"Spirits in Prison"? I Peter 3:19-20

"In which also He (Christ) went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water." I Peter 3:19-20

This is one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament to interpret. As one scholar put it, "there is probably no more agreement about it's exegesis now than here has even been."* There are several views of this passage, but only two that I believe fit the text well.

The first plausible view is that the "spirits in prison" are the disembodied spirits of people that Christ preached to through the person of Noah during the days of building the famous Ark. Precedent for this comes from the principle found in Ephesians 2:17. The point is that the preincarnate Christ reached out in grace to the disobedient people who persecuted Noah and rejected God's truth. But the only people saved were the eight people in the Ark that believed God.

The second view with real merit is that the "spirits in prison" are the fallen angels spoken of in Genesis chapter six. Advocates of this position point to Jude 6 and II Peter 2:4-5 as further evidence that this is who Peter is referring to here in this passage. The normal usage of the term "spirits" in the New Testament supports this view as it usually refers to supernatural beings. If this view of I Peter 3:19-20 is correct, then the point is that after His death and before His resurrection, Christ went to Hades and proclaimed His victory on the cross to these demonic beings.

I tend to lean towards the first view over the second, but this is not a hill to die on for me.

What is a hill to die on is that this passage does not teach a second chance for people who die without trusting Christ. The late Clark Pinnock, among others, used to point to this passage as strong evidence that unbelieving people will likely receive another chance to trust in Christ at some point on the other side of death. But first of all, there is nothing in the text to indicate that anyone was saved except the eight people on the ark who believed God. Beyond that, Hebrews 9:27 states very clearly that "...it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment." This verse effectively rules out both reincarnation as well as the possibility of second chances. We are appointed by God to die once, not many times, and after death comes God's judgment. If we are trusting in Christ we will be eternally saved in similar fashion to the "few" that trusted God's warning of judgment, boarded the Ark, and "were brought safely through the water."

But some point to I Peter 3:21 and conclude that it is not Christ alone who saves, but "baptism now saves you"! More on that in a few days.


*France, R.T. "Exegesis in Practice: Two Samples" In New Testament Interpretation, Essays on Principles and Methods. Edited by I. Howard Marshall, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 19977.