The Spirit of Christ Proclaimed Coming Judgment

Transcript

GR1941
02/14/2016
The Spirit of Christ Proclaimed Coming Judgment
I Peter 3:19-20
Gil Rugh

We are going to I Peter chapter 3 in your Bibles. Peter is writing to encourage Jewish believers scattered throughout the Gentile world. They are in the diaspora he said in the opening verses of this letter, scattered outside their homeland. They are Jews and they are believers, believing Jews and he wants to encourage them as they go through trials and difficulties, persecutions and suffering so he has been reminding them of the example of Christ, the One that they love and serve. He suffered. We saw that at the end of chapter 2 where verse 21: “You have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example to follow in His steps” and how He handled the unfair treatment when He was reviled and they threatened Him and so on. “He did it all to bare our sins in His body on the cross that we might to sins and live to righteousness.”

You come to the end of chapter 3 he comes to the same point in verse 18: “Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God.” That is to encourage us because verse 16: “We keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.” And if it is God’s will that you should suffer for doing what is right rather than what is wrong you accept that as well. We live out our belief in the sovereignty of our God.

And this example of Christ we talked about in our previous study in verse 18 one of those great verses that in a very concise way present the work of Christ. “Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, the righteous for the unrighteousness that He might bring us to God having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit,” raised with a spiritual body as we saw in I Corinthians chapter 15. If there is a physical body there is a spiritual body, the physical body transformed into its glorified state and it’s done by the power of the Spirit and that moves him to the transition in which verse 19 “He also went and made proclamation to the spirits 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” and so on.

We are going to talk a little bit about what is involved in this verse. I wrote down what one commentator wrote, D. Edmond Hiebert that some of you use his commentaries which are very fine. He said “This is a notoriously obscure and difficult passage to interpret.” And there are differing views on this passage that Christ went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison. You will note the word ‘now’ is in italics there. That is not in the text. The translators put it there reflecting a view that they held but we have to go with what the text says and not everyone would agree with that. If you read the commentaries on this section commentaries carry it over to other related passages and so I want to talk a little bit about the passage here and then we will connect it to other passages and some of the differing views on this passage and then how it ties to the Apostles Creed.

Look at the first part of verse 19: “In which (referring back to in the spirit. It was in the spirit in the spiritual realm with the Spirit of Christ) that He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison.” The issue becomes here, who are these spirits in prison? When did Christ do this? Where is this place? That brings a discussion to a level, some of you are from more liturgical backgrounds and you may have said the Apostles Creed. The Apostles Creed that is often repeated and recited, Protestant and Catholics alike in one of its forms said that “Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, dead and buried, He descended into hell and then rose the third day.” Now let me just say something about the Apostles Creed. It was not written by the Apostles. There was a tradition that got locked in for a while I referred to earlier today that said it was written by the Apostles when they were going to be scattered out of Jerusalem under persecution. A further elaboration of that was there were 12 points and each of the 12 Apostles wrote a point and that became a way to keep the doctrine together. The fact of the matter is we don’t have the Apostles Creed until the 4th century so the earliest we can put this together is the 4th century, later into 300 and some years after Christ.

And then the form that includes “He descended into hell” comes from the 6th or 7th century because the form of the Apostles Creed that we have from the 4th century simply says, you know how it goes: “I believe in God almighty and in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord who was born of the Holy Spirit, the virgin Mary, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried and the third day He rose from the dead.” You see in the 4th century version of this it said nothing about Him descending into hell but by the version we have from the 6th century it said “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He ascended into hell.” So I just say that so there is no misunderstanding that, well it is the Apostles Creed. Shouldn’t that be authority?

The creed simply reflected men’s thinking, the various creeds, at different times and some of the creeds were focused on particular specific doctrinal issues. The Apostles Creed is so general we want to focus on the point that says, “He descended into hell” to see if there is Scriptural support for that but there is disagreement over it.

