Jehovah's Witnesses, I have a question?

Question

If there is no conscious awareness after death, how could the "spirits in prison", who lived during the time of Noah, be preached to by Christ after His death (I Pet 3:18-20) and how could the good news be "declared even unto the dead" (I Pet 4:5-6)?

Hannah..these scriptures are not referring to fallen Angels...Read them in their entirety in context........Use another Bible if you have to.

Hannah..think..... If the “spirits in prison” of 1Pet 3:19 refers to demonic angels, instead of the just people who died before the resurrection of Christ, then why would Jesus “preach” to demonic angels?

1Pet.4:5-6
5But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

Hannah..Your explaination does not explain my question...Jesus would not preach to demons, that would be absurd....re look at your theology.

Answer 1

Perhaps you did not have an opportunity to learn about this subject when you were a Bible student.

In the past, there were angels that did not keep their original dwelling place in the heavens but forsook it to come to earth and enjoy sexual intimacy with women. The result was much violence on earth. This conduct on their part was, of course, rank disobedience. They are identified in verse 20 as the disobedient ones when God's patience was waiting.

Also, as you can see, the word used is "prison" - not grave or hell or sheol or hades or any other word. Moreover, the word spirits is used – as in spirit creatures – as in angels. These were not humans and there is no indication here at all that they were ever put to death or that they had ever been dead. They are alive though obviously limited in their activities: imprisoned, as it were, restrained until their ultimate destruction.

That is why Peter, in his second letter (2 Peter 2:4), describes these ones as angels punished by God and thrown into Tartarus – delivered into pits of dense darkness (not death) to be reserved for judgment. The message Jesus preached to them was obviously, then, a message of doom.

As for 1 Peter 4, which speaks of Christ judging the dead, this cannot mean that dead people are preached to and judged. Why not? Because Romans plainly teaches that he who has died is acquitted from his sins. A person is not judged for sins after he has paid the penalty of death. Therefore, there is no reason to "preach" to them.

There is nothing here on which to base a contention that dead people are alive. Death is the absence of life. Although the Bible does speak of ones being judged, it is referring to those who attain to a resurrection. They are then judged – not on what they did before death – but what they now do after resurrection.

I hope this was of some help to you.

Hannah J Paul

EDIT:

Lamb, by offering the suggestion that I "read another Bible," your implication is, of course, that I got my scriptures from the NWT alone. That is presumptuous of you, at best. It is also wrong. I consulted two different Bible translations, including the King James Bible, in order to respond to your question.

Why would Jesus preach to demons? I explained that to you already – it was a condemnatory message. And yes, they are demonic spirits. I accepted Peter's inspired account which shows that they are spirits – precisely what Peter calls them. Why are you rejecting the inspired record and insisting upon calling them humans? I accepted Peter's inspired account which shows that they are in prison. Why are you rejecting Peter's inspired account and insisting that they are in death? I accepted Peter's parallel account in his second letter where he calls them – in the KJV – " the angels that sinned . . . reserved unto judgment," Why are you rejecting Peter's inspired account and insisting that they are humans hearing the preaching of salvation?

As it happens, the word "dead" is used in the Bible in more ways than one. It does not necessarily refer to literal death. Thus Paul speaks of those dead in their trespasses at Ephesians 2:1. (King James Version.) Are we to believe that the Ephesian congregation is dead? Paul is writing a letter to dead people? And again, Paul tells the Colossians the same thing at Colossians 2:13: they were dead in their trespasses. (New American Standard Version.) Are we to believe that the Colossian congregation is dead? Paul is writing a letter to more dead people?

Romans 6:7 says according to the KJV, "For he that is dead is freed from sin." If in our legal system, a man commits crimes, and is sentenced to - and serves - twenty years, he is not again judged after he has paid his debt to society. Once he does his time, he is free. Are we saying that the Most High God is any less just? Are we saying that God tells us after we pay the penalty, we have to be judged again? The penalty for sin is death, according to God's own word. If in fact a dead person could actually hear, why would Jesus preach to him? For what purpose? To what end? To share with him the good news about salvation? Why? He is dead He has paid the penalty. Throughout the Bible literal death is always the absence of life. It's not another KIND of life. It is NO life.

