A strange Bible passages found in 1 Peter 3 says that between Christ’s death and resurrection, the Lord preached to spirits imprisoned during the days of Noah:

“He also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰ who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark,…” (1 Peter 3:19-20)

Who were these spirits?

We have one of two choices. They were either supernatural beings or the spirits of dead people.

Some have wondered if these were the spirits of people who died during the flood. But the verse says these spirits were imprisoned while the Ark was being constructed. The flood hadn’t happened yet.

Peter brings more clarity in his second letter, where he alludes again to imprisoned supernatural beings during the Days of Noah. This time Peter clearly states that these were angels (Greek aggelos) writing:

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, held for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. (2 Peter 2:4)

So this takes us back to a strange event that took place in the lead up to the flood recorded in Genesis 6.

We are told that the sons of God married the daughters of men in Genesis 6:2. Throughout the Bible the sons of God describe angelic beings (see Job 1:6).

These interspecies’ marriages between disobedient angels and human women produced men of renown. But it also contaminated the human DNA producing an increasingly violent society.

In the process of explaining why God chose Noah and his family, we see why God sent the flood. In Genesis 6:9, we are told that Noah was “perfect in his generations.” In other words, his family had not been contaminated by angelic DNA.

The flood rid the world of any contaminated angelic DNA. It was a reset of the human DNA back to its original form.

Now people often argue that the sons of God can’t be angels because Jesus says at the resurrection there will be no marriage, because we will be like the angels in Matthew 22:30.

People often interpret this as meaning angels can’t have sex. But I think it’s better understood in the context of Roman Catholic priests. Though they are forbidden to marry, they still could.

So this leads to the obvious question, why did Jesus preach to those imprisoned evil spirits?

The answer is found in the fall of Adam and Eve. In the judgment on the deceiving serpent, God said that one of Adam and Eve’s descendants would crush satan’s head in Genesis 3:15.

Knowing this judgment was coming, Satan tried to head it off by contaminating the human DNA.

His plan failed.

Between Christ’s death and resurrection, Jesus went to these imprisoned demonic spirits behind this plot and exposed their defeat.

It was part of Jesus’ public celebration of His victory over the demonic realm, that Paul describes in Colossians:

Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. (Colossians 2:15)