“Christ also hath once suffered [R.V. margin ‘died’] for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, 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.” (1 Peter 3:18-20)
There are many new translations of the New Testament in these days. Everyone of them reflects, to a greater or lesser extent, the personal views of the translator. That, of course, is to be expected. Most words when translated into another language are capable of being rendered variously, and this fact is, perhaps, more noticeable in the small words, such as “for,” “instead of,” “by,” “with,” “from,” and so forth. That fact is well illustrated in the passage quoted from 1 Peter 3:18-20. As believers in living personality of the spirit of man separate from his body, translators of the Revised Version, and others, have replaced the words “quickened by the Spirit” with the words “quickened in the spirit.” The same alteration has occurred in the next verse, saying “in which” instead of “by which.” Anyone acquainted with trinitarian teachings will readily see the objective of so doing, for trinitarianism does not believe that the body represents personality, but that personality is represented by the spirit. A little reflection, however, will reveal that in denying personality to the body they unwittingly have overreached themselves, for if it is the spirit that is “quickened” (made alive), then no other conclusion can be arrived at than that the spirit was dead; for only that which is dead has need to be made alive.
The Scripture says Christ was “put to death in the flesh.” Since Scripture says it, there can be no gainsaying this fact; but Scripture further says in Romans 8:34, “It is Christ that died.” Therefore, if the body died and the spirit did not (our “orthodox” friends themselves being witness), then by every law of logic the body and Christ are proved to be identical. With that fact fully grasped as basic to all life, this and many another kindred Scripture topic would be shorn of mystery. The reader is urged to apply it, and he will find that the doctrine of preexistence and kindred ideas vanish as the morning mists before the rising sun, for it proves beyond doubt that body is essential to personality, for an inorganic living being is a contradiction of terms.
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Author: R. H. Judd
Keywords: Spirits in prison, Hell, Hades, Soul, Spirit, Preaching to the dead, Preached to the dead, Souls in prison, Dead people, Preaching to spirits, Preaching to souls, Preached to spirits, Jesus preached to the dead, Jesus preached to the spirits, The Flood, Days of Noah, Immortal soul, Immortal spirit, imprisoned spirits, inprisoned spirits
Bible reference(s): 1 Peter 3:18-20, 1Pe 4:6
Source: One God: God of the Ages (Oregon, IL: Restitution Herald, 1949).. Chapter XVII The Spirits in Prison
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