And finally, Lamb, Ecclesiastes 9:5 reads, in the King James Version: "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." And verse 10: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Nothing. No knowledge, no wisdom, no nothing. The dead know nothing, feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. Who is buried? Live people? Or dead people? Where are dead people? In the grave. What do they know in the grave? Nothing. What do they hear? Nothing.

Answer 2

My parents 30+ yrs in JWs my mother was just days from dieing of cancer i stayed in chair next to her death bed for the last 5 days, she would fall asleep often and each time she awoke i greeted her with a smile and an "I love you Mom" I asked her to make a promise ,I asked that when she found herselfe in "Gods new kingdom that she start looking for Dad first then me and my kids, She made me that promise, a week after her death my father who was VERY suicidel called me up and said in a vets excited voice " I feel so good this morning, I woke up and mom was in bed with me she spoke tome telepathically I thought I must be dreaming so I reached behind me and touched her leg! my sadness was gone" She kept her promise and 2 days later after the JWs got through with my Dad his says " it was a dream a gift from Jehovah to ease my pain ---straight back into a deep- deep depesion JWs Are EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 3

NOW We BOTH Know that the Spirits in Prison are Demon's !

Answer 4

We should not suppose that "preaching" is always synonymous with an appeal to repentance. Preaching can also signify announcing God's judgment of doom upon the condemned.

The "spirits in prison" are not the disembodied souls of dead humans as many apparently assume. They are the disobedient sons of God who materialized as men and sexual relations with women before the flood.

As a matter of fact, their act of rebellion was the reason God caused the global deluge in the first place. At 2 Peter 2:4-5, the apostle makes it clear that the imprisoned spirits are the so-called fallen angels. It reads:

"Certainly if God did not hold back from punishing the angels that sinned, but, by throwing them into Tartarus, delivered them to pits of dense darkness to be reserved for judgment; and he did not hold back from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a deluge upon a world of ungodly people."

The angels that became the demons are not imprisoned in the sense of being incarcerated—not yet anyway. Jehovah threw "them into pits of dense darkness" in the sense that he put them out of his family of enlightened heavenly sons. Jehovah would have no more dealings with them, and apparently after the Deluge, God confined them by taking away their power to materialize as humans again.

Furthermore, the demons are in a state "reserved for judgment," in that they are as if on death row waiting to be executed.

Even though in Eden God decreed the final judgment that the serpent and his vile seed would be crushed out of existence by the messianic seed of the woman, it still remained to be seen whether Christ would remain faithful to God under trial. If the Devil and his desperate demons would have somehow gotten Christ to compromise his integrity while he was on earth, then they would have proven their contention that no creature can remain true to God under test. The demons were fighting for their very lives.

But, when Jesus was faithful to God to the very end, enduring the cruelest death imaginable, his last words were: "It has been accomplished." Jesus' faithfulness to God clear to the end proved the Devil was a liar. The death and subsequent resurrection of Christ sealed the Devil's doom and that of his demons as well.

Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison has to do with his serving notice on the demons that his victory over death meant that the demons who caused Jesus' death would themselves be put to death by Christ and his victorious 144,000. That's why Paul wrote to his fellow anointed Christians in the last chapter of Romans, telling them that God "will crush Satan under your feet shortly."

The Bible teaches very simply that the dead are unconscious in the grave. However, the Bible sometimes refers to people who do not have a relationship with God as being dead—spiritually dead that is.

For example, Jesus once said: "Let the dead bury their dead." Christ said that to indicate that unless we have a living relationship with him and his Father we are as good as dead in their eyes, even though we may be living according to all appearances.

So it is that the other verse in question is referring to people of the world, those whom in the context are described as fleshly-minded, who are dead in God's sight, but who were nevertheless given an opportunity to hear God's message preached to them. (1Pet.4:5-6)

Answer 5

since march 14 until now almost 147,000 people became Jehovah ´s witnesses and about 600 millions hours preaching God´s kingdom in 238 countries and about 300 hundreds Kingdom halls built it.

If we belongs to the devil don´t worry we will fall but if we belongs to God almighty nobody will stop the preaching of this good news.

Answer 6

before Christ,there was no forgiveness for sin.when Christ come there was forgiveness for all mankind even the deceased

Answer 7

you are really desperate you don´t know what to do, but the time is coming enjoy this few seconds of glory the time is coming.