Prison

[arielette]

Hi:

Can anyone shed some light on this for me:

18For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge[e] of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Who are these spirits in prison who disobeyed? I am not sure how to understand this passage. Thank you.

 

[Erfscott]

When you read the whole context of that verse, I Peter 3:18: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, (the subject of this reference is the Spirit) by whom (in other words, through the Spirit) He went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient, once in the days of longsuffering they waited in the time of Noah while the ark was being prepared.
Some have thought this means that when Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t really die, He altered His state into the spirit, He went down into hell, He preached to the people who lived before the flood that they might have a second chance. This is a bizarre teaching that came out of the Jesuit theology years ago. Now let me tell you what it does mean. He says He, Christ, through the Holy Spirit, preached to spirits who were in prison. You and I are spirits, and if we’re not saved we’re imprisoned by the devil, just like Peter was imprisoned and the angel came to set him free.
You can also see in Isaiah 61, part of the ministry of Christ, it says: He came to set the captives free and opening the prison to them that are bound. Isaiah 61:1. So it’s simply saying that part of the work of Christ was to try to save people, even during the time of Noah, through the same Spirit; He tried to save those people whose spirits were imprisoned by the devil. He’s not talking about how their ghosts were in hell, chained up, or anything.



Quoted from a Pastor that does a Bible Answers Live program!

 

[Chickapee]

Hi good question and good answers ..
I only know that Jesus speaks of as the days of Noah so shall the coming of the son of man be ,
same types of folks to me as the days of old in these times wicked thoughts continually ,, they were all nameless except Noah and His family name meaning Noah: repose; consolation, rest He was a "just man and perfect in his generation," and "walked with God" ( Eze 14:14,20).

and God made this clear in the old covenant if you read all of Lev 26 /deu28
I see the ''prison ''in our minds and hearts as heaven / brass being judgments and Iron as /a holding within or holding to being judged

And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.[ Mat 12:45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last [state] of that man is worse than the first.] Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation. ]
Lev 26:19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

also Deu 28:23 And thy heaven that [is] over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee [shall be] iron.

But as Erfscott brought out it is Jesus Christ the mediatior of the new Covenant that at that Cross the new Covenant become effective imediatlty , and having Faith in Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God would have favor /grace with God as Noah also found

I hope this may help you some how
God bless in Jesus peace ......... C

 

[archierieus]

Interesting. I got hit with this one by a a couple of Mormon missionaries just yesterday morning! This was my explanation. the passage says that Christ preached to 'the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago.' As someone else has already pointed out, Christ preached through the Spirit to the people before the Flood. See Gen. 6, 'My Spirit shall not always strive with mankind." Very well. What happened to them? They died, they were drowned in the Flood. The Bible does refer to the grave as a 'prison' I believe. IOW the dead are in the graves, until the resurrection, either the resurrection of life or the resurrection of damnation. Long ago God preached to them through the Spirit, they rejected the appeals, they died, and now they are in the prison of the grave until called back to life in one or the other resurrection. BTW the missionaries were dumbfounded! They had never heard that explanation before. There was some good progress.

Dave

Dave

 

[Chickapee]

That was very good Dave !! WOW! the watery grave! [the sea gave up the dead]


1Pe 3:20 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.
8 saved by water ALL the rest perish/died by the water!

 

[angelmom01]

Hi arielette (and you too, Chickapee!! ):

These verses are speaking about the Spirit, right?

1Pe 3:18-20 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 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.

The Spirit BY WHICH Christ was resurrected is the same Spirit BY WHICH "He went and preached unto the spirits is prison" who were disobedient in the days of Noah, right?

How did He preach to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah? Was is not through Noah?

So, then, who were "the spirits in prison" that he preached to "by the Spirit", if not those disobedient men who would not listen to Noah?

Are we not all "prisoners" of "the body of this death"?

God has promised to bring us "out of the prison house":

Isa 42:6-7 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

 

[Chickapee]

Hey Sis! I love how you simplify things , God love ya! been missing you sooo much , I am so glad to see you

the Spirit of God in Noah of course how else except they be sent huh? what good news!!
it is for all times !! every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God , Jesus taught us that!

Rom 10:15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

love yas C

 

[AllTalkNoAction]

Noah was "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5), so the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit taught him truth and showed him judgement to come.
Jesus was preaching to the people of Noah's day through Noah.

Those people were in prison to sin.

 

[SummaScriptura]

At the time when this was written, there was a belief in currency among the Jews that during the time of Noah, the heavenly sons of God, the "Watchers" (a class of angels) lusted after the daughters of mankind and conspired to break God's law; they left their assigned abode in heaven, to take human wives and have children. They defiled themselves by sexual relations with women in order to beget children who turned out to be gigantic and monsterous. These angels were bound with chains in an abyss of the earth to await the coming of the "Son of Man" who would sit on His glorious throne and judge them. You can read all about it in The Book of Enoch. (In fact, in that book there is a parallel to this passage from Peter, in which Enoch preech-proclaims to the angels; his message is not one of repentance but rather a proclamation of sure judgment).

This was the unified Semitic view from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism.

This can be confirmed by anyone by picking up a copy of "The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition", by Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar. This is THE MOST exhaustive collection of the non-Hebrew-Bible Dead Sea Scrolls that is available.

If one begins at the beginning of those volumes and proceeds to read through these fragments from hundreds of Jewish religious documents from about the time of Christ, one can come away with a profound sense of the preoccupation with the Watcher/Giant saga which existed among Jewish writers during and before the time of Christ. In addition to all of the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls include many story fragments from the lives of Lamech, Noah, Enoch, Methuselah and the rest as well as numerous accounts of the history of the Nephilim, the offspring of the Watchers.

In the DSS and other Jewish literature from the period, one is stricken with the sheer lack of controversy among these writers about this saga. To date, I have yet to find even one example from the period of 2nd-Temple Judaism wherein some rabbi or religious writer has a controversy with the Watcher/Nephilim thesis, though controversy abounds on other subjects.

There is evidence that this view prevailed among writers in the New Testament books as well, in fact, 1 and 2 Peter show many signs of the influence of this idea. So in the passage we're examining, if contextualized with the Watcher/Nephilim story, it appears as if Christ visits the angels who sinned and declares to them the surety of their coming judgment because of the salvation He has accomplished on the cross.

Certainly the idea that angels could even interbreed with human women seems repugnant to our modern sensibilities and apparently it was also for the leaders of the Church from the 4th century onward. I would like to propose however, this offense to our sensibilities has more to do with our inherited assumptions about the nature of angels than it does with scripture.

© 2008 Robert I. Burns

 

[Chickapee]

Noah was "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5), so the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit taught him truth and showed him judgement to come.
Jesus was preaching to the people of Noah's day through Noah.

Those people were in prison to sin.

I totally agree ! amen , body of death .. a prisoner to sin ..
Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.