1 Peter 3: 18-20

[FineLinen]

1 Peter 3:18-20

"For Jesus Christ also died for our sins once for all. He the just suffered for the unjust; to bring us to God. In the body he was put to death; in the spirit he was brought to life. And in the spirit he went and made his proclamation to the imprisoned spirits. They had refused obedience long ago, while God waited patiently in the days of Noah and the building of the ark, and in the ark a few persons, eight in all, were brought safely through the water."

1 Peter 4:6 

"Why was the gospel preached to those who were dead? In order that, although in the body they received the sentence common to man, they might in the spirit be alive with the life of God."

Question: What is the life of God? What is zao life?

John 5:25

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall zao."

John 6:51

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall zao for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

John 6:57

"As the living Father hath sent me, and I zao by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall zao by me."

John 6:58

"This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall zao for ever."

John 6:69

"And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the zao God."

John 7:38

"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of zao water."

John 11:25

"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the 'zwhv' (zoe): he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he zao."

1 Peter 4: 5,6

"Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they may be judged according to men in the flesh, but zao according to God in the spirit."

1 John 4:9

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might zao through Him."

1 Peter 1:3

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a zao hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead."

1 Peter 2:5

"You also, as zao stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God."

Heb. 4:12

"The word of the Lord is zao, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword....."

Heb. 7:25

"Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come to God by Him, seeing He ever zao (s) to make intercession for them."

Heb. 10:38

"Now the just shall zao by faith...."

2 Tim. 3:12

"Yea, and all that will zao godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."

2 Tim. 4:1

"...the Lord Jesus who shall judge the zao and the dead."

Phil. 1:21

"For to me to zao is Christ, and to die is gain."

Gal. 2:20

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I zao; yet not I, but Christ zao in me; and the life which I now zao in the flesh I zao by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Gal. 3:11

"But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for, the just shall zao by faith."

Gal. 5:25

"If we zao in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

2 Cor. 13:4

"For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He zao by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall zao with Him by the power of God toward you."

"For this is why the gospel was preached to the dead as well, that while they are judged in the flesh as men, they may zao as God lives in the spirit." -James Moffatt-

[FineLinen]

"refused obedience" = "were disobedient" (KJV)

ἀπειθέω=

HERE

[marie glen]

  1 Peter 3:18-20

New American Standard Bible (NASB)
this version puts the word "now" of "now in prison" in italics, which as we know of course means now is added to the text..

18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

I guess I'm pretty persuaded of the idea that the dead are in the grave, as understood by the word Sheol, before Greeks got ahold of the description of it, like in Ecclesiastes 9:10, which says (YLT) - "All that thy hand finds to do, with thy power do, for there is no work, device, or knowledge, nor wisdom in Sheol whither thou art going". And also by the verses in 1 Thessalonians 4. But i think it's deep in the psyche of humankind that death is an alternate dimension of living.. I chalk it up to that original lie "surely.. you won't.. die..?"

This makes me think it's possible the verses should read closer to how "the interlinear nasb-niv parallel new testament in greek and english" which says "because indeed Christ once concerning sins died, a righteous on behalf of unrighteous in order that you He might bring to God being put to death on one hand in flesh quickened on the other in spirit in which indeed to the in prison spirits going He proclaimed to disobeying ones (refusing obedience) then when waited the God longsuffering in the days of Noah.." - Preached when? then? or that is, at the time, I'm thinking.. 

I just can't see souls laying around languishing for thousands of years.. seems very untidy to me.. It's sort of the same in the Book of Revelation when the "souls of the martyrs cry out to God night and day" - I believe that is the same as "Abel's blood cried out to God from the ground". The blood didn't reaLLy speak vocally.. and to my way of thinking, the souls of martyrs since the Roman Empire have not been imprisoned "under the altar".. just my

[marie glen]

P.S - I think of "For this is why the gospel was preached to the dead as well, that while they are judged in the flesh as men, they may zao as God lives in the spirit." -James Moffatt- imo, the dead is anyone not yet born again.. for it sounds to me that they are judged while in the flesh.. 

[FineLinen]

What many of the earliest church believed

The Lord Jesus Christ emptied hades according to many of the early church fathers. And, according to the Apostle St. Peter, preached zao life to the disobedient dead from the days of Noah "when once the longsuffering of God waited...while the ark was in preparation, wherein few, that is eight souls were saved through the water."

The two passages of the Ancient Words in 1 Peter 3 & 4 are some of the most difficult for those who cannot grasp our Lord's ongoing reconciliation on the other side of the veil.

