prison," or rather to the spirits in custody. The passage marks an
antithesis between "flesh" and "spirit." In Christ's "flesh." He was put
to death. His enemies killed His body, but His soul was as beyond their
power. His body was dead, but in the abode of souls His "spirit" was
alive and active.

So far there is here simply the statement that our Lord's disembodied
spirit passed to Hades, but the Apostle adds that He "preached to the
spirits in prison," and it is inferred by some that He preached
repentance, but this is an assumption for which there is no Scripture
warrant. We are not told what was the subject of Christ's preaching. He
had finished His work on earth, had atoned for sin, had overcome death
and conquered Satan. Even angels did not fully know the work of grace
and salvation which Christ accomplished for man, and it is not likely
that the spirits of departed antediluvians and patriarchs understood its
greatness. The least in the Kingdom of Heaven knows more than the
greatest of patriarchs or prophets knew. While in the flesh they had
seen His day afar off, and, as disembodied spirits, they knew that
Messiah by suffering and dying was to work out their redemption, but
before the work was finished neither men nor angels understood the
mystery of it, and what is more likely than that the completion of His
redeeming work was first made known to them in the spirit by the
Redeemer Himself? If we accept this view, the preaching to the spirits
in prison was the intimation to those already blessed, who had while on
earth repented and believed, that Messiah by dying had brought in
everlasting salvation for His people.

There is still a difficulty in Peter's words. Christ is said to have
preached to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah. Peter says
that in the writings of Paul there are some things hard to be
understood, but what he himself writes regarding Christ's work in Hades
is also difficult, and the passage has found a great variety of
interpretations. It would seem to imply that Christ in the spirit
carried a special message to the antediluvians who had been disobedient
and had perished in the Flood. What that message was we are not told,
and human conjecture may not supply what the Spirit of God has seen fit
to conceal. While the passage is a difficult one, the inference is not
warranted which some have drawn from it, that those who are disobedient
to Christ and reject His Gospel may, though they