Let me read you what one person writing in the later 1800’s, this was 1822, a theological professor named Cunningham wrote a couple of volumes on the history of doctrines but regarding the Apostles Creed he says, “I think it is much to be regretted that so very inadequate and defective a summary of the leading principles of Christianity as the Apostles Creed possessed of no authority and having no extrinsic claims to respect should have been exalted to such a place of prominence and influence in the worship and services of the church of Christ and I have no doubt that this has operated injuriously in leading to the disregard of some important articles of Christian doctrine which are not embodied in it but which are a fundamental importance.”

And the Apostles Creed is so general it doesn’t specify how you are saved. It says nothing about the specifics of our sin and we are saved by grace through faith and so on. So it is such a general statement that Protestants and Catholics can recite it as the various forms of Protestantism do. And these things become somewhat authoritative but remember it is the Scripture. This is where we disagree with some branches of Protestantism and we have come back to that in the evangelical world. Some who claim to be evangelicals, by that I mean they believe in the authority of Scripture saying we need to go back to the creeds, to the fathers in the early centuries of the church. Roman Catholicism has that view of the authority of the early church fathers. We believe in just the authority of Scripture.

So even though and you are almost 600 years after Christ before you have the statement put into that particular creed, the Apostles Creed that Christ ascended into hell but since many recite it as part of their liturgy it becomes fixed in their minds.

So we will talk a little bit about this; when it says “He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison.” Most common view on this even among evangelical writers today, commentators is that this refers to Genesis chapter 6, the angels who sinned and thus were imprisoned by God. The sin of the angels in Genesis 6, why don’t you come back to Genesis 6? Most of you are familiar probably with this account. Obviously we are very early in the book of Genesis. These are spirits who were imprisoned and the verse goes on, “Who were once disobedient in the days of Noah.” So we come back to Genesis 6 and we are in the days of Noah and Noah will come up when you come down to verse 8: “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” We will pick up Noah, the genealogy at the end of chapter 5 which ends with Noah. Then we have this fill in here: Chapter 6, verse 1: “Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land and the daughters were born to them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men. They were beautiful” and the question comes who are the sons of God? Some would say they are angels. That is probably the predominant view. Part of that is supported by the fact that extra-Biblical writings among the Jews and so on made that connection. And the expression “the sons of God” is used in the Old Testament to refer to angels particularly in the book of Job.

Job chapter 1, verse 6, chapter 2, verse 1 talk about you know when there will come a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came among them. Well the sons of God there referring to angels. So some say that these were angels, the sons of God in Genesis 6:2 and the sin that place here as these angels took themselves human form and thus entered into sexual relationships with physical women and it was an attempt of Satan to so corrupt the race that it would not be possible for the Messiah to be born into a race that had become a mongrel race of angelic and human beings and then they say that would account for all the mythology of the gods coming and having relationships with human beings.

There are some New Testament passages they go to one of which we are in Peter. We will look at some of these others in a moment. Verse 3 going on says, “My Spirit will not always strive with man forever because he is also flesh. Nevertheless his days shall be 120 years” and what that point is not that men will now live for only 120 years but the point is God is going to bring judgment on the earth and the world in 120 years. So there is 120 years, if you will, grace offered for men to hear and repent. Verse 4: “The Nephilim were on the earth is those days, the Nephilim, these mighty men, these powerful men,” the end of the verse says, “These were the mighty men of old, men of renown.” And so the account goes on. For those who hold the angelic view (which I don’t) that the result of angels co-habiting with humans was this exceptionally mighty race of men. The Nephilim are only referred to here and you have it in your margin, Numbers 13:33 which does raise a question because we are told the Nephilim were on the earth then and we are far past the flood. We are in events dealing with Israel after their exodus from Egypt and before they go into the land. So you couldn’t have the Nephilim carry over if you have that mongrel race. So those who would hold that say well the Numbers reference is the people they saw looked so overwhelmingly powerful they reminded them of the Nephilim but they were not really Nephilim. I think maybe that is a little stretch.

“Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and every intent of his thoughts was only evil continually.” Verse 9, “So Noah is a righteous man. He walked with God” so what God is going to do is bring deliverance by Noah and his family. They will be the ones surviving God’s wrath so great that it wipes out men, women, children and animals except those that come through on the ark. The greatest of all the judgments the world has seen even down to today.

