1 Peter 3:18-22 Boats, Baptism, and the Briar Patch
Good morning! We are about to embark on a little journey through the briar patch. Our text for this morning represents one of the main reasons that we study the Scriptures in the way that we do, one book at a time, one chapter at a time, one verse at a time in order. It would be a whole lot easier for me personally to skip over this section and just preach on a topic that I liked or a topic that is really relevant for us at this time in history, something that would be really helpful…
But the way that we study the Scriptures together does not allow us to skip over the parts that we don’t like or are difficult for us to understand. We cannot simply gloss over the parts of Scripture that we find offensive or confusing nor try to explain them away or ignore them altogether.
If you don’t read ahead as a habit of preparing for our weekly study then this warning might seem a little foreboding. If you do read ahead and you’ve been waiting for this one, we need to pray for you.
There’s no sense in putting it off any longer, let’s read the text and dive in. 1 Peter 3:18-22, page 1016 in the pew Bibles.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Let’s pray
Now if you remember from last week, Peter’s focus has been on suffering, and in fact it remains his focus into the next chapter. Peter started talking about suffering and enduring suffering back in chapter 2 and he reminded us of the example of Jesus and how He stood up under suffering even though He was innocent.
At the end of our passage from last week, in verse 17, Peter wrote. “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.”
And again, in verse 18, he reminds us of Jesus’ example of suffering.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Here is the shortest, simplest, and richest summary of the meaning of the cross of Christ. If you ever find yourself wondering, “What exactly is ‘penal substitutionary atonement’?” Here it is!
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Christ suffered ONCE for sins.
Once was all that was necessary, not an endless ritual of animal sacrifices. The work is complete.
The righteous suffered for the unrighteous. If anyone should have been spared suffering it’s Him, but He willingly suffered in our place.
He suffered so that He might bring us to God. Jesus serves as our High Priest. Sin is what separates mankind from God, but because Jesus willingly suffered and died in our place on the cross He has made a way for us to be reunited with our Heavenly Father through faith.
He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.
Martin Luther said, “This is the meaning, that Christ by His sufferings was taken from the life which is flesh and blood, as a man on earth, living, walking, and standing in flesh and blood and He is now placed in another life, and made alive according to the spirit, He has passed into a spiritual and supernatural life, which includes in itself the whole life which Christ now has in soul and body, so that He has no longer a fleshly but a spiritual body.”
This does not mean that Jesus is a ghost. But His resurrection body is different from our fleshly bodies. He still ate and drank with the disciples after His resurrection, they could still touch Him, but He could no longer be touched by death.
Peter says this to remind the church that suffering is not permanent and not without purpose, evenif suffering ends in death, for the believer death is not the end.
Then it gets weird.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
When I consider what I would like to preach on on any given Sunday, these verses never come to mind. In fact, there are few passages of Scripture that have given scholars and preachers a harder time than this one. This passage is why I was nervous about working through 1 Peter at all… Some of you just love to see me squirm…
There are three classical interpretations of these verses.
First, Jesus descended into Hell and preached to the people who died in the flood of Noah.
Second, Jesus, in the Spirit, or, the Spirit of Christ, preached through Noah as he was building the ark.
Third, Jesus descended into Hell and proclaimed His victory to the fallen angels.
Each of these interpretations has its own problems.
In truth, they reveal some potential problems with our own ideas about what happens when a person dies. The main problem is with our ideas of Hell. What comes to your mind when you think of Hell? What comes to your mind when you think of Hades? They are not the same thing but are both very real.
Hell is the lake of fire that Satan and his demons are all destined for along with all those who have rejected Christ. Revelation 20:14 calls this “the second death.”
If Hell is the second death, what is the first death? That’s Hades, the place of the dead, some scholars call it, “the intermediate state.”
I know I don’t often quote from Revelation but, chapter 20:13-14 says:
Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
Hades is not Hell. Hades is also not purgatory.
Purgatory is a teaching of the Catholic Church and is not found in Scripture at all and clearly violates the teaching of Scripture that people can somehow be perfected after they die, it may just take a couple thousand years. It’s heresy, false teaching plain and simple.
Jesus referred to Hades when He told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was in a place Jesus called, “Abraham’s Bosom,” while the rich man was in a place of torment and they were separated by a large chasm.
So, lot’s to talk about there… Did Jesus descend into Hell? No, He descended into Hades, the place of the dead and preached to the spirits in prison.
If we use the most basic strategy for Biblical interpretation, a plain reading of the text, we can clearly see that Peter declared that Jesus Christ preached in Hades to the unbelieving contemporaries of Noah; nothing more, nothing less. It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. Noah was also called a preacher of righteousness. He preached righteousness for 120 years, yet only seven people joined him in the ark.
The real question is, why even bring this up? Why bring up Noah and the ark?
Here’s John Calvin’s answer: “The sum of what is said is this, that the world has always been full of unbelievers, but that the godly ought not to be terrified by their vast number; for though Noah was surrounded on every side by the ungodly, and had very few as his friends, he was not drawn aside from the right course of his faith.”
Christ was alive in the flesh as we were before we came to faith in Him, only He without sin.
Christ died in the flesh but was made alive in the Spirit as we were when we came to faith in Him.
Christ preached the gospel to those who were lost in the power of the Spirit as we ought to now.
Christ ascended to the right hand of God in heaven and we will be welcomed into His eternal kingdom when He returns.
So what remains is the question of Noah and baptism. How do the two correspond? They must, because that’s what the Word says.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
How does baptism correspond to the rescue of Noah and his family on the ark?
The flood was a form of baptism, by the baptism of the flood Noah and his family were transferred from the old world of sin and wickedness and transferred to the new world.
The baptism of a believer in Jesus is a similar symbol.
Noah and his family were saved by faith from the flood. In faith Noah obeyed God and spent 120 years building the ark and he and his family were saved. They were given new life when the waters receded.
By faith in Christ, the church is saved from death and Hades and is raised to new life. We are buried with Christ by faith and raised again to new life in Him, that’s what baptism symbolizes.
John Calvin wrote, “When we speak of sacraments [baptism and the Lord’s Supper], two things are to be considered, the sign and the thing itself. In baptism the sign is water, but the thing itself is the washing of the soul by the blood of Christ and the mortification of the flesh.”
The act of baptism is not what saves us, it is the outward symbol of an inward occurrence, it is, as Peter puts it, and appeal to God for a good conscience. But baptism is so closely connected there is no reason that anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ should wait to be baptized.
So what are our takeaways?
Jesus Christ, the One who deserved suffering the least, showed us how to suffer the best, when life gets hard look to His example.
God’s Word is not a riddle to be solved, it was written so that we can understand it and not have to decipher codes, even if we don’t fully understand some of the little things we can certainly embrace the big things.
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit
And if you believe this and you have not been baptized there is no reason to wait, no reason to put it off any longer, let’s fill the tank, if not today, for those of you watching online, we’ll fill it next Sunday and have a baptism!
Just let me or one of the elders know if you’re interested.
And finally, if you don’t know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior…
Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.
Believe this, call out to Him in faith, accept that His death on the cross was for you, and invite Him into your life, then you too will be saved and can be baptized!
Amen.
