It is written in 1 Peter 3:18-19 that our Lord Jesus went and ‘preached’ to the ‘spirits in prison’ after He resurrected. One questioner also says, “When I read Dr. Bullinger’s slant on this chapter and verse, he states Christ preached His glorious Salvation to the captive, disobedient angels from the time of Noah. Not to save, but to proclaim His victory……..kind-of-a rub it in your face thing, I guess (All this from How to Enjoy the Bible, page 190-191).¹  Bullinger goes on to says if this is translated any other way it would mean a ‘second chance’ theory.”
     So what was that event in 1 Peter 3:18-19 of Christ preaching to the spirits in prison?

That word ‘preached‘ in 1 Peter 3:19 is the same Greek word ‘kerusso‘ translated as to ‘preach‘ The Gospel all throughout the New Testament. Question: when The Gospel is preached, does It ONLY proclaim Christ’s Victory over Satan, and that’s all there is to It? Of course not.
     When Christ’s Gospel is ‘preached’, Salvation is offered along with it. Bullinger, though he was an excellent Christian scholar, was on the pre-tribulational “secret rapture” boat ‘theory’, and even held the ‘tradition’ that those ‘asleep’ in Christ are waiting it out in the ground somewhere (see Bullinger’s work How To Enjoy The Bible). To think the flesh will be re-united with the spirit is an insult to Christ’s resurrection, and a doctrine of the false one, as Paul even stated, “…flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor.15:50). So even an excellent scholar of The Word cannot also be deceived? Yes. Paul, before he was directly converted by Christ was one such example also. He was one of the best Hebrew Bible scholars of his day, but he lacked The Holy Spirit as Guide to properly understand The Word.
     Bullinger, with all his learning, just got ‘sucked’ into a false doctrine which is countered in many areas of The Word, Eccl.12 for one; Luke 16 for another, and Rev.19 & 21 with what the angel said to John, about being of his brethren the prophets. Bullinger also thought the ‘resurrection’ is postponed until Christ returns. Nope. Those who die today, resurrect, going to either side in Heaven, as Luke 16 is our example by Christ’s teaching. Many think the story about Lazarus and the rich man of Luke 16 is a parable. It is not. The same also have a problem understanding Christ’s simple explanation to His disciples of the ‘parable of the tares of the field’ in Matthew 13.
     The following Scriptures are about Christ Jesus’ first Advent as Messiah Savior, offering us The New Covenant:

Isa 42:5   Thus saith GOD the LORD, He That created the heavens, and stretched them out; He That spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; He That giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
6    “I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the People, for a light of the Gentiles;
7    To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

     Question: Which people have evangelized a ‘light‘ unto the Gentiles, preaching Christ’s Gospel to all who would receive It? Has it been the non-believing Jews? No. The Apostles of Christ and then the Western Christian Nations have been the heraldic proclaimers of Christ Jesus, The ‘Light’ also offered to the Gentiles. So even back in Isaiah, God spoke of His Salvation Gospel to be offered as a Covenant to His People, i.e. the scattered remnants of all twelve tribes of Israel, and then The Gospel would be preached by them…to the Gentiles.
     So the next verse 7, is when Christ preached to the spirits in prison. And not all those in prison were of the fallen angels in chains.

Isa 61:1   The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me; because the LORD hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

     To proclaim ‘liberty‘ is to declare The Gospel of Salvation, not just a ‘Victory’ over Satan. The ‘prison‘ was opened for some, meaning those who accepted Christ’s Victory when He proclaimed It. Why would the prison (pit) be opened if some were not to be led out? Not all in Satan’s prison were bound in the same manner as the fallen angels. The false tradition of man, that none born flesh who have died go to Heaven just yet, causes the error of thinking that these ‘spirits in prison’ were all ‘fallen angels’ of Jude 1. They were not all fallen angels, but those similar to the ‘rich man’ of Luke 16, who either didn’t have the ‘chance’ to hear The Gospel before they died, or refused Him before our Lord fulfilled His Mission upon the cross.
     (Hint about Lazarus being in Abraham’s bosom in the story of Luke 16: Abraham represents the ‘flesh’ father of The Salvation Promise through Christ Jesus. That Lazarus was carried into Abraham’s bosom in Heaven by the angels, it showed Lazarus ‘believed’ in That Promise given by God through Abraham (Gen.12;17; John 8:56-58). And that, even though Christ hadn’t been born flesh yet. Thus, as Paul would teach in Galatians 3, all believers on Christ Jesus The Promised Savior, are children of Abraham, regardless of nationality or race.)

Isa 49:8   Thus saith the LORD, “In an acceptable time have I heard Thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped Thee: and I will preserve Thee, and give Thee for a covenant of the People, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
9    That Thou mayest say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth;’ to them that are in darkness, ‘Shew yourselves.’ They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.

     Not only was the ‘prison’ of hell opened for those who believed on Christ when He preached to them during His resurrection, but our Lord told those to “Go forth”! That means leave it. But to the fallen angels, who are still reserved in chains, our Lord said to them, “Shew yourselves.” Bullinger’s idea of Christ showing them His Victory only, might apply with that “Shew yourselves.” But not with “Go forth” (Hebrew ‘yatsah‘, meaning ‘to go (causatively, bring) out’, Strong’s no. 3318).

Zech 9:9   Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
10    And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and He shall speak peace unto the heathen: and His dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.
11    As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.

     If you’ll remember Luke 16 about the ‘rich man’, he asked Abraham across a “great gulf fixed”, to allow Lazarus to come over and drip water on his tongue, to cool his torment. So make no mistake, this ‘pit‘ is the abode across the ‘great gulf fixed’ in Heaven, opposite of God’s side called Paradise (Greek for ‘Eden’).

Luke 4:18   “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19   To preach the acceptable year of the LORD.”

     How did an excellent Christian scholar, such as Dr. Bullinger miss all these examples for Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison, with some (i.e., believers) being delivered out? Well, if one wants to cling to this old flesh, refusing to believe the full Truth of what the ‘resurrection’ into the spiritual body is, then they will not understand the spiritual dimension of Heaven; a Heaven of ‘now’, not just later at Christ’s second coming. Even as our Lord Jesus said of our Heavenly Father in Mark 12:27, “He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living:…”
     Paul also explained in 1 Thess.4:15 that we which are alive in the flesh at Christ’s coming shall not ‘prevent‘ (‘precede’ in the Greek with ‘phthano‘) those who are already ‘asleep’. Since the start of this flesh age, all who have left this earth, putting off their flesh body at death, have gone to Heaven. Do you want to go to Heaven? You do? But to which side is the question I ask? For even Satan and his angels are cast out of Heaven to the earth per Revelation 12:

Rev 12:7   And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8    And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9    And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.