Review of 1 Peter 3: Gospel After Death

So, this is an addendum to the Gospel after death, and this is the question: Can we be forgiven after death? You may ask, “Why would you even think such a thing? When you go to church, no one talks like that.”

Well, at least in the Protestant churches, they don’t talk like that. But in the ancient churches—such as the Coptic Church, the Orthodox churches, the Catholic churches, the Armenian Church, and the Georgian Church— all of these ancient churches believed that there was another possibility to be forgiven after death.

Now, some of them believed in what’s called purgatory, and I’m not talking about purgatory. Okay? So just put that aside; I’m not talking about that. I’m only talking about what the Scripture says. Scripture never mentions purgatory.

Okay, but it does have something that adds to what we’ve already found, which I expressed in the last video and the video before that. The first video was on 1 Peter and the reference to Jesus going in the Spirit—the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead. He went in that same Spirit to preach to the souls who have been kept in prison since the time of Noah, who were disobedient to preach the Gospel, it says.

So, even Luther—I just read his commentary last night on it—even Luther said this is the most difficult passage in the entire Bible to explain, and he admitted, “I can’t explain it.” He said it can’t be possible that the plain meaning is true.

Well, he couldn’t fathom that because he rejected that to begin with. He came with a presupposition to that text, saying that when you die, that’s it.

Hebrews 9:27 – Man Dies Once and After That Faces Judgment

One of the reasons is from Hebrews 9:27, and that’s the main passage that people quote whenever they’re arguing against that. I’ll pull it up here in the Rooted Word because it’s been translated for quite some time. The Rooted Word is our precise translation from the Greek—more precise than anything that’s gone before.

You say, “Ron, how proud of you! How boastful of you!” No, it’s just a fact. Listen, as I’m translating from the Greek, I’m also comparing it to previous translations. But there are certain passages where they are completely wrong; they completely mistranslated it.

Now, maybe they had a different manuscript, but I’m using the majority manuscript, Byzantine form, which is what has been in use. This is the most populous manuscript that is out there, so it should be the same unless they used some strange, off-the-wall manuscript.

But anyway, Hebrews 9, um, let’s see, 9:27. So what you’re used to is something like this. Let me pull it up here because I didn’t expect to actually read this.

So here’s Hebrews, and in the New King James, it says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” Okay? Or you’ve heard, “Man is destined to die once and then after that to face judgment.”

Okay, so it’s not quite right. The word “judgment,” especially, is not quite right. So listen, this is the Rooted Word. This is not the common English, so it’s not dumbed down so that you can easily understand it in English. It is in English, but it is as close to the Greek as possible.

Okay, so understand that’s the difference between our two editions. We’ve got the precise English edition and the common English edition, which is what Wycliffe did as well. He had two editions; one was very, very close to the original languages, which was in Greek, and then he had one that was more common English.

This is close to the Greek; it’s not the common English. It’ll be a little difficult to understand, but here it is: “And accordingly, as such a thing to be lying outstretched from off of with regards to the human beings to die off one time, but a decision is in the midst of that thing.”

A decision, not a judgment—a decision. It literally means a decision; it can be a decision as in someone deciding a judgment against you, or it could be a decision as in you’re making a decision. It’s ambiguous.

Okay, so that verse that is used to defend this idea that we only have until death to be forgiven of our sins—that verse itself is very ambiguous. You say, “Well, what’s the difference? He makes a decision, and if he hasn’t decided, then he can’t decide afterwards.”

Okay, alright, that’s fair, right? In the midst, but a decision is in the midst of that thing. Alright, so he makes a decision. Does that mean he can’t be forgiven afterwards still? It doesn’t say that, does it?

It doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say anything about being forgiven of sins here. It does talk about a sacrifice and that Christ offered the sacrifice once for all, and that He’d have to offer it a second time in the case of this argument that he’s making.

Okay, so it’s ambiguous, but in context, you have a little bit of extra information, but nothing about whether sins can be forgiven after death or not.

Luther’s Commentary on 1 Peter 3 Read Aloud

Or not. With the Peter passage, it is very clear—so crystal clear. Even Luther, who said himself he’s completely opposed to it, said the plain meaning clearly says what it says: that the Gospel is preached to them after death and that they are the people from the time when Noah went into the ark.

Now, he then tried to dance in circles, spinning out metaphors and spiritual meanings and stuff, just like they used to do in the Middle Ages. He’s not from the Middle Ages, but he was using kind of Middle Ages reasoning in order to dance around the plain meaning of the text because he rejected the plain meaning of the text.

