他降在阴间，第三天从死人中复活，升天，坐在全能父上帝的右边……
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事情从5.12的周年纪念开始，不然也许我不会如此严重的关注这个问题。
周日的时候，牧师为那些死难的灵魂祷告，希望主耶稣能够拯救这些灵魂。
周一的时候，我就此和团契中的弟兄姊妹分享，一个姊妹说以前牧师讲道讲过1 Peter 4:6，死人也有福音传给他们。
周二的时候，这是5.12的周年纪念祷告会了，另一位牧师的祷告也说，“主，你曾经说过，就是死人也有福音传给他们……”
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但是我不相信二次拯救。下面是从一个归正宗的系统神学上引用的话语，我不试图翻译了，这样没有掺杂我自己的解释。 这一段是放在一个更加广阔的话题中，关于是否有降在阴间的讨论。
这就涉及到对于使徒信经的认信了。真是越来越复杂。但是我想每一个严肃的基督徒都不应该回避这样的释经难题。
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(2) Possible Biblical Support for a Descent Into Hell
Support for the idea that Christ descended into hell has been found primarily in five passages: Acts 2:27; Romans 10:6–7; Ephesians 4:8–9; 1 Peter 3:18–20; and 1 Peter 4:6. (A few other passages have been appealed to, but less convincingly.) On closer inspection, do any of those passages clearly establish this teaching?
(a) Acts 2:27. This is part of Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, where he is quoting Psalm 16:10. In the King James Version the verse reads: “because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Does this mean that Christ entered hell after he died? Not necessarily, because another sense is certainly possible for these verses. The word “hell” here represents a
New Testament Greek term (?δη?, G87) and an Old Testament Hebrew term ( ,??????? H8619, popularly translated as sheol) that can mean simply “the grave” or “death” (the state of being dead). Thus, the NIV translates: “Because you will not abandon me to the grave nor will you let your Holy One see decay” (Acts 2:27). This sense is preferable because the context emphasizes that Christ’s body rose from the grave, unlike David’s, which remained in the grave. The reasoning is: “My body also will live in hope” (v. 26), “because you will not abandon me to the grave” (v. 27). Peter is using David’s psalm to show that Christ’s body did not decay—he is therefore unlike David, who “died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day” (v. 29 NIV). Therefore this passage about Christ’s resurrection from the grave does not convincingly support the idea that Christ descended into hell.
(b) Romans 10:6–7. These verses contain two rhetorical questions, again Old Testament quotations (from Deut. 30:13): “Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or “Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But this passage hardly teaches that Christ descended into hell. The point of the passage is that Paul is telling people not to ask these questions, because Christ is not far away—he is near—and faith in him is as near as confessing with our mouth and believing in our heart (v. 9). These prohibited questions are questions of unbelief, not assertions of what Scripture teaches. However, some may object that Paul would not have anticipated that his readers would ask such questions unless it was widely known that Christ did in fact descend “into the abyss.” However, even if this were true, Scripture would not be saying or implying that Christ went into “hell” (in the sense of a place of punishment for the dead, ordinarily expressed by Gk. γ?εννα, G1147), but rather that he went into “the abyss” (Gk. ?βυσσο? (G12) a term which often in the LXX is used of the depths of the ocean [Gen. 1:2; 7:11; 8:2; Deut. 8:7; Ps. 106:26 (107:26)], but it can also apparently refer just to the realm of the dead [Ps. 70:20 (71:20)]).
Paul here uses the word “deep” (?βυσσο? (G12)) as a contrast to “heaven” in order to give the sense of a place that is unreachable, inaccessible to human beings. The contrast is not, “Who shall go to find Christ in a place of great blessing (heaven) or a place of great punishment (hell)?” but rather, “Who shall go to find Christ in a place that is inaccessibly high (heaven) or in a place that is inaccessibly low (the deep, or
the realm of death)?” No clear affirmation or denial of a “descent into hell” can be found in this passage.
(c) Ephesians 4:8–9. Here Paul writes, “In saying, “He ascended,’ what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?”
Does this mean that Christ “descended” to hell? It is at first unclear what is meant by “the lower parts of the earth,” but another translation seems to give the best sense: “What does “he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions?” (NIV). Here the NIV takes “descended” to refer to Christ’s coming to earth as a baby (the Incarnation). The last four words are an acceptable understanding of the Greek text, taking the phrase “the lower regions of the earth” to mean “lower regions which are the earth” (the grammatical form in Greek would then be called a genitive of apposition). We do the same thing in English—for example, in the phrase “the city
of Chicago,” we mean “the city which is Chicago.”
