15“But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord:
(being) ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason
concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear:
16having a good conscience; that, wherein ye are spoken against, they
may be put to shame who revile your good manner to life in Christ.
17For it is better, if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer
for well-doing than for evil-doing.
18Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the
unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but
made alive in the spirit;
19in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison,
20that aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is,
eight souls, were saved through water:
21which also after a true likeness doth now save you, (even) baptism,
not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good
conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ;
22who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels
and authorities and powers being made subject unto him”
(1 Peter 3:15-22
ASV).
Peter was acquainted with the possibility of apostasy, having himself on one occasion denied the Lord three times. Peter had once refused to suffer for Christ and he strongly warns those to whom he now writes to endure suffering and persecution and remain loyal to the Lord. Later Peter wrote, “but if (a man suffer) as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name” (1 Peter 4:16). If we suffer for righteousness we are like Christ for Christ suffered for righteousness.
Peter goes on and says that Christ was put to death in the flesh but he was made alive by the spirit. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison. These passages are used by false teachers in an attempt to teach the doctrine of a “second chance” for salvation. Three major questions must be answered in reference to understanding the truth projected in these passages: (a) how was the preaching done? (b) To whom was the preaching done? (c) When was the preaching done?
How was the preaching done? Well, verse 18 says, “in the spirit,” and verse 19 says, “in which also he went and preached.” Therefore, the preaching was done in the spirit. Noah, as well as Abraham, David, Jeremiah, Daniel and others, bore witness to Him by one and the same spirit. The Holy men of old spoke the word of the Lord by the Spirit of the Lord. Jesus, by the same Spirit, preached to the antediluvians that were doomed to destruction unless they accepted. The same Spirit which quickened (made alive) Christ (vs. 18) made possible His powerful preaching through Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5).
To whom was the preaching done? Look at verse 19, which says, “preached unto the spirits in prison.” They are called spirits because they were in a disembodied state when Peter wrote; and they were in prison under restraint as wicked beings. The term “in prison” is used to denote the state or condition of those spirits which because of disobedience await condemnation at the last days. I want you to notice these passages; "For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). Peter states that these rebellious angels were cast “down to hell.” The word “hell” is not gehenna, but from tartarus, the temporary waiting place of the wicked in the realm of Hades (Luke 16:23-26). Peter tells us that they are in “chains of darkness”, that is, they are imprisoned in darkness as if by chains. Also notice Jude 6; “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” Jude tells that these disobedient angels are in chains, just like Peter, “under darkness.” until when? “The judgment of the great day.”
Again, it should be renowned that Peter does not announce that these who were the objects of this preaching were in a disembodied condition and in prison when the preaching was done; such was their state when he penned this letter. The time in which such lived in the flesh, and the time when this preaching was done is plainly declared in the context of the passages.
When was the preaching done? “That aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water” (1 Peter 3:20). What could be clearer? These “spirits” (disembodied in prison) were once in the flesh (lived while the ark was a preparing); they were once upon a time “disobedient; (wicked persons)” “while the ark was a preparing;” and during this time Christ preached them. Christ, in the person of Noah, preached to the antediluvians during the time in which the ark was being built; and these, having rejected this preaching, died in disobedience, and were under restraint, confined, in the spirit realm when Peter penned this letter.
Like those in Noah’s day, the time of our redemption can also pass. There is no second chance. For the passages which Peter penned do not say that Jesus preached the gospel with a call for the dead spirits to be saved; Jesus taught that the lost cannot “cross over” and escape their torments (Luke 16). “And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this (cometh) judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). “Now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). There is no hope for a second change after death!