Bible Questions - “The Spirits in Prison” 1 PETER 3:18-20
Peter says that Jesus by the spirit went and preached unto disobedient spirits, and he links this disobedience with the days of Noah.
Who were these disobedient spirits? The Scriptures never refer to disembodied spirits; it refers to the angels as spirits, and to men as spirits. In 1 John 4:1 John tells the believers to try the spirits because false prophets were in the world. Here, clearly, is a reference to teachers of wrong doctrine or “seducing spirits” (1 Tim.4:1).
Now such were both disobedient and in prison (or in bondage to sin [Romans 6:16]) just as all in Adam are in the “bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21) and “through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb.2:15).
Christ came to “preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1). Not, of course, to enter into prisons and release malefactors and evildoers, but to bring salvation from sin and release from death. Did Christ do this in Noah’s day? Christ did not exist then, except in the purpose of God, nor does Peter say that he did. Peter says, “By the spirit Christ preached”. Since Christ could not personally preach to disobedient men of Noah’s day, either during his ministry, nor during his three days in the heart of the earth, nor after his ascension, there must be an analogy between Christ’s preaching and Noah’s preaching.
Noah preached, but his generation were disobedient spirits and perished in the flood. Christ preached and his generation were mainly disobedient – they were scattered, sold as slaves, and finally died an eternal death. The same spirit was the witness to the disobedient in both ages.
“Present With the Lord” 2 COR 5:8
Peter says that Paul wrote “things hard to be understood” which may easily be misunderstood. (2 Peter 3:16). Misunderstanding often comes when a sentence or verse is taken out of its context or when the passages of scripture are not brought to bear upon it.
“Absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” is often quoted to support the doctrine of immortal soulism. But the setting of this saying shows that Paul taught something quite different. He says (5:10) that we must be judged and as a result of this be rewarded “in body”. The reward in body which Paul desired was to be “clothed upon with our house which is from heaven” (v.2) – to be clothed upon “that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (v.4).
However, he had already taught the Corinthians that this change would be when Christ comes (1 Cor.15:23), so that being “present with the Lord” must wait until the second coming. Nevertheless, he desired earnestly for the time to come when this body wherein he groaned being burdened (v.4) should be changed, for then he would be present with Christ. For this he laboured so that he might be accepted (v.9).
“God was in Christ” (2 Cor 5:19)
This is often taken from its context to support the doctrine of the trinity. But if God were actually in Christ how was it possible for Christ to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” or for it to be said that “he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared”? (Heb.5:7). There are two persons here, and one (the Son of God) wholly dependent upon the other.
It therefore means that God was working in and through Christ so that the world might be reconciled to Him.
Repentance
This word often means ‘change of mind’ but sometimes another word is used (also translated repentance) which really means ‘without carefulness’, that is, without ‘limit or meanness’. When Paul wrote (Rom.11:29) that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” the second word is used, and in v.10 of ch.7 both words are used, so that the verse could read, “For godly sorrow worketh a change of mind to a salvation – without limit”.