Jesus Christ Holds The Keys Of Death & Hades

The Old Covenant

Isa. 9:2....Isa. 45:2,3...Isa. 49:9,25....Zech 9:11...Psl. 68:18....Psl. 69:33...Psl. 107:16

The New Covenant

1 Peter 3:21....Matt. 12:29....Phil. 2:9,10....Col. 2:15...Eph. 4:8,9

Primitive Witnesses

Acts Of The Apostle Thomas

"Christ, the Saviour of every creature, thou who wentest down even to hades. And didst bring out thence those shut in for many ages."

Origen Regarding Psl. 68:18

"Christ drew up and set free from the recesses of hades, the souls that were held in captivity."

Eusebius Of Alexandria

Christ will descend in order that all, both on earth and in heaven and in hades, may obtain salvation from Him.

Eusebius Of Caesarea 315 A.D.

Christ, caring for the salvation of all, and bursting the eternal gates, opened a way of return to life for the dead bound in chains of death.

Saint Athanasius

"While the devil thought to kill one, he is deprived of all cast out of hades, and sitting by the gates, sees all the fettered beings led forth by the courage of the Saviour."

Basil Of Seleucia

That which happened to the visible tomb of Christ (i.e. its being emptied on His rising), the same happened to hades the invisible.

St. Hilary 354 A.D.

"Christ ascended on high took (captured) those who had been captured by the devil."

M. F. Victorinus 360 A.D.

"The Saviour descends into hades by that passion of the cross in order that He may set free every soul."

St. Ambrose

"In the liberation of all, no one remains a captive; at the time of the Lord's passion he alone (the devil) was injured, who lost all the captives he was keeping."

St. Basil 370 A.D.

"The true Shepherd brought out of the prison of hades, and handed over to the holy angels, the sheep for whom He died."

St. Gregory Of Nazianzus 385 A.D.

"Until Christ loosed by His blood all who groan under tartarean chains."

Unknown Origin (From Christus Patiens)

"All of whom (the dead) Thou shalt bring forth as Thy spoils from hades...I believe Thou wilt bring forth from hades as many mortals as it has imprisoned."

St. Ambrose 375 A.D.

"The Lord descends to the infernal world, in order that even those, who were in perpetual abodes, should be set free from their perpetual bonds."

"Christ, when amongst the dead, gave pardon to those in the infernal abodes, destoying the law of death."

The Ambrosiaster

"Christ descending to the infernal abodes condemned death, taking from him those whom he was keeping."

"Christ snatched from hades all the devil, lost, together with Christ, all whom he was keeping."

"Christ went down to the depths of hell (Tartarus) and recalled the souls, bound by sin, to life, out of the devil's jaws."

Maximus Of Turin

"Hell (Tartarus) yields up those it contains to the upper world: the earth sends to heaven those whom it buries."

St. Jerome 378 A.D.

Our Lord descends and was shut up in the eternal bars, in order that He might set free all who had been shut up.

"In the blood of Thy passion thou didst set free those who were being kept bound in the prison of hell."

"The Lord descended to the place of punishment and torment, in which was the rich man, in order to liberate the prisoners."

Caesarus Of Arles

The eternal night of hell is illuminated as Christ descends the bonds of the damned, torn asunder, fell away every cry of the groaning still. The captive souls loosed from bonds go forth from hell (Tartarus), and the Apostle's words come true, i.e., in Jesus' name every knee bends of things in heaven, and earth, and under the earth.

Epiphanius

"Christ, like a swift-winged hawk, snatched away all that He had from the beginning, from the devil and left him deserted."

"Christ arose, and the prison of hades was emptied."

St. Chrysostom 398 A.D.

"While the devil imagined that he had got hold of Christ (in hades), he lost all in fact whom he was keeping.

Cyril Of Alexandria 412 A.D.

"Christ left the devil there solitary and deserted."

Christ, wandering down even to hades, has emptied the dark, hidden, unseen treasures.

Maximus Of Turin

"Christ carried off to heaven mankind whose cause He undertook, snatched from the jaws of hades."

Theodoret 430 A.D.

To the devil Christ declares...."I mean to open the prison of death for the rest, but will shut up thee only. Thou wast justly despoiled of all thy subjects.

Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople 434 A.D.

"Today Christ emptied the entire treasury of death."

All the dead, wondering at His passion, cry for joy, we are healed by His stripes.

 

Saint Chrysostom- Cyril of Alexandria

In reference to 1 Peter St. Chrysostom said...

Christ, he asserts, not merely opened, but broke in pieces the gates of brass, in order to make the prison useless, where there is neither door, nor bar, whosoever enters is not detained. What God destroys, who can set up again? Earthly kings indeed set free prisoners, yet leave untouched the prison gates; but Christ broke in pieces the gates of brass. Christ went to the utterly black and joyless portion of hades, and turned it into heaven, transferring all its wealth, the race of man, into His royal treasury. In this, too, Christ surpasses kings, for they send messengers, but He went in person to set the captives free. So again, he says: "Our Lord, when He was in hades, set free all who were kept prisoners by death. 