The NIV rendering is preferable in this context because Paul is saying that the Christ who went up to heaven (in his ascension) is the same one who earlier came down from heaven (v. 10). That “descent” from heaven occurred, of course, when Christ came to be born as a man. So the verse speaks of the incarnation, not of a descent into hell.
(d) 1 Peter 3:18–20. For many people this is the most puzzling passage on this entire subject. Peter tells us that Christ was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark” (RSV).
Does this refer to Christ preaching in Hell?
Some have taken “he went and preached to the spirits in prison” to mean that Christ went into hell and preached to the spirits who were there—either proclaiming the gospel and offering a second chance to repent, or just proclaiming that he had triumphed over them and that they were eternally condemned.
But these interpretations fail to explain adequately either the passage itself or its setting in this context. Peter does not say that Christ preached to spirits generally, but only to those “who formerly did not obey…during the building of the ark.” Such a limited audience—those who disobeyed during the building of the ark—would be a strange group for Christ to travel to hell and preach to. If Christ proclaimed his triumph, why only to these sinners and not to all? And if he offered a second chance for salvation, why only to these sinners and not to all? Even more difficult for this view is the fact that Scripture elsewhere indicates that there is no opportunity for repentance after death (Luke 16:26; Heb. 10:26–27).
Moreover, the context of 1 Peter 3 makes “preaching in hell” unlikely. Peter is encouraging his readers to witness boldly to hostile unbelievers around them. He just told them to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you” (1 Peter 3:15 NIV). This evangelistic motif would lose its urgency if Peter were teaching a second chance for salvation after death. And it would not fit at all with a “preaching” of condemnation.
Does it refer to Christ preaching to fallen angels?
To give a better explanation for these difficulties, several commentators have proposed taking “spirits in prison” to mean demonic spirits, the spirits of fallen angels, and have said that Christ proclaimed condemnation to these demons. This (it is claimed) would comfort Peter’s readers by showing them that the demonic forces oppressing them would also be defeated by Christ.
However, Peter’s readers would have to go through an incredibly complicated reasoning process to draw this conclusion when Peter does not explicitly teach it. They would have to reason from (1) some demons who sinned long ago were condemned, to (2) other demons are now inciting your human persecutors, to (3) those demons will likewise be condemned someday, to (4) therefore your persecutors will finally be judged as well. Finally Peter’s readers would get to Peter’s point: (5) Therefore don’t fear your persecutors.
Those who hold this “preaching to fallen angels” view must assume that Peter’s readers would “read between the lines” and conclude all this (points 2–5) from the simple statement that Christ “preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey” (1 Peter 3:19–20). But does it not seem too farfetched to say that Peter knew his readers would read all this into the text?
Moreover, Peter emphasizes hostile persons not demons, in the context (1 Peter 3:14, 16). And where would Peter’s readers get the idea that angels sinned “during the building of the ark”? There is nothing of that in the Genesis story about the building of the ark. And (in spite of what some have claimed), if we look at all the traditions of Jewish interpretation of the flood story, we find no mention of angels sinning specifically “during the building of the ark.”28 Therefore the view that Peter is speaking of Christ’s proclamation of judgment to fallen angels is really not persuasive either.
Does it refer to Christ’s Proclaiming release to Old Testament saints?
Another explanation is that Christ, after his death, went and proclaimed release to Old Testament believers who had been unable to enter heaven until the completion of Christ’s redemptive work.
But again we may question whether this view adequately accounts for what the text actually says. It does not say that Christ preached to those who were believers or faithful to God, but to those “who formerly did not obey—the emphasis is on their disobedience. Moreover, Peter does not specify Old Testament believers generally, but only those who were disobedient “in the days of Noah, during the building of the
ark” (1 Peter 3:20).
Finally, Scripture gives us no clear evidence to make us think that full access to the blessings of being in God’s presence in heaven were withheld from Old Testament believers when they died—indeed, several passages suggest that believers who died before Christ’s death did enter into the presence of God at once because their sins were forgiven by trusting in the Messiah who was to come (Gen. 5:24; 2 Sam. 12:23;
Pss. 16:11; 17:15; 23:6; Eccl. 12:7; Matt. 22:31–32; Luke 16:22; Rom. 4:1–8; Heb. 11:5).
