Preaching to Spirits

Karen Jobes (1 Peter) understates the point when she says that 1 Peter 3 is “more obscure than we might wish,” but she highlights the central point of Peter’s odd claim that Jesus preached to spirits in prison: “(1)Being linked with 3:13-17 by hoti kai (because also, 3:18), the 3:18-22 passage is intended to ground the immediately preceding claim that it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. (2) Even though Christ suffered unjustly to death for doing good, that suffering was not the defeat it may have appeared to be but was instead a victory over all angels, authorities, and powers (3:22). Suffering unjustly for doing good is therefore not the final judgment about who is in the right” (237).

Further, “Peter is keen to impress on his readers that nothing that can come against them is beyond the control of the risen and living Christ (3:22). Hence, if they suffer for being Christians, it is within God’s will (3:17).” In short, despite the obscurity, the passage “functions as a word of encouragement to Christians oppressed by the powers they faced” (237).

Jobes doesn’t, of course, avoid illuminating the obscurity. She cites William Dalton’s study of Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits, which argues that the passage “refers to Christ’s victory proclamation following his resurrection as he ascended to take his rightful place in heaven as the ruler over all” (237). She thinks that Peter draws on the Watcher tradition from 1 Enoch, and that Peter uses it to claim that “Christ’s resurrection and ascension have given him victory over [Watchers] and the evil they incited on earth” (245).

I’m skeptical about the Watcher tradition and about the claim that Peter draws on it. But the notion that Peter is emphasizing Jesus’ victory over evil spirits to reassure suffering believers is exactly right. Peter’s flood-baptism typology fits here too: As the flood delivered Noah from the wicked of the world, so baptism is an assurance of rescue from persecutors, a sign that those who follow Jesus and entrust themselves to the God who judges justly will not be disappointed.