The Spirits in Prison

The Bible Matrix sheds light on Peter’s cryptic mention of disembodied beings to whom Jesus preached for some unknown reason.

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, 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 proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.” (1 Peter 3:18-22)

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Either this passage contains the worst segues in the Bible, and perhaps in all of human history, or there is something seriously wrong with our comprehension of what Peter actually said. He apparently shifts from discussing voluntary suffering to the Spirit of resurrection, and then to the power of that Spirit weirdly illustrated in Jesus preaching to condemned angels (who would never themselves see resurrection) while He was in the tomb. Conveniently, these angels sinned in the time of Noah, which handily brings this camel of a sentence to the subject of baptism. These are the sort of inane “connections” one expects from somebody in a manic state.

Despite the fact that this passage was clearly not intended to be arcane for its first audience, has anybody made any real sense of it? This is Scripture, so when it seems ridiculous, and no good explanations are forthcoming, the conservatives shrug and the liberals laugh. The most reliable commentaries are not much help to us. They merely present an inventory of the lame theories presented over the past two millennia and quickly move on. But we should not want to move on. Peter is not the problem. The text is not the problem. The Spirit who inspired them is not the problem. The Bible is never ridiculous or lacking in logic. We are.

And God never makes pathetic segues. In fact, just as the Bible avoids the sort of sentimentality that we sops revel in, so also it usually ignores segues altogether and quite happily jumps abruptly from one subject to the next. No matter how hard modern Christians try to feminize the text by layering syrup between the lines, there is nothing soft about the Word of God. It has a resolute masculinity, is frustratingly laconic, and eschews mawkish displays of emotion (“Jesus wept” is, after all, the shortest verse in the Bible) in favor of long lists of instructions and family trees.

But the Bible is inflexible by design. This is because it is a house. It has hard edges because it is safe. It has no gaps because it is secure. It has an altogether different means of comforting the saints—to those who would attack it, it is as solid as a rock and as impenetrable as the scales of Leviathan. And it is serrated because it is a tool. If we are pliable in spirit, its uncompromising form will shape us until we are conformed to its image, and that image is a temple.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Overview

The reason that Scripture presents information in “steps” is because it is literary architecture. So, if we apply the covenant-literary lens to 1 Peter 3:18-22, it might reveal what Peter was actually talking about. And in fact, it does. But first, we ought to identify where this passage fits within the scheme of the entire epistle.

The Covenant Structure of 1 Peter
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PRIESTHOOD (Jachin)		KINGDOM (Boaz)
Greetings and preamble (1 Peter 1:1-9) 1 No false gods	TRANSCENDENCE Genesis	Faithful prophets (1 Peter 1:10-21) 2 No false oaths
A spiritual house (1 Peter 1:22-2:6) 3 Honor the Sabbath (Adam)	HIERARCHY Exodus	A holy people (1 Peter 2:7-12) 4 Honor parents (Eve)
Servants under authority (1 Peter 2:13-25) 5 No murder	ETHICS Leviticus	Wives and husbands (1 Peter 3:1-12) 6 No adultery
Cursed for doing good (1 Peter 3:13-22) 7 No theft	OATH/SANCTIONS Numbers	Living in the Spirit (1 Peter 4:1-11) 8 No false witness
The household of God (1 Peter 4:12-19) 9 No coveting house	SUCCESSION Deuteronomy	We shepherd as priest-kings (1 Peter 5:1-14) 10 No coveting household

The placement within the epistle of the passage in question relates it to the deliverance of the faithful on the day of judgment. Corresponding Bible Matrix steps are the judgment of Adam, the Great Flood, the Day of Atonement, the cutting off of old Israel in the wilderness, and AD70. It is the step when those who believed God rather than men—and have suffered for it—were vindicated, and those who did the opposite in order to avoid suffering or persecution lost everything.

The main reason we misunderstand this particular section is our failure to perceive that, like the epistle, Peter’s prose is comprised of similar steps. He is communicating in “stanzas.” Each stanza relates to an element of the Tabernacle, which in turn relates to the creation of Israel as a nation, which in turn was a recapitulation of the actual Creation. Peter uses this structure to imply that these (mostly Jewish) believers were a new Israel with a better Moses. Since the same pattern is found in the history of Adam to Noah, the Great Flood corresponds to Israel’s entry into a new “dry land” via the overflowing Jordan. (See the charts here, on pages 65 and 69.) What this means is that, despite all appearances, voluntary suffering and bold testimony are the means of ultimate dominion. After all, that was the lesson that Adam was supposed to learn in the Garden.

1 Peter 3:13-22

Inspired by the Spirit, like all the biblical authors Peter builds houses—and even worlds—out of words. But since first-century Greek had no punctation, we have to guess where once sentence (or stanza) ends and another begins. His apparently amateurish attempt at a segue is not a segue at all. In our ignorance, we have fused two of Peter’s stanzas together. As we shall see, if we simply add a period, one tiny dot, a bright speck in the darkness changes everything.