Question, are these sons of God angels? I don’t hold that and you know when you hold a view you always look for someone who agrees with you and I don’t always quote John Calvin but he is just right on the button here so I couldn’t restrain myself. This is from John Calvin’s commentary. This is John Calvin, he died around 1550, 1551, 1552, the great reformer and on this passage he says: “The ancient figment concerning the intercourse of angels with women is abundantly refuted by its own absurdity and it is surprising that learned men should formerly have been fascinated by ravings so gross and prodigious.” I just love the way that reformers just get right to the point. “They are ravings so gross and prodigious.” He didn’t think they were angels. I don’t either. Now there are good people who do. Some of you use a study Bible. John MacArthur holds they were angels, both in his commentary and I think in his study Bible. I didn’t check the study Bible. Most commentators do. It is the common view. If you read commentators they will say “Most scholars hold this view because scholars have the advantage of being able to search out the extra-Biblical material and find that supportive.” I don’t think we ought to have to find our interpretive principles from extra-Biblical materials. I think the sons of God can simply refer to the mingling that is going on here in the human race.

Some of you have studied Genesis and one of the normal ways for breaking down the book of Genesis is on the toledot. These are the generations of. And you will note back in chapter 5, verse 1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” So some divisions of the book of Genesis divided, those are the breaking points. Each time you have those expressions. You come down into chapter 6, verse 9 and you have “These are the generations of Noah.” So really chapter 5, verse 1 down through chapter 6 and verse 8 are one unit. So the first 8 verses of chapter 6 complete what is said beginning in chapter 5 and there you have the generations of Adam and you had Cain and his line and descendants in chapter 4, the end of chapter 4, the last part of chapter 4 and then you have Seth who was later born to Adam and Eve and his line that brings you to Noah and I think simply what is happening you have this intermingling of the lines here and the corruption and the sin that goes with it and the sons of God and the daughters of men aren’t necessarily saying that all the men were godly and all the women were just physically attractive but it is just a way of stating the race is being mixed, the godly and the ungodly and later we will see that in Israel where Israel was not to marry the ungodly. So here you have what would have been the line of Cain and the line of Seth being intermingled.

Come over to Hosea chapter 1. That is right after the book of Daniel so you go Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, those large books with some small ones in between and then after you to Ezekiel you come to Daniel and just after Daniel you come to Hosea. In Hosea chapter 1 Hosea is going to refer to the fact that these are God’s sons. Verse 10: “Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered and in the place where it is said to them you are not my people it will be said to them, ‘You are the sons of the living God.’” And the expression is not exactly the same but the point is. These are sons of God. We are referring to physical Israelites who become true believers and experience God’s salvation.

Back to Genesis. Just after Genesis you have Exodus. We won’t go through all these references but one more in the book of Exodus chapter 4, verse 22: “Thus you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, my firstborn’ so I said to you, ‘let my son go.’” So you know sons of God are physical people so I don’t think we need to go and just say because it’s sons of God can be used of angels it always is referred to angels. I think you can refer to the physical children.

So I think what we have in Genesis at least my understanding of it would be that we just have the mingling, the ungodly line of Cain and the godly line of Seth which is down out of Adam and you have this mingling and the loss of any distinction and the corruption that goes on with it and those were violent days on the earth.

You know the fear of animals for human beings was not placed on the animal world until after the flood and my understanding would be the dinosaurs that were on the earth before the flood so when Adam and Eve were removed from the garden and the curse came upon the creation and you have the animal world and then you have man in his unrestrained sinfulness and in the line of Cain you have further murder going on at the end of chapter 4. The corruption just grows and within this you have powerful mighty men. They will become more diminished with the passing of time and the impacts of sin over time and so on just like you have the declining of the life span that goes on but these were terrible days.

So God intervenes and really He finds one righteous man and his family. How many people were on the earth by this time and the multiplication of the race? It has become totally corrupted. So that seems to me to be the point.

