What Does 1 Peter 3:20 Mean?

(20) **Which sometime were disobedient.**—The absence of the definite article here in the Greek (contrary to St. Peter’s usage in participial sentences—*e.g., *1Peter 1:5; 1Peter 1:7; 1Peter 1:10; 1Peter 1:17) makes it possible to think that the spirits mentioned in this verse are not co-extensive with those in prison. It is, literally, *to men who once upon a time were disobedient.* Our Lord preached to the whole class of spirits in prison, of all times and races; and then, to magnify the bounty of this act, St. Peter instances a particular group of them, who were the most marked criminals of any, and whose case suggested a useful application. He has a reason for using the word “disobedient.” It would not describe *all* sinners, but those who had heard and been convinced by the word of God, but refused to accept it. (See Note on 1Peter 3:2.) This was the case with those to whom Noah preached (2Peter 2:5); and, in spite of their “disobedience,” Christ, after His innocent and sacrificial death, went in spirit and preached a gospel to them. Now, let it be recollected that St. Peter’s object through the whole of this section is to encourage the Hebrew Christians to be ready, through a good conscience, for a brave martyrdom, if need be. They are to think how their deaths, like Christ’s, may bring their persecutors to God. Nay—he seems to imply—their very spirits going forth into the world of spirits may conceivably carry a gospel of some kind even to Hebrew relatives who have passed away, like those Antediluvians, in the “disobedience” which was characteristic of the Jews. St. Clement of Alexandria, who derives the notion from the *Shepherd* of Hermas, gives his belief that the Apostles also, when they died, preached to those who had died before them; and though there is little that throws light on our occupation in the intermediate state, it can hardly be pronounced impossible for some spirits to be allowed to follow Christ’s example there by preaching to spirits in prison. Many expositors, afraid of the consequences of admitting that there could be a possible gospel for men who died impenitent, have supposed that the imprisoned spirits to whom Christ went were the less wicked people destroyed by the Flood; others that they were those who had some motions of penitence when the rain began to fall; but these ideas are foreign to the text, which only tells us that they “were disobedient,” and adds nothing to extenuate their crime. They are a typical instance of men who died “as evil doers” (1Peter 3:17). **When once the longsuffering of God waited.**—The word “once” has no business in the text, originating only in an ingenious but unnecessary guess of Erasmus. The clause serves to heighten the guilt of the poor sinners to whom Christ preached in prison. Not only did they die a judicial death for their extreme sensuality (Genesis 6:3; Genesis 6:11), not only did they disobey an isolated call to repentance from Noah, but continuously, through all the time of the building of the ark (traditionally 120 years), they went on refusing to listen. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed without a preacher to warn them, the Canaanites were annihilated without an offer of repentance, but these abandoned Antediluvians sinned in spite of the long ministry of Noah, and died impenitent. Both their wickedness and God’s longsuffering with them were embodied in Hebrew proverbs, which St. Peter’s readers would know, and yet Christ had a gospel for them. **While the ark.**—Better, *while an ark.* It does not merely describe the period of the disobedience, but rather changes the thought altogether. We now turn from the destruction of the majority to the salvation of the few. **Wherein.**—Literally, *whereinto*—*i.e., *by getting into which. **Few, that is, eight souls were saved.**—The mention of disobedience calls up to the Apostle’s mind at once the vast number of Hebrews who rejected the gospel of Christ. As in 1Peter 2:4 *et seq., *so here, he establishes the readers against the thought, “Can I be right and all these people wrong?” by showing that from the beginning it was always a small number who accepted salvation, and they should naturally expect it to be so now. It is better to be one of the eight in the ark than of the many disobedient in the water. **By water.**—Or, *through water.* The very water which drowned the disobedient was the instrument of saving to those who believed, for it floated their ark. It cannot be denied that this is a little forced. So, in the same way, in 1Peter 2:8, the same stone is to some a sanctuary, to some a stumbling-block. This pregnant word “water” leads on to the next thought.