Christ's Ministry to the "Captives"

What did Jesus do in Spirit while His body lay in the tomb for 3 days?

 See the section titled: "Christ's Mission to the Dead" in the following article:

Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times Hugh W. Nibley Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute

 Isa. 42: 77
 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

 Isa. 61: 1

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;

 2. Luke 4: 18

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, 

What of patriarchs and prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Isaiah, to name a few; who, according to most evangelicals, may be damned, having lived before Christ?

SUMMARY of Christ's Mission to the Dead, in the above article.

 

Christ's Mission to the Dead  Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times Hugh W. Nibley Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute

1. The early Christians believed that Christ, after the crucifixion, descended to the spirit world.
2. As to the purpose of Christ's visit to the spirits in prison, the early sources are in perfect agreement


• I shall give to them also, that when they have come out of the prison and when they have left their bonds . . . I shall lead them up into heaven, to the place which my Father has prepared for the elect, and I will give you the kingdom, and rest [anapausis, i.e. rest in the midst of work or on a journey, not a permanent stand-still], and eternal life
• I have received all authority from my Father, so that I might lead out into light those who sit in darkness
• I made a congregation of the living in the realm of the dead," says the Lord in the Odes of Solomon,
• Another Ode says: "I went to all my imprisoned ones to free them . . . and they gathered themselves together to me and were rescued; because they were members of me and I was their head.
• "He went down alone," writes Eusebius, citing a popular formula, "but mounted up again with a great host towards the Father
• Tertullian is more specific, "Christ . . . did not ascend to the higher heavens until he had descended to the lower regions [lit. lower parts of the worlds), there to make the patriarchs and prophets his compotes."
• Though rejected at his first coming, says Irenaeus, Christ nonetheless "gathers together his dispersed sons from the ends of the earth into the Father's sheepfold, mindful likewise of his dead ones who fell asleep before him; to them also he descends that he may awaken and save them."
• A great favorite with the early Christians was a passage from the apocryphal Book of Sirach: "I shall go through all the regions deep beneath the earth, and I shall visit all those who sleep
• "The Lord God hath remembered his dead among those of Israel who have been laid in the place of burial, and has gone down to announce to them the tidings of his salvation."
• I went down and spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your fathers, and declared unto them how they might rise, and with my right hand I gave them the baptism of life and release and forgiveness of all evil, even as I do to you here and to all who believe on me from this time on