Analysis

INITIATION
Ark of the Testimony – Creation – Genesis

• The one who intends harm to the faithful saint is the one who claims to represent God (or the gods) with Transcendent authority. He has the power, at least in this world, to bless or to curse. After Pentecost, Peter no longer feared men, but only God (Acts 5:29).
• The mention of “burning with zeal” combines the symbols of the Lampstand and the ministry of Phinehas as earthly “trees” that carry the fire of God but are not consumed.
• Suffering corresponds to testimony/martyrdom that looks forward to the “righteousness” of vindication and the Covenant Succession, like that given to Phinehas (Numbers 25:13).

DELEGATION
Veil – Division – Exodus

• Sanctification (being set apart for God) under the threats of the first-century Pharaohs is here combined with legal testimony in the Land as the faithful outcome of a Covenant Oath in the Garden. The stanza takes us from Egypt to Sinai.

PRESENTATION
Altar & Table – Ascension – Leviticus

• The “firstfruits” offered here is not the fruit of the land or the womb but the fruits of the Spirit. These Jewish saints scattered across the empire by persecution, as the firstfruits to God and the Lamb (Revelation 14:4), were the fulfillment of the Law in a corporate sense. They would be harvested as grain and grapes by angelic sickles.
• Notice that the beginning and end of the stanza are holy (with the word “good” appearing at Passover/Delegation and Atonement/Vindication), but the three Ethics steps are perverse inversions of the Triune Office (John 16:1-3). These corrupt priests, kings, and prophets of Israel, because they did not know God, would be consumed by the same fire that filled the believers.

PURIFICATION
Lampstand – Testing – Numbers

• The central stanza is the crux of the issue, and at the center of the crux is the crucified Christ.
• Notice the symmetry in the Ethics steps: suffering, evil, Christ, sins, suffering.
• Like this entire cycle, the Oath/Sanctions step is about turning the tables on the wicked and rewarding the righteous, but in this case it describes the inverse swap that redeemed the saints. It is inverted because the first inversion (suffering) leads to the second (glory).

TRANSFORMATION
Incense – Maturity – Deuteronomy

• Maturity is the “resurrection” stanza, and its symbols are hosts and clouds, the fragrant bridal army that rises from the grave. Thus, the placement of this stanza is an important factor in its meaning.
• The first thing to notice is that it is self-contained, with no necessary connection to the days of Noah in the next stanza.
• The stanza works through the Tabernacle pattern because it corresponds to the pattern of sacrifice. But in this structure, the head of the sacrifice is Christ and the body is “the spirits in prison.” The word “prison” literally means “under watch or guard,” so “spirit” and “watch” are a brilliant combination of words that describe the Lampstand, the “watcher tree” at Testing. These spirits were under guard until the Law was fulfilled and the Spirit was given.
• A common interpretation is that these spirits are the angels bound with chains mentioned by Jude (Jude 1:6) and that Jesus preached to them while He was in the grave. But it makes no sense that Jesus would go and warn them of anything (that is the role of the prophet, for the purpose of bringing repentance), let alone while He was “sleeping” an Adamic sleep. Since fallen angels are not “Adamic” or “flesh,” they cannot be redeemed by the work of Christ, and a call to repent would be redundant. They have already been judged and are simply awaiting execution.
• In order for this remark to make sense as part of the whole, Peter must be referring to other beings, spirits for whom preaching would offer some hope. The simplest explanation of this event is one that is recorded for us elsewhere in Scripture—the fifth seal in Revelation. Upon His enthronement after His ascension, Jesus released the four spirit horses upon the Land, whose offices would be carried out by the four Gospels on earth. The Gospel brought light, then divided Jew from Jew and Gentile from Gentile. Those who believed were given miraculous perseverance while the old order was beginning to waste away. Finally, John’s Gospel brought down the Levitical sword against the idolaters and Revelation announced the sentence. The fifth seal corresponds to this fifth stanza—the martyrs under the altar awaiting vengeance. Their testimony here was a covenant lawsuit, a demand for God to carry out the judgment that He had promised—slaying the wicked and freeing the righteous as the ga’al (redeemer/avenger) from heaven. This prophetic act of questioning is precisely what Habakkuk did, and God honoured His question by giving Him a revelation of the terrors that were coming. Jesus does the same thing in the book of Revelation.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the [Land]?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Revelation 6:9-11)

• This seal contains a number of step 5 elements: elders at the altar, legal witness, intercession, robes, brothers, and martyrdom. These murdered saints are pictured as the blood splashed against the Bronze Altar by those who refused the rite of substitutionary atonement (Leviticus 1:5). In ritual terms, the first of their number was priestly Abel, whose blood cried from the ground as a testimony against his kingly brother (Genesis 4:10; Matthew 5:21-25). Jesus told His disciples that the blood of all the prophets, beginning with Abel, would be avenged upon that first-century generation of wicked brothers (Matthew 23:35).
• The white robes combine the linen of the priests (as lambs) with the bridal purity of garments given as a promise of the imminent marriage feast (Matthew 22:11-12; Revelation 7:9; 19:8, 14). In other words, they were to get dressed up because they had somewhere to go. Similar lampstand-bridal-patience imagery is used of the living Jews in Matthew 25:1-13.
• Jesus had promised vengeance (Luke 21:21) and these martyrs were holding Jesus to His word. This explains their “disobedience” or lack of compliance. Although it usually carries a negative connotation, the word simply means an unwillingness to believe or to be persuaded. Their first-century “brother” martyrs are later described as having been “beheaded” by the Herods in order to identify them with John the Baptist, who himself questioned Jesus from prison. These questions were not a lack of faith but a cry in faith, a cry of “Well, what are you waiting for?”