Well, we don’t do that here. I embrace whatever the Bible says. If it says this, that’s what it says. If I can’t reconcile it with other things, then that’s my fault. It’s not the fault of the text; it’s not the fault of God, who swore by Himself that the testimony that He made here was true.

That would be my fault if I fall short of being able to reconcile that plain text with the rest of the Bible, and that’s what happened with Luther. Luther fell short; he was incapable, intellectually and spiritually, because it takes both to be able to reconcile the plain text in 1 Peter with the rest of the scriptures. He admitted so; he openly admitted that that was the case.

Let me see. It’s in older English, but I’ll see if I can read it to you. This place now, it’s gonna be hard for me to read it to you because I’m trying to restate it in modern English because it’s in this older English. So, I mean the spellings are off too—d-o-o-e for do and b-e-e for be. That’s this kind of stuff, and it gets even weirder; understood is v instead of u, and then an e on the end after d, so it’s a little hard to read.

Alright, so he says, “This place I do take to be as obscure and hard to be understood as any in the New Testament.” I’m sorry, I said in the Bible, but he said in the New Testament. In so much that I confess myself not yet to have found out the certain meaning thereof.

First, the words themselves do sound as though Christ had preached unto spirits, I mean the souls of them that would not believe in the time that Noah built the ark. The sense thereof being somewhat hard to conceive, meaning to admit, to accept. He couldn’t accept it.

So, the sense thereof being somewhat hard to conceive hath hitherto so entangled me that neither can I, um, well, it’s hard to say what this word is—a vouch maybe?—any sound interpretation of it, neither any other as yet that hath taken in hand the exposition thereof. So, he says no one’s been able to, well, that’s not true, because he understands the plain meaning. He just said the plain meaning. The plain meaning is the explanation—simply what it is.

And the verse I’m going to read to you today, which you’re very familiar with, will also support it as well. This case is being made piece by piece as I run into it with this awareness of it. I will bring it to you, so this is, of course, a translation of Luther’s commentary on 1 Peter because he was German; he wrote in German, okay?

So, um, some, per adventure, will not stick to take these words so as that Christ, after His death on the cross, went down into hell and preached to the souls there, with which vain opinion I mean not here to enter disputation. So, he doesn’t believe that Christ went down into hell and preached to the souls there, and he’s going to say so, but he says I’m not going to dispute that here.

But me thinks these words do very well admit another sense and meaning, to wit that our Lord Christ, after His ascension into heaven, came in spirit and preached, albeit not bodily. So, he thought the main issue was whether Christ came in His body or in His spirit to preach.

He thought that by saying that when Christ died, He went down into hell and preached to the souls there, that He would have preached in His body. But the three days that He was in the tomb, His body was in the tomb.

Okay? And you say, “Well, the body could have, you know, raised already and gone down into hell.” No, because that means He would have raised on Friday, not on Sunday.

So, that’s a problem. He was in the grave for three days, and then He raised; we know that. And you say, “Well, the grave is hell.” No, the grave is not hell; those are not the same thing. So, if He did preach to the spirits in hell, it was in His spirit, by the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead.

So, yeah, and then the other problem is that in that passage of 1 Peter, the ascension of Christ is mentioned after the preaching to the souls who are kept in prison; it is not before. It’s mentioned right after.

So, Luther is not paying attention to details. He’s confused by the passage, and that confusion is causing him to also enter into confusion in another dispute that he had.

So, yeah, just stop listening to Luther and to people who derive from Luther, which means most of the Protestant churches. Stop listening to them. I’m not saying go become a Catholic, but I’m saying just don’t listen to them because they usually don’t know what they’re talking about. Really. Watch my other video, the last video on the Gospel after death, and I mentioned my overseeing pastor about that passage, so I want you to take note of that.

Matthew 12:31-32 – Forgiveness of Sins After Death

So, I want you to take your translations of the Bible. I want you to turn to Matthew 12 and verse 32. This is talking about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 31 says, “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Now, I mentioned this before in one of my videos on the unpardonable sin or unforgivable sin—whichever way you want to call it. Jesus made it very clear that this was one sin that would not be forgiven either in this life or the next life, either in this age or the age to come. That implies—crystal clear—it implies there are sins that may be forgiven in the age to come.

That’s right. Let’s read it again: “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men.” It doesn’t say when, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven men.