The emphasis in Genesis 6 is not on angels if you put them in here. It is on verse 5, “The Lord saw the wickedness of man.” The whole point is not on angels did something to men. This is the sin of men in their turning away from God and pursuing their own lust and desires. So I think that emphasis. Verse 3 says, “The Lord said ‘My Spirit will not always strive with man forever because also he is flesh.’” The emphasis is on the humanity. There is no indication that angels, they can take the form of a human being, but there is no indication that angels can take genuine humanity. Christ did that but He did it through birth but the fact that angels can appear as they do in the form of men doesn’t mean that they have all the characteristics of true humanity. I don’t think there is any support for that. The New Testament does say that in the resurrection we will neither marry or be given in marriage but will be like the angels of heaven. That is in Matthew 22:30 who don’t marry. Well some say, ‘well that is only the angels in heaven who don’t marry.’ But the word for marriage here is the word and the union in Genesis 6 is the normal word for a permanent union here. I just don’t see any support that this is angels. If it were angels doing this it’s hard to understand why is God going to destroy the human race? If angels are taking the initiative and they are obviously more powerful beings than we are without the limitations we have it would seem that the human race is getting punished.

Satan came to deceive Eve. You know she had to make the decision. She’s acting there. Any idea of co-mingling of angelic nature and human nature I find foreign to Scripture. So I rule out the idea that these are angels.

Now come over to the New Testament. We were in I Peter 3 so why don’t you get back to I Peter. You probably have a marker there and then just come after I Peter to II Peter chapter 2 and here he is unfolding judgments. The chapter opens up: “False prophets also arose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you.” The point is again he is writing to Jews, Jewish believers. Remember their Old Testament history. In Israel false prophets arose and Peter says it will happen now in the church. “There will be false teachers. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies even denying the Master who bought them bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality. Because of them the way of the truth will be maligned. In their greed they will exploit you; their judgment for long ago is not idle,” the end of verse 3. “Their destruction is not asleep.” Judgment looms and then he gives examples of judgment. “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment and He didn’t spare the ancient world but preserved Noah” and so they make the connection and say “Well see, this refers to the angels when they sinned in Genesis 6” but I think it just refers to the original sin of angels in their rebellion against God following Lucifer. I mean Lucifer is the one who rules over the fallen angelic world. He is the god of this world, small ‘g.’

I see no reason to read into this the real sin of angels that he is dealing with is Genesis 6. The real sin of the angels was their rebellion against the holy God that they were created to serve led by Satan and that sealed their doom. They were cast into hell. That is where they are assigned to be. That doesn’t mean they are there yet but they are as far as the judgment is concerned. Remember Matthew 25? He will sentence people to hell that “was prepared for the devil and his angels.” No indication that the demons are in hell now. Now to say, “Well, it’s those who left their angelic realm to take on humanity and co-habit you are beginning to read a lot. I think we get that more from pagan literature outside the Bible and non-Biblical literature than we get it from Scripture. The normal way to read this when I think of the fall of angels, what was the great rebellion of the angelic world? Even if they were angels who sinned in Genesis 6 still would not rise to the level of the initial rebellion of angels under Satan’s leadership, the anointed cherub that covered the throne of God attempting to overthrow God. But the point is, even angels will not escape the judgment of God. It has already been pronounced, hell has been prepared for the devil and his angels. They will be committed to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. It is already settled. The judgment has begun for them because there is no salvation for them.

So I would not read Genesis 6 into this and then the next example is Noah. So I wouldn’t say that this has to support the view of fallen angels in Genesis 6.

Come over to Jude. The little one chapter book of Jude is very much in content as you are aware like II Peter chapter 2 but it elaborates a little bit. And here Jude is covering the same kind of material because false teachers entered in and he is reminding them that the judgment of these false teachers, just like Peter was saying, is looming for them. It is not idle, it is not asleep. It is looming there just waiting for the time to fall just like the judgment on angels for example and ultimately they will be consigned.

So he said “He is writing so that they will earnestly (the last part of verse 3) contend for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” You see this fits with what Paul was writing. We looked at a number of passages. The program of the devil has not changed. It is to infiltrate and spiritually corrupt the people of God.

