Christ Preaching to the Spirits in Prison [pp. 636-650]

1874.] CHRIST PREACHING TO THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.
" having gone, he preached;" as also in v. 22, "who is on the
right hand of God, having gone (topev,eI;) into heaven."
His going therefore cannot be separated from his being quickened. It was immediately after his quickening that he went and
preached, (whatever that may mean).
The common interpretation, which makes him to have gone
"in the days of Noah, and preached by his spirit through
Noah" to those whose spirits are now in the prison of hell, is
preposterous. So forced and unnatural is it, that only a supposed theological necessity could ever have suggested such
wresting of the sacred text. Luther, Calvin, and others of the
most orthodox interpreters, give it no countenance.
Nor can it be after his resurrection, as Brown and others think,
that He is said to have gone and preached in the spirit, i. e., by
his spirit in the Apostles, as on the day of Pentecost, for he was
then quickened also in the flesh, and not in the spirit only as the
text affirms.
Besides, his resurrection is spoken of afterwards in v. 21, as
having taken place subsequently to his going and preaching.
And still further, those to whom the Gospel was preached after
the resurrection were not "once disobedient in the days of Noah."
Also that he preached to disembodied spirits, and not to living
men in the flesh, is the plain meaning of the words; and is the
more evident from the corresponding passage in chap. iv. 6, where
it is said that the preaching was to the dead (,expoz5); which can not mean those spiritually dead, as some would have it, but those
same dead who in the preceding verse are contrasted with the
"quick" or living whom Christ is ready to judge. Norcan it mean
that those who are now dead were preached to while living,
otherwise the design of the preaching, namely, "that they might
live according to God in the spirit," was not accomplished. FOr
what purpose and with what effect Christ in his disembodied
spirit preached to other disembodied spirits, we are not yet in formed.*
* The writer is happy to find that so good an authority as Fairbairn'sustains this
far thii same view. He says, "The interpretation which understands by spirit the
Ho y Ghost, and regards the preaching spoken of as either the preaching of Noah
through the spirit to the antediluvians or that of the Apostles to the wicked around
them, are but ingenious shifts resorted to for the sake of getting over a difficulty,
but twisting the passage into an unnatural sense. Giving to the words 7ropev5ei5
E mij pve v their legitimate import, they mean that Christ went and preached as a
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