But does the text affirm that the preaching was done to these spirits while they were in prison? May it not be that the preaching was done at some previous time to persons who were, when Peter wrote, in prison, or, if you please, in a state of death? So it would be true that the spirits were in prison when Peter makes mention of them, and yet the preaching might have been done to them at a former period, while they were still in the flesh and could be benefited by it. This is the view taken of the passage by Dr. Clarke. He says:--
“He went and preached] By the ministry of Noah one hundred and twenty years.”
Thus he places Christ’s going and preaching by his Spirit in the days of Noah, and not during the time his body lay in the grave.
Again, he says:--
“The word πνευμασι, spirits, is supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean disembodied spirits; but this certainly does not follow; for the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb. 12:23, certainly means righteous men, and men still in the church militant; and the Father of spirits, Heb. 12:9, means men still in the body; and the God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. 16:22, and 27:16, means men, not in a disembodied state.”
The preaching was certainly to the antediluvians. But why should Christ single out that class to preach to, about twenty-four hundred years afterward, in hell? The whole idea is forced, unnatural, and absurd. The preaching that was given to them was through Noah, who, by the power of the Holy Ghost (1 Pet. 1:12), delivered to them the message of warning. Let this be the preaching referred to, and all is harmonious and clear; and this interpretation the construction of the original demands; for the word rendered in our version, “were disobedient,” is simply the aorist participle; and the dependent sentence, “when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah,” limits the verb “preached” rather than the participle. The whole passage might be translated thus: “In which also, having gone to the spirits in prison, he preached to the then disobedient ones, when once [or at the time when] the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah.”
But how were they in prison? In the same sense in which persons in error and darkness are said to be in prison. Isa. 42:7: “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” Also Isa. 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Christ himself declared, Luke 4:18-21, that this scripture was fulfilled in his mission to those here on earth who sat in darkness and error, and under the dominion of sin. So the antediluvians were shut up under the sentence of condemnation. Their days were limited to a hundred and twenty years; and their only way of escape from impending destruction was through the preaching of Noah.
So much with reference to the spirits to whom the preaching was given. Now we affirm further that Christ’s spirit did not go anywhere to preach to anybody, while he lay in the grave. If Christ’s spirit, the real being, the divine part, did survive the death of the cross, then
1. We have only a human offering for our sacrifice; and the claim of the spiritualists is true that the blood of Christ is no more than that of any man.
2. Then Christ did not pour out his soul unto death and make it an offering for sin, as the prophet declared that he would, Isa. 53:10, 12; and his soul was not sorrowful even unto death, as he himself affirmed. Matt. 26:38.