Objection 84: During the time between His crucifixion and His resurrection Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison. (1 Peter 3:18-20.) This proves that there is an immaterial spirit, the real person, which departs from the body at death.
The passage reads thus:
"Christ also hath once suffered for sins. ... 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."
If this passage seems to support popular theology with regard to the doctrine of an immortal soul, it also seems to support two ideas that Protestants believe are false: (1) purgatory, and (2) a second probation.
If Christ went to preach to certain sinners after their death, the clear inference is that He was extending a second chance, a second probation, to those people. Moreover, the place where these souls were being confined seems quite close to the Roman Catholic idea of purgatory. So, if read too literally, this passage is troubling to all Protestants, not just Seventh-day Adventists.
If this is the correct way to read the passage, and Christ at His crucifixion really preached to the undead in some sort of subterranean prison house, we are forced to ask: Why did Jesus single out the spirits of those who were disobedient in the days of Noah? Why were no others among the living dead entitled to this second chance?
But we do not believe that this is the correct way to read the passage. The context of 1 Peter 3:13-22 is that the Christian will be called upon to suffer for doing good. Peter warns us to be ready to suffer for preaching the gospel. There might be threats and actual violence against us, if we preach Christ Jesus. Then Peter mentions how Christ, who did only righteousness, suffered and died for our salvation, but was raised back to life by the Holy Spirit.
The next part of the passage warns us that our suffering might seem to be of no avail, but we are not to be discouraged: through that same Holy Spirit who would later raise Christ from the dead, Christ preached, through Noah, to the antediluvians. But, despite this Spirit-filled preaching, only Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were saved from the deluge.
We believe Peter is saying, “if your work seems to be in vain, remember that through the Spirit the Lord Jesus Christ preached to the those who lived before the Flood, yet with no results other than Noah’s immediate family. So don’t despair or be discouraged, just continue to preach Jesus Christ.”
Note that Peter calls Noah “a preacher of righteousness,” (2 Peter 2:5) and Genesis records God as saying, “My Spirit shall not always plead with man, for that he also is just flesh: yet his days shall he an hundred and twenty years." Gen. 6:3. We know that the 120 years could not be referring to a cap on lifespans, because people lived vastly longer lives in those days (up to 969 years), and generally much shorter ones these days (typically about 70 to 90 years).
So when God said, “his days shall be 120 years,” God was setting the antediluvian's probationary period. It would be 120 years until the Flood came, and during this 120 years, Noah preached to them, as is implied from Peter's the statement that Noah was a "preacher of righteousness."
This interpreation is confirmed by Ellen White in Patriarchs and Prophets:
A hundred and twenty years before the Flood, the Lord by a holy angel declared to Noah His purpose, and directed him to build an ark. While building the ark he was to preach that God would bring a flood of water upon the earth to destroy the wicked. Those who would believe the message, and would prepare for that event by repentance and reformation, should find pardon and be saved. Enoch had repeated to his children what God had shown him in regard to the Flood, and Methuselah and his sons, who lived to hear the preaching of Noah, assisted in building the ark.
"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Hebrews 11:7. While Noah was giving his warning message to the world, his works testified of his sincerity. It was thus that his faith was perfected and made evident. He gave the world an example of believing just what God says. All that he possessed, he invested in the ark. As he began to construct that immense boat on dry ground, multitudes came from every direction to see the strange sight and to hear the earnest, fervent words of the singular preacher. Every blow struck upon the ark was a witness to the people.” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 94-5
But why should these people be said to be "in prison"? Here again, the message is not literal but spiritual. The Bible describes those who are in spiritual darkness as being "prisoners.” (See Isa. 42:7; 61:1) Was Jesus, in quoting the prophet Isaiah, saying that his mission was to empty the prisons of Roman-controlled Palestine? (Luke 4:18-21) No, Jesus was saying that his work was to set us free from our spiritual prison houses, our prisons of sin, and of ignorance of God’s everlasting love and righteousness. The work of the Spirit in antediluvian times was the same as in our day: preaching to those who are prisoners of sin, offering them a way of escape.
It might be asked why the antediluvians were called “spirits” if they were men alive on the earth at that time. We will let an eminent commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, answer this:
"The word pneumasi, spirits, is supposed to render this view of the subject improbable, because this must mean disembodied spirits. But this certainly does not follow. For the spirits of just men made perfect (Heb. 12:23) certainly means righteous men, and men still in the church militant; and the Father of spirits, Heb. 12:9, means men still in the body. And the God of the spirits of all flesh, Num. 16:22 and 27:16, means men, not in a disembodied state." - Comments on 1 Peter 3:19.
Another learned commentator, Dr. J. Rawson Lumby, in The Expositor's Bible, remarks that during the earlier centuries, which was the period when the Catholic religion, with its belief in purgatory, was dominant, the passage was interpreted to mean that Christ went to preach to souls in hell.
"But at the time of the Reformation the chief authorities expounded them [these words of Peter's] of the preaching of Christ's Spirit through the ministry of the patriarch [Noah]." - Comments on 1 Peter 3:17-22.
Bishop John Pearson, in his Exposition of the Creed, a classic work in the Church of England, observes:
"It is certain then that Christ did preach unto those persons which in the days of Noah were disobedient, all that time 'the long-suffering of God waited,' and, consequently, so long as repentance was offered. And it is as certain that He never preached to them after they died." - Page 166.
Why should we be asked to explain this passage when eminent non-Adventist theologians admit that the immortal-soul doctrine is not taught in this text?
[Editor’s note: This passage is a good example of why Seventh-day Adventists do not believe in verbal inspiration. These are Peter’s words, not God’s, and they are borderline gibberish. We think we can figure out what Peter was trying to say, but, honestly, he made of a hash of it. This is also why we do not form doctrines based upon one text, but upon the consensus of the entire Bible.]