Not much else to say. People are preached to with the hope of them changing. Those in Noah's day can only be those who had the hope and opportunity to be saved. It wasn't evil angels who already and permanently made their choice, it wasn't angels or martians having sex with humans, it wasn't already dead people, it was those who could make a choice. While some may have been saved but died before the flood, only 8 got on the boat. And one may question if they were "saved" or only felt pressured to join the family. Still, for 120 years, they could have made the proper choice. But most died in their prison of sin.

I should know eh Rick? So your mocking the gift God gave me? I only know what my Lord taught me and what my Lord is trying to get me to forget including everyone who has done me wrong in the church. I am told to forgive them and to let my Father deal with them.

All I can say, is we have seen what you have, and your manner you treat others, and the type of language you use, and the fruit and spirit you show others, and I am sorry James but its clearly not from God. You need to go to God and ask that he send His Holy Spirit to transform you into a true servant of God with all the fruits of the Spirit to share with others.


Galatians 5:22-23
King James Version (KJV)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

GC, your rebutting a mis-understanding of the word Kerusso--to herald. That word is mis -translated in the KJV as “preaching”. Jesus resurrection was a proclamation that went all over the earth especially to the spirits(fallen angels) in prison so to let them know that Jesus was victorious over sin and the Father declared Him King of kings over all, including them(the fallen angels) as Peter clearly concluded the text with 1 Peter 3:22 “Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him..

I see that you and James and maybe Doug that push the same interpretation is a product of a mis-understanding the text. You guys needs to be careful not to say things or stretch things, or add things that is not written in the text so to prove your point. That’s what I didn’t appreciate about Doug’s study for he should of known better to twist texts taking things out of context to drive his interpretation. I was surprise to see that. I thought he was more honest than that in his studies. That was quite disappointing, yet not surprise as many will do this to secure their paycheck and pension.

Jesus did not go preach to any angels in prisons. I never said that nor did I read Rick saying that. So your point above is mute. Jesus resurrection was a proclamation that the angels saw and heard.

In the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil, after being cast out of Eden...

"Satan trembled as he viewed his work. He was alone in meditation upon the past, the present, and his future plans. His mighty frame shook as with a tempest. An angel from heaven was passing. He (Satan) called him, and entreated an interview with Christ. This was granted him. He then related to the Son of God that he repented of his rebellion, and wished again the favor of God. He was willing to take the place God had previously assigned him, and be under his wise command. Christ wept at Satan’s woe, but told him, as the mind of God, that he could never be received into heaven.... The seeds of rebellion were still within him.... {TA 46.3}
When Satan became fully convinced that there was no possibility of his being reinstated in the favor of God, he manifested his malice with increased hatred and fiery vehemence.... {TA 47.1}
As he could not gain admission within the gates of heaven, he would wait just at the entrance, to taunt the angels and seek contention with them as they went in and out.—The Spirit of Prophecy 1:28-30. {TA 47.2}

So Satan was pleading with Jesus, not the other way around, so who do you think would inspire you to tell it differently?

I had engaged in this type of study here over 2 years ago with CG, dedication, and Kland. My understanding didn't change and I still believed that the "sons of God" were the fallen angels that Jude 1:6 refers to and the correspondant text of the "sons of God" being angels in Job.

Also I had quoted the Tenakh who had translated Gen 6:1-2 as such "When men began to increase on earth and daughters were born to them, the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and took wives from among those that pleased them."

This year I've read, chewed, and studied some more and chewed more on the subject. What's fascinating is I've been reading some new agers blogs and at times a forum because of the alternative geo-political news they were posting. I've read some of their beliefs by which I discovered that they are widely split in many differents "groups" and have a vast range of belief system too. But what was uniform is they all believed in UFOs (or Extra-terrestial being) and believe these "aliens" are angels. Also, I've read some good post explaining the different "dragons" groups and they believe also that they are descendants of some crosses with angels. Also, the luciferian (or cabals, or illuminaty group) often called "reptalians" by the new-age groups believe they are descents from the "evil" angels whereas they are descendants of "good" angels. Basically they all believe that at the beginning there was a cross-breeding between the angels and man which they refer also as Nephilim. They all take great pride to have some blood of the Nephilim. Also anciently the Royal families claims to been descendants of these angels which gives them the authority to rule on earth over other ordinary people.

Now that's quite interesting and it does give some credence that the Nephilim where a cross of angels and man. However, I want my belief to come from the Bible. So let's look more closely at what the Bible says about the Nephilim.

