06.05 When Christ Preached in Hell!

6 - Hell; Section 5 WHEN CHRIST PREACHED IN HELL! A lady wrote to me more than a year ago, expostulating about this thought of the wicked ever having any opportunity in the next world. She said she did not see it in the Bible, and craftily raised this question: "There is no need for us to witness to the lost for they will all be saved someday, someway, somewhere - right?" I thought her eyes must have been closed, as well as her ears, because the Scriptures are so meticulously clear on this point. God will never save our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors, or any other person who has lived or ever shall live without a MEANS, an INSTRUMENT THROUGH WHICH TO REACH THEM. And WE are that instrument! God declares to His elect in Isaiah 49:6 : "I will also GIVE YOU for a light to the Gentiles, that YOU may BE MY SALVATION unto the ends of the earth." The method by which God causes men to believe is revealed in Romans 10:14-15. "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not BELIEVED? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not HEARD? and how shall they HEAR without a PREACHER? and how shall they PREACH except they be SENT?" Does the salvation of all men negate this procedure? By no means! It only intensifies it! The idea that if God is going to save all men then we need not preach or witness is an incomprehensible absurdity. It leaves God with a wonderful objective, but with no MEANS of accomplishing His objective. The simple truth is that God purposes to save all men. The means by which He shall accomplish this is A PEOPLE, a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, the SONS OF GOD, who become one with the PRIESTLY MINISTRY OF JESUS the great HIGH PRIEST, to intercede, witness, speak, exhort, warn, intreat, proclaim and preach the will of God and the good news of His glorious salvation until this ministry conquers all men for God. Most Christians are content to witness and preach the Gospel to a few lost souls here on earth, but how many would desire to so become ONE with the ministry of Jesus the Saviour until they would go even to HELL to PREACH? Jesus did!

It was for this very reason that Jesus Christ, after His death and resurrection, went to PREACH to the spirits in prison, the spirits of the the men who had been disobedient in the days of Noah. To them He carried the WORD OF RECONCILIATION, showing not only that Christ had died for their sins, but that He was risen for their justification. If perchance our minds are numbed with the glory of such a thought, let us consider the words from Weymouth’s translation. "Christ also once for all died for sins, the innocent One for the guilty many, in order to bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in (by) the Spirit, IN (BY) WHICH HE ALSO WENT AND P-R-E-A-C-H-E-D TO THE SPIRITS THAT WERE IN PRISON, who in former times had been disobedient, when God’s long-suffering patiently waited in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons - eight in number - were brought safety through the water" (1 Peter 3:18-20).

Despite the crafty and deceptive efforts of some to twist and explain away the plain meaning of this passage, it reveals that Jesus, after His death and resurrection, went and preached, not to men in the flesh, but to SPIRITS in prison; not to angels, not to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or any of the other Old Testament saints; but to those men who had been DISOBEDIENT to the preaching of Noah in the days preceding the flood. And what did He preach to these long-departed spirits? Well, 1 Peter 4:6 certainly answers this question! This passage is only a few verses further on from the one under consideration, and as Peter continues speaking of the same subject we are informed, "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 ..." The message is clear - though these were dead, and lived on in the spirit, but not in the flesh, THE GOSPEL WAS PREACHED unto them that they might be judged, or dealt with, the same as men who were alive in the flesh. Please notice, precious friend of mine, it was not doom or gloom or judgment that was preached to these, but THE GOSPEL, the GOOD NEWS WHICH IS THE POWER OF GOD UNTO SALVATION was PREACHED even to these spirits in prison, the disobedient ones!

It is written in the plainest of plain language. But there are some people who will not understand plain speech. They do not believe that the Christ went down into hell to preach the Gospel to dis-embodied spirits of wicked men; they think He went down somewhere in the heart of the earth to rescue Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the righteous people out of a place called Paradise and take them up to heaven. He may have done that, but there is not one shred of evidence for it anywhere in the pages of God’s wonderful Book. The Bible nowhere says that. He preached to the disobedient and it was the Gospel that was preached to them, informing them of the death of God’s Son, who was given as a propitiation for them, and that God had faith in the blood of His Son to deliver them from the bondage of sin and death and hell into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Shall our unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? Certainly not! If we believe not, yet He abides faithful. God’s plan goes on just the same, and "God WILL have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4). God will do what HE WILLS to have done whether we believe it or not.

Ah, does the fact that God purposes to save all men mean that it is meaningless to witness and preach? A thousand times no! CHRIST WENT TO HELL AND PREACHED. God has chosen through the foolishness of preaching to save men, so we shall not preach less, we shall not witness less, for armed with the hope that the preaching will ultimately bear fruit we must preach more than ever before to those who are lost, for this is God’s MEANS for their salvation! Those who should give up preaching to the lost and witnessing to their loved ones are those who believe that most of them will burn for ever in hell anyway! What on earth could be more frustrating, worthless, unprofitable, vain and disappointing than witnessing and preaching to men when we actually believe that only a small fraction of them will ever be saved? Why bother? To what end all the effort? The devil gets most of them in the end anyhow! But, blessed be God! He has committed unto us the MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION, for God was in Christ RECONCILING THE W-O-R-L-D unto Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19-20), therefore that is exactly what must be reconciled - the world!

