Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,

• 1 Peter 3:18-20

But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him:
“‘I saw the Lord always before me.
    Because he is at my right hand,
    I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.

• Acts 2:24-31

This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
    he took many captives
    and gave gifts to his people.”
(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)

• Ephesians 4:8-10

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

• Matthew 12:40

For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

• 1 Peter 4:6

And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

• Jude 1:6-7

1 Peter 3:18-22 ”The spirits in prison could refer to evil angels, to individuals who have died, or to the people who were alive at the time of Noah (v. 19). The passage is difficult to interpret. Christ apparently preached to these ‘spirits’ after his death and before his resurrection, or perhaps he preached through Noah to the antediluvians prior to the flood (v. 22). The content of Christ’s message was likely a victorious proclamation of the defeat of the enemies of God. Peter mentioned this because he wanted the suffering Christians to know that one day their persecutors would face this condemning proclamation just like the evil spirits of the days of Noah.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Mary Kassian, General Epistles and Revelation contributor)

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

• Apostle’s Creed

The Message

I grew up with “descended into Hell” which might be slightly in error.  There are two levels of Hell, at least two.  The fallen angels that it talks about in Jude are probably the same spirits that Jesus preached to in 1 Peter.  These spirits were imprisoned in Hades, basically a holding cell.  It is the same or similar to the Abyss in Revelation.

Jesus went there to claim victory over sin and death.  Any hope that these spirits had was gone at that point.  Satan already knows that he is defeated, but he wants to take as many into the Lake of Fire as possible.

The wording in Jude is a bit strange.  Some tie these particular fallen angels to the Nephilim.  No one knows for sure.  If these were fallen angels, they would have to indwell a body to be able to make these women pregnant, thus producing the Nephilim.  Thus, these spirits were imprisoned and remain there until God the Father is ready to cast them into the Lake of Fire.

This line was taken out of many denominations’ version of the Apostle’s Creed.  In part, it is misunderstood.  In part, some do not like the concept.  Others find contradiction in that Jesus says He was with the criminal in Paradise that day.  Since they almost died at dusk, that day was almost over.

Some claim that the original manuscript, if we really have a copy, does not have this line.  They claim this line was added later.  But the Heidelberg Catechism has the line.

First, when Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant the sin debt had been paid.  Jesus suffered on the cross and was abandoned there by the Father, thus a separation necessary to be a death payment.  Then Jesus ascended spiritually at that moment, while His earthly body was buried.

Peter, in chapters three and four, speaks of Jesus going to preach to these spirits during the hours that His body was in the tomb.  That could have been accomplished in a nanosecond from dusk on Friday to the pre-morning hours on Sunday.  Fitting, appearing in spirit form and preaching to spirits.

No text says that Jesus went to Hell for three days to pay for our sins.  That debt was paid on the cross.  The Matthew quote seems to focus on the earthly body being in the tomb for three days.  And in Hebrew literature, fractions of days count as days, just as fractions of years for the length of the reign of kings.

Peter’s Pentecost sermon touches on the fact that the Father did not keep Jesus in the land of the dead, which infers that He was there briefly.  And the Paul argument to the Ephesians argues that to ascend from the dead meant Jesus had to have descended somewhere.

While Peter spells it out in his first letter, we get the other hints out of inference and logical argument.

Is this a point of salvation necessity?  Probably not.  The Creed was written to combat heresies of the day.  The debt for our sin was paid on the cross.  There is biblical corroboration that Jesus went to Hades during that period to preach to the imprisoned spirits.  The confusion in recent centuries is that Jesus had to go into Hell and stay there for three days to pay the sin debt.  But that was paid from the cross.

And now let us sing.

The following song is Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.  This is sung by Leah Mari.

 

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We believe in You.  We trust You.  Thank You for paying the price for our sins.  Thank You for giving us a chance of being redeemed, something that the spirits did not get.  Praise Your Holy Name.
In Thy name we pray,
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.