Dead do not live
The Bible’s statements about life, death and resurrection are quite clear and consistent: dead people do not live. They are dead. This is the opposite of life.
Those who do not see it this way fall back on a rather limited selection of “differently worded” biblical passages, with which the rest of the testimony of Scripture is then supposed to be invalidated. These biblical passages require special attention. This is about such a biblical passage. What does it really say?
Bible passage
Peter writes:
“He was put to death according to the flesh, but made alive according to the Spirit. In him also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, which once were disobedient, when God endured in patience in the days of Noah, when they built the ark, in which few, even eight souls, were saved through the water.”
1Pet 3:19-20, Luther 2017
Did Jesus preach to the dead (their “spirits”)?
Traditional interpretation
This passage is interpreted to mean that Jesus preached to “spirits in prison” after His death. This is then thought of spirits of people from the time of Noah. Thus, he said, it had now been proven that the dead were alive.
Counterargument
Two things argue against this interpretation:
- This preaching does not happen in death, but only after Jesus was “made alive according to the Spirit”, that is, after the resurrection. Making alive concerns resurrection beyond the power of death.
- People are never called spirits, but souls. It is also the whole person who dies and not just a part of him. The life spirit (that is not the soul) returns to God and does not end up in an underworld in an unknown way.
Justification
The context speaks of it being better “to suffer for doing good than for doing evil” (1Pet 3:17). Then the apostle cites Christ as an example, Who suffered but was also made alive again. This is the outlook that is conveyed here: Christ had a future, even if He was killed. He was made alive. He was exalted above all others, as it says two verses further: “[Jesus Christus], who is at the right hand of God, since He went into heaven, and messengers, authorities and powers have been subordinated to Him” (1Pet 3:22, cf. Eph 1:20-21).
Now who is meant by the spirits in prison is hard to say. Men are not, because men are not spirits. Nor is it in death, for this speech speaks of Him being made alive first. In context, reference is made to His dominion over all powers and forces.
Moreover, it is not a gospel proclamation, not “good news”, but He “preached” or “proclaimed”, which is merely equivalent to an announcement. The content of the sermon is not mentioned here.
It is not about preaching in this passage either – the theme is the experience of evil for having done good. Christ is only the example. His “preaching” is part of this example, not the core of the statement. It is an explanation of the topic, so to speak, and not a topic of its own. Thus these “spirits in prison” only stand in a very large context, in which Christ stands over all and – as Paul describes it – once leads all to His God and Father (1Cor 15,24-28).
