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.
That these to whom the gospel was preached were not the same as those contemplated in 1 Peter 3:19-20, follows from the fact that those who were the objects of Noah’s preaching rejected that patriarch’s warnings and perished in disobedience in the flood; whereas, these who were the objects of the preaching to which Peter refers had accepted the gospel, and, though dead, had the approbation of God in the spirit realm (Woods, I Peter 110).