Because of sin, before the cross the souls of all men went to Hades (Lk
16:22-23) or else were wandering ghosts (Mt 14:26), because Jesus says,
“No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven” (Jn
3:13). Hades is the unseen place of the dead and it is the realm of him
who has the power of death, the Devil (Heb 2:14). The souls in Hades are
not there because they want to be. They cannot leave because they are
captives of the Devil (Zech 9:11-12, Isa 61:1). Even men like Samuel and
David went to this dark and dreary place (I Sam 28:14). They had water
(Lk 16:24) and did not have pain, but it was not a nice place (Ps 107:14).
It was a pit from which there was no escape, a prison (Num 16:30, 33).
When Jesus came to earth, one Sabbath He stood up in the synagogue in
Nazareth and read from Isaiah where it said, “He hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of
sight to the blind” (Lk 4:18). We know about people made glad by the good
news of the gospel (Mk 6:20) and about people whose sight was restored (Mt
11:5), but there is no instance during the life of Christ of Him
delivering the captive. The captives were in the prison of Hades. That
is where Jesus went when He died (Acts 2:27). It was there that He
preached to the spirits in Hades that they might believe on Him (I Pet
3:19). The spirits who believed on Him He took with Him when He ascended
back into heaven (Eph 4:8) when He led captivity (those who had been
captives of the Devil in Hades) captive (He took the souls of the dead
from the Devil because He is stronger than the Devil (Lk 11:22)) and gave
gifts unto men (He sent the Holy Spirit to the apostles). Jesus now has
the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:18), since He took them from the Devil
as spoils of war (Lk 11:22, Mt 12:29). From the cross onward, we find the
souls of the righteous in heaven (Rev 6:9, 20:4). Paul also says that
when he died he would go to be with Christ (Php 1:23) and that when we are
absent from the body, we are present with the Lord (II Cor 5:8).
The whole idea of “redemption” or “ransom” is based on the simple fact
that the souls of men are captives of the Devil. Their souls are captives
because of sin, and the Devil has the power of death. They are held
captive until the ransom is paid. The terms “redemption” and “ransom” are
not figures of speech. Men were literally ransomed from Hades (Hosea
13:14) by the blood of Christ (Rev 5:9), because they were literally
captives there (Ps 107:14). When the debt of sin was paid and they
believed on Christ at His preaching (I Pet 3:19), they were rescued from
Hades and followed Him to heaven when He ascended (Eph 4:8).
In I Pet 3:20 when Peter speaks of the spirits in prison he focuses on the
majority of those who were in Hades, that is, the Ante-Diluvians, the ones
who lived before the Flood. There were billions of souls there from
before the Flood. The population of the earth had not grown to nearly
that many people since Noah came out of the ark, so Peter focuses on those
souls that constituted the majority in Hades. These ancients who died in
the Flood heard Jesus speak the good news of the gospel, that is, that He
was come to ransom men from sin. These souls from before the Flood had
heard the message from the ancient prophets such as Enoch (e.g. En 62:5-8)
and they knew about God’s promise to send a Deliverer. The message that
Jesus spoke and the evidence He provided was convincing to many in Hades,
and they believed. Those who believed, He rescued from Hades when He
ascended to heaven (Eph 4:8). There they await the resurrection of their
bodies (Rom 8:11) and the establishment of Christ’s eternal reign over the
earth (Ezek 37:21-28). Christ finishes the work He has begun when He
comes again and raises the physical bodies of the dead who will then never
die again.