I would point out to you, dear reader of these lines, that, contrary to popular teaching, it was not during the three days and three nights while the Christ’s body lay in a Palestinian tomb that He went and preached to the spirits in Hades. Christ was not in Hades on a preaching mission during the time of His death, there was nothing to announce at that time, for redemption was not complete until after His resurrection and ascension. He was not there at that time to proclaim an as yet unrealized victory; He was there, rather, taking your place and mine as part of the penalty of our sin. He was there as a willing victim, not a deliverer. How and when then did He preach to the spirits in prison? Peter explains this. He says that Jesus was "put to death in the flesh, but QUICKENED (made alive again) BY THE SPIRIT," and then adds "BY WHICH (i. e. by this quickening in the spirit - the resurrection; ALSO HE WENT AND PREACHED TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON." There is nothing in this text to indicate that Jesus went on a preaching journey during the time He was dead. The use of the expression "by which He preached" refers to Jesus’ resurrection - "quickened by the Spirit." It was after He was raised from the dead, after He was both "delivered up for our offenses, AND raised again for our justification" (Romans 4:25) that He went on this mission. With the release of the mystery of iniquity into the Adamic race, the wickedness of man became great in the earth, "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5), and God used a restraining work to bold the upsurge of evil in check, restraining it according to HIS purpose. YET He did allow it to go a certain course for a certain length of time, knowing full well just how far HE could allow man to express these evil inclinations, and just where to draw the line. At the appropriate moment the spirits of these wicked men were put in prison, as society today puts a criminal in prison; the flood swept them away into hell, and hell restrained the Antediluvians from committing more wrath upon earth. The Christ, after His painful life on earth, His agony upon the cross, and His victorious resurrection from the dead, did not at once ascend into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father. He went down to hell. He went down to the deepest hell, approaching its portals with the cry, "Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!" Entrance was not to be gained without some resistance, however, for the keepers of the gates hurled back their challenge over the ramparts of Hades: "Who is the King of glory?" To which the hosts of heaven replied, "He is the Lord strong and mighty - the Lord mighty in battle. He is the One who has just come freshly from the battlefield of Golgotha, where single-handedly He dealt a deathblow to all of Satan’s plans and purposes, bore the sins of men, cut off the old Adamic order and died a decisive death, meeting the requirements for man. He is the One who has just grasped the keys of death and hell and strode out of Satan’s domain triumphant. He is the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. NOW - will you lift up your heads, O you gates? Lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!"

Again, unsatisfied, the challenge rang out, "Who is this King of glory?" Again the triumphant response came, "He is the Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. He is the One who is in charge of all the Celestial Hosts. But not only that, He is King now of a multitude which no man can number. He is God’s delegated authority. He is the One who is to bring to God the fruit of His purposes. He is the King of Glory. Now swing back those gates and let the King of Glory come in!" Finally the gates could prevail against Him no longer. The gates swung back. He entered in, stepped up before the assembled throng, and began His mission. The Christ was there on business! Wherever He went He did business for God. He went there to begin His new age deliverance ministry among a group of spirits that had been imprisoned there for two thousand three hundred and fifty years. They had been "disobedient in the days of Noah," and they were so bad that the Scripture says, "their thoughts" and all the "intents of their hearts" were "only evil continually." They were so bad that God could not wait for them to die, and another generation to arise, but in order to re-establish some order on earth He had to sweep all of them off the earth into hell. The fact that they remained there so long indicates that they were very bad, for I cannot doubt that the God of mercy was all the time in some way pleading with them to repent. They were ignorant and rebellious and would not learn of God. The race of Cain was a filthy, sensual, polygamistic race; they were hateful and violent and they were murderers. They were boastful and vile in the extreme, and would have nothing to do with the God who made them. They were the offspring of a murderer who slew his brother. I am sure that Christ felt a great, divine pity for the offspring of that murderer; and in a loving spirit, the One who reconciled the world unto God, not imputing their trespasses unto them, went down to hell. And what was the result of such a wonderful mission? "Wherefore He says, When He ascended up on high, He LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE ... now He that ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that HE MIGHT FILL ALL THINGS" (Ephesians 4:8-10). Some suppose this leading "captivity captive" refers to the Lord at His ascension leading the Old Testament saints out of Paradise into the more immediate presence of God. The phrase is a quotation from the Old Testament, and in the two places where it occurs, on both occasions it plainly refers to the leading captive of FOES. In Judges 5:12, in the song of Deborah as she was leading the strains of a victory song after subduing the armies of Sisera, we read of her prophesying to Barak, singing, "Arise, Barak, and lead your captivity captive, you son of Abinoam." What was she speaking of? Barak went out against the armies of Sisera - he captured of the enemy, taking dominion over them with the sword - and any that were captured alive were led back captive to his own land, thus he "led that captivity captive," parading back victoriously. Who were the captives? The armies whom he had conquered! So also in the passage from which the phrase is quoted in Ephesians 4:8-10. The quotation is from Psalms 68:18 where we read, "You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive: You have received gifts for men; yea, FOR THE REBELLIOUS ALSO, THAT THE LORD GOD MIGHT DWELL AMONG THEM!" There is every suggestion here that the captives thus led were not the righteous but the unrighteous, for they are described as "rebellious." And Christ will dwell among the rebellious! What a word! What a work! And when did Christ lead captive a host of rebellious ones? "When He ascended on high." He had preached to those spirits who were damned through their terrible wickedness in the time of Noah. Thank God, He gave them an opportunity of salvation, and He opened the Kingdom of Heaven to every son of Adam when He arose from the dead and ascended on high. He captured those wicked men from the snare of the devil and made them His subjects in the same way He conquered the proud, rebellious, murderous spirit of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. It is quite evident that Saul of Tarsus was not on his way to a revival meeting when the Lord struck him down on the road. Saul made no premeditated "decision for Christ" before his conversion. SAUL’S WILL was set on the destruction of the Church. But the will of God was that he become an apostle of Jesus Christ! When Saul, smitten, and blind, was led away into the city for his encounter with Ananias, he was led away as a CAPTIVE, a CONQUERED FOE of the Lord Jesus Christ! Paul the apostle had total faith in Jesus and was motivated by the love of Christ, yet he never considered himself a "volunteer" for the Kingdom of God. He described himself as a "conscript," saying, "Not that I ... am already perfect, but I press on to lay hold of and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus has LAID HOLD UPON ME AND MADE ME HIS OWN" (Php 3:12, Amplified). He always spoke of himself as the "servant" or "slave" of Jesus Christ. This is precisely what our Lord did when He went down into hell and led captivity captive and gave gifts to the rebellious. The Moffatt translation reads, "When He ascended on high He LED A HOST CAPTIVE." Weymouth says, "He ascended on high, He LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES." Another version renders, "When He ascended on high He CARRIED AWAY CAPTIVES." Out of the dark abyss of hell He took those prisoners. Now they are in heaven, forgiven and cleansed, whiter than the lily which sprang out of the dark earth. He took them from hell.

