In 1 Peter, Christ is said to have preached to the spirits in prison. Who exactly are these spirits? When did Christ preach to them? And what was his message? This video explores a few options for understanding this very difficult passage.

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TRANSCRIPT:
After encouraging his readers to continue to pursue good deeds, even if they suffer for them, Peter writes:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. (1 Peter 3:18)

Here, Peter encourages his readers with two things: (1) Jesus, their Lord, also suffered for doing good; and (2) though Jesus was put to death for the good that he did, at the resurrection he was raised to life not merely on a physical level, but also on a spiritual one. He became the first of the dead made fully alive, both physically and spiritually: imperishable, glorious, and powerful.

But then Peter takes a strange turn and says that when Jesus was made alive in the spirit he: went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. (1 Peter 3:1920)

Who exactly are these spirits in prison? When did Christ preach to them? And what was his message? Now I will admit that this passage is one of the most difficult in the NT, but let’s explore a couple of the main options.

There are two main views on the identity of the “spirits in prison:”

The first is that these spirits are fallen angels, or demons, awaiting final judgment. In this view, the spirits are identified as the “sons of God” of Genesis 6, or even their offspring. These sons of God, which is one way the Bible refers to angels, sinned by initiating sexual relationships with human women, which contributed to the flood. Jude 67 appears to support this interpretation, describing angels who left “their proper dwelling” to engage in sexual immorality being kept in “eternal chains under gloomy darkness” until final judgment. In this view, Christ’s message to them is not the offer of a second chance but rather an announcement of his victory over the physical and spiritual world through his death and resurrection.

However, there are two issues with this interpretation: (1) Jesus’ statement that humans will become like angels in the age to come suggests that angels are not sexual beings and cannot reproduce; and (2) it is heavily reliant on 1 Enoch, a book from the intertestamental period which was not considered part of the Hebrew Scriptures by Jews or early Christians.

A second view identifies the spirits in prison as the unsaved from Noah’s day, who perished in the flood. There are, however, 2 different thoughts on how Christ preached to them: (1) The first: after dying on the cross, Jesus himself descended into hell and offered Noah’s generation a second chance to repent after they had died, which he possibly offers to others (suggested by Peter’s comment in 1 Peter 4:6). But the view that people are given a “secondchance” postmortem is on sketchy grounds biblically, as well as the view that Jesus actually visited hell after his death on the cross.

A second explanation holds that Christ was preached to Noah’s generation while they were still alive, but enslaved to sin. The view is that the thenfuture resurrected Jesus was actually preached by Noah, even if he never mentioned Jesus’ name. This is by virtue of the fact that Jesus’ resurrected existence is beyond the physical realm and that he is the only One in whom people find salvation, regardless of the era in which they lived. This view finds support from 2 Peter 2:5, which calls Noah a “herald of righteousness,” which suggests that Noah didn’t just build the ark but also preached, inviting the wicked of his generation to find salvation from God’s wrath with him on the ark. Further, since Paul states the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, why couldn’t Noah have preached it beforehand as well?

Against the views that hold the spirits in prison to be humanity, whether spiritually or physically dead, is the fact that “spirits” is not usually used of human beings in the New Testament but rather of evil spirits. Instead, humans are usually referred to as “souls,” and Peter refers to them as such in this very context in 3:20.

Whoever the spirits in prison are, and whenever and whatever the message they received, Peter is using the glorified Jesus’ interaction with them to encourage his readers of the triumph that is on the other side of suffering for those who do good. Even if it costs them their physical lives, there will be victory on the other side, and new life in the Spirit.

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