194. "THE SPIRITS IN PRISON" (1 Peter 3:19).A correct understanding of this passage may be obtained by noting the following facts:1. Men are never spoken of in Scripture as "spirits". Man has a spirit, but he is not "a spirit", for a spirit hath not flesh and bones". In this life man has "flesh and blood", a "natural" (or psychical) body. At death this spirit "returns to God Who gave it" (Ps. 31:5. Eccles. 12:7. Luke 23:46. Acts 7:59). In resurrection "God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him" (1Cor. 15:38). This is no longer a "natural" (or psychical) body, but a "spiritual body" (1Cor. 15:44).2. Angels are "spirits", and are so called (Heb. 1:7, 14).3. In 2Pet. 2:4 we read of "the angels that sinned"; and in 1Pet. 3:19, 20 of spirits "which sometime were disobedient ... in the days of Noah". In 2Pet. 2:4 we are further told that the fallen angels are reserved unto judgment, and delivered into chains (i.e. bondage or "prison"). Cp. Jude 6.4. The cause of their fall and the nature of their sin are particularly set forth by the Holy Spirit in Jude 6, 7.
- They "left their own habitation".
- This "habitation" is called (in Greek) oiketerion, which occurs again only in 2Cor. 5:2, where it is called our "house" (i.e. body) with which we earnestly long to be "clothed upon"; referring to the "change" which shall take place in resurrection. This is the spiritual resurrection body of 1Cor. 15:44.
- This spiritual body (or oiketerion) is what the angels "left" (whatever that may mean, and this we do not know). The word rendered "left", here, is peculiar. It is apoleipo = to leave behind, as in 2Tim.4:13, 20, where Paul uses it of "the cloke" and the "parchments" which he left behind at Troas, and ofTrophimus whom he left behind at Miletum. Occ. Heb. 4:6, 9; 10:26. Jude 6.
- They "kept not their first estate (arche)" in which they were placed when they were created.
- he nature of their sin is clearly stated. The sin of "Sodom and Gomorrha" is declared to be "in like manner" to that of the angels; and what that sin was is described as "giving themselves over tofornication, and going after strange flesh" (Jude 6, 7). The word "strange" here denotes other, i.e. different (Gr. heteros = different in kind. See Ap. 124. 2 ) What this could be, and how it could be, we are not told. We are not asked to understand it, but to believe it. (see further in App. 23 and 25).