Because I don't have the time to type a study, I will use Stephen Jones study. I have read it a few times and have looked out his references and his study does agree with mine. However, his study is more detailed. This is the best study I came across, and Stephen is quite biblical and research historical, astrological records, ethymology of words, and etc... He checks whatever sources is available.

This is 3 studies. The one below is a general study of Gen 6. The other two study, posted seperatly, are about the Nephilim refered in the book of Deuteronomy with some history, Mt. Hebron, and other sources.

Part 1 : General Study of Genesis 6
Who Were the Angels that Sinned?
The angels that sinned back in Genesis 6:2-4 were called “sons of God” in contrast to the “daughters of men.” This term, “sons of God” refers to spiritual beings that have access to the heavens—in contrast to earth-bound fleshly creatures. Thus we see the “sons of God” standing before God in Job 1:6. In the New Testament the term is used to describe men and women who can “become the sons of God” (John 1:12) through Jesus Christ.

Genesis 6:2 also says that these sons of God took “the daughters of men” as wives and produced children by them. The Hebrew word for “men” is awdawm, or Adam, which is the usual word for men or mankind. When the Bible refers to the man Adam himself, it says ha-awdawm, or “the (man) Adam.” The article “the” makes the term specific. Dr. Bullinger points out in The Companion Bible, Appendix 14,
“Adam, without the article, denotes man or mankind in general (Gen. 1:26; 2:5; 5:1). With the article, it denotes the man, Adam....”

With this in mind, let us read Genesis 6:1, 2,
1 Now it came about, when Adam [ha-awdawm] began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them [Adam and Eve, Gen. 1:27; 5:2] 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of Adam [ha-awdawm] were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

Adam and Eve had both sons and daughters. Adam’s daughters were beautiful, and these angels took them as wives. Verse 4 says that they had children by them. Ultimately, the earth was so corrupted by this genetic mixture that God sent the flood to destroy them. Only Noah was found to be “perfect in his genealogy” (Gen. 6:9, literal).

The question immediately arises: How can spiritual beings (angels) have children with physical women on earth? The answer is that all through the Bible we have examples of angels manifesting as men. In Genesis 18 we read that three “men” came to Abraham on their way to Sodom. Abraham fed them, and they prophesied that Sarah would have a child in the following year.

Two of them then continued toward Sodom, but one of the “men” stayed behind to tell Abraham of Sodom’s coming destruction.
Hence we read in Genesis 19:1 that only two of them actually arrived in Sodom:

1 Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. . .

They had manifested themselves in human flesh and were recognized as such even by the people of Sodom, as the story shows. They even ate with Lot (Gen. 19:3) as they had eaten with Abraham.

Angels are said to often appear in human flesh. Other examples include the angel that appeared to Balaam in Numbers 22:31 and another to Manoah and his wife in Judges 13. If spirits have the ability to manifest in human flesh, and if they can even eat food, then it follows that they could also have the ability to have sexual relations with women and even to produce children by them. Of course, they only had this ability after taking human flesh.

These angels (or perhaps their offspring) were called Nephilim, or “giants” in Genesis 6:4. This is the plural form of nephil, “a feller,” or one who cuts others down; hence, a bully or tyrant. The root word is naphal, “to fall.” This is probably the origin of the idea of “fallen” angels. Though Nephilim applies primarily to their actions in cutting down others, it carries this secondary meaning of having been felled by God in the flood.

The angels are thus “fallen,” but this is not to enter into the debate about whether or not angels have free will. That is a separate question. If angels do have free will, then they fell of their own free will. If not, then they were caused to fall for purposes known fully by God alone. We must limit our scope for now to the simple assertion that they are “fallen.” The nature of their “fall” in the sense of their disobedience is given in Jude 6,

6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

In other words, these angels desired to become flesh and dwell with the daughters of Adam. Why? Because angels are spirits, and they have the ability to manifest in flesh, but what they did not have was a soul. Nowhere in the Bible do we find that angels were given souls. The soul is in the blood, Leviticus 17:11 tells us. Angels do not have blood. They coveted a soul in order to gain authority over the earth, for God made man a living soul (Gen. 2:7) and gave man dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26). In that sense, angels “fell” from heaven to earth—but then fell from earth to Tartarus.

Jude then relates the fallen angels to Sodom and Gomorrah, where the people “indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh” (Jude 7). The term “strange flesh” simply means foreign flesh—that is, in the Biblical sense, forbidden sexual relations or marriages. The angels were not allowed to marry the daughters of men, even as the men of Sodom were not allowed to marry other men in homosexual unions. This is, of course, one of the major social and moral issues facing us today. In the name of liberty we are once again going the way of Sodom.

