Spirits in Prison
By Ronald R. Day, Sr. Some might ask: If, as you say, Jesus was not in a place of fiery torture while he was dead, why do the scriptures say that he preached to the spirits in prison while he was dead? The scripture being inquired about is in 1 Peter 3:19, which reads in the King James Version: “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” If we read the context we will note several things. First, Peter is not talking about spirits of dead people supposedly being tortured in flaming fires. Verse 20 continues: “Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” According to this next verse, we could reason two different ways: 1- That the spirits in prison that Jesus preached to were the humans that died in the flood of Noah’s day; or 2- That these spirits were the spirit creatures (angels) that disobeyed God before the flood in Noah’s d...