Preaching to the spirits in prison.

1 Peter 3.19-22.

Today’s passage confuses Christians because it refers to Jewish mythology, and most Christians know nothing about Jewish mythology. (Nor Jewish history, nor the Old Testament, but that’s a whole other—and far more important—issue.) Simon Peter grew up hearing about Jewish mythology, and the people who read his letter likely heard of it too, so they knew what he was talking about. Us, not so much.

Problem is, not all the ancient Christians knew of it. Gentiles hadn’t. Gentiles knew pagan mythology; they grew up in pagan culture, so they knew the stories of Zeus, Hermes, Apollo, Hades, and Zeus’s half-human, half-divine offspring like Perseus and Herakles. They also knew how to make up mythology… and that’s what they did with this passage. This is where several popular Christian myths come from.

One of the most popular is “the harrowing of hell,” as some Christians call it. It’s a story about how Jesus, after he died but before he was resurrected, went into the “prison” of the afterlife, and preached the gospel to “the spirits in prison.” Apparently the Old Testament saints were there, like Jesus’s ancestors Abraham and David; apparently, because Jesus hadn’t yet died for the sins of humanity, they had to be there, to suffer for their sins. But now Jesus had died for them. And once these saints eagerly accepted Jesus as Lord (’cause of course they would; everybody the ancient Christians considered a hero of the faith would) he freed them from prison, and took ’em with him to heaven. So they’re in heaven now. It’s why Orthodox Christians now call them saints (i.e. St. Abraham, St. David) although for some odd reason, even though they do believe these guys are in heaven now, Roman Catholics don’t.

Yeah, you’ve probably heard the “harrowing of hell” story, in one form or another. Doesn’t come from bible. Doesn’t come from this passage either, although many a Christian has pointed to it and claimed our myth is based on it. Nope; this passage isn’t about our myth; it’s about the Jews’ myth.

I’ll quote the passage first, then get to the myth.

1 Peter 3.19-22 KWL

19The One going to the spirits in prison

also preaches by the Spirit

20to those who’d been disobedient

when, in Noah’s days,

God’s patience was eagerly awaiting

the box’s preparation,

in which few—eight lives, that is—

escaped through water.

21Which now corresponds to you² also—

how baptism saves.

Not by removing dirt from flesh,

but a response to God,

in good conscience;

through Christ Jesus’s resurrection,

22who is at God’s right hand,

gone to heaven,

angels, authorities, and powers

submitted to him.

What are these spirits?

Peter clarifies what ἐν φυλακῇ πνεύμασιν/en fylakí néfmasin, “spirits in prison” or “in the prison of the spirits” he’s speaking of, by his comments in verse 20 about Noah’s days.

In the flood story, the LORD, outraged by humanity’s escalating evil, decided to flood the land and purge everyone but the prophet Noah and his family. Noah was instructed to build a box—which westerners have reinterpreted to mean a giant boat, even though both the Hebrew word תֵּבָה/teváh and Greek word κιβωτός/kivotós mean box or treasure-chest—like the ark of the covenant, which wasn’t a boat. In the box went everything the LORD deemed worth saving: A breeding pair of every species, seven pairs of birds and ritually clean animals, Ge 7.2-3 and Noah’s wife, three sons, and three daughters-in-law.

That’s the biblical part. In the non-biblical myth, humanity’s escalating evil was caused by the story right before the flood story: The “sons of God” mated with the “daughters of Adam” and produced נְּפִלִ֞ים/nefilím (NIV “Nephilim,” KJV “giants”). Ge 6.4 What were Nefilim? We don’t know; bible doesn’t say. So Pharisees invented myths about them to explain it, and the best-known is the Enoch myth, which I discuss in my article about Nefilím. In that myth, the “sons of God” were angelic beings, which fell because they procreated with humans, and God punished them by casting them into the ἄβυσσος/ávyssos, the abyss (KJV “the bottomless pit”), his prison for evil spirits. In 2 Peter 2.4, Peter calls it ταρταρώσας/tartarósas, “Tartarus” (NIV, KJV “hell”), referring to Zeus’s prison for evil spirits, in which he made ’em suffer. I don’t know that God makes ’em suffer… but I do know at some point in Revelation they, or at least some of ’em, got turned loose to make humanity suffer. Rv 9.1-12

