I Peter 3:13-4:6. If you have marveled at difficult passages in Paul's writings, you will also be puzzling over this passage from Peter for quite some time.

I am a literalist. Unless the text screams "parable" I try simply to hear what is being said, and believe it. But there are cases, as this one, where literalism can take a person different directions. A doctrinal choice must be made based on the status of that doctrine throughout the rest of the Scriptures.

Important to understand first here is that this passage was not meant to deal with the afterlife. It is about suffering for and with Jesus Christ. It is about the cross.

A quick paraphrase of verses 13-17:

No one can cause you ultimate harm. But if you must suffer, that's a blessing. Just be ready to answer the persecutors' questions with a good conscience. Be sure you are not being punished for something bad you did.

Verse 18 brings Jesus into the discussion. Jesus also suffered. he did not deserve it. He was put to death in the flesh (His body) but made alive (His Spirit) by the Holy Spirit.

Then comes verse 19. It was while He was separated from His body, and thus in the form that He knew through all eternity, that He made a visit to the spirit world. While there He made an announcement to a very captive audience, called the "spirits in prison."

The Universalist smile widens when he defines these beings as humans now given a second chance to obey God. For the passage goes on in verse 20 to tell us that these spirits were disobedient in the days of Noah during the time the ark was being prepared.

Sounds convincing, doesn't it? These antediluvians defied God, were sent to Hades, but because of what Jesus did, they are given a chance to get out of their punishment by obeying the Gospel.

Whoa. First, there is no mention of Gospel here. Only preaching, "heralding", announcing. Triumphing, if you will, glorying in the victory just won. "Making an open show," says Paul. Colossians 2:15 says that Jesus "disarmed principalities and powers," and "made a public spectacle of them."

Did I just change the subject? We were talking about humans in Hell. But the Bible here and elsewhere is talking about demons in jail. Fortunately we do not have to go out of the writings of Peter to see that his focus is demonic and not human. Look at II Peter 2:4, and you will see that God punished disobedient angels by putting them in hell, bound by chains of darkness, reserved for judgment. That matches well with "spirits in prison" of I Peter.

Let Jude add his part (Jude 6): Angels who left their proper role are "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness..."

These are the angels referred to as "sons of God" in Genesis 6. Angels who had the audacity to come to earth and take human females as their wives...

Back to our text. Jesus died but was still alive in Spirit. Now he is in heaven(22), and all those angelic hosts are subject to Him!

Chapter 4:1-5 is connected; here is another paraphrase: So, arm yourself with this same mentality. Enough with sin. Enough trying to keep up with the Gentiles. They may not like it, but one day they will face their judge.

And now another very difficult verse: Let me paraphrase once more:

Many have already died. But the Gospel was preached to them, that even though men judged and killed them, they will live on in the Spirit.

The text actually reads that "the gospel was preached to those who are dead." This, and the whole "spirits in prison" idea has led people through the years to say that indeed we receive chances after death to go on with God.

But believing that cancels out a host of other Scriptures that teach the opposite. For example, "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." Look again at the rich man and Lazarus, and the "great gulf." Teachings that are clear must not be abrogated by teachings that are not clear.

Peter is telling us that just as Jesus was unjustly killed, we may be also, but because we know Him through the Gospel, we shall live with Him still, though we die in the flesh.

The message he is delivering sounds very much like a portion of a book circulating in Peter's day called The Wisdom of Solomon. It has been grouped with a collection of other books known as the Apocrypha, writings "of doubtful origin." Though not prophetic or apostolic in their beginnings, these books were held in high regard, contained much truth, and were even included in early Bible translations, notably the King James Version!

So we think it not strange that Peter might have read and been influenced by the truth of these words (3:1-7):

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality (II Peter 4:6b). Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good...

In summary, we do not believe that Jesus preached to Noah's audience. If that had happened, the question would immediately rise, "Why only Noah's?" Why not those who defied Moses, and the prophets, and Jesus Himself? The term for "spirits" here is almost always in reference to the supernatural, not the human. It seems to me that Jesus spoke to His arch-enemies in the spirit world, announcing to them that their captivity was not only just, but secure, and that He was now their eternal Master.

And in 4:6, which at first sight seems to relate back to chapter 3, all we have is the fact that the Gospel was preached to people who are now dead.

Yes, Jesus tells us in John that the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live! But Colossians 2:13 reminds us that all of us in Christ now were once dead. Jesus goes on to speak of dead bodies immediately after this (in John 5) when He says that all in the graves will also hear this voice, and come forth to two separate resurrections, one of which is the resurrection of condemnation. First he speaks of the spiritually dead hearing His voice, then the physically dead.