YouTube video sermon
1 Peter 3:18-22
I hope you have your copy of God’s Word with you this morning, because you’re going to need it. You need it, first, because that’s what I preach from around here. As helpful and entertaining as books and blog posts and magazines and newspapers and Twitter feeds might be, none of them is the veritable Word of God. The second reason you’re going to need a Bible is because we’re going to be looking at several verses that you won’t believe are in the Bible, and I want you to see these verses for yourself. I’ll put them on the screens, but there’s something about seeing them in your Bible that makes it more personal. So, let me invite you to take your copy of God’s Word and turn with me to 1 Peter 3.
As you’re finding your spot, let me also take just a moment and tell you that unless you like to listen to sermons in your spare time, it’s quite likely that you’ve never heard a sermon from 1 Peter 3:18-22. There are many of you here this morning that have grown up in church, and you’ve heard hundreds, if not thousands, of sermons in your lifetime, and yet I’m certain that there haven’t been many (if any) from 1 Peter 3:18-22. Some of you might be new to church. Some of you might be visiting today. If so, you’re dropping in at a very special time.
Put a star beside today’s date and hold on to the bulletin, because I can assure you that you won’t hear many sermons from this text. And that’s because 1 Peter 3:18-22 is probably one of the three most difficult passages in the entire Bible. It’s not just hard to understand theologically, but it’s hard to understand structurally and grammatically. Hopefully, you’ve found your spot. If not, just follow along on the screens:
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.
“Our Father and our God, as we always do when we look at Your Word, we do not stand upon our own devices or our own abilities, as fragile as they are, but rather, we seek Your help. We pray that You would grant us the Spirit of Truth to illumine these difficult passages for our understanding. Again, we ask that You would guard us from error; and if I should preach anything that is in error, that it may not cause harm to Your people but that it would fall into the sea of forgetfulness. At the same time, Lord, I pray that I might speak the truth of Your Word and that You might use it to quicken our consciences and our souls. For we offer this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”
Some of you may be familiar with a statement that’s used in church circles, whether it’s the less formal local church Bible study or the more formal theological training of seminary, that goes like this: “When you read the Bible remember, the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things!” The idea behind that statement is that we shouldn’t get too preoccupied by the parts of Scripture that we may never fully understand until we meet the Author face to face, but rather focus on the parts that are clear.
However, there is a place and a time to wrestle with passages like this, and although church may be the place, I want you to know that today’s sermon isn’t the time. But I’m reminded of humorous remark by a dear mentor of mine, Dr. Alistair Begg, who said, “Having said that I’m not going to get into it, let me get into it enough to let you know that there’s something to get into, and to let you know that I’ve gotten into it enough to be able to get into it if you want to phone me up at the office.” Sounds a little bit like Abbott and Costello, doesn’t it?
Seriously, before we plunge into the thickets, we need a map. First, I want you to note that the passage begins and ends with Christ’s resurrection. If you read v. 18 and skip down to v. 22, then you get the familiar sequence: Christ suffered, died, was raised, and ascended to sit at the right hand of God. Sounds remarkably like a creed, yeah? Well, Peter wants to use this sequence as an encouragement to Christians when they suffer. So that’s where the argument is headed: Christ suffered for sin, but Jesus won victory over sin, death, and the grave . . . and that should be an encouragement to us in our times of trouble. I believe that’s the point of the entire text. And I want us to pick it up with verse 18 and just walk through it together until we get to verse 22. Verse 18 illustrates Christ’s victory over sin.
Victory Over Sin
Can we have victory over our sin? Yes, we can. How do we know this? Because Christ gives us victory over our sin. Verse 18 is one of the great verses of the New Testament to memorize in order to share the gospel with others, “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.”
Jesus didn’t die because of His sins. He had no sin. The Bible says (in 2 Corinthians 5:21) that, “God made Him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” It’s very clear. Jesus died for our sins. That’s how Peter starts this off. Jesus suffered for me. Jesus suffered for you. And the word that Peter uses there for “suffering” is the Greek word epathen. It’s the root word for another Greek word, pathos. It refers to the heavy emotion, the passion, the strong feelings associated with Jesus’ death. So, what he’s doing is describing the process of Jesus’ death and not just the event. Peter is reminding us that Jesus’ death wasn’t some instantaneous, simple death. Jesus was in absolute agony, and horrendous pain – suffering. Why? Because of our sins.
Also notice that it was sufficient. “For Christ also suffered,” what’s the next word? Once. Peter’s audience and many of you, if you’ve read your Bibles or been to church often enough, would be familiar with the Old Testament Jewish system of sacrifice – how the priests were constantly offering sacrifices for themselves and for the sins of the people. And that’s why the Jews looked forward to the day when the Messiah, the Lamb of God, would come and take away the sin of the world once and for all.