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matthew 11:2-6)

• Let us also remember that both Peter and Paul understood what it was like to be in prison. As always, the answer from God is a call for patience. Jesus Himself, subject to human temptations, knew that God’s patience often seems like forever (Luke 12:49). The reason given by Jesus to the saints under the altar (which is a quantum-entangled combination of both the Bronze and Golden Altars, blood in the court of God on earth ascending as smoke to the court of God in heaven) is that a second legal witness was required before the corrupted order could be legally condemned. In the massacre of the first-century Church, the prophetic burden would reach full term: the saints would fill up (multiply) the sufferings of Christ, and Israel would fill up its sins. The lie in the Garden would bring undeniable carnage in the Land and judgment in the World.
• Thus, the long-suffering mentioned here by Peter is that which is explained by Paul in Romans 9:22-29—God’s patience with Israel that a remnant might be saved. Peter had not only read Paul; he had also read the book of Revelation, and so had the Christians to whom he was now writing, so they would have understood his reference to this “fifth Gospel” preached to the prophets by Jesus Himself.
• This would also explain Peter’s explanation of why the Gospel needed to be preached to the dead (1 Peter 4:6). Since Christ was now ready to judge the living and the dead of the old order, those who had faithfully foretold the things that were now being preached were given an update on the proceedings (1 Peter 1:12). They were still in bondage to the “strong man” but could now be released (Mark 3:27). When the Spirit was finally poured out, the gifts reached even the domain of the dead.

VINDICATION
Laver & Mediators – Conquest – Joshua

• Failure to take Peter’s “Day of Atonement” stanza in its first-century context has led to the attribution of regenerative powers for individuals to the sacrament of baptism. Despite the fact that the rest of the New Testament so obviously contradicts the idea, quipping “Baptism saves you!” is supposed to justify twisting a sacrament into “another Gospel,” salvation without repentance. The fact is that this was a unique historical situation. Peter was writing to first-century Jews who were being treated as apostates by the Jewish rulers. They were being compelled to return to Judaism or suffer under the curses of the Law for failing to maintain their Levitical obligations. Since they had been expelled from the synagogues and the Temple, the only way they could do this was to disown Christ. And, since Peter seems to assume that his hearers have also read or heard Revelation, it is likely that he is implying that some of them would be among the “fellow servants” who would soon be killed (Revelation 6:11).
• So, the question that must be asked is, “Delivered from what?” Peter tells them that despite their “failure” as worshipers to maintain blamelessness before God through the rites of purity, their baptisms not only replaced and delivered them from all of their Levitical obligations (remember that the New Covenant witness began and ended with Levites named John), but also delivered them from the curses of the Law that were coming soon upon the entire old order, washing it from the face of the earth forever. Those who claimed a monopoly on atonement and made a considerable profit via the ministry of their almost-completed temple would be put out of business. Jesus had said it would be sudden, like “the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37), hence the reference in line 1. This stanza corresponds to Vindication. Like Noah, the New Testament prophets and martyrs would soon be vindicated. Aptly, Peter uses the Creation thread of the Bible Matrix to describe this event as the inauguration, in covenantal terms, of a new world.
• The mode of immersion in baptism is important because it pictures death and resurrection. Mediators must be completely washed, passing through the waters (Numbers 19:7). Salvation comes via judgment, that is, a voluntary ordeal through which we must pass. Immersion images voluntary suffering and its reward.

REPRESENTATION
Shekinah – Glorification – Judges

• The final stanza continues the sentence, bringing the worshipers boldly before the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) into the rest of God in a literary sense, confident in the work of Christ as their shelter or “Booth.” They appeal to the one who fulfilled the Law of God; the resurrection is an opened veil; and Jesus is the ascended priest-king, ruling with the seven Lampstand stars in His right hand as the burning zeal of Phinehas; having ascended in a fragrant cloud as our High Priest.
• Line 6, as Day 6, places His foot firmly upon the head of the serpent in every realm. He achieved this through patient service and voluntary suffering, and Peter calls the saints to do the same.
• Notice that this final stanza, which relates to entering into God’s rest via our Adamic advocate, begins with the evasion of the accusing angel in line 1 and ends with dominion over the angels in line 7—in the Garden, the Land, and the World. When Christ ascended to heaven, Satan’s hold was loosed on both the dead and the living. Jesus saved both the old world and the new.

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