The First Prison Ministry

I did prison ministry in college; I was terrified at first, but one of my professors really pushed me to work with inmates. I’m thankful for my experiences in jail ministry, for I gained skills that have helped throughout my ministry. And I’ve been in jails several times in my work—shortly before Tammy and I were married, her dad and I spent some time in prison together (not many sons-in-law can say that!).

But before David Underwood urged me to do jail ministry, our Lord went to prison and preached. Peter recorded: “[Jesus] was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water” (1 Pet 3:18b-20).

Simply reading the context leads one to the conclusion that the “spirits in prison” are the ungodly who did not obey Noah’s preaching prior to the Great Deluge. How did Jesus go and preach to those spirits? Some have suggested that this refers to the inspired preaching of Noah. Yes, Noah, I’m convinced, preached through the agency of the Holy Spirit; Noah was “a herald of righteousness” (2 Pet 2:5). However, that’s far from the most straightforward reading of the text.

The most straightforward reading of the text is that Jesus preached to the spirits in prison while he was dead. It is my personal opinion that while Jesus was in his Jerusalem grave that his spirit was preaching to the folks who had been disobedient during the days of Noah. It’s important to note that Peter said Jesus “proclaimed,” not “evangelized”—the Greek term Peter used here is not the word for proclaiming the gospel, the term simply means to announce.

While our Lord’s mangled body lay lifeless in his tomb, his spirit was, I believe, preaching truth to the spirits who had disobeyed while Noah built the ark. What could Jesus have possibly told them? Obviously, he did not give them a second chance; Father Abraham told the rich man that he was stuck in torment without hope (Lk 16:26). That was, I believe, the Lord’s message for the spirits in prison: There is no hope for you, you are lost, and you will suffer torment for all eternity.

What a horrible message! Imagine being in torment and lifting up your eyes into glory and seeing the Lord arrive after his crucifixion. What hope might have stirred in your heart! Maybe, just maybe, you think that your situation will shortly change. Then, the Lord begins proclaiming the truth that you are lost forever. No hope. No salvation. Nothing but torment.

While those who disobeyed in Noah’s day have no hope, you do. As long as you breathe, you can turn to God and escape the horrors of a devil’s hell. You can escape that devil’s hell because Jesus died for your sins and was raised for your life.

This article was originally written by Dr. Justin Imel, Sr., for the weekly newsletter at Church of Christ Deer Park in Deer Park, Texas.