So what does he do? He gives example of God’s judgment that is sure to come upon these because it seems like they get away with things. Peter goes on in his 3rd chapter and says, “Well many people say ‘well, where is judgment? Everything continues like it has from the beginning of creation,’” which is the view of quote “science today.” I mean you know, things have just been evolving, evolving, evolving and they just keep evolving.

“I want to remind you” and then he goes back he picks up with when Israel was delivered out of Egypt and He destroyed those who didn’t believe. So everyone all the males over 20 years of age die in the 40 years of wilderness wandering with those couple of exceptions.

“The angels who did keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode, He kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” I take it that is another reference to the rebellion and fall of angels. “And they are kept in eternal bonds under darkness.” They are excluded from the life of God. They are being held for the ultimate judgment. They are not escaping anything. “Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them” and there is discussion here on the translation of this. We don’t have time to go into it. I think the point in verse 7 grammatically fits that Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, they went after strange flesh and indulged in gross immorality. They are like the angels exhibited as an example and undergoing fire. I don’t think it is saying the angels committed the same kind of sin that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah did.

I think grammatically that fits. Most would say that “Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them and in the same as these,” the ‘these’ referring to the angels because of a grammatical agreement. I think it is the judgment that is like the angelic judgment, not that the angels committed the same kind of sin as Sodom and Gomorrah. The point is on experiencing God’s judgment and the angels experienced God’s judgment. Otherwise we would just pass over the original rebellion of the angels as that is not the major thing. That is the major thing. That brought about the fall of a vast number of angelic beings. Revelation chapter 12 indicates as many as 1/3 of the angelic world followed Satan in his rebellion. That was an awesome event in the courts of heaven.

So I think this is simply indicating that Sodom and Gomorrah are going to experience the judgment of God just like the angels who sinned experienced the judgment of God. The particular sin of Sodom and Gomorrah manifested itself in the immorality, going after, called here, ‘other flesh.’

So that is the way I would go. “Then in the same way these men also by dreaming defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.” And you see the greatness and what is brought into play here is the high position of Satan. So these false teachers mock angelic beings and even Lucifer, Satan, “but Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses did not dare pronounce against Him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ But these men revile the things which they do not understand.”

I mean people today mock the idea of the devil and those kinds of things. So we go back to Satan and the position he held and even though he has been removed from that position there is still a respect shown to him among the angels who did not fall. Now they don’t honor him in the sense of following him but because God created him with such authority and such power even though he has been removed from that position in heaven, he by virtue of the position he had, is shown respect. Michael the archangel, chief angel, shows him that kind of respect. Call on the Lord to rebuke him.

People talk about the devil. This happens even among believers. They think they can just throw the devil around and I command you devil to do this and you will hear some of these hucksters acting like they are showing the great power they have.

So the context here is about even angels, with the power of the devil, he won’t escape judgment and eternal bonds in eternal darkness are his destiny. So no one who rebels against God is above coming judgment.

Again I am not saying those who hold the other view at this point in time, it won’t change anything but I think we want to be as clear as we can. I am uncomfortable. We bring all these extra Biblical things in and think that will be the way we understand. I think at least you ought to know there is another way to understand this. I made a list of some of the commentaries but I didn’t bring them all that took a correct view but you use the commentaries.

Alright, let’s come back to Peter and see where we are here and bring in some other verses. “He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison.” I think that when He did that I think what He said the insertion of the word ‘now’ gives you the idea but it doesn’t have the authority of being in the text of Scripture but I think it gives the idea. “He made proclamation to the spirits in prison.” They are now in prison but when He made proclamation they were on the earth. They were living in the days of Noah. It said “He went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah.” The disobedience here, the demonic beings as they were fallen angels were already disobedient. He is talking about the human beings on the earth who during the 120 years that the ark was being built were hearing Noah and his family proclaim coming judgments, the need for righteousness from God to escape judgment. That is what God was doing. “The patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah” but they were disobedient. The patience of God didn’t wait for demons. There is no salvation provided for demons. Why have 120 years of patience for demonic beings? They can’t repent. They can’t turn to God for righteousness. Their doom was set the moment they rebelled. A reminder, God is not obligated to provide salvation for sinful beings. It is an act of mercy that we will be saved. The angels rebelled. They are lost.