Cyril Of Alexandria 412 A.D.

"The devil was deprived of all power of being able to do anything for the future. The souls of men who had been caught in his toils to their ruin, came out of the underground gates, and, leaving the hiding-places of the pit escape"

Traversing the lowest recesses of the infernal regions, after that He had preached to the spirits there, He led forth the captives in His strength. For when death devoured Him who was the Lamb on behalf of all, it vomited forth all men in Him and with Him. Now when sin has been destroyed, how should it be but that death, too, should wholly perish?

......On the death of Christ, "all iniquity stopped its mouth, and the rule of death was destroyed, all sin (tes hamartias, sin generally) having been taken away, so, then, the sin of all having been taken away, we can justly say, 'O death where is thy sting? 

Theodoret, the Blessed, 423 A.D.

Theodoret became Bishop of Cyrus (Cyrrhus), in Syria...he wrote of the liberation of every soul from hades....

I shall shut up thee only..."Thou," says Christ to satan, "art justly despoiled of all thy subjects. Thou shalt vomit forth all that thou hast already swallowed. I shall free all from death for I paid the debt for the race. As the debt has been paid, it is right that those confined on account of it should be set free from their prison.

[FineLinen]

Salvator Mundi

In the first Epistle of St. Peter chapter 3: 18-20 we are distinctly told that, when Jesus was put to death in the flesh, and descended in the spirit to that dim Hadean world in which, as the Jews held, the spirits of men await the Resurrection, and preached his Gospel "to the spirits in prison," to those who had been"disobedient" to the word of God, to that ungodly generation to which Noah had preached righteousness in vain, --a generation so disobedient and ungodly that it repented God He had made them, and compelled Him to sweep them off the face of the earth with a flood.

Do you ask. "For what purpose, and to what effect, did He preach to them?"

St. Peter replies in the same Epistle chapter 4:6:

For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Now we know how this strange revelation made to St. Peter was interpreted hy the primitive Church--and this is the point which those should mark who object to the late and modern date of the doctrine of Universal Redemption; for within a hundred years of the death of St. John there appeared a work of fiction, called the Gospel of Nicodemus, which professed to set forth all the details of Christ's descent into Hades. Of course this Fiction speaks to us with an authority no greater than that of the "Pilgrim's Progress," although, when it appeared, it was very widely received as an authoritative description of our Lord's ministry in Hades. But just as from Bunyan's great Allegory we might very safely infer what the Puritan conception of the Christian life was in the seventeenth century, so from this "Gospel of Nicodemus" we may very safely infer what conceptions the Christians of the second century formed of Christ's descent into Hades. And in this Gospel it is expressly affirmed, that, when He arrived, the gates of the Hadean prison burst open before Him, and the King of Glory, taking our forefather Adam by the hand, and turning to the vast multitude of imprisoned spirits, said...

Come all with me, as many as have died through the tree which he touched; for, behold, I raise you all up through the tree of the cross.

 

...words which, after all, are but a paraphrase of St. Paul's great saying, "As by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so the the obedience of One shall the many be made righteous."

This then was the faith of the early Church, before it became corrupted by heathen philosophies and heathen superstitions--

viz., that the good news brought to earth by Christ was also preached by Him in Hades, preached even in Gehenna; that on the bridge of his Cross even the worst of the spirits in torment were able to pass over the "great gulf" and enter into the joys of Paradise; that even the disobedient generation of Noah, though still dead in the judgment and censures of men, live unto God.

Why should it not be our faith too?

St. Paul held it as well as St. Peter; for in all those passages (Phil. 2:9-11), in which he speaks of the redemption of Christ extending to all who are in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, by those who are "under the earth," he signified the inhabitants of that vast subterranean kingdom in which, as he held, the spirits of the dead were reserved for the day of judgement. And St. John held it as well as St. Paul; for, in his Apocalyptic vision (Rev. 5:13) he too beheld "every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth," i.e, in Hades, giving glory and power unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

And if St. Peter held the faith that even the most disobedient spirits in prison were quickened into life by the preaching of Christ; if St. Paul held that every knee in the Hadean kingdom should bow to Christ, as well as every knee confess Him Lord, which yet no man can do but by the Holy Ghost: if St. John heard "every creature" in Hades as well as in heaven and on earth, singing the high praises of God and the Lamb,--why should not we also hold this faith?

Dr. Samuel Cox: Salvator Mundi