1 Peter 4:6

Note

Peter says that the gospel was preached even to the dead. Few sentences in the New Testament have been read in more ways. On every reading, though, it says the same thing about human verdicts: they are not the last word.

Peter's readers were being mocked by their old companions, who "consider it strange of you not to plunge with them into the same flood of reckless indiscretion, and they heap abuse on you" (1 Peter 4:4). Those who mock, Peter says, "will have to give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead" (1 Peter 4:5), and this verse picks up that last word, "the dead." Its shape echoes what Peter said of Christ, who "was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18). So with these: judged in the flesh, alive in the spirit.

The verb is euangelizomai, here euēngelisthē, an aorist passive with no subject: good news "was preached" to the dead. The verse does not say who preached it, and the aorist only says it happened in the past. That is why readings divide.

The versions show the division. The KJV has "the gospel preached also to them that are dead," and the LSV "to dead men," both as open as the Greek. The BSB adds a word, "those who are now dead," and so takes the first of the readings below. The Korean Bibles, the 흠정역 (죽어 있는 자들에게도) and the 개역한글 (죽은 자들에게도), leave it open as the Greek does. They differ on the preposition kata: the 흠정역 "according to" men and God, the 개역한글 "like" men and God.

Many Protestant interpreters read "the dead" as believers who heard the gospel while they lived and have since died. The world condemned them, some even to death, but before God they live. Matthew Henry writes that "The gospel had been preached to those since dead, who by the proud and carnal judgment of wicked men were condemned as evil-doers" Matthew Henry. Wesley widens it: the gospel has been preached "Ever since it was given to Adam," to the dead "In their several generations" Wesley.

Another old reading joins the verse to 3:19, where Christ "went and preached to the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19), and hears in it Christ's proclamation among the dead after His death. Already in the second century Irenaeus wrote that the Lord went down to the regions beneath the earth and preached His coming there too Irenaeus, Against Heresies. The Orthodox and Catholic churches read this verse with Christ's descent to the dead: the good news of His saving work came also to those who had died before Him Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Apostles' Creed confesses that Christ "descended into hell" The Apostles' Creed, and many churches still say it in their worship, whatever they take this verse to mean.

People judge by the flesh, and death makes their verdict look final. The gospel speaks of a life beyond it, lived according to God, and of a Judge who is also the One who gives life.