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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - 1 Peter 3:19 - 3:19
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1Pe 3:19. Ἐν ᾧ) in which spirit. Christ had to do with the living, in the flesh; with spirits, in spirit. He Himself has efficacy with the living and the dead. There are wonders in that invisible world. In a subject full of mystery, we ought not to dismiss from it the proper signification of the language employed, because it has no parallel passages. For they, to whom each mystery has first been revealed, have most nobly believed the word of God even without parallel passages. For instance, our Saviour only once said, This is My body. The mystery respecting the change of those who shall be alive at the coming of the Lord, is only once written.-τοῖς-πνεύυασι, to the spirits) Peter does not say that all the spirits were in that place of confinement, for many might have been in a more gloomy place; but he means, that Christ preached to all who were in confinement.-ἐν φυλακῇ, in guard) The guilty are punished in prison; they are kept in guard, until they experience what the Judge is about to do. The expression about the state of those living under the Old Testament, Gal 3:23, bears some analogy to this.-πυεύμασι, to the spirits) of the dead. Comp. Heb 12:23. He does not call them souls, as in the next verse.-πορευθεὶς, going) namely, to those spirits. The same word is used in 1Pe 3:22. Those spirits were not in the tomb of Jesus: He went to them.-ἐκήρυξεν, He preached) By this preaching, which followed close upon His being quickened, Christ showed Himself both alive, even then, and righteous. Peter would not say, εὐηγγελίσατο, He preached the Gospel, if even ever so much the preaching of grace only were here designed: for the hearers had fallen asleep before the times of the Gospel; therefore he uses a word of wider meaning, He preached (or published). Noah, a preacher of righteousness, was despised, 2Pe 2:5; but Christ was a more powerful preacher, who, when quickened in spirit, vindicated His own righteousness, which was not believed by them of former times, and openly refuted their unbelief, 1Ti 3:16. If he were speaking of preaching by Noah, the word sometime would either be altogether omitted, or be joined with the word preached. This preaching was a prelude to the general judgment; comp. ch. 1Pe 4:5; and the term “preaching” itself is to be taken in its wider sense, that it may be understood to have been to some a preaching of the Gospel, as Hutter says, to their consolation, which is more peculiarly the office of Christ; to others, and perhaps the greater part, a publishing of the law, for their terror. For if the judgment itself shall be a cause of joy to some, assuredly this preaching was not a subject of dread to all. The author of the Adumbrations, which are assigned to Clement of Alexandria and to Cassiodorus, says, They saw not His form, but heard the sound of His voice. Calvin, in his Institutes, 2d Book, ch. 16:9, says, For the context also leads to this conclusion, that the faithful, who had died before that time, were sharers of the same grace with us: because it enhances the power of His death from this circumstance, that it penetrated even to the dead; while the souls of the righteous obtained an immediate view of that visitation, which they had anxiously expected, on the contrary, it was more plainly revealed to the lost, that they are altogether excluded from salvation. And though Peter does not speak with such distinctness, it must not thus be understood as though he mixed together the righteous and the wicked without any difference, but he only wishes to teach, that a perception of the death of Christ was common to both.