“The patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah when the ark was being constructed.” So again I think here, turn over to II Peter chapter 2. We were in this passage a moment ago when God talked about “God didn’t spare the angels when they sinned. They are cast down to hell.” Hell has been prepared for the devil and his angels so that doom was set. Their fate is already settled if you will.

Look at verse 5: “And he did not spare the ancient world.” He is going to flood it with water and destroy them “but preserved Noah.” Note what he says Noah. “He is a preacher of righteousness.” He preserved Noah a preacher of righteousness and seven others; Noah wife and his three sons and their wives, preserved “when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” Then he goes on to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of those who would live ungodly lives. There is no particular connection to Sodom and Gomorrah here and the angels. You have the angels who sinned. Then you have, not sparing the ancient world and then you have Sodom and Gomorrah, Jude interweaves them because again all examples of the ungodly will be judged. The ungodly will be judged. “Don’t wear out,” Peter’s encouraging these believers. Don’t get discouraged. We haven’t entered into the last chapter. We win, they lose. We are victorious. We enter into the glorious, ultimately, the kingdom in Revelation chapters 21 and 22. They will be in hell for all eternity.

So Noah was a preacher of righteousness so what is he doing while he is building the ark? He’s proclaiming judgment is coming, turn from your sin and trust in the living God. He can cleanse you. He is preaching righteousness, the need for righteousness.

Remember when Paul was reasoning with the Roman representative. He reasoned with him about sin and righteousness and judgment. This is what Noah is doing. So it is clear what is going on but they are disobedient. They won’t listen. You talk about discouragement; Noah and his immediate family. You preach for 120 years, no converts, zero, you and your family and getting on the ark with a bunch of animals. That’s it. That’s the point.

So you come back to Peter when it says in verse 19: “Christ in the spirit went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison,” I take it he is talking about what He did in the days of Noah. It was the Spirit of Christ speaking through Noah.

Back up to I Peter chapter 1, look at verse 10: “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating.” You see it was the Spirit of Christ what? Who was speaking through the prophets and the same Spirit spoke through Noah. It is the words coming from God that are being given.

I Peter chapter 4, verse 6: “For the Gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead.” So the Gospel was preached to those people who have died, why? “That though they are judged in the flesh as men,” they experienced physical death as men do, “They may live in the spirit according to the will of God.” They have been made alive in the spirit and when their spirits left their body they went to be present with the Lord and ultimately they will experience the resurrection of their body.

So he is saying the same thing he said back in chapter 3, verse 19. “In which He went and made proclamation to the spirits” and that word ‘now’ we put in there does give you the idea, in prison. Where are all of those people that died in the flood because they remained disobedient and refused to respond in faith to the message of Noah? They are in prison. That’s it. The body without the spirit is dead. When a person dies the spirit leaves the body, James 2:26. It either goes to the presence of the Lord in heaven or to God, the disobedient.

I want to bring in another group of people here if we have time. The ones who were disobedient in verse 20 of chapter 3 of I Peter that is a common word for the unbeliever in the New Testament. We won’t take time to go through those passages. It is a word used to characterize the unbeliever, they are disobedient.

Just an example, in Peter back in chapter 2, verse 8: “They stumbled because they are disobedient to the Word.” In chapter 3, verse 1: “In the same way, you wives be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the Word.” And then over in chapter 4, verse 17: “It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the Gospel?” The opposite, you know of obeying is disobeying. So just in Peter there and then there are a number of other passages that use it.

Noah made proclamation. The people were disobedient. They came under judgment. So where are their spirits now? So when Christ proclaimed to them it was not after His death on the cross that He went to hell and proclaimed. He was preaching. Their spirits are now in prison; the spirits of these disobedient people.

Let’s see, some of this we can leave because we will pick it up at the end of the chapter because there is a verse there that will tie in some other related verses.