A more satisfying explanation.
The most satisfactory explanation of 1 Peter 3:19–20 seems rather to be one proposed (but not really defended) long ago by Augustine: the passage refers not to something Christ did between his death and resurrection, but to what he did “in the spiritual realm of existence” (or “through the Spirit”) at the time of Noah. When Noah was building the ark, Christ “in spirit” was preaching through Noah to the hostile
unbelievers around him.
This view gains support from two other statements of Peter. In 1 Peter 1:11, he says that the “Spirit of Christ” was speaking in the Old Testament prophets. This suggests that Peter could readily have thought that the “Spirit of Christ” was speaking
through Noah as well. Then in 2 Peter 2:5, he calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness” (NIV), using the noun (κ?ρυξ, G3061) that comes from the same root as the verb “preached” (?κ?ρυξεν, from κηρ?σσω, G3062) in 1 Peter 3:19. So it seems likely that when Christ “preached to the spirits in prison” he did so through Noah in the days before the flood.
The people to whom Christ preached through Noah were unbelievers on the earth at the time of Noah, but Peter calls them “spirits in prison” because they are now in the prison of hell—even though they were not just “spirits” but persons on earth when the preaching was done. (The NASB says Christ preached “to the spirits now in prison.”) We can speak the same way in English: “I knew President Clinton when he was a college student” is an appropriate statement, even though he was not president when he was in college. The sentence means, “I knew the man who is now President Clinton when he was still a student in college.” So “Christ preached to the spirits in prison” means “Christ preached to people who are now spirits in prison when they were still persons on earth.”
This interpretation is very appropriate to the larger context of 1 Peter 3:13–22. The parallel between the situation of Noah and the situation of Peter’s readers is clear at several points:
Noah Peter’s readers
Righteous minority Righteous minority
\Surrounded by hostileunbelievers Surrounded by hostile unbelievers
God’s judgment was near God’s judgment may come soon
(1 Peter 4:5, 7; 2 Peter3:10)
Noah witnessed boldly They should witness boldly
(byChrist’s power) by Christ’s power (1 Peter 3:14,16–17; 3:15; 4:11)
Noah was finally saved They will finally be saved (1 Peter 3:13–14; 4:13; 5:10)
Such an understanding of the text seems to be by far the most likely solution to a puzzling passage. Yet this means that our fourth possible support for a descent of Christ into hell also turns up negative—the text speaks rather of something Christ did on earth at the time of Noah.
(e) 1 Peter 4:6. This fifth and final passage says, “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.”
Does this verse mean that Christ went to hell and preached the gospel to those who had died? If so, it would be the only passage in the Bible that taught a “second chance” for salvation after death and would contradict passages such as Luke 16:19– 31 and Hebrews 9:27, which clearly seem to deny this possibility. Moreover, the passage does not explicitly say that Christ preached to people after they had died, and
could rather mean that the gospel in general was preached (this verse does not even say that Christ preached) to people who are now dead, but that it was preached to them while they were still alive on earth.
This is a common explanation, and it seems to fit this verse much better. It finds support in the second word of the verse, “this,” which refers back to the final judgment mentioned at the end of verse 5. Peter is saying that it was because of the final judgment that the gospel was preached to the dead.
This would comfort the readers concerning their Christian friends who had already died. They may have wondered, “Did the gospel benefit them, since it didn’t save them from death?” Peter answers that the reason the gospel was preached to those who had died was not to save them from physical death (they were “judged in the flesh like men”) but to save them from final judgment (they will “live in the spirit like God”). Therefore, the fact that they had died did not indicate that the gospel had failed in its purpose—for they would surely live forever in the spiritual realm.
Thus, “the dead” are people who have died and are now dead, even though they were alive and on earth when the gospel was preached to them. (The NIV translates, “For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead,” and NASB has “those who are dead.”) This avoids the doctrinal problem of a “second chance” of salvation after death and fits both the wording and the context of the verse.
We conclude, therefore, that this last passage, when viewed in its context, turns out to provide no convincing support for the doctrine of a descent of Christ into hell.
At this point, people on all sides of the question of whether Christ actually descended into hell should be able to agree at least that the idea of Christ’s “descent into hell” is not taught clearly or explicitly in any passage of Scripture. And many people (including the present author) will conclude that this idea is not taught in Scripture at all. But beyond the question of whether any passage positively teaches this idea, we must ask whether it is contrary to any passages of Scripture.