In this message we want to see the move of God in man in the move of Christ during His burial and in the resurrection of Christ. When Christ was buried in the tomb physically, He went in His spirit to Hades, and there He was very busy. This is revealed in 1 Peter 3:18-20. Most Christian readers of the New Testament do not pay adequate and proper attention to this portion of the Word. The first part of verse 18 says, "For Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God." We can understand this because we are in it and have experienced it, but in the next part of verse 18, something is mentioned which none of us can fully understand: "On the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the spirit." This verse tells us that two things took place at the same time. When Christ was crucified on the cross, on the one hand, He was killed physically, but on the other hand, He was made alive spiritually. The killing and the making alive were done at the same time. The spirit here is not the Holy Spirit but Christ's spirit. We have a spirit, a soul, and a body. As a man Christ was the same. He had His personal spirit, soul, and body.

In John 10 the Lord revealed that He laid down His soulish life that we might have His divine life (vv. 15, 17-18, 10b, 28). He laid down His soulish life for us when He was being put to death for our redemption. But according to 1 Peter 3:18, at that time God made His spirit alive. To make alive means to renew and to empower. When Christ was crucified on the cross, on the one hand, physically, He was killed; on the other hand, He was made alive, empowered, renewed, in His spirit.

Verse 19 says that in this empowered spirit He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Verse 20 shows that these spirits in prison are the ones who had formerly disobeyed when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared. While Noah was making the ark, preparing the ark, these spirits disobeyed God. This gives us a hint to trace who these spirits are. After they disobeyed God, they were judged and imprisoned. Then they became the spirits in prison.

Genesis 6 gives us a record of Noah's time. At Noah's time the sons of God married the daughters of men (v. 2). One ancient manuscript of the Old Testament renders "the sons of God" as "the angels" in Genesis 6:2. In the Old Testament we are told clearly that the angels are called the sons of God (Job 1:6; 2:1). Furthermore, in Jude 6-7 there is strong proof that the sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6 were fallen angels. Brother Watchman Nee taught this truth based upon G. H. Pember's teaching in his book entitled Earth's Earliest Ages, where he strongly proved that the sons of God in Genesis 6 were fallen angels.

The fallen angels did not keep their original position but abandoned their own dwelling place, which is in heaven, to come to earth at Noah's time to commit fornication with the daughters of men. The evil marriage of the fallen angels with the daughters of men caused a mixture of the human race with the fallen spirits producing persons who were giants (Nephilim—Gen. 6:4; Num. 13:33, ASV). This shows how evil the human race had become at Noah's time.