1 Peter 3:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Having been made alive, that is, having risen from the dead by the power of His divinity, He made alive with Himself all who were in Hades, raising them with Himself.

For according to the Evangelist (Mt 27:52-53), many bodies of the sleeping saints arose and appeared to many.

“He was put to death in the flesh,” that is, as man. “But made alive in the spirit,” as God. By “spirit” they understand God, and by “flesh,” man.

The Evangelist bears witness to the first when he narrates that Christ, the true Wisdom, speaking with the Samaritan woman, said: “God is spirit” (Jn 4:24). All Holy Scripture bears witness to the second.

Therefore, when considering these particular features, one must not and cannot relate them all to the development of the thought about the innocent suffering of Christians.

Such a relation exists only in the general thought that the Christian must, if it pleases God, suffer innocently, because Christ also suffered in this way.

"Christ once suffered": since Christ's sufferings have a different and incomparably higher significance than the sufferings of any man, He suffered and could suffer only once.

A Christian may suffer innocently many times. After suffering, he may be freed from sufferings for a time, then be subjected to them again, and so repeatedly, if God should so will.

But Christ suffered only once (cf. Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27-28). "To show the power of Him who suffered, he added: once" (Theophylact).

Christ's sufferings are understood inseparably from His death, by which they ended. The essence and significance of His sufferings lie precisely in this violent death of His.

In it, as it were, all the sufferings He endured as man throughout His public ministry, of which our Gospel narrates, were united into one (cf. Heb 4:15; Heb 5:7).

"He suffered for sins," that is, our human sins, the sins of the whole world (cf. 1 Pet 2:24; Rom 8:3).

In this and the following expressions, the immeasurably higher significance of Christ's innocent sufferings, in comparison with the innocent sufferings of Christians, is indicated.

The cause of His sufferings was not His sins, but the sins of the whole world. The goal of His sufferings was the destruction of the power of sin for those who believe in Him.

"Christ once suffered not for His own sins, but for ours. Therefore he adds: the righteous for the unrighteous, for Christ Himself committed no sin (1 Pet 2:22)" (Theophylact).

"The righteous for the unrighteous": the whole world is sinful before God and therefore guilty before the judgment of His holy righteousness, which requires punishment for sin.

Christ the God-man alone is pure from every sin, and therefore righteous before the judgment of God's righteousness. This Righteous One suffered for the unrighteous, that is, in place of the unrighteous.

Thus the guilt of these unrighteous ones was laid upon Him alone, and He endured the punishment to which all these unrighteous ones were subject, that is, the whole world.

By the sufferings and death of this one Righteous One, the whole world was thus freed from liability for sin and acquired righteousness, or justification, before God.

But this justification must be appropriated by faith in the reality of Christ's redemptive sufferings and death. Otherwise the power of this redemptive sacrifice does not act upon us and does not grant us justification before God.

"That He might bring us to God": man's sin placed a dividing wall between him and God. Christ destroyed this dividing wall by suffering for sin and destroying it through taking upon Himself the guilt for sin.

Thus He granted to the person justified by faith in Him free access to God, or real means of inner spiritual communion with Him.

Cleansed by faith and being cleansed by repentance, a person can enter into such communion with the holy God reconciled to him. God receives him into communion with Himself as one cleansed and sanctified.

The image of speech, bringing, is borrowed from the Old Testament. According to the legal ordinances, defilement by sin forbade access to God.

The priest had the right and duty to draw near to God and to be mediator in the reconciliation of the people with God, to bring the people to God.

So Christ also, as High Priest, having offered Himself in sacrifice for the sins of the world, opened access to God for it and brought it to God.

"Being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, by which He went," and so forth: the general thought is clear. Christ died and rose again, and thereby brought all to God.

But the expressions by which this general thought is indicated are not all clear, and they have produced differing interpretations.

This difference depends on different understandings of the words "made alive in the spirit," and on different conceptions of the manner of Jesus Christ's descent into Hades, called here a prison.

