For those who may wonder how groups that believe in some form of "soul sleep/death" understand 1 Pet 3:19 and the preaching of Christ, the following comes from Andrew Perry (PhD, Durham), a Christadelphian, in his Before He was Born:
. . . in the days of Noah. Christ
was preached in those days by Noah, while the ark was being constructed (1
Peter 3:19). He was preached to those who were disobedient, identified in
Genesis 6 as the sons of God (Gen 6:2-3). Peter describes these men as ‘spirits’
because of their possession of the spirit of God (cf. 1 Tim 4:1; 1 John 4:1).
To these spirits, now in the prison of death (cf. 1 Pet 4:6) in Peter’s day, ‘Christ’
preached the Gospel. (Andrew Perry, Before He Was Born: Combating Arguments
for the Pre-existence of Christ [7th ed. [4th revision]; Staffordshire,
U.K.: Willow Publications, 2022], 131 n. 1)
