Preaching In Prision

9″x12″, Colored Pencil, Blended with Turpentine

1 Peter 3:18-20
¹⁸ For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, ¹⁹ through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison ²⁰ who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water…
NIV

I have always found this section of the Bible fascinating. There is evidence that it is from an ancient Old Testament text known as the Book of Enoch which did not make it into the Cannon. Catholicism also leans heavily upon this section of scripture for their theological view of Purgatory which I do not believe. With all of this said, these verses are fascinating to me because they say that Jesus was alive ‘in the Spirit’ during the three days he was dead after being crucified on the cross before His resurrection. It implies vast things that are hard for our mind to grasp, yet Jesus did them; things like traveling back in time to the days of Noah where apparently He preached to these people. The question goes out as to just ‘what’ did He preach? Here in this, is the aspect that I love to think about when reading this part of the Bible because it implies that Jesus reached out and possibly offered salvation to these people from the ancient pre-flood world, and that we just might be seeing some of them in Heaven IF they chose to accept His message in prison. I see Jesus’ power in these scriptures, His compassion, and how even in death He is still working at advancing the Kingdom of God.