According to verse 18, Christ was “put to death in flesh, but made alive in spirit.” This is not the Holy Spirit, but the spirit which is Christ’s spiritual nature (Mark 2:8; Luke 23:46). The crucifixion only put Christ to death in His flesh, which He received through His incarnation (John 1:14), not in His spirit. His spirit did not die at the cross when His flesh did. His spirit was rather made alive, enlivened, with new power of life, so that in this empowered spirit He made a proclamation to the fallen angels after His death in the flesh and before His resurrection.
On the cross Christ was put to death in flesh, but was made alive in spirit. We should not interpret “made alive in spirit” here as referring to Christ’s resurrection. As we have pointed out, although Christ’s body was slain on the cross, His spirit was enlivened. Therefore, as the phrase “in which” at the beginning of verse 19 indicates, it was in His enlivened spirit that Christ made a proclamation to the spirits in prison. This indicates and proves that in this spirit Christ, after dying in His flesh, was still active.
In verse 18 we see Christ’s death, but there is no mention of resurrection in this verse. When Christ was buried in the tomb, in His empowered spirit He went, before His resurrection, to the abyss to proclaim God’s victory to the rebellious angels.
Verse 19 and the first part of verse 20 say, “In which also having gone to the spirits in prison, He proclaimed to those once disobedient....” Throughout the centuries great teachers of different schools have had varying interpretations concerning “the spirits in prison.” The most acceptable according to the Scriptures is as follows: the spirits here do not refer to the disembodied spirits of dead human beings being held in Hades, but to the angels (angels are spirits—Heb. 1:14) who fell through disobedience at Noah’s time (v. 20 and Life-study of Genesis Message 27, pp. 363-364) and are imprisoned in pits of gloom for the judgment of the great day (2 Pet. 2:4-5; Jude 6). After His death in the flesh, Christ in His living spirit went (probably to the abyss—Rom. 10:7) to these rebellious angels to proclaim, perhaps, God’s victory through His incarnation in Christ and Christ’s death in the flesh, over Satan’s scheme to derange the divine plan.
The “prison” in verse 19 refers to Tartarus, the deep and gloomy pits (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6) where the fallen angels are kept. The word “proclaim” does not indicate the preaching of good news, but the proclaiming of the triumphant victory. This proclamation was made to “those once disobedient.” These are angelic beings, not human beings, and therefore are different from the “eight souls” spoken of in verse 20. So, the spirits in prison do not refer to the disembodied spirits of dead human beings held in Hades, but to angels who fell through disobedience at the time of Noah. But many interpreters say that the spirits in verse 19 denote the spirits of certain human beings who disobeyed Noah’s preaching. Those who follow this interpretation claim that, at Noah’s time, Christ through His Spirit preached the gospel to the people of Noah’s generation. Furthermore, they teach that “made alive in spirit” in verse 18 refers to the Holy Spirit. Supposedly in this Holy Spirit Christ at Noah’s time preached the gospel.
Another interpretation is that Christ, after He died, preached the gospel to the spirits of human beings who had died. What a mistaken interpretation this is! According to this interpretation, after people die and go to Hades, the gospel may still be preached to them there in Hades.
Christ did not preach the gospel to the spirits in prison; He made a proclamation to them. He proclaimed to those rebellious angels God’s victory over Satan through Christ’s incarnation and death. At that time, Christ had not yet been resurrected. It was after His death that He went to that particular place, in His empowered spirit, to proclaim Christ’s victory. Perhaps He said, “You angels followed Satan to rebel against God. But through My incarnation and death, your leader, Satan, has been conquered.” This proclamation is a shame to Satan and his followers, but it is a glory to God.
I would urge you to study message twenty-seven of the Life-study of Genesis. That message explains how at Noah’s time the so-called sons of God, who are angels, became fallen. They left their own place, came down to earth, and used human bodies to commit fornication with the daughters of men. That polluted the human race and produced giants. Finding that situation intolerable, God would no longer allow the human race to exist, because mankind had been polluted by Satan’s angels. Therefore, except for Noah and his family God destroyed the entire human race with the flood. Also, when God sent the children of Israel into Canaan to slaughter the Canaanites, there were the same kind of giants among the Canaanites, giants born of fornication between angels and human females.
We are not the only ones who interpret the Bible record in this way. A number of Bible scholars, including Pember and Govett, agree with this understanding of this part of the Word.
Christ died on the cross for our redemption. But although He was put to death in His body, He was enlivened and empowered in His spirit even before the resurrection. In this enlivened and empowered spirit He went to proclaim to the rebellious angels God’s victory over Satan, their leader.
Peter’s word in these verses is very meaningful. Peter unveils something extraordinary related to Christ’s death. He shows us that Christ’s death not only accomplished redemption for us, but also gained the victory over Satan and his followers. Therefore, after His death and before His resurrection, Christ proclaimed to Satan’s followers God’s victory over the Devil through the crucifixion of Christ.