Did Christ Preach While Dead?
Audio read by Tom Parks - MP3
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Many people, even whole denominations, have as their creed that Christ did in fact go to the fallen angels and preach to them while he was dead for three days. But the Bible also consistently tells us that Christ died, and that when he was resurrected three days later he was raised up from the dead. This means that the three parts of Christ (who was then a human being) died, or else as Paul taught the three parts of a human (body, soul and spirit – I Thessalonians 5:23) cannot be saved because our bodies have sins on them (Colossians 2:11), our souls have sins on them (Ezekiel 18:4), and our spirits have sins on them (II Corinthians 7:1). To cleans us of all sins (those of the body, soul and spirit), Christ had to die for us (on our behalf, as a substitute for us) and he had to die in body, in soul, and in his spirit. It is just that simple.
Had Christ’s body died and his soul and spirit went on living, then he did not die as other humans die. But there was nothing about Christ at the time that differentiated him from any other human (Philippians 2:6-8). So Christ died as do all humans - on body, soul and spirit. This means it would have been impossible for him to go to the spirits in prison and preach to them while he was dead for three days. This is because a dead man is not alive when he is dead.
Now if someone you may have known recently died and you or anyone else witnesses a spirit personality who says he or she is the one who recently died, you can know for a fact that the spirit saying such a thing is a lying spirit who is just like Satan the Devil trying to deceive you. This is the very thing that the apostle Paul warned people about which he said was to occur in greater incidence in the latter times. He said: "now the spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons" (I Timothy 4:1). Listen, if any person you know is dead supposedly make a "spirit appearance" to you or anyone else, that spirit is a false, lying and deceptive spirit that is akin to Satan the Devil and that spirit should not be heeded in any way. The apostle John said: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try (or, test) the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (I John 4:1). The truth is, the dead are dead and they will remain dead (including Mary the mother of Jesus and all the apostles and early prophets) until the resurrection from the dead which takes place at the second advent of Christ (I Corinthians 15:38-55). And this means that Christ himself, when he was in the tomb for three days, was completely without consciousness during that time in body, soul and spirit (just the same as any other human being is also completely dead – utterly unconscious).
So, Christ could not go to the spirits in prison while he was dead and preach to them. In actual fact, the apostle Peter nowhere suggest such nonsense. In I Peter 3:18 he states that Christ truly died (he was "put to death in the flesh") but then he was "quickened by the Spirit" (last part of verse 18). To be quickened means to be made alive. Peter is telling us that Christ was put to death and then later he was resurrected from the dead (he was "quickened"), and then in the spirit, "he went and preached unto the spirits in prison" (verse 19). It is made abundantly clear by Peter that this preaching to the angelic hosts who rebelled in Noah’s time was after he was quickened – after he was resurrected from the dead. It is amazing how many misapply the plain words of Peter that this occurred after Christ was "quickened". It is wrong to make Christ preaching while he was dead.
This misapplication of the scripture is another example of how the false notion that the dead are still alive (that is, alive in soul or spirit –which they are not) is a major factor in creating myriads of false doctrines that the dead are now alive. Let me be plain. The only person who has been resurrected back to a spiritual life where he will never die again is Christ Jesus himself (I Corinthians 15:20-22), while Mary the mother of Jesus, all the apostles, and even all of us today, will have to wait until the second advent of Christ to regain life by the resurrection from the dead (I Corinthians 15:23). It is time to give up the foolish teaching that the dead are now alive. They are not alive, but totally dead and thoroughly unconscious and they are without the slightest knowledge of what is going on in the earth or in heaven.
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