Red--
There are angels chained in the abyss right now who will be unchained, tried, and then tossed into the Lake of fire. Your argument is a bad one. And what do you do with 1 Peter 3:18,19? Jesus preached to "the spirits in prison"?
Fish, I would never make a statement or ask that I had not
first know the answer~no lawyer worth his salt would ever ask a question that he did not know the answer.
1st Peter 3:18-20~ "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
I quoted more scriptures for CONTEXT is so important! Noah preached unto the SAME SPIRITS! And so has many children of God since the world began.
There are many who theorize that these passages speak of a type of purgatory, the spiritual under-world or intermediate place of the imprisoned lost. However, these theories are contrary to all that the holy scriptures declares about sin, judgment, and life after death for the wicked. The Bible is perfectly clear that whatever spiritual condition a person dies in (whether saved or unsaved), that is the condition in which he will stand before God and be judged. There is no possibility for a second chance at redemption after death. So
all of the many variations of this doctrine are decidedly unbiblical.
Once a person leaves this earth in death, his chance for redemption is over. There is no remembrance of him in the grave, and on the last day (John 12:48) when he is raised up to be paid according to what he has done while he was in this world. There is no Spirit of Christ preaching to any unsaved person after physical death, for death is appointed to every single one of us, and after that the judgment (Hebrews 9:27) of God. By the same token, when we receive salvation in this world through the work of Christ, we are no longer under judgment to be condemned for sin and are
judged as perfect before God. There is nothing in the Holy Scriptures that would even imply that there is a second chance at salvation after death. This divine truth is also made abundantly clear in the parable of Lazarus. Christ explains this parable saying there is a great gulf fixed (Luke 16:26) where it is impossible for the redeemed to pass from one side to the side of the unsaved who died, or those who died unsaved to pass over to the side of the redeemed. Thus if anyone dies unsaved, that is the condition that they will remain in. It is impossible to preach to those who have died in the flesh~ when they were alive in the flesh they were DEAD in trespasses and sin and that did not serve them in the least to help to know the truth.
How did Jesus preach to the spirits in prison? These can be difficult passages, but we can begin to understand what it actually means if we follow carefully what it actually says with no preconceived ideas about the interpretation and "in the light of the rest of the Bible." Because the Bible was not written in a vacuum, nor was it subject to any personal opinions or private interpretation of the saints of old. Thus it is not subject to our private interpretation or personal opinions today. Our interpretation and opinion should be subject to it, because every Word is divinely inspired.
When I am asked, "How did Christ preach to the spirits in prison," the obvious answer seems to me to be "exactly as the passage itself declares." That, by being put to death in the flesh, but quickened or made alive by the Spirit, Christ by the same Spirit that quickened him form the dead, the same Spirit preached THROUGH him while he was alive to spirits in prison. In other words, it is declaring that it was by Christ's death in the flesh and resurrection by the Spirit, that He and his servants testify to the disobedient. It is a Biblical fact that before we were saved, we were spirits held captive or prisoners by Satan. Christ was manifested in the flesh specifically to set us free from that captivity. Knowing this truth is now a matter of simply defining what we read "by biblical terms," rather than by speculation, tradition, or assumptions.
1st John 4:1~"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."
In Biblical terms, what are these spirits that the saints are told not to believe? Clearly they are the spirits in prison. In other words, they are those people who are held in spiritual captivity so that they are in bondage and servitude to Satan. They are people who are unsaved whom the saints are not to believe. The question we should be asking concerning the actual text of Peter is, How does Christ preach or declare the gospel to someone by His death and resurrection? Is it not through the witness of His Spirit? And is that not exactly what 1st Peter says in the text? The death He suffered was on the cross, and the punishment He endured was the wrath of God as He was laden with our sins (2nd Corinthians 5:21). The wages He paid was that which was due for our sins. Thus when Christ was resurrected, He was raised up without those sins. This act of sacrifice is what set our spirits free. In the real sense, as the second man (the second Adam) wherein we were dead, we were resurrected with him and delivered from our prison house. These spirits that were in prison, and that were witnessed the gospel through His Spirit, are the election.
1st Peter 3:21,22~"The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
The Spirit of God uses the gospel of Christ to deliver us from the power of Satan wherein we were held captive by him~the same gospel is preached unto other spirits in prison, yet WITHOUT the Spirit of God quickening us and opening the doors of the prison we were in we would never be able to escape. In other words, it takes the SAME POWER that raised up Christ to raise up us from the captivity wherein we were held.
Ephesians 1:19,20~"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
When Christ was put to death he died as a SINNER, he was put to death with our sins ON HIM, thereby, he was not living after he died, he had to be resurrected before he begins to live again! He died not as God, but as MAN carrying our sins upon him! So, it would be impossible for him to be preaching to literal dead souls as so many vainly suppose. Believing in that doctrine affects so many other doctrines! You might want to re-think your position.
There are angels chained in the abyss right now
Let me do a different post on this.