Then in the realm of Death’s unbroken shade Appeared the Conqueror in light arrayed. It was as tho’ in crimson and in gold The splendor of a thousand suns had rolled Their mingled glory in one matchless beam, And lit up Death Shade with the lustrous gleam. Ineffable that glory; as it shone Like to the radiance of the Great White Throne, Whilst through the open gates and broken bars. Toward realms of light more fadeless than the stars, The Prince of Life a host of captives led From out the night and bondage of the dead.

Christ has led captivity captive! The official name for such an event in the Roman world was called a "Triumph." It was a spectacle well known to every citizen of Rome. Tens of thousands of spectators would gather. On those occasions, when a great general would return, the army would gather outside the city and move through the triumphal arch on their way to the temple. First would come the trumpeters, sounding in thrilling tones the notes of victory. Behind the trumpeters would come great floats upon which had been erected the pictures of the cities which had been conquered - towers, wall, and all. Then would come rumbling by, the wagons filled with the spoils of victory. Then came seventy white oxen walking philosophically to their death, to be offered in sacrifice to the gods. Behind the oxen came, in chains, the chieftains and captains of the armies of the enemy who, like the oxen, would soon meet their end. Then there were the lictors, harpists, flutists, and those bearing incense. Great roars of victory went up! Then came the general in a purple toga, with a golden crown upon his head, with the ivory scepter in his hand, and with the laurel branch, the insignia of victory. Behind his magnificent white chariot came the rest of the conquered army, chained with their heads down. At last came the victorious army of Rome, each soldier wearing a crown. In the midst of the cries of the people, the sounds of the trumpets and the harpists, the fragrance of incense, they made their way to the Temple of Jupiter. This was a Roman "Triumph" and Paul is telling us that Jesus Christ, the Captain of the well-fought fight, the greatest General of all times, has come and has had a greater victory than any of these. He has come, not only into the opposition and hostility of this world, but He has gone into the very portals of Hell. There He has taken on the most violent and the vilest of the underworld, and now He leads into the metropolis of the Kingdom of God a great triumphal victory. Behind Him come all the hosts of heaven, all the saints of Old Testament times, and all those to whom He preached in Hell and that have trusted in Him. This is the Triumph!

Paul tells us, secondly, that this triumphal march, this triumphal entry into the Kingdom of God is still going on. The same apostle in 2 Corinthians 2:14 says that God causes us ALWAYS TO BE LED IN TRIUMPH BY JESUS CHRIST. This is a triumphal march that is going on right now. But it is somewhat different from the triumphal marches of Rome. You see, in the army of Christ all of the vanquished have enlisted, and all of those that were once our enemies, such as Paul himself who once opposed Christ and who now is one of the leaders of that army. So, as we look at the Triumph of Christ we see that the vanquished and the conquerors merge as one. The apostle Paul, himself, once went forth to war against Jesus, but he was struck to the ground outside Damascus, the sword was smitten from his hand, and he was conquered by the Son of man. But in that conquest Paul was to realize his greatest victory and he, too, was to become a part of the ongoing triumph of Christ - a triumph which is even now proceeding into the heavenly city of Zion.