¹⁴ First on the occasion when the prophet Moses died on top of Mount Nebo. Then, when the Son of God “had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms, but said: ‘May Jehovah rebuke you.’” The spirit Son of God, as the archangel Michael, kept control of Moses’ body and buried it for Jehovah God at a place in a valley in Moab that no man has discovered and no spirit medium is able to reveal. (Jude 9, NW; Deut. 34:1-6) The other occasion is disclosed to us by the prophecy of Zechariah 3:1, 2 (AS), concerning the high priest Joshua after he and other Jews returned from Babylon to the desolated city of Jerusalem and began to rebuild the temple of Jehovah God there. We read: “And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And Jehovah [Syriac Version: And the angel of Jehovah] said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee.” (See also AT; Mo.) Jehovah’s rebuking of Satan means the divine execution of judgment against him on Jehovah’s great judgment day when he brings the end of this wicked world or system of things under Satan and ushers in the righteous world under Jesus Christ the King of kings. In view of that, in the centuries before Jesus was put to death in the flesh and made alive in the spirit by the resurrection from the dead it was not the time for Jehovah by his angelic Son to “rebuke” Satan.

15-17. (a) Why and how are Noah’s preflood preaching and Jesus’ preaching to the imprisoned spirits comparable? (b) Why were certain prominent contemporaries of Noah among those who knew of or heard his preflood sermons?

¹⁵ Now have you ever wondered why the apostle, at 1 Peter 3:18-22, when speaking of Jesus Christ’s suffering unjustly even to the death and his being raised to life in the spirit realm, suddenly speaks of spirits that were disobedient thousands of years before in Noah’s day? Well, Peter surprisingly tells that the resurrected Christ preached to those imprisoned spirits because there is a likeness between what happened in Noah’s day and the things Peter now discusses. According to Jesus’ own words at Matthew 24:37-39, Noah was a prophetic figure of Jesus Christ. So Noah’s wife was a typical picture of the “bride, the Lamb’s wife,” that is, the true church or congregation of Jesus’ spirit-begotten followers. The three sons of Noah and their three wives pictured the “great crowd” of believers in Christ, to whom he will become the Everlasting Father during his thousand-year reign over the coming new world. They will not be glorified with Christ in heaven and reign with him on his throne the way the faithful congregation of his spiritual followers will. They will inherit the earthly paradise that Christ’s kingdom will restore to this globe after the battle of Armageddon. Since A.D. 1914 we have been in the “time of the end” of this wicked world, and already a “great crowd” of these earthly believers have been gathered out from the nations and brought into the New World society together with the last members on earth of the “bride, the Lamb’s wife.”—Rev. 21:9.

¹⁹ In 1914, the opening year of World War I, Jehovah God began delivering a stinging rebuke to Satan and his demons who still had entry to heaven and freedom of movement there. In the autumn of that year the “appointed times of the nations” ran out and the time came for Jehovah God to establish his kingdom in the hands of his Son Jesus Christ. (Luke 21:24, NW) As symbolically pictured in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, God brought his kingdom to birth, to rule in the midst of these worldly nations and finally to dash them to pieces at the coming battle of Armageddon. Immediately after the Kingdom’s birth Jehovah’s Chief Angel or Archangel, his enthroned King known in heaven as Michael, “battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled.” Satan the Dragon and his demon angels were defeated and hurled down from the heavens to the vicinity of our earth to be restrained here until the approaching battle of Armageddon. (Rev. 12:7-9, NW) This was indeed an abasement, in a bodily sense, in addition to their being already in their Tartarus condition of abasement. This was an imprisonment of them in a bodily way in addition to their being “in prison,” in Tartarus, since the Flood, they being forever debarred from heaven and permitted now no higher than the earth where Satan’s rebellion started. Little wonder, then, that the Dragon the original Serpent writhed at this rebuke and now spits out venom at Jehovah God’s organization.

20-22. (a) How now do we unmistakably identify the complete and final fulfillment of the God-given prediction at Zechariah 3:1, 2? (b) Why and how is preaching by Jesus to the imprisoned spirits still progressing, and when will that preaching end?

²⁰ As to Satan’s being cast out of heaven we read, at Revelation 12:10: “Now have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ, because the accuser of our brothers has been hurled down, who accuses them day and night before our God!” (NW) Hence there is now a complete and final fulfillment of the above-quoted prophecy of Zechariah 3:1, 2 (page 597, ¶14). In Zechariah’s prophecy the “angel of Jehovah” is the same as the “Angel of the covenant” concerning whom Malachi 3:1 (Da; Dy) prophesied that he would come with the Lord Jehovah to the temple for judgment work, namely, the glorified Jesus Christ. Not only is he Jehovah’s Chief Angel or Archangel but he is Jehovah’s High Priest. On earth he is represented by his brother priests, the underpriests who follow in his footsteps and who are to be a “royal priesthood” with him. (1 Pet. 2:9) It is these that the Dragon, Satan the Devil, accuses. When he accuses them he in effect accuses their Head, the High Priest Jesus Christ, for what is done to them is the same as if done to him. (Matt. 10:40; 25:40, 45) Just as Zechariah’s prophecy shows that Satan tried to be an adversary to Joshua the Jewish high priest after the Jews returned from Babylon to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem, so Satan has fought and accused the remnant of priestly followers of Jesus Christ the High Priest after they got free from modern-day Babylon in 1919 (A.D.).

²¹ The facts in fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi 3:1 prove that Jehovah and his “Angel of the covenant” came to the spiritual temple in the spring of 1918. So now the “angel of Jehovah” is at the temple since then, engaged in judgment work, and his judgments extend to Satan the Devil also. When, therefore, Satan acts as an adversary to Jehovah’s High Priest Jesus Christ by resisting the remnant of his priestly followers on earth, Jesus Christ the “angel of Jehovah” at the temple says to Satan: “Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan! Yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee!” (Zech. 3:2, Da) After Jesus Christ, Jehovah’s Chief Angel or Archangel, hurled Satan out of heaven, down to earth he did not at once proceed to fight the battle of Armageddon and put Satan completely out of action. He has allowed Satan a “short period of time” before again joining battle with him at Armageddon. Thus the days of tribulation upon Satan’s organization have been cut that much shorter, and this has worked for the benefit of Jehovah’s chosen “royal priesthood.” For this reason, since coming to the temple, Jesus Christ the “angel of Jehovah” could not do more than say to Satan: “Jehovah rebuke thee.” In this way the glorified Jesus Christ now ‘preaches to Satan and the other spirits in prison’ in the spirit realm. Asking for Jehovah to rebuke them is a preaching of judgment against them. At the coming battle of Armageddon Jehovah will rebuke Satan and his spirit demons by executing judgment upon them.

²² Thus the ‘preaching to the spirits in prison’ by the resurrected Jesus Christ continues till the battle of Armageddon. Satan and these other imprisoned spirits are still in the Biblical Tartarus and its dense darkness regarding God’s favor and his purposes. Their abased condition at this earth Ezekiel’s prophecy foretells under the name of the “land of Magog,” its ruler Gog being a prophetic symbol of Satan the Devil.—Ezek. 38:1 to 39:11.