Another intriguing question is the fact that Jesus said the last days would be “as in the days of Noah” (Matt. 24:37). We know that there were Nephilim even AFTER the flood, for Genesis 6:4 says,

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

So we see that even after God brought correction by means of the flood, there were Nephilim who again took the daughters of men and had more children by them. The Nephilim’s children thereafter usually were called Gibbor, “mighty men,” and Rephaim, from rapha, “to heal, invigorate.” The twelve spies in Israel saw these Nephilim when they spied out the land, and this is what made the people most afraid to enter the land at that time. We read of this in Numbers 13:32, 33,

32 So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the men whom we saw in it are men of great size. 33 There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Gibbor); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.

This verse equates the Nephilim with the Gibbor. Joshua destroyed most of the Anakim in Joshua 11:21, 22,

21 Then Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. 22 There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained.

Some yet remained until the time of David. Goliath of Gath came from this family of Anak, where some of these giants remained. David slew Goliath, and in a later battle Goliath’s brother was killed along with their sons (1 Chron. 20:5-8).

Beware of Giants
Deuteronomy 2:10-13 is a parenthetical notation that probably was not part of Moses' speech.
10 (The Emim lived there formerly, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. 11 Like the Anakim, they are also regarded as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. 12 The Horites formerly lived in Seir, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land of their possession which the Lord gave to them.)

This short historical explanation appears to have been inserted by Ezra in his inspired canonization of the Old Testament. Ferrar Fenton says this in his notes:
Vv. 10 to 13 are an ancient editor's note, not a part of the text of Moses. It was probably added by Ezra, when he edited the Pentateuch, after the return from Babylon, as all the other notes which I consequently transfer to the foot of the pages.

Even if this is so, there is no reason why Ezra's notation is less “inspired” than the rest of Moses' speech. Ezra was simply explaining how the Moabites came to dispossess the Emim and take their territory as an inheritance. Verse 12 continues by telling us how the Edomites dispossessed the Horites living in Mount Seir. I consider this to be a divinely inspired supplement to give some background to Moses' account.

Origin of the Giants
So who were the Emim? Ezra implies that they were giants like the Anakim. In Num. 13:33 the twelve spies reported seeing the sons of Anak (or Anakim) in the land of Canaan. Their progenitor, Anak himself, was the son of Arba, who founded and settled the town of Hebron. Hebron's original name was Kirjeath Arba (Joshua 15:13), which may be translated “City of Arba.” Later, Caleb and his men drove them out and inherited their land (Joshua 14:13; 15:14).

The Emim were another family of giants who lived east of the Dead Sea until they were displaced by the Moabites. Ezra says in verse 11, “like the Anakim, they are also regarded as Rephaim.” Who were the Rephaim? The KJV translates it as “giants.”

Rephaim is the plural of Rapha, which means “healer; mender” in the sense of stitching together. Originally, the word had reference to the “sons of God” cohabiting with the “daughters of men” in Genesis 6:4. In other words, two different types of beings were stitched together in unlawful marriages, which produced giants in the earth.

The term “sons of God” has various meanings, but in this case it means angels. That term, too, can have a variety of meanings, but we leave that to the opinion of the reader.
These giants are known by various other names, such as Nephilim, which means “fallen ones.” (The singular form is naphal, “to fall.”) Hence, there arose a very ancient belief about angels who fell. Genesis 6:4 calls them Gibbor, “mighty men.” Scripture tells us that these giants lived prior to Noah's flood, and that the purpose of the flood was to destroy them, because they had corrupted the genetics of mankind, except for Noah and his family (Gen. 6:9).

Genesis 6:2 speaks of these unlawful unions prior to the flood. Genesis 6:4 also tells us that this same genetic corruption occurred again after the flood.

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days [prior to the flood], and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men [Gibbor] who were of old, men of renown.

There were, then, at least two occasions when this sin occurred—one prior to the flood, and later after the flood. This was why the Nephilim were yet living in the days of Moses and Joshua.

Centuries later, we find Goliath and his three brothers living in Gath, a city of the Philistines. All were “giants” (Heb. Rephaim), and they were all killed by David and his mighty men (2 Sam. 21:22).