Flip to your left, over to Hebrews 9. The writer of Hebrews is intent on showing how Jesus is superior to everything. He begins in chapter 1 talking about how Jesus is superior to angels. Then he talks about Jesus being superior to Moses. Then he moves and talks about Jesus being our Great High Priest, even better than the Old Testament high priest, Melchizedek. In Hebrews 9, let’s pick up with verse 24, “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him” (Hebrews 9:24-28).
Flip over to Hebrews 10 and we’ll pick up with the latter part of verse 9, “He [Jesus] does away with the first in order [speaking of sacrifices] to establish the second. And by [God’s] will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should be made a footstool for His feet. For by a single offering, He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:9-14).
Now, I want to be careful here, but I also want to tell you the truth. Please understand that I’m not seeking any division or disharmony in any way with what I’m about to say, but rather that we might appreciate Christ’s victory over sin. Many of us have friends that are Catholics. Perhaps you grew up in the Catholic Church, yourself. There are many areas of theology and doctrine that Protestants and Catholics agree upon, but there are some areas where there remains a divide and this is one of them. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (p. 344), paragraph 1367, which quotes directly from the Council of Trent (1545) reads as such:
The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner . . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory.”
Loved ones, make no mistake about it, the Bible does not teach an ongoing, perpetual sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. His death on the Cross was sufficient for all time and the value, and significance, and merit of Jesus’ suffering on the Cross was so infinite that to repeat it is to demean it.
Lastly, and then we’ll move to what you really came for, notice that Jesus’ death was successful. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God…” Now, the way that sentence is translated could convey a sense of doubt, but let me tell you; in the Greek, it’s a purpose clause with the Greek word hina. Hina is a subordinating conjunction that means “for the purpose of” or “in order that” or “so that” He would bring us to God. There’s no doubt, whatsoever, that the price that Jesus paid on the Cross of Calvary was successful in providing victory over sin.
Now, let’s move to verses 19-20, which is the real reason that many of you are here today. If not, if you’re visiting with us, then it’s certainly one of those verses that causes you to ask, “What in the world does that mean?” Well, it demonstrates Jesus’ victory over suffering.
Victory Over Suffering
Verse 18 ends with the reality of Jesus’ death, “being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit…” There’s nothing confusing there. According to the Bible, when we die, our spirit will continue to live. If it didn’t, then there wouldn’t be any support for heaven and hell. Why have a destination if there’s no being, no essence, no spirit to inhabit it? Jesus died, and after His death His spirit still lived. That’s all that’s being said there. Now, some of your Bibles might have Spirit with a capital ‘S.’ That’s okay, too. Romans 1:4 and 8:11, both give indication that it was the power of the Holy Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the grave.
It’s this next part where things get interesting, “in which [that’s a reference to His spirit] He [Jesus] went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison…” Let me tell you, there are more interpretations of this little verse than I can share with you today. However, very quickly, let me offer to you the three classical views.
- That Jesus descended into hell and preached a message of redemption to those people that died in the flood at the time of Noah. [In this view, the term “spirits” is seen as a reference to human people, His “preaching” was a message of redemption, and “prison” is seen as a reference to hell.]
- That Jesus’ Spirit – that is, the Holy Spirit – preached a message of redemption through the person of Noah to those people that died in the flood. [This view is like the first, except it wasn’t Jesus Himself, but rather the Spirit of God – the Holy Spirit – working in and through Noah that proclaimed the gospel – a message of redemption to the people of Noah’s day.]
- That Jesus descended into the depths of the earth/hades and proclaimed a message of victory to fallen angels/demons. [In this view, the term “spirits” is seen as a reference to fallen angels, the “preaching” or “proclamation” is not a message of redemption but rather victory, and “prison” is not strictly used as a reference to hell.]
Now, part of the pastor’s job is to offer instruction and clarity on these types of matters. But, when it comes to the task of preaching, which is what I’m doing now, it’s incumbent upon the pastor, through prayer and study, to be convicted in his spirit as to what the passage is saying and to offer it to the congregation. I’m going to show you why and make my application, and then we’ll move on, but I believe that the best interpretation is number 3 – that Jesus descended to the depths and proclaimed a message of victory over sin and suffering to the fallen angels. Now, this is why you need your Bibles.
