For to this end was the Gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.
Was the gospel preached even to the dead ...  "The dead" here are exactly the same as the dead in the previous verse, all who had lived on earth and had died previously from the time of Peter's words, there being, it seems, a particular reference to Christians who had recently died and who were the object of certain anxieties on the part of their Christian relatives.  Paul, it will be remembered, addressed the Thessalonians on the same subject.  Barnes spoke of this thus: