Our studies in the first letter of Peter bring us now to a very difficult passage which has long been a source of controversy, the passage in which Peter speaks of Christ preaching the gospel to the dead in the interval between His death and His ascension into heaven.
The writings of early church fathers abound with references to this ministry of Christ to the underworld; they waxed eloquent about it. If we read them now we find them falling strangely on your ears, for it is today a strong feature of evangelical belief that death fixes our destiny, with no possibility of salvation beyond the grave. Yet Peter here plainly tells us that Christ preached the Gospel to the dead, and he also plainly tells us the purpose He had in mind when He did so: it was to the end that "though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God."
Now, in one sense, having said that, I have said all that needs to be said. The dead had opportunity to hear and respond to the Gospel from the lips of Christ Himself. But the mere statement is bound to raise a host of questions, and some of them at least we must tackle.
Two things should be said by way of background.
• First, this teaching comes to us from Peter. It was he who asked Jesus, the night before He died, "Lord, where are you going?" The Lord was not able at that time to give Peter an answer he could grasp; but we know from Paul that after Christ was risen, Peter was granted a private meeting with Him. What did Peter and Jesus talk about then? We have no means of knowing, aside from what Peter has left on record himself. But it seems altogether likely to me that having asked Jesus once before, "Lord, where are you going?" and getting only a partial answer, he should afterwards have asked Him, "Lord, where have you been?" If he did, then these verses surely convey the answer he received, and I for one am willing to accept them as Peter's understanding of a thing told him by the risen Lord Himself.
• Second, I should say that I was brought up to believe that death ends all chances of responding to the Gospel, so much so that I believed any other opinion in the matter to be not only mistaken, but wickedly mistaken. The Gospel of the Second Chance was represented to me as a heresy born in hell, bound to carry thither all who believed it. (See Note 1 below)
But I am to believe what the Scriptures tell me, and here is a Scripture that tells me that the dead were evangelised (that is the word used by Peter at 4:6; it is the same word he uses in 1:12 & 25) by Christ. The statement in Hebrews 9:27, "It is appointed unto men once to die and after that comes judgment," is not a stand-alone pronouncement the way it is usually quoted. It is part of a larger statement in which the writer's whole concern is to say that death occurs but once, as it did for Jesus, but in His case its issue was not judgment, but salvation. It is a statement that has been loaded with more meaning than it was intended to bear.
It is further objected that this teaching about the Lord's preaching to the dead is given only this once in the New Testament, and since it is the only mention of it, we cannot build too much on it. I for one cannot follow that argument. How many times must a thing be said before we may say, "It stands written in Scripture ..." Once, surely, is enough.
I resolved long ago to know nothing among the congregations I pastored but what God has given us all in Scripture. In what I write now, therefore, my only endeavour is to be faithful to the Scriptures. I have lived with this passage for a long time; I have read every commentary on it that I could lay my hands on, and despite all the ingenuity of the commentators, I cannot make Peter's words mean anything different from what they plainly say.
And, as said above, there seems good reason to believe that we owe the substance of them to the risen Lord Himself.
There are points of uncertainty in Peter's language, however, that have to be settled before we can be sure what it was in fact he said, and I must alert you to those key issues.
First, to be sure what Peter said, 3:18-20a must be read as one with 4:5-6. Peter digresses after the first passage, but returns to pick up where he left off. If we join the two together, paraphrasing only as much of the digression as is necessary to get its flow, he wrote:
For Christ ... died for sins once for all, 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; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark ... (Those living in disobedience now) will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.
Confusion has arisen because attention has been given to the first half of the statement whilst ignoring the second.
i. One commentator makes much of the fact that the word Peter uses in 3:19 for "preached" is a Greek word which means that Christ "made an "announcement" to spirits in prison, and draws the conclusion that all His announcement did was fix even more firmly the condemnation under which they stood. But this ignores the fact that the word Peter uses at 4:6 is the Greek word that means "evangelised," as in 1:12 & 25. The word is never used of the announcement of doom.. Christ evangelised the dead. There is no getting round that.
ii. Some maintain that by "the dead" in that verse, Peter meant those who were "spiritually dead" while they still lived. The Gospel was preached to them during their lifetime with a view to their regeneration, but they died without responding.
