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NASB | 1 Peter 3:19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 Peter 3:19 in which He also went and preached to the spirits now in prison, |
Bible Question: Spirits in prison?who exactly might these be |
Bible Answer: Hi Christian7, thanks for the interesting question. You are able to do a 'quick search'and enter ID# 24390 to see an excellent response by Tim Moran, as brother Tim points out, this may very well lead to more questions than answers. This leads me to search favorite commentaries, and to quote David Guzic, he says, a. Apparently, this work was done in the period after Jesus' death, but before His first appearance as resurrected to the disciples; Jesus went to Hades - the abode of the dead - and preached to the spirits there b. Are these spirits demonic spirits or human spirits? Their disobedience was in the days of Noah; we have evidence that this was a time of gross sin for both demons and humans, when there was an ungodly co-mingling of humans and demons (Genesis 6:1-2) c. Why would Jesus preach to these imprisoned spirits? In all probability, this was preaching (the proclamation of God's message) but not evangelism (the proclamation of good news); Jesus probably preached judgment to these disobedient spirits d. Some feel that this preaching was done by Jesus to the people of Noah's time, in Noah's time; when Peter refers to their imprisonment, he refers to their current state, not their state when Jesus preached to them - preaching through Noah (or Enoch) i. "This passage, once cleared of misunderstanding, should also function today as an encouragement to us to be bold in our witness (as Noah was), to be confident that, though we may be few, God will certainly save us (as he did Noah), and to remind us that just as certainly as the flood eventually came, so final judgment will certainly come to our world as well, and Christ will ultimately triumph over all evil in the universe." (Grudem) I hope this has what you were looking for, God Bless, Tim |