The Emim
Returning to our topic in Deut. 2:10-12, we are told that the Moabites called these giants Emim. What does that name mean? The Wikipedia has only a short article about them:

The Emim; Hebrew: ??????) was the Moabite name for one of the tribes of Rephaim. They are described in Deuteronomy chapter 2 as having been a powerful people, populous and having a successful kingdom. They were defeated by the Moabites, who occupied their land. The Emim are also mentioned in Genesis 14:5 and according to Rashi, the name is translated as “the dreaded ones” (Hertz 1936) and the singular Ema/Emma (Hebrew: ????) means “horror” or “terror”.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emim)

So we see that the Emim were terrorists. This is of interest to us today, because world attention has been focused increasingly upon the problem of terrorism in recent decades. When we apply this factor to the present day, we can view Moab and the Emim as overlaying each other in prophecy, because the land of Moab was also the land of the Emim.

In other words, the time of Moab’s immorality in the Church coincides with the rise of terrorism. Both arose in the early 1960’s.

The Emim were largely destroyed by the coalition of Babylonian kings in Genesis 14, when also Sodom and Gomorrah were captured (along with Lot, Abraham's nephew). Abraham and his 318 men chased these kings to Hobah, near Damascus, and defeated them. Lot was set free along with the other captives, but just 24 years later God Himself destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

At that time, Lot's daughters bore children by their own father, and one of them, Moab, later grew up, got married, had children, and moved east to settle the land where the Emim had lived previously. In other words, God used the Babylonians to wipe out the “terrorists,” clearing the way for the Moabites to inhabit their land.

This story applies to us today in the prophetic sequence of events. In 1948 we began our detour around Edom. This was followed by the rise of immorality as we encountered Moab in the sexual revolution in the 1960’s. Rising simultaneously with immorality was the rise of terrorism as a method of war.

Deut. 2:12 tells us that “the Horites formerly lived in Seir.” (See also Gen. 14:6.) Scripture does not tell us how Esau came to dispossess the Horites in the land of Seir, but we find Esau living in Seir when Jacob returned home after living with Laban for 20 years. Recall that Esau met Jacob on the return trip, when Jacob sent word to his brother as a gesture of reconciliation. Gen. 32:3 says,

3 Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

After the brothers had reconciled, Esau returned to Seir (Gen. 33:16), where he obviously had settled during the time Jacob was with Laban. The book of Jasher 30:26 tells us the reason. Esau's flocks and herds were too great, and his herdsmen were disputing with the Canaanites. So Esau moved permanently to Seir, being allied with the Horites.

Isaac died 23 years later, and according to Jasher 47, his estate (wealth) was taken by Esau in exchange for the land of Canaan, which was given to Jacob. We are also told in Jasher 57 that after the death of Jacob and Esau, the sons of Esau had a falling out with the Horites. The Horites asked them to leave their territory, at which time, the sons of Esau wiped out the Horites and took Mount Seir for themselves as their inheritance (57:36).

Since the Bible does not record the circumstances by which Edom came to possess Mount Seir, we must rely upon the book of Jasher for that information.

The next section is the study of Og of Bashan who was a giant/rephaim that the Lord brought Israel to destroy him and his kingdom. Now take note, these wars was done before they enter the promise land. Because prophesies are cyclic, the Lord will repeat this history -- we are to engaged in the same type of wars against the giants before the 2nd coming.

Og of Bashan

The defeat of Sihon gave Israel the land of Gilead, which was the mountains overlooking the Jordan River from the east. Its southern border was the Arnon River, where Moab's territory began. Its northern border was Bashan, now known as the Golan Heights, not far from Damascus.

The king of Bashan was the next king to feel threatened. Not knowing the law of God, he assumed that Israel would attack Bashan without cause, so he launched a preemptive strike. Deut. 3:1-4 says,

1 Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, king of Bashan, with all his people came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. 2 But the Lord said to me, “Do not fear him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.” 3 So the Lord our God delivered Og also, king of Bashan, with all his people into our hand, and we smote them until no survivor was left. 4 And we captured all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

God's purpose in causing Og of Bashan to make war on Israel was to destroy the giants (Rephaim). Deut. 3:11 appears to be another notation from Ezra, telling us,

11 (For only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead; it is in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon. Its length was nine cubits and its width four cubits by ordinary cubit.

Ferrar Fenton translates this verse:
11 Og, king of Bashan was of the remnant of the race of the Rephaim. He can be seen lying upon a couch of iron which is preserved in Rabath of the Ammonites. Its length is nine cubits, and breadth four cubits, by the common cubit.