But this is to ignore completely the simple fact that in v. 5 Peter has just defined the dead he has in mind: "Christ stands ready to judge the living and the dead ..." There can be no doubt at all that in that phrase he means the living and the literally dead (as distinct simply from the living), and Peter cannot be made to mean by the same word spoken twice in the same breath two entirely different things.
iii. Again it is said that 3:20 tells us that those to whom Christ preached were "the spirits in prison who formerly did not obey in the days of Noah," and it is of them only that he speaks. I do not see Peter's words that way, for by the time he comes to 4:5 he has broadened his own definition to include all the dead.
But suppose for a moment that these commentators are right. In that case it is precisely to those who had formerly disobeyed that Christ went, and He went, as Peter tells us, in order that "though having been judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God." They had heard the preaching of Noah, God's patience had waited, they had persisted in disobedience, the waters of judgement had swept them all away ... and it is they whom Christ "evangelised!" They heard, they rejected, they were judged, and even after that the Gospel was preached to them. The view of Peter's words taken by these commentators collapses the very argument they seek to establish. Among the imprisoned spirits to whom Christ went and preached were the spirits of those who had scorned Noah, the preacher of righteousness.
Why does Peter single them out for special mention? For two reasons, I think.
First because in the Jewish literature and thought of Peter's day the question what happened to the antediluvians was a widely debated theological issue; what you thought about that was a test of your whole understanding of judgment. It is natural that Peter should make a Christian comment on the debate.
And second, because it enabled him to use Noah's salvation to make a statement about baptism.
iv. Again it is said that by "the spirits in prison" at 3:19 is meant the sinful angelic beings referred to in the Genesis narrative of the flood and not to human beings at all. The human dead are not referred to in the Bible as "spirits," we are told. But that is not so; the letter to the Hebrews (12:23) clearly does.
In any case, if the contention be true, Peter describes the same group in 4:6 as "the dead" - and whilst it is not true that the human dead are never referred to as spirits, it is true that non-human spirits are never referred to as dead!
v. Finally it has been proposed that we should understand Peter to mean at 4:6 that the dead who are said to have been judged in the flesh like men are Christians who have suffered martyrdom for their faith. By the phrase "the dead" Peter means simply those once living, now dead, to whom the Gospel was preached while they still lived. Those who do respond to the Gospel while they live still must die, but after death, they will live in the spirit like God. It is in the eyes of men that Peter means they have been judged (judged according to man in the flesh), and the condemnation referred to is the scornful derision of unbelievers who ask what advantage their faith was to them, since they died like the rest of men. "Yes," we are to understand Peter to be saying, "but they will live in the spirit like God."
As a statement of faith that is unexceptionable and we may believe it; but it is not what Peter says here. E. G. Selwyn, whose scholarship and evangelical faith are not in doubt, argues for this view, and it is appealing because it fits well with Peter's general theme throughout the epistle that it is the Christian's calling to share Christ's sufferings. But it cannot be sustained because the statement follows immediately upon v. 5 which affirms that the judgment is Christ's. Suddenly to introduce the thought that it is a judgment passed, not by Christ, but by scornful unbelievers, is quite untenable. It imposes a meaning upon Peter's words which, if it is what he intended, he would surely have been careful to explain. He has just said in verse 5 that God (or Christ - it is not entirely clear which) is ready to judge the living and the dead. He goes on at once to say that the near approach of that judgement for both the living and the dead is precisely the reason why the Gospel was preached to the dead: that they, as well as the living, might have opportunity - beyond death - to live. The language of 3:18 is the same as the language of 4:6 - the dead are dead as Jesus was dead, and they may live in the Spirit as Jesus risen does.
Now briefly, let us be clear what Peter does say and what he does not say.
1. What Peter Says
He says that Jesus "went and preached to the spirits in prison, and that He has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities and powers subject to Him."
This is in complete harmony with other scriptures, for example, Paul in Eph. 4:9-10: "In saying 'Christ ascended', what does it mean but that He had first descended into the lower parts of the earth (the place of the dead)? He who descended is He who also ascended far above all the heavens that He might fill all things."
