33. "SPIRITS IN PRISON" (1 PET. III. 19)

which God has placed in immediate connection with other words, on which they depend for their right understanding.

The question we have to ask ourselves, as to the whole chapter, is this: What is it about? What is the great subject which is being treated of?

The smaller passage itself commences at verse 18 with the word "FOR." "For Christ Himself also suffered, the just for the unjust." Verse 19 is therefore part of a reason which is being given to explain or illustrate something which has been already said. It is not a new and independent subject which is being introduced.

We must ask therefore, What is this something which has been said, and has to be thus illustrated, and explained?

It requires only care and common sense to see, what the Translators themselves saw, when they put at the head of the chapter "exhorting all men to unity and love, and to suffer persecution." This is right so far as it goes, but it is not all. On reading the whole passage we do indeed see that it is an exhortation to suffer persecution, and especially if the suffering and the persecution be for "well-doing." "It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing than for evil doing." This is the scope. This is what it is all about. This is verse 17; and then, verse 18 goes on to give us the reason why it is "better"; "For." What follows, must be interpreted by the sense of this scope. It is to show us why it is BETTER to "suffer for well-doing."

Now, verse 19 about "the spirits in prison" is usually taken by itself apart from the scope as referring to people who have died, and as teaching that after death they have "a second chance."

But our simple question is, In what way would this be a reason for, or proof of the fact that it is "better to suffer for well doing than for evil doing"?

If these were dead men, they must have been evil doers, or there would be no reason for their needing this "second chance." It would, therefore, be an excuse for evil doing, seeing that they have this hope to lean upon.

We can see at once, that this common interpretation must be wrong, as it is inconsequent and illogical. It

I. MEANING OF WORDS FROM SCOPE OF PASSAGE has no connection with or relation to what has gone before; and takes no account of the word "For" which introduces this statement.

We have, therefore, still to look for a reason, why "it is better to suffer for well doing, than for evil doing."

The reason given is that Christ suffered for well-doing. All he did was "just." He "suffered for the unjust," to bring us to God. That was "better." But "He was put to death in the flesh." What then? Where does the "better" come in? What happened after that? Ah! He had a glorious resurrection. He was "made a quickening spirit" (1 Cor. xv. 45). "He was put to death indeed as to the flesh." He was "quickened" (or made alive again) as to spirit.¹

What does made alive mean? What can it mean but resurrection? How can anyone who has died be made alive again except by being raised from the dead?²

It is the very expression used in 1 Cor. xv. 45. "It is sown a natural (Greek, psychical or soulical) body; it is raised a spiritual body." And so also it standeth written, the first man Adam "became, or, came to be, a living soul";³ "the last Adam was made to be a quickening spirit." How? The verses that follow go on to explain that this was in resurrection.

But here, in 1 Pet. iii. there is more than resurrection. It was that which made it "better" for Christ to have suffered for well-doing. He had a glorious triumph as well. He went in His resurrection body (ἐν ᾧ, en hō, by, or, in which) and made proclamation⁴ of it to "the in-prison-spirits."

What and who can these be? To answer this question we have to go a little further afield. But not far. The

¹ All the Critical Greek Texts omit the article here.

² As in Rev. xx. 5, where the rest of the dead lived again, only in resurrection after the thousand years.

³ The Greek has the Preposition de ieis in both clauses. Its use in this connection is Hebrew idiom, and expresses the object in view. Man was made for, or as, or with a view to his being a living soul. See Acts xiii. 22, "he raised up unto them David to be their king," i.e., as their king. So Acts vii. 21, "for her son"; Acts xiii. 17, "to be a light," i.e., as, or for, a light; xix. 27, "to be despised"; Greek, to be "reckoned for naught." Compare Rom. ii. 26, for circumcision; ix. 8, for the seed.