Anyway this would be the prison Peter had in mind. Yes, it gets referred to in myth, but is there an abyss where evil spirits are imprisoned? Apparently! When Jesus threw a legion’s worth of evil spirits out of a demoniac, they begged Jesus not to send ’em to the abyss. Lk 8.31 In other words, they asked Jesus for grace. Which he granted them, and let ’em infest a few thousand pigs instead.

This grace idea… actually runs contrary to what Christianity has historically taught about whether there’s any grace available for evil spirits. All my life I’ve heard Christians claim if a spirit turned evil, if an angel fell, there’s no coming back from it; they’re doomed. Supposedly this is because these spirits have seen God personally (whereas humans haven’t) and therefore evil spirits have no excuse for rebelling against him—and therefore no forgiveness. Only humans get grace… and angels get the abyss. And later, the lake of fire.

This teaching is so contrary to everything else we know about God’s grace, my first response to it is, “Okay, where’s it say this in the bible?” Well, it doesn’t say this in the bible. It’s more mythology. This time Christian mythology, instead of Jewish.

At some point—and we honestly don’t know which point—Jesus went to the abyss to preach to the spirits imprisoned there. Why? Peter doesn’t say. Bible doesn’t say. So we don’t know. But of course Christians are gonna guess—and some are even gonna claim the Holy Spirit himself told ’em why. Since their explanations and prophecies aren’t consistent with one another, I’d say we can safely ignore them—and that if the Spirit really wanted us to know, he’d’ve had Peter write it down in his letters. But he didn’t. So don’t fret about it.

Now, why did Jesus preach to them? The usual graceless popular belief is Jesus went to these spirits to tell them their evil plans have come to nothing. “You tried to destroy people, but I came to save them. And I have succeeded; I am victorious; neener neener neener.” Something petty humans would do. That’s not Jesus. project your revenge fantasies upon him.

My theory—and it’s not biblical either, but I think it’s more consistent than the usual belief—is Jesus offered them another chance. Repent. Turn from your evil. Come back to God. He’s offering forgiveness and salvation to humanity; it’s available to spirits too, if they’d only trust him.

Whenever I pitch this idea to my fellow Christians, some of ’em respond, “Mm, possibly,” but others respond, “Oh, absolutely not.” Why not? Because Jesus died for humanity, and only humanity. And to do it, he became human himself. He can’t have died for spirits; he was human!

To which I respond: Um… did you forget we humans have spirits? That we have a flesh part, but we also have a spirit part? That when Jesus died, he gave up his spirit, Mt 27.50, Jn 19.30 which—when you’re not the uncreated God yourself, as Jesus is—ordinarily returns to God who created it? Ec 12.7 If Jesus is also spirit, why can’t he have died for the sins of spirits?

Well, usually they’ll go on about human ancestry, and imputation, and other theological ideas which explain (in their minds, at least) how atonement works, and how it can be transferred to every human through Jesus being a descendant of Adam. And I’ll remind them the scriptures do not say how atonement works; it only gives it hints, and it only says atonement does work—and maybe there’s a way it can work for more than just us humans. If all creation has been groaning in childbirth till now, Ro 8.22 in anticipation for the age to come, because it longs to be redeemed… doesn’t this imply Jesus is gonna redeem a lot more than just us humans?

In any case, Jesus is mighty enough to save any being he wishes, whether we understand how he does it or not. Further, God is gracious, and the scriptures don’t teach otherwise; therefore I don’t teach otherwise if I can help it. It makes more sense to figure Jesus offered grace to the spirits in prison, same as he tells us to visit (and be gracious) to those in prison. Mt 25.36 We have no business claiming otherwise, and no biblical evidence for it.