To them that are dead; either:
1. Spiritually dead, i.e. dead in sin, viz. then when the gospel was preached to them; or:
2. Naturally dead, viz. when the apostle wrote this Epistle. The verb are not being in the Greek, the words may be understood either way, by supplying were, according to the former exposition, or are, according to the latter, which our translators favour. See the like, Ruth 1:8. That they might be judged according to men in the flesh: either:
1. That they might be judged or condemned in the flesh, i.e. that their old man and carnal conversation, according to men walking in their carnal lusts, might be destroyed and abolished; and then, to be judged in the flesh, is of the same import as to suffer in the flesh, 1 Peter 4:1; to be dead to sin, Romans 6:2: or:
2. That they might be judged or condemned in the flesh, according to men, and so far as they could reach, not only by censures, reproaches, and evil speeches, but even death itself, as it had fallen out already to Stephen, James, &c. But live according to God in the spirit; that they might live a spiritual life in their souls according to the will of God, and an eternal life with him. To live in the spirit, to the will of God, to walk in newness of life, & c., are phrases of a like import in the language of the apostles. According to the latter exposition of the former clause, the apostle seems in the whole to remove the scandal of these Christians, being reproached and condemned by unbelievers for their strictness in religion, and nonconformity to the world, by telling them, that their condition was not singular, but so it had fared with others before them, (though now dead), to whom the gospel was preached, with the same event as to the judgment of worldly men who censured and condemned them, and yet with the same hope of fruit and benefit, viz. that though they were condemned by men in the flesh, or as to their outward man, yet as to their souls, (meant here by spirits), they might live a holy, spiritual life, a life to God in this world, ending in a life with him in the other.