The apostles all believed in the universal Saviourhood of the risen Lord. There is simply no corner of God's entire created universe into which His saving power does not penetrate. "Though I make my bed in Sheol," as the psalmist said, "Lo, thou art there." Christ the Son of God, who shed His blood to reconcile all things to God, has plumbed the deepest depths and scaled the highest heights with the fruits of His victory over evil and He rules "through all ranks of creatures," as the hymn so finely says it. Whatever we may believe about the realm of the dead, Christ's power and authority extend to it. "I have the keys of death - and of Hades" - so He said to John. Men may go into eternity Christless; they cannot go into a Christless eternity.
Peter is surely saying that no man is condemned for not responding to a gospel he did not in his lifetime hear. Before judgement is given, opportunity to respond to it will be given.
I have wrestled with this passage before God, and I cannot make it mean anything else. Any other understanding of it seems to me to be a deliberate twisting of Peter's words, however well-intentioned, to fit a prejudice which is brought to the reading of them. I am faced with only two alternatives: either I must twist the Scriptures to make them fit a tradition of men, or I must submit my mind to the plain meaning of the Scriptures, whatever consequence this may have for me in the opinion of men. I choose to believe the Word of God.
Now two implications may be drawn from this.
i. Here it seems to me is the answer to the question which I have heard asked often, and which I have asked myself: "What happens to those who have never had an opportunity to hear the Gospel?" They hear it! "The time is coming," said Jesus, "indeed it has come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those that hear, will live!" And we cannot spiritualise that away, for Jesus goes on to speak plainly of those that are "in the tombs."
In Paul's day, Christians used to undergo baptism for the dead, and though the practice died out, (wisely no doubt) Paul never rebuked them for it." No man comes to judgement until the holiness and love of God have lighted on his soul; be assured of that.
ii. Furthermore, fully one third of all human deaths since the dawn of history, probably more, have been the deaths of children before they reached the age "to discern between good and evil" and be able to choose the good; if God has consigned them all to a hell of everlasting punishment because they have not believed in Jesus, then who would not rather be in hell with them than in heaven with such a God? No. "In heaven their angels do always behold the face of the Father."
But once there, they must grow and develop beyond the infantile state of moral incompetence in which they died. The Scriptures carry no suggestion that one third of all heaven's inhabitants or more are "Peter Pans," morally incompetent. Somewhere down the track, past the infant state in which they died, they must reach a point of free response and be given opportunity to make it. In the glowing light of their heavenly habitation they may well have no difficulty in responding fully to the grace of God; nonetheless when the state of moral responsibility is reached, they must be given something to respond to, and response to the Gospel is all that will keep them in Heaven. The Gospel must be preached to them.
If this word of God eases our anxiety about infants we loved who were never in a position to respond to the Gospel - if it comforts us to know that death cannot rob them of the fullest opportunity to respond to the truth as it is in Jesus - and if it enables us the more wholeheartedly to entrust them to the God whose justice and mercy we know ... then we may take that comfort.
2. What Peter Does Not Say
But if this message brings comfort to us in our concern for others, it affords no false comfort to ourselves. Take note of what Peter does say, and what he does not say.
He says that
the Gospel was preached to the dead.
He says that the purpose of that preaching was that before the
final judgement they might have opportunity to live in the
spirit.
He does not
say what the result of that preaching was!
He certainly does not say that it was universally effective for
salvation in all who heard it. Though the preacher be Christ Himself,
we are not encouraged to assume that His preaching met with faith in
all His hearers there, any more than it did when He preached
on earth.
One conclusion of the very greatest importance follows, and it is this: neither in this life nor in any other is salvation possible at all except by the response of repentance and faith to the preached gospel of Him Who died for our sins and rose again to be our Saviour.