At that point, you’re still thinking as a Protestant, thinking, “Okay, yeah, well, when you die, you know, you’re not going to be forgiven of that sin up until you die.” Some Protestants want to reinterpret that, restate it, and call God a liar. They want to say, “Oh, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit—what is that? Well, that’s any sin that you don’t confess before you and repent from before you die.”

No, no, no, no. He contrasts this with other sins. He says, “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.”

So it’s not that. Because he contrasts it with the other sins that will be forgiven. Then he goes further with that contrast. He goes further: not only will this one not be forgiven, and the other ones will be forgiven—we don’t know when they will be forgiven. Some may be forgiven now; some may be forgiven in the next life, next age.

“Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him”—still doesn’t say when. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.

Call to Christ Jesus for the Purging of Your Sins

So, you may be forgiven of your sins while you still live in this body in this age. You may.

I’ve been forgiven of my sins. Have you? Have you come to Jesus for the purging of your sins by the blood of the Son of God? If you come because you’ve heard of it, it’s not enough. If you come because you’re terrified of your sin and what follows from that, and you want to stop—you want to get free—that’s enough.

The first one is not enough; it’s not going to be effective. The blood of Jesus will not purge them of their sins. But the second one has the humility that God gives grace to. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, and that grace is through the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, that has the power to purge you of your sins.

The word is purge. We get the modern-day word “catharsis” from it. It is to purge, not just to clean—to purge, to get rid of it completely. “Purify” is kind of close, but “purge” has the more forceful effect that the blood of Jesus has on sin. And that’s literally what it means anyway in the Greek.

If you want your sins purged from you, it’s not only about taking the guilt off of you that is still there from past sins, no matter if you’ve forgotten the sins or not. That’s removed, but the sins themselves are purged from you. You no longer have to obey them. A clean slate.

So, that can happen in this life, and you better make sure it happens in this life so that you’re ready for the next life, so that you’re ready for eternity. You’re ready for what’s ahead.

Because if you are saved in the end, if you do go through judgment day and pass with the righteous into the city of God on the new earth under the new heavens, you must know that it describes it in Revelation very clearly.

There are twelve gates with twelve angels guarding the gates, and it says nothing unclean will enter into the gates of the city. Inside the city is where God and the Lamb of God will dwell on the throne in the center of the city and will be the light for all people in the city.

There will be a river flowing from the throne of God, and there will be the tree of life spanning across the river—the tree of life. That’s where you derive your life from. It says the leaves will be for the healing of the nations, the ethnicities—literally non-nations, ethnicities.

You’re not getting back into the city if you’re outside the city. If you go out and then commit a sin, you’re not getting back in. The angels won’t let you. None of the twelve gates will be open to you. You’ll be like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where they were cast out and an angel with a flaming sword was put to guard the entrance.

They were not allowed to enter again, and that will be you also if you’re not ready. You must have your sins purged by the blood of Jesus.

With that terrifying feeling about your sin, knowing that if you don’t get rid of your sin, you will be judged and cast into hell. Then, at judgment day, hell will be emptied out; you’ll be judged, and you’ll be cast into the lake of burning sulfur, which is the second death—permanent, irrevocable for eternity.

Then hell, death, and hell will also be cast into there. The devil will be cast into there, the false prophet, the beast—they’ll all be cast into the same place where you are, and you will be punished by angels forever in the presence of the Lamb and His holy angels.

You will forever be looking at the Lamb of God, the holy Lamb of God, and His holy angels, knowing why you were there and why you are suffering. Is that what you want? Then you need to come to Jesus. You need to have your sins purged from you, and you need to walk in the light, in righteousness.

Stop sinning. Be ready for eternity. Some sins may be forgiven in the next age; they may be. We don’t know which ones or when that will happen. If it will be an ongoing process of forgiving at any time, right now, from the testimony of God, it looks like God does not offer perpetual forgiveness of sins.

There is a limit, and that’s based on God’s choice. God will look at the situation and He will say, “Enough is enough” at some point. You can see my other video about the soul of God, where He does that, and He threatens that if you continue to refuse to listen to Him, to hearken unto Him, and you keep trying to sidestep around Him when He’s trying to warn you to stop sinning.

So, now you know: some sins may be forgiven in the next age. It doesn’t say they are, but the implication is that they are because Jesus makes a point to say that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. Twice He contrasts that sin with other sins, implying that there are some of the other sins that may be forgiven in the age to come.

Don’t count on it, though. Get yourself ready now. Be ready.

May the Lord bless you as you seek Him with all your heart.