God had to destroy the whole generation of that age because the mixed marriage between the angels and human beings made the human race impure. God judged them with the flood. First Peter 3:20 says that only a few, eight souls, were brought safely through by the water of the great flood. All the rest were destroyed, including the descendants of that mixed marriage. Furthermore, these fallen angels were judged and imprisoned in pits of gloom, awaiting the judgment of the great day (2 Pet. 2:4-5). In Hades there is a section for the imprisonment of these spirits, the rebellious angels.

When Christ was crucified, on the one hand, His body was killed; on the other hand, God renewed, empowered, His spirit. In this empowered spirit He went to Hades at the time of His burial to proclaim to these imprisoned spirits the victory achieved by God through His death on the cross.

We should not think that this is unimportant. If this were unimportant, Peter would not have included it in his short first Epistle of only five chapters. This portion in 1 Peter shows the victory Christ accomplished on the cross. It also shows us that even at the time Christ was buried, He was busy to proclaim God's victory in Him to the rebellious angels. This was a part of God's move in Christ.

The Bible tells us clearly that in this universe there are the heavens, the earth, and Hades, which is underneath the earth (Eph. 4:9). Paul was brought to the third heaven and to Hades, and he received visions and revelations of these hidden regions (2 Cor. 12:2-4). When he was caught away into Paradise, the pleasant section of Hades (Luke 16:22-23, 25-26), he heard unspeakable words, which it is not allowed for a man to speak. Hades is divided into three sections. First, there is the section of fire for the unbelievers after they die (Luke 16:23-24). Second, there is the section which is called Paradise, where the spirits of the saved saints are. According to Luke 16, Abraham and a poor man named Lazarus are there (vv. 25-26). The Lord Jesus also went to Paradise after He was crucified on the cross. When He was on the cross, two criminals were being crucified with Him. He said to one of them, "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). On the day the Lord was crucified, He went to Hades (Acts 2:27), to Paradise. From there He also went to the third section of Hades, the section where the fallen, rebellious angels are imprisoned in pits of gloom, called Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4). Christ went to these rebellious angels to proclaim God's victory accomplished through His death in the flesh on the cross. That was the victory of God in Christ's victory and was a part of God's move in man.