If you hear the Gospel now - so hear it as to understand it (and how important that is!) - and reject it, there is nothing more that can be offered to you, now or ever. Death will change nothing. Die wilfully deaf to the Gospel, and you will awaken beyond death deaf to the Gospel still, though Christ Himself preach it to you through all eternity. Nothing but the humble trust in God's forgiving grace to which Christ calls you today can ever, in any imaginable life, bring salvation to you. To turn to the Lord and cease from sin must grow more difficult the longer one goes on in unbelief. Only a dreary vista of sin and pain and death, with no end in sight, opens before those who move on with their heart closed against the saving truth of the Gospel.
Admit the possibility that a person may turn to God hereafter, and still the truth is this: a person loving evil in this life goes into the next life loving it still, and will go on taking the consequences. If he plans for nothing but to go on loving his sin, growing away from the good and losing desire for it, then even though his perversity fills him with anguish, frustration and bitterness, there is no reason to suppose that the mere experience of death, of itself, effects any moral change in him. No salvation is possible in any world except through repentance and faith in response to the Christ of the Gospel.
Let it be clear that I am not here proclaiming universalism, the notion that all will finally be saved. That is not what I have written. I have not preached a "Gospel of the Second Chance;" rather I have preached a Gospel of a first chance!
People think that all it means to be saved is to be let off the punishment due to their sins. In such a shallow belief there is the very greatest danger. The truth is that no-one can possibly be spared punishment while he is still devoted to sin, regardless of what he believes. To be saved is to be loosed from our sins, and to grow into the likeness of Christ in all His moral beauty and purity. There is no other salvation than that.
That change is possible to us now; it is urged upon us by the love that endured the Cross. Delay must render that change increasingly difficult. Is there not too much already to regret? What other day is there than today in which to call upon God and cry to Him to bestow upon us the blessing of His forgiving mercy? "Now is the day of salvation" - too precious to be lost.
Finally, let it be said that there is no danger that such a conclusion as I have drawn will blunt our purpose to evangelise. For there is only one way to turn people from sin to righteousness: that is to bear them upon the heart, as Christ did, so we find the burden only heavier the longer we shut it up inside our bones and forbear to cry aloud. Nothing we believe about salvation will make us eager to evangelise while we live for our own comfort, or even only for our own salvation ... or for anything else at all but the satisfying of the heart of Christ Who suffered and bled and died to redeem us all. The motivation to evangelise is rooted in gratitude and compassion. Nothing I have written undermines either.
Note 1:
I wonder now why such a view is held with such fierce tenacity. I
have lived long enough to know that God has given me - in my lifetime
- not a second chance, but a twenty-second chance and a two hundred
and twenty-second chance to respond to the Gospel. Indeed, every
morning that I rise from sleep offers me another day in which to
respond to it. In the light of the grace of God which the Biblical
revelation so gratefully celebrates, the sheer ferocity with which
the mere suggestion that God should show mercy to any beyond the
grave is rebutted sits uneasily with me. Are we as mean-spirited as
Jonah, that any suggestion that God might show mercy to the wicked
angers us? You do not get the impression that some who propagate this
denial are much in sympathy with God Himself, who "does not will that
any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." If those
who were so eager to have me believe it had preached it with a sob in
their voice I should have been more disposed to hear them. And it
seems to me presumptuous in the extreme to determine on God's behalf
when His patience should reach its limit in the case of any given
human being, even to whether that point is reached before death or
after it.
Note 2:
That conviction stands opposed to the Roman Catholic teaching on
purgatory, an intermediate state entered by those who die before
going on to Heaven or Hell, and where by suffering of varying degrees
and duration the soul may be purged, and rendered fit to enter
Heaven. That is a view which ought rightly to be opposed, for the
notion that we can work out our redemption through painful penance is
wholly foreign to the Scriptures. Neither in this life, nor in any
other, do they offer any suggestion that we can pay our debt to God
in the coinage of pain. It seems to me in any case a monstrous
notion, and not a lifetime of ecumenical discussion could reconcile
me to it.
But to reject the thought of self-achieved redemption through pain in purgatory is not necessarily to reject the thought of an intermediate state. The Jews in our Lord's time believed in it, and called it "Sheol" in the Hebrew, "Hades" in the Greek; Hades is not to be confused with Hell. Hell is the place of everlasting punishment; Hades is not.
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