First, flip over to 2 Peter 2. Peter’s second epistle; just a few pages to the right. Starting at verse 4, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [Tartarus] and committed them to chains/pits of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes He condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials/temptations, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:4-10). Now, we read that because Peter is more specific in his second letter that these “spirits” were angels. And I want you to note how verse 10 ends, “especially those [angels] who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority,” because I think that description connects with another verse, we’ll see in just a moment.
Now, flip over to Jude – a little one-chapter book before Revelation. We’ll begin with verse 5, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day – just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:5-7). Jude, likewise, speaks of angels that sinned. They didn’t stay within their position of authority. They rebelled against God, and they left their dwelling, and now they’re kept in chains until the day of judgment. Isn’t this fun?
Now, as if this hasn’t raised a whole bunch of questions, let me invite you to turn to Genesis 6. One thing I know for sure; lunchtime conversation is going to be lively. I can hear it now, at the Fuller house, Steve says, “Janet, I think Pastor Lee was on drugs today.” Genesis 6:1-4, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’ The Nephilim/giants were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” And immediately after this awkward exchange we get the account of the flood. Now, there are multiple interpretations of these verses as well but, in the Old Testament, every time that the phrase “sons of God” is used (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7) it refers to angels – in this case, malevolent angels/demons.
Let me offer one final reference, and then we’ll quickly conclude. Colossians 2:13-15, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities [a.k.a. malevolent angels/demons] and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in the cross.”
So, I believe all these scriptures support the idea that what Peter is sharing with us is that Jesus, after His death, made a proclamation of His victory over sin and suffering (as Colossians says) to sinful, malevolent angels/demons. And, if you think about it, this makes sense. What have we seen since we started looking at Peter’s letter? He’s writing to suffering and persecuted believers and offering them a word of hope, a word of encouragement amid a chaotic and alien and hostile world. And, in Peter’s mind, there’s nothing more encouraging than to be reminded that when Jesus died, He went a proclaimed His victory to all those that rebelled against Him, didn’t believe in Him, and rejected Him. So, too, if we persevere in the face of suffering and persecution and trial and hardship and keep our eyes on Jesus – the Author and Perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) – then our suffering will end in victory to the praise and glory of the Father.
I would love to talk about what Peter says regarding baptism, but our time is short, so let’s drop down to verse 22 where we see that this victory is supreme.
Victory Supremely
Where is Jesus in verse 18? He’s on the cross. Where is Jesus in verses 19-21? Proclaiming His victory over sin, death, and the grave to all those that mocked Him, all those that scoffed at the gospel, all those that refused to believe. Where is He in verse 22? He “…has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him.”
It’s extremely hard in our day not to get caught up – to one degree or another – in all the commentary and rumination and opinion surrounding politics and Washington, D.C. Who’s the President? Who’s going to win this race or that race? Which party is going to be in majority control or no control? Maybe politics isn’t your cup of tea. Maybe you’re focused on business or career or education – climbing the ladder, working toward that corner office on the top floor, studying for another degree, hoping to be awarded tenure. Never forget that Jesus ultimately holds every title, every position, every authority, every rule, every dominion, every power, and indeed every breath of every man, woman, and child alive. He . . . is the title-bearer and the title-giver, and He is victorious and authoritative over the affairs of life and time.
Do you know this Jesus – the One who is victorious over sin, suffering and the grave, the One who is the Supreme Victor, the One who hold
your very life in the palm of His hand? Have you had a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross of Calvary for your sin? Have you recognized and acknowledged your sinful state and, in total surrender, thrown yourself upon the grace and mercy of Christ? Do you know that you have victory in Jesus?
I heard an old, old story
How a Savior came from glory
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me
And I heard about His groaning
Of His precious blood’s atoning
Then I repented of my sins
And won the victory
That’s our text in song, right there. That’s 1 Peter 3:18-22 set to music. I’m going to pray and then we’re going to close by singing Victory in Jesus. When we sing that song, that’s your invitation. Invitation for what? Invitation to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Just come down here and see me, and I’ll walk you through it. Maybe you’ve already done that, but you need to take this invitation as a time to recommit your life. Maybe you’ve been attending services here, enjoying the fellowship and discipleship and you want to commit to becoming a member. Maybe, just maybe, there’s someone here this morning that’s feeling the call to vocational ministry. It happened to me, and it could happen to any one of you. However, the Lord is dealing with your heart this morning, when we sing, then you come.
“Look upon us, gracious Father, I pray, in these final moments of our morning worship. As you see our hearts – an open book before You – grant to us grace, wherever we are on the spiritual pilgrimage of our lives that we might know the reality of what it means to enter into the benefits of Christ’s victory over sin, suffering and the grave. Help us to trust in You, and You alone, for our eternal hope. For we offer this prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.”