Let me mention something here. There is another view that Christ went to Hades because Old Testament saints who died couldn’t go to heaven until after Christ paid the penalty for sin on the cross and ascended to heaven so they picture Hades as the place where people went and Hades was divided into compartments. Come to Luke chapter 16, Luke chapter 16 and there is discussion here whether this was a parable or not but we won’t go into that. So you have the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had everything you could want in this life, verse 19. Verse 20: “The poor man Lazarus” had nothing and was a beggar. Verse 22: “Now the poor man died and was carried to the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man died and was buried and in Hades he lifted up his eyes in torment.” So those who hold this view and it is a common view also that Hades was where all the people went after death before Christ came and died on the cross. Hades was divided into two compartments. On one side was the bad side, the suffering side. That is where the rich man was. He was in Hades being in torment. The poor man who was a believer he is in the good side. That is called Abraham’s Bosom. Now what Christ did after His death on the cross He went down to Hades and told the Old Testament saints now they could leave and come to heaven with Him because He had paid the penalty for sin. And that is a very common view held by many good commentators.

I think what he is picturing here as he goes on to talk about it because if you are saying everything here is just as it says you are going to have people hollering back and forth across one side of Hades to the other because the rich man is calling over to Abraham who’s on the good side “Send someone to dip his finger in water. I am tormented” and Abraham says, “No, you can’t. Nobody can go back and forth.” I think what Christ is indicating that upon death you are either going to the place of blessing. For the Jew that would be where Abraham is and those who are not believers are going to the place of torment and Hades is the place of torment for all unbelievers, I take it of all time because the final sentencing to hell does not occur until the end of Revelation chapter 20 after the thousand year millennium when you have the Great White Throne Judgment.

So what you have, I don’t know, a picture of people going to jail and they are being held in jail until their final sentencing. Then they will go to prison. Well, what is the difference? I guess duration you know, because prison is what? You are put in a cell, you are confined, you can’t go and you are limited but that is not your permanent place but when you are sentenced to prison you can be sentenced there for life. Hades is the temporary residence of the lost. It is a place of fiery suffering but the final evaluation and sentencing to their place in hell will not take place until yet a future time.

So I think the point is here verse 26: There is a chasm fixed, there is no crossing so the rich man said, “have somebody go back and tell my five brothers so they don’t come to this place of torment.” And the point is if they won’t listen to the Word of God they won’t listen even if someone is raised from the dead. It dissipates the resurrection of Christ and people still refuse to believe.

So I don’t think Christ was going here to free because Abraham was just as saved as we are. Now it’s true it was on the basis of the work that Christ would do on the cross. He is the example of righteousness received by faith in Romans chapter 4. So in the plan of God it was a subtle plan. It didn’t have to wait and say, “Well Christ had to be the first one to ascend to heaven.” He is the first one to get a glorified body. Abraham and all believers, I take it from all time who have died are in heaven but they are not in heaven in glorified bodies. Christ is but the resurrection of the body is yet future event.

I understand that the graves that were opened at the time of Christ’s resurrection were resuscitations like Lazarus was. Lazarus was raised from the dead but he had to die again. He was raised back to physical life. I take it when Christ died some of the graves were opened and evidently, probably, people who had died recently so they could be a testament like Lazarus was of the power of God, further testimony.

So that is an overview of Peter and some of the things related to Peter. It even gets a little more tedious because now we have to move to the next verse and talk about baptism saving us. Just go on to chapter 4 and let you work that out. No, we will look at that in our next study.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for Your Word, Lord how gracious You are, how patient You are that in the days of Noah you gave 120 years for Your Spirit to preach through Noah proclaiming righteousness and yet the world rejected Your grace and the judgments that they deserved fell upon them. Lord we are reminded we live in days when we are Your proclaimers of righteousness to tell the lost that are all around us that judgment is coming, that You are a God who will pour out Your wrath on the unbeliever and this is a day of salvation. We pray that we will take these truths to heart; Lord the privilege that is given to us to represent You in these days to proclaim Your truths. May we be faithful as Noah was whether the response is small or great that we carry out the responsibility given to us. Use us in the days of the week before us to serve You wherever we are we pray in Christ’s name, amen.