1 Peter 3:19

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison ; rather, in which ( εν ᾦ ) . The Lord was no longer in the flesh; the component parts of his human nature were separated by death; his flesh lay in the grave. As he had gone about doing good in the flesh, so now he went in the spirit—in his holy human spirit. He went. The Greek word ( πορευθείς ) occurs again in 1 Peter 3:22 , "who is gone into heaven." It must have the same meaning in both places; in 1 Peter 3:22 it asserts a change of locality; it must do the like here. There it is used of the ascent into heaven; it can scarcely mean here that, without any such change of place, Christ preached, not in his own Person, but through Noah or the apostles. Compare St. Paul's words in Ephesians 4:9 (the Epistle which seems to have been so much in St. Peter's thoughts), "Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" And preached ( ἐκήρυξεν ). It is the word constantly used of the Lord from the time when "Jesus began to preach ( κηρύσσειν ), and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" ( Matthew 4:17 ). Then, himself in our human flesh, he preached to men living in the flesh—to a few of his own age and country. Now the range of his preaching was extended; himself in the spirit, he preached to spirits: " πνεύματι πνεύμασι ; spiritu, spiritibus ." says Bengel; " congruens sermo. " He preached also to the spirits; not only once to living men, but now also to spirits, even to them. The καί calls for attention; it implies a new and additional fact; it emphasizes the substantive ( καὶ τοῖς πνεύμασιν ). The preaching and the condition of the hearers are mentioned together; they were spirits when they heard the preaching. It seems impossible to understand these words of preaching through Noah or the apostles to men who passed afterwards into the state of disembodied spirits. And he preached in the spirit. The words seem to limit the preaching to the time when the Lord's soul was left in Hades ( Acts 2:27 ). Huther, indeed, says that " as both expressions ( θανατωθείς and ζωσοποιηθείς ) apply to Christ in his entire Person, consisting of body and soul, what follows must not be conceived as an activity which he exercised in his spirit only, and whilst separated from his body." But does θανατωθείς apply to body and soul? Men "are not able to kill the soul." And is it true, as Huther continues, that the first words of this verse are not opposed to the view that Christ preached in his glorified body, "inasmuch as in this body the Lord is no longer ἐν σαρκί , but entirely ἐν πνεύματι "? Indeed, we are taught that " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; "and that that which " is sown a natural body is raised a spiritual body" ( σῶμα πνευματικόν ) ; but Christ himself said of his resurrection-body, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" ( Luke 24:39 ). He preached to "the spirits in prison ( ἐν φυλακῇ ) . " (For φυλακή , comp. Revelation 20:7 ; Matthew 5:25 , etc.). It cannot mean the whole realm of the dead, but only that part of Hades in which the souls of the ungodly are reserved unto the day of judgment. Bengel says, "In carcere puniuntur sontes: in custodia servantur, dum experiantur quid facturus sit judex?" But it seems doubtful whether this distinction between φυλακή and δεσμωτήριον can be pressed; in Revelation 20:7 φυλακή is used of the prison of Satan, though, indeed, that prison is not the ἄβυσσος into which he will be cast at the last.