Jesus died as a human and his body was put in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60). Jesus prepared his apostles for the fact that he would die and no longer be physically with them. Matthew 16:21 “…He explained to his disciples that he must be killed and on the third day, raised to life.” Other scriptures support the fact that he died and was laid in a tomb for three or parts of three days. See Luke 9:22, Matthew 27:63,64 and Mark 8:31.

The word translated as both “hell,” “grave” and “pit” in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word sheol. It means the state or a condition of death or oblivion – not a literal place of eternal torment where evil people go. Sheol and its Greek equivalent, hades, is the condition of the grave, referred to as the sleep of death in Matthew 9:24 and John 11:11. 

Ecclesiastes 9:5 supports this state of nothingness: “The dead know not anything.” Every human who dies goes to the grave/sheol/hades as did Jesus, who was in this condition for parts of three days until his resurrection (Luke 24:46).

Some people are confused as to the meaning of 1 Peter 3:18-20: (NASB1995) “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” The concept of being “made alive in the spirit” refers to becoming spirit-begotten by God when we receive salvation. This energizing of the new life occurs in us while we are still in the flesh. Ephesians 2:1, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins”.

If Jesus’ quickening occurred at Jordan, when was he “put to death in the flesh”? When our Lord was baptized in the river, God considered his flesh dead. In the same way, believers are considered “dead” when we receive the holy spirit. Colossians 2:12, “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God…” When Jesus was raised from the water and received the holy spirit (God’s power and influence) at Jordan, he was quickened with a new life to serve God. 

The “spirits” Jesus preached to refer to the disobedient, “fallen” angels who materialized in the days of Noah and mated with human women. Genesis 6:1-4 (NIV), “When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, ‘My spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” 

The “sons of God” were the angels who materialized. (Job 2:1 identifies angels as sons of God.) These spiritual sons of God left their heavenly home and materialized as human beings without God’s permission and against His arrangements or mankind. Therefore, God deprived those angels of their liberties: “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling (in heaven) – these he has kept in darkness (the demons cannot materialize but work in darkness including through witches, seances, etc.), bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day” (Jude 1:6 NIV).  

The Apostle Peter also refers to them when he says, “For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved to judgment” (2 Peter 2:4 HNV). It was to these “spirits” that our Lord, by his life, sufferings, death and resurrection, “preached” a powerful sermon through obeying God’s will. (In the same way the Apostle Paul says of Abel, “He being dead, yet speaketh” in Hebrews 11:4).

Additional Resources:
PDF Booklet: “When a Man Dies”

Christian Questions Podcast
5-part series on Hellfire