Though it
is undeniable that the righteous are regarded as living, the wicked as dead,
righteousness as life, sin as death, there is no direct proof that the phrase ‘the
quick and the dead,’ standing by itself, means ‘righteous and sinners.’ In the
only two other passages where it occurs in the New Testament (Acts x. 42; 2 Ti.
Vi. 1), Gachwind himself admits that the phrase gives no positive proofs either
for the literal is the obvious sense in all three passages. The actually dead (νεκροι) are mentioned in
the Epistle (i. 3, i. 21). Why should νεκροι mean the
spiritually dead in iv. 5, 6? The literal use of the two words ζωντες and νεκροι is seen in S. Matt.
xxii. 32, ‘not the God of the dead but of the living’; in S. Luke xxiv. 5, ‘Why
seek ye the living among the dead?’; and Rom. xiv. 9, ‘He might be Lord both of
the dead and of the living.’
Taking νεκροι in its
literal sense in ver. 5, the word will have the same meaning in ver. 6, namely,
the dead who, with the living, are soon to be judged. This rules out the second
interpretation [RB: that the dead are those ‘dead in trespasses and sins’]. As
to the first [RB: the νεκροι are those now dead, but to whom the
Gospel had been preached while they were in life] had it been the meaning here,
one would have expected some such phrases as ‘those who are now dead.’ The
plain suggestion is that the Gospel was preached to them when they were dead. ‘The
quick and the dead’ have just been mentioned. To the living the Gospels is
preached. It has been preached also or even to the dead (και νεκροις). Both
will not share in judgement, but both will have heard that which will save them
from condemnation, if they have accepted it. All the dead are to be judged,
therefore to all the dead the Gospel has been preached. Had the first
interpretation been intended here, then those dead persons who have heard the
Gospel in their lifetime would be few in number in comparison with all the
dead, and the second νεκροι would be limited, whereas the νεκροι of ver. 5 would be
unlimited. Some other word or some defining phrase must then have been used.
Judgment is about to
take place. The Gospel is being preached to the living; for this cause it has
been preached to the dead. This was only fair to them. Both have an opportunity
of repentance, ‘living to God in the spirit,’ even if a preliminary judgment
has taken place in the flesh on those who are dead, i.e. death regarded as a
result of sin, or a judgment with reference to the earthly life, such a
judgment with reference to the earthly life, such a judgment as is common to
all men or after the pattern of men (κατα ανθρωπους). (In the Book of Enoch the Flood
is called ‘the first judgment.’ S. Paul, in 1 Cor. v. 5, speaks of some one
delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh—probably a temporal judgement
leading to the mortifying of some fleshly appetite, with its result, the saving
of the spirit in the day of the Lord) The result of the preaching (for it is
the preaching which is here emphasized, just as in iii. 19 the Preacher is
all-important) will be that they may live after the pattern of God (κατα Θεον) in the spirit. (κατα θεον, ‘after the patterns
of God,’ cf. i. 15, ‘as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy.’) Here
we have the conception of a preaching and a judgment which affects the living
as such and the dead as such. Parallel conceptions are found elsewhere. S. Paul
describes the Resurrection as it affects the living and the dead. The dead
shall be raised incorruptible; we, the living shall be changed (1 Cor. xv. 52).
Or in another passage: ‘The dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are
living shall be caught up together with them’ (1 Thess. Iv. 16-17). In the
Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 40) the making perfect affects not merely the living
but the dead as such—‘that they (the dead) without us (the living) should not
be made perfect.’
Thus the preaching
here spoken of is a preaching in Hades, a general preaching, not to one generation,
of which a particular instance—to the disobedient of Noah’s time—has already
been giving in iii.19. Nothing was said there as to the purpose of the
Preaching: that is now clearly stated here—that the dead, though judged, may
live to God. (J. A. MacCulloch, The Harrowing of Hell: A Comparative Study of an
Early Christian Doctrine [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1930], 58-60)
Whether intentional
or not, an interesting parallelism runs through both passages. Both are
antithetic, and the antithesis in each passages preserves a certain identity of
subject:
|
iii. 18: |
|
iv. 6: |
|
|
θανατωθεις μεν |
ζωοποιηθεις δε |
κριθωσι μεν |
ζωσι δε |
|
|
|
κατα ανθρωπους |
κατα θεον |
|
σαρκι |
πνεθματι |
σαρκι |
πνευματι |
Christ is put to death
in the flesh, but made alive in Spirit. The dead are judged after the manner of
men in the flesh, but live after the manner of God in the spirit.
There is a further
parallel:
|
iii. 19 |
iv. 6 |
|
τοις εν φυλακη
πνευμασι |
νεκροις |
|
εκηρυξεν |
ευηγγελισθη |
In both passages
there is a preaching of good news, (a) to spirits in prison, (b)
to the dead; nor can there be any reasonable doubt that ‘spirits in prison’ and
‘the dead’ mean those in the unseen world. We here come in sight of that idea
of a theodicy which is found in some of the Fathers, .e.g. Clement of
Alexandria. As the Lord said: ‘this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in
all the world’ (S. Matt. xxiv. 14; cf. Col. i. 23, ‘preaching in all creation
under heaven’). The thought was at once bound to arise, What of those who had
passed away before our Lord come to this world, especially those who had ‘desired
to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them’ (S. Matt. xiii.
17). Where they to have no part in ‘the common salvation’? The answer to
this problem lay in the doctrine of a Preaching in Hades, to the dead on whom a
judgement or punishment had already come—‘judged according to men in the flesh’—the
punishment of death for sin.
Though S. Peter
refers to the purpose of the Preaching in iv. 6, he says nothing of its
results. He does not teach a doctrine of a Harrowing of Hades. But he is not
writing a full account of the subject here, as he does not write fully of the
other subjects mentioned in iii. 18f.—the Death, the Resurrection, the
Ascension. Nor can we suppose that such a Preaching would be without effect
upon spirits who had undergone the great change of death and had realized some
of the mysteries of the unseen world.
This interpretation
of these Petrine passages is rendered the more probable by the fact that, in
his sermon in Acts ii., S. Peter refers three times to Christ’s presence in
Hades, though he does not refer to His Preaching. First, he says that God
raised up Jesus, ‘having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible
that He would be holden of it’ (ii. 24). ‘Death’ is here, as elsewhere,
equivalent to ‘Hades,’ and some MSS. Read ‘Hades.’ The reference is to Ps. xviii.
4, 5, where the Septuagint has ωδινες θανατου and ωδινες αδου in the successive
verses (cf. cxvi. 3, ωδινες θανατου and κινδυνοι αδου). Then he quotes Ps.
xvi. 8-11, as spoken by David concerning Christ: ‘Moreover my flesh shall dwell
in hope, because Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades; neither wilt Thou give
Thy Holy One to see corruption’ (vv. 26, 27). David, being a prophet, and ‘foreseeing
this,’ spoke of the Resurrection of Christ, that ‘neither was He left in Hades,
nor did His flesh see corruption’ (ver. 31). The apostle’s thoughts thus
centered often on the presence of Christ’s Spirit in Hades among the dead, the
spirits in prison. (Ibid., 61-63)