Without reviewing all these interpretations, we set forth the most correct one.

"Put to death in the flesh" is an intelligible expression. It means violently brought to bodily death and dead in the body.

"Made alive in the spirit": in what sense is the word "spirit" taken here? In correspondence with the preceding expression, one must suppose that as the word "flesh" there means Christ's human body, so here the word "spirit" means the human soul of the God-man.

Thus flesh and spirit here mean the same as body and soul. These latter expressions are often replaced by the former in the apostolic writings, and conversely.

The meaning of the expression will be this: being put to death in the body, but alive in soul, by which He also descended into the prison to the spirits.

That is, at the time when Christ's body was dead and rested in the tomb, His soul descended into Hades, to the spirits.

Therefore one cannot understand the expression to mean that Christ, put to death in the body but having made it alive by the Spirit of His Godhead, descended with it, spiritualized, into Hades.

Rather, Christ descended there only with His soul, which is here called spirit. For soul and spirit, when the human being is conceived as consisting of two parts, are often used without distinction.

The Church expresses this understanding in the well-known hymn: in the tomb bodily, but in Hades with the soul as God.

He was not in Hades with His body, which rested dead in the tomb. In His Godhead He is always everywhere present.

Therefore He descended into Hades with His human soul, or more precisely, with His divine-human soul.

The word "made alive," or "quickened," is used, and not simply "being alive in spirit," since the soul did not die and did not need to be made alive.

It may be used either in correspondence with the phrase "put to death in the flesh," or according to the Apostle Peter's usual manner of expression.

This Apostle usually says of Christ's Resurrection that God raised Christ (Acts 2:24; Acts 3:15). Of the Lord's Ascension, for example, he does not say that He ascended, but that He was exalted by the right hand of God (Acts 2:33).

Similarly here, he does not say "being alive," but "made alive," or "having been made alive in the spirit."

The example of the eight saved souls of Noah's family in the ark should inspire Christians also with hope and patience. They are surrounded by the abyss of the sinful world and seem to sail in an ocean of every possible trial from the sons of this age.

Corresponding to this figure, that is, to the floating ark, baptism now also saves us. Its saving power is appropriated by faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He Himself, by the path of suffering, ascended into heaven and abides at the right hand of God. Angels, authorities, and powers have been subjected to Him, that is, also according to His humanity.

Having said that it is better to suffer for good deeds than for evil (1 Pet 3:17), the holy Apostle Peter adds: "For Christ also once suffered for our 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.

By this also He went and preached to the spirits in prison."

When reading these apostolic words, the first question naturally arises: what should be understood by the prison into which Christ descended with His soul while His body remained in the tomb?

By this prison the Apostle means that region little known to us, to which the souls of dead people depart and where they abide.

The people of the Old Testament called this region by the common name sheol, or the netherworld, which in Greek is called Hades. This is not Hades in our sense as a place of torment for sinners alone.

It is Hades in the general sense of the realm of the dead (Gen 37:35).

By calling this place a prison or confinement, the Apostle clearly attributes to it something restrictive for the human spirit. It hinders the free manifestation of its powers and is in general something unpleasant and undesirable.

Such was the character of this place before the coming of Christ the Savior for all people who died in general.

Of course, the degree of their righteousness, as well as the degree of their impiety, was reflected in the corresponding degrees of their confinement in sheol.

That is, the souls of the departed patriarchs and, for example, the souls of people who perished during the flood, of whom the Apostle speaks in particular, were not in one place or in the same state.

Why did the Lord descend into Hades? The holy Apostle Peter answers this by saying that Christ, having descended into the prison of the spirits, preached.

Thus the Lord descended into this prison for preaching. The content of this preaching was, of course, that the salvation of mankind had been accomplished.

It also proclaimed that this Savior is He Himself, the Son of Man, who had descended into the nether regions of the earth to the prisoners of Hades.

It proclaimed that the sole and universal means for the salvation of people from there had become moral communion with Him.