Fenton believed that this was a notation from Ezra, who was telling his readers that the embalmed body of Og had been placed in an Ammonite memorial, a museum or shrine of sorts). It could still be visited in his day after the Babylonian captivity of Judah. He lay on a bed that was nine common cubits, or about 13½ feet long.

If this bed had been measured in sacred cubits, called the “cubit of the sanctuary,” or the “great cubit,” it would have been an extra handbreadth in length (Ezekiel 43:13). In that case, the bed would have measured about 15 feet in length. Yet Ezra is careful to give us the precise measure in common cubits. The length of the bed suggests that Og of Bashan was 10 or 11 feet tall.

Canaan and the surrounding areas seemed to be full of Rephaim, Nephilim, Anakim, and other descendants of the unlawful marriages of Genesis 6:4. Because God vowed not to destroy them by flood, He used Israel to bring judgment upon them. Even so, some escaped divine judgment, including the family of Goliath who remained among the Philistines even centuries later.

So Israel destroyed their main cities, sixty of them. These did not include the small towns, for Deut. 3:5 says,

5 All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns.

In other words, there was a large population, and the record implies that they had intermarried with the Rephaim for many centuries. Hence, it is likely that virtually all of them by this time could trace some descent from these Rephaim.

Joshua 13:12 calls Og “the last of the Rephaites,” (NIV), but this does not mean that last of the giants, for there were other giant tribes, such as the Anakim, the tribe of Goliath. For some reason, all or many of these tribes seemed to live in the general vicinity of Mount Hermon.

The reason for this will be explained in the next chapter.
Perhaps the giants were aware that this land had an important role in the divine plan and that the Messiah would eventually be born there. Their occupation of Canaan may have been an attempt to thwart the divine plan.

6 And we utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women and children of every city. 7 But all the animals and the spoil of the cities we took as our booty.

Apparently, they had not learned to do genetic modifications on animals, and so they were given to the Israelites.
8 Thus we took the land at that time from the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the valley of Arnon to Mount Hermon.

This largely completed the conquest of the land east of the Jordan River. Ezra then inserts a short parenthetical statement that gives us a very important clue as to the importance of Mount Hermon in prophecy.

Dedication was on track. The thing Rick is doing here is trying to parallel directly a passage that is not directly connected to the earlier one. Does Peter speak of angels in 2 Peter 2? Yes. Does he speak of angels in 1 Peter 3:18-20? We find there no mention of the word.

Furthermore, what does "angel" mean? (Check your Greek and Hebrew.)

Elle has a special fascination for the topics of "nephilim" and "fallen angels," and has much to say on them. But the Bible has a different focus. We are instructed not to parley with the devil and to focus on things which are "of good report." While it is right to recognize truth and to distinguish error from it, it is wise to focus on Jesus and to ignore the rest. If the devil can take our focus off of Christ, he has us. At least for the moment.

Jesus is preaching/proclaiming to us His good news. His sacrifice on the cross still preaches to us. It has preached, via the animal sacrifices typifying the Lamb's own sacrifice, the message of salvation all the way back to the gates of the Garden of Eden. Through Noah, the Good News was preached to all of the lost souls of his day. The antediluvians were too bound up in their sins and in their willful ignorance and pride to listen to Noah's preaching. Their deaths in the Flood were avoidable and inexcusable, yet by their own refusal of Christ's message of salvation, they selected their fate. In every age, including our own, Christ and His sacrifice in our place is preached. It remains with us to accept it or to reject it.

That is the message of Peter.

In 2 Peter 2, when Peter refers to the angels, then to the antediluvians, he is bringing out the message that God who did not spare them but brought about judgment upon them will also of a certain not spare us if we willfully reject His merciful offer. Peter's point is that God has shown us by example already what to expect if we continue in disobedience.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

GC, take a look at the following which I came across from a Adventist on one of the sites and tell me what you think:


'The secret of the successful Christian life is found in the first few verses of John chapter 15 about the story of the branch and the vine. We are to abide in Christ just as the branch abides in the vine. When the branch is separated from the vine it eventually dies. So when we separate from Christ we eventually die. We are to abide constantly in Christ because He said that without Him we can do nothing. Now with that said thanks for your interest in His word. Let’s look at the passage in Ephesians first. I’ll copy it below: Eph 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 4:9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 4:10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
This passage simply put is just talking about Christ’s incarnation (when He came to this earth born of Mary), His resurrection (rising from the dead) and his ascension (returning back to heaven). Verse 10 states that the One who descended is the same One who ascended to heaven. This is Christ. Verse 8 states that when He ascended or went back to heaven he “led captivity captive” and “gave gifts to men.” The gifts that He gave to men you can read about in verse 11 which include “and He gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers…” But how did He “lead captivity, captive?” This is a quote from Psalms 68:18 which you can also read. He led captivity, captive by freeing a special group from the grave. This special resurrection was accomplished at the resurrection of Christ. These represented the “first fruits” a term you might remember from the Old Testament. The first fruits were a special dedication to God of the first harvest which signified a greater harvest to come. In Matthew 27:52, 53 it states that at Christ’s death an earthquake opened many of the graves and that at Christ’s resurrection many of these saints rose from the dead, went into the city and then ascended with Christ. These were the captives that were set free. Notice that many verses such as Luke 4:18 (to preach deliverance to the captives) and Isaiah 61:1(The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me… to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound…) associate being bound and captive and in the prison house as being under the influence of sin or death. So when Christ arose from the dead and 40 days later went to heaven He took with him the “first fruits” in this special resurrection as a token of the greater harvest to come when all the righteous dead are raised at His second coming. This is also a reference of Christ freeing the “captives” from the prison house of death. Verse 9 stating that He that ascended is He also that descended into the lower parts of the earth means the same Jesus that ascended or was raised is the same Jesus that descended into the “lower” parts of the earth, a reference to being entombed in the earth at His death.
Now for 1 Peter 3:18-20. By the way Don, who told you that the Greek word for went and gone are the same? I’m not agreeing or disagreeing, yet. But anyway let me say a few things about this passage for you to consider.
1 Peter 3:8-10: 18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
Verse 18 is easy because it just says that Christ suffered or died once for sinful man and came back to life again. A Bible verse states that the Holy Spirit raised Christ. Now verses 19 and 20 seem a little difficult but if we look at it comparing Scripture with Scripture it is easily understood. By the way Don, always remember Isaiah 28:10 when trying to understand difficult passages. It reads “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little”. We are to compare Scripture with Scripture, a line here, a line there. But anyway, to continue we know that Jesus could not have went to preach to the spirits of the dead in prison because Scripture is abundantly clear that “the dead know nothing” and that death is an unconscious sleep. Some preachers claim that Christ went into purgatory of limbo of some other place where lost souls are gathered but again this is impossible because Scripture also tells us that when a person dies, their destiny is forever set. You don’t get a second chance after you die so it would be useless for Christ to preach to those that had died and are in the prison of death. Some preachers teach this because they don’t have a correct understanding of what happens when a person dies. So before I go off on another tangent let me stick to the meaning. Also the word "spirits" do not refer to fallen angels. Revelation states that the evil angels that followed Satan in His rebellion are bound to this earth awaiting the lake of fire. Their choice was made and can never be reversed. They are unable to repent so their destiny is forever settled so there could be no purpose in Christ preaching to them. (Hebrews states that it is impossible for those who knew the height and depth and breath of God's love and the heavenly gifts and powers of the world to come that if they fall away that it is impossible to renew them to repentance) But to continue with the verse which reads “Christ hath once suffered for sin that He might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit by which also He went and preached……” Please notice how Christ preached to those spirits in prison. He did it by the Spirit and that word (spirit) is capitalized meaning the Holy Spirit. The preaching that Christ did during the time mentioned He did through the Holy Spirit. Now with that in mind the next question is “When was the preaching done?” The answer is given in verse 20: “when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” So the preaching was done while the ark was being built. Remember in Genesis 6:3 the verse reads “ And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years”. (The ark took 120 years to build and during this time God’s Spirit was pleading with men to repent). Now for the last question. “To whom was the preaching done?” It was to the spirits in prison. This terminology as mentioned above refers to those who are bound in the prison house of sin. (Psalms 142:7 Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name). What Peter is saying in these verses is that Christ through the Holy Spirit was present while Noah was building the ark to speak conviction to the antediluvian world to enter into the ark. So Don the three questions that the verse mentions are answered in the text itself. It states that He preached “by the Holy Spirit”, that He did it while the ark was being built or prepared, and that He did the preaching to the spirits (persons) whose sinful lives were bound in the prison house of sin. If I wrote too much as I usually do I hope you don't get confused. Please read the verses again and ask the Lord to help you understand. He will do this for you because He is well pleased when we seek Him and also because He promised to give you understanding.'

I am having a hard time finding any writings or clarification from Adventist theologians or official church view on this issue, seem to be few and far between, and I find a lot of presenting of 'ideas', nothing clear cut.

Rick