in which he also went and preached to the spirits in prison,
Unto the spirits in prison ...  The meaning of this is that the preaching mentioned in the previous verse was directed to living men and women on the earth at the time the preaching was done, but who at the time of Peter's mentioning this were "in prison," that is, in a deceased state, under the sentence of God like the angels who are cast down and reserved unto the day of judgment and destruction of the wicked.  There is another possibility, namely, that the whole antediluvian world to whom the preaching was directed were said by Peter in this passage to have been "in prison" at the time of the preaching of Noah.  If that is what he meant, then the figure harmonizes perfectly with Jesus' preaching to the citizens of Nazareth and others of that generation, referring to his message as "a proclamation of release to the captives," that is, the captives in sin (Luke 4:18).  There is no Scriptural reason whatever for not referring to that whole generation which rejected the preaching of Noah as "the souls in prison"; however, Peter wrote, "spirits in prison"; and, for that reason, we must refer the words "spirits in prison" to their present status at the time of Peter's writing.  They, like the fallen angels, were then "spirits in prison." Ages earlier, they were living men and women who rejected the preaching of Christ through Noah.  Peter here spoke of them, by way of identification, as "spirits in prison"; but there is not a line in this passage which requires us to believe that Christ preached personally to those "spirits in prison" during the three days his body lay in the tomb!  See Note 1 at end of the chapter.