Thus "whoever has faith in Him" as the incarnate Son of God "will be saved, but he who does not have faith will be condemned" (Mk 16:16).

That this truly was the essence of Christ's preaching in Hades is indicated rather clearly by the Apostle, when he calls this preaching the Gospel, or good tidings, below in 1 Pet 4:6.

We know that the chief aim, or essence, of the Gospel proclamation is that people may believe "that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they may have life in His name" (Jn 20:31).

To which spirits did Christ preach when He descended into Hades? The Apostle later replaces his expression, that Christ's preaching was to spirits, with another expression: "Christ's good tidings were preached to the dead" (1 Pet 4:6).

Therefore, according to the Apostle, only human spirits, that is, the souls of dead people, were instructed by Christ's preaching, and not spirits in general, such as fallen angelic spirits.

Because these latter spirits lack every good receptivity, preaching to them would be completely hopeless and therefore vain.

On this same basis, one may suppose that even in the realm of human spirits only a portion of them was saved by the radiant preaching of the Resurrection and led out from the strongholds of Hades.

This was the portion in which at least some small receptivity to this preaching and faith in Christ had been preserved.

All the same, it is supremely consoling that the divinely inspired Apostle Peter considerably expands the sphere of people saved by Christ's preaching.

He points to them even where it would have been difficult for us to suppose them, according to our human reasoning. He points precisely to the realm of people who perished in the waves of the flood.

These were people formerly disobedient to the divine longsuffering that awaited them, in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark (1 Pet 3:20).

That many of these people were saved is directly declared by the Apostle when he says: "For to this end the Gospel was preached even to the dead, that. Having been judged according to men in the flesh," that is, having perished and suffered in the body, "they might live according to God in the spirit" in the world beyond the grave (1 Pet 4:6).

Perhaps at the moment of their destruction they recognized their impiety, and who knows? Perhaps they died with cries to God and with repentance.

Some interpreters have expressed perplexity about why salvation was proclaimed to those who did not obey the Lord in the days of Noah, since repentance is impossible after death.

But one must remember, first, that some of those who had not repented during the building of the ark repented during the flood itself.

Second, Jesus Christ proclaimed Himself to all who were in Hades: to some for consolation and joy, and to others for punishment and fear (see 1 Pet 4:6).

Why, from among all, the apostle singles out those who perished in the days of Noah is clear from his following words about the flood.

He was in the tomb bodily, in Hades with His soul as God, in paradise with the thief, and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit, filling all things. Or, as Athanasius of Alexandria says, “The body died, and its dissolution took place. Yet God the Word was unchangeably in the body, in the soul, and in Himself, being in the bosom of the Father, to show His immutability.

“In that same form which was in Him like ours, He portrayed our death, so that in Him He might prepare resurrection for us. He brought the soul back from Hades and the body from the tomb.

“By the manifestation of the soul in death, He destroyed death. By the burial of the body in the tomb, He rendered corruption powerless. From Hades and from the tomb He revealed immortality and incorruption.

“In a body like ours He completed the way for us and released us who were held captive.”

The holy Apostle Peter places the Lord’s descent into Hades immediately after His death: “Christ also suffered once for our 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 also He went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet 3:18-19).

While His most pure Body rested in the tomb under the seal of the Sanhedrin, Christ’s deified soul descended where the souls of all earth-born men had gone. They had been deprived of the blessedness of paradise because of the sin of the forefathers.

He descended into the prison of spirits, into Hades, to destroy the power of the devil in his very stronghold. He came to free the captives who had been imprisoned there from ages past.

According to the thought of the holy father, “Hades could not have endured the coming of the Godhead uncovered.” Yet everything had to be accomplished “according to nature and in very reality.”

As man, Christ was not to be held by death. As God, He was to destroy the dominion of death and Hades.

The unsearchable wisdom of God so ordered it that the murderer from the beginning (Jn 8:44) was deprived of his deadly dominion. This was the great dragon, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world (Rev 12:9).

In the words of Gregory of Nyssa, he “seized the bait of the flesh, but was caught on the hook of the Godhead.”

Having proclaimed on earth the glad tidings of salvation, and having shed His blood as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2), the Lord descended in His soul into Hades.

He did this in order to preach there also His victory over the devil, and to free all who had awaited His coming in faith.

Even earlier, John the Baptist, “having suffered for the truth,” “proclaimed the good tidings to those in Hades also, that God had appeared in the flesh,” as the troparion says.

The promised Messiah came, Christ awaited by all the prophets. The Lord shattered the “eternal bars” of Hades and delivered from bonds those whom, as Athanasius of Alexandria observes, “during their life in the flesh He preserved by His grace in faith and piety.”

As Philaret of Moscow says, “the patriarchs, prophets, and righteous of the Old Testament were not plunged into that deep darkness in which unbelievers and the impious sink.

“Yet they did not pass beyond the shadow of death, nor did they enjoy the fullness of light. They possessed the seed of light, that is, faith in the Christ who was to come.

“Only His actual coming to them, and the touch of His divine light, could kindle their lamps with the light of true heavenly life.”

The burning desires of the Old Testament righteous were fulfilled. They had died in faith, but had not received the promises during their earthly life.

From afar, and in the shadow of types and prophetic utterances, they had beheld the day of Christ (Jn 8:56; Heb 10:1; 11:13).

How many weary centuries of waiting had passed for the patriarchs and prophets, enclosed in a place from which there seemed to be no exit.

Appearing among the captives of the netherworld, Christ, as Ephrem the Syrian depicts it, “sees Adam bathed in tears. He sees Abel covered with blood as with purple.

“He sees Noah adorned with righteousness. He sees Shem and Japheth adorned with reverence toward their father. He sees Abraham crowned with every virtue. He sees Lot striving in hospitality.

“He sees Isaac flowering with steadfastness. He sees Jacob shining with patience. He sees Job like an athlete made ready for combat. He sees Phinehas armed with a spear (Num 25:7).

“He sees Moses initiated by the fingers of God. He comes to Joshua, and Joshua is surrounded by armies. He approaches Samuel, and Samuel shines with the anointing of kings.

“He goes to David, and David is buried with the psalter. He comes to Elisha, and Elisha is clothed in the mantle. Isaiah joyfully shows the head severed from him by the saw.

“Jonah is glorified by the salvation of the Ninevites. Jeremiah is anointed with the mud of the pit. Ezekiel’s eyes are radiant from terrible visions.

“On Daniel’s feet the kisses of the lions are still fresh. The bodies of those who were in the furnace sparkle with fire. The company of the Maccabees is surrounded by instruments of torture.

“The head of the Baptist shines with beheading. He sees also the holy women, who in nothing yielded to men. He sees Sarah, shining with Abraham’s faith.

“He sees Rebecca, flourishing through her beneficent giving of drink from the water jar. He sees Rachel, shining in marriage with chastity.

“He sees the mother of the bulwarks who resisted the tormentor, overshadowed by her seven sons. He sees every righteous man and looks upon every prophet, and He proclaims: Behold, I am He.”

When Hades saw that “Man,” as the Holy Church sings, “declares the Godhead in Himself, and the One covered with wounds declares omnipotence,” it trembled at meeting Him and perished before His dread gaze.

“To the first Adam, into the very depths of the netherworld, there descended the second Adam, who dwells in the habitations above.” “His soul, parted from the flesh, by its power tore apart both bonds, those of death and of Hades.”

The dominion of death, and of him who had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb 2:14), over the sinful human race came to an end.

The Holy and True One, “who has the key of David, who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens” (Rev 3:7), opened for the faithful the doors of paradise and heaven.

These had been closed by the sin of the forefathers. As the great High Priest who offered Himself as a redemptive sacrifice, He entered heaven itself (Heb 9:24), accompanied by those whom He had redeemed.