⁴ The word is ἀγώσσω (kērusō), to herald, i.e., to proclaim as a ἀφυξ (kērux), a herald, not ἀγαγελῶ (euangelizō), to preach the Gospel.

"SPIRITS IN PRISON" (1 PET. III. 19)

same Peter tells us over leaf, in 2 Pet. ii. 4, of the angels that sinned in the days of Noah, and who are now cast down to Tartarus and there "delivered into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment." And when we read further in Jude 6 (a remoter context) of the same historical fact—the sinning and imprisonment of these angels; and when we remember that angels are spirits, and are so called in Heb. i. 7 and 14, then we are at no loss to understand that the triumph of Christ was so great that, in His resurrection body, He went and made proclamation of it; and it reached to the limits of creation; even the angels now in prison for their sin.

Any one can see that verses 20 and 21 are a parenthetical clause, and that the Relative "which" at the beginning of verse 20 introduces a digression about these angels, in order to tell us what their sin was (viz., "disobedience"), and when their sin was (viz., "in the days of Noah"). And having come round to "the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (at the end of the digression), to the point where we started in verse 18, we are led on now to the end of the Triumph, beyond resurrection; ever to ascension and exaltation and glory, "angels and authorities and powers having been made subject unto Him" (v. 22).

Here was triumph indeed. Here we see the reason of the "For" in verse 18. Yes! It is indeed "better to suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing." It was "better" for Christ, the just; and, it will be better for us. We also shall have a resurrection. If we are judged (according to the will of men) and put to death in the flesh, it is only that we might live again in resurrection (according to the will of God) in our spiritual bodies, as Christ did. This is the argument in 1 Pet. iv. 6. It is in view of this blessed hope that the Gospel was preached to them that are now dead. This is why it is preached to us; to show us why it is "better to suffer for well-doing."

If we ask, why these "in-prison spirits" should have this proclamation made to them, we have only to follow up the clue already given in the nearer and remoter contexts.

¹ Not when this proclamation of Christ was.

I. MEANING OF WORDS FROM SCOPE OF PASSAGE

They took part in the gigantic plot to corrupt and destroy the whole human race. The nature of their sin is clear from Jude 6. The time of it is also given in 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5, and here, in 1 Pet. iii. 20. The object of it we have in Gen. vi. The great promise and prophecy had gone forth in Gen. iii. 15, that "the seed of the woman" should come into the world, and should finally crush the head of the Old Serpent.

Satan's object therefore was to frustrate this counsel of God.

Having as yet no clue as to the line by which "the seed of the woman" should come into the world, his first effort was to corrupt and destroy the whole human race. This he carried out as described in Gen. vi. and Jude 6. "The sons of God" were angels; "the angels who sinned." All beings who are the direct creation of God are called his "sons." Adam was "a son of God" (Gen. v. 1. Luke iii. 38). We are not. By nature we are sons of Adam begotten in his likeness (Gen. v. 3). The New nature in us makes us "sons of God," because that is God's own new-creation work (Eph. ii. 10. 2 Cor. v. 17. Rom. viii. 11-17). For the same reason also, angels are called "sons of God," because they are the direct creation of God. In the Old Testament the expression always has this meaning. Before Adam was created "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" (Job xxxviii. 7). An angel was sent to the lions' den to shut the lions' mouths (Dan. vi. 22), as another was sent to the fiery furnace to deliver Jehovah's servants; this angel is called "a son of God" (for there is no article).

They cannot (in Gen. vi.) be the seed of Seth, as is generally taught, because they are contrasted with "the daughters of MEN"; which shows they must be of a different nature.

We know from Gen. vi. how nearly that great plot succeeded; how the whole earth was corrupted¹ (Gen. vi. 11, 12).

All, except Noah's family, were tainted with this uncanny and unholy breed called "Nephilim." Noah was

¹ שָׁרָה (shāchath), to ruin, lay in ruins, to make good for nothing. Hence שָׁרָה (shackath), a sepulchre, corruption.