The preacher here is very clear as in 2 Peter 2:5 Noah is described as “a preacher of righteousness.” Furthermore, as 1 Peter 4:4-6 reveals the “dead” to whom the gospel was preached were not yet dead when it was preached unto them, since part of the preaching was “that they might be judged according to men in the flesh.” This could only take place during their life on earth. As Berkhof comments, “the common Protestant interpretation of this passage is that the Spirit of Christ preached through Noah to the disobedient that lived before the flood, who were spirits in prison when Peter wrote, and therefore could be distinguished as thus.”
You're appealing to Berkhof and the "Protestant" fathers? Very well, here's a father that does not agree.
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Kretzmann's Popular Commentary of the Bible For the same reason the apostle adds: For to this end was the Gospel preached also to them that are (now) dead, that they might be judged in the flesh indeed after the manner of men, but might live in the spirit after the manner of God. This statement has no connection with the fact given in chap. 3, 19, but belongs into this connection. To certain people that are now dead the Gospel was preached during their life, they became partakers of its wonderful blessings, in order that they, although subject to the general curse of death according to their mortal body, yet might live in the spirit, so far as their soul was concerned, and that after the manner of God, that is, in a spiritual, divine, glorified existence, until the day when God would reunite their bodies with their souls. Thus the purpose of the preaching of the Gospel was realized in the case of those that died in the Lord. The connection of thought, then, is this: While death does not remove the blasphemer from the final Judgment and condemnation, it confirms the hope of the Christians that their souls, which are safe in the hands of God, will be reunited with their bodies on the last day and enjoy everlasting salvation and glory in the presence of God.
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J EdwardsSince the rest of what Wenzel wrote depends on his summary may I just ask, "Where in the Scripture does it say that Christ descended for only a short time?" Indeed, does not the Scripture emphatically state;
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Mark 16:8-10 And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept.
Now if Jesus just finished parading through Hell with His victory procession, Mary could not have been first!
Your earlier objections were quite good but now you seem to grasping at straws. You're putting Mary in the same class as the dead and saying that Christ can not accomplish His descent into hell in a brief timeframe?
