Preached Sunday, July 14, 2013 from 1 Peter 3:17-22
Theme: Jesus’ victory in suffering for us assures us of our own victory when suffering for Him.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
In 1 Peter 3:17, the apostle Peter introduces this morning’s passage with these words:
For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil (1 Peter 3:17).
Peter wrote those words to a group of Jewish Christians who were suffering insults and ridicule and acts of injustice because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Many of those suffering Christians were tempted to respond to their persecutors in the same harsh and sinful ways that they themselves were being treated. But Peter had urged them not to do so. He reminded them of the example of the Lord Jesus . . .
“Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;
who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously (2:22-23).
Peter therefore instructed them to respond to their persecutors by “not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing” (3:9). It was, of course, a very hard thing that they were being urged to do. But I think that this initial verse—verse 17—shows us the “high purpose” that stands behind this “hard thing”.
In that verse, Peter hints at the fact that suffering will come. Suffering is unavoidable in this fallen world. We don’t really have a choice over whether or not we will undergo suffering. That’s not a very happy thing to hear; but it happens to be the truth. Either we will suffer the consequences of our own sins—whether it be while on this earth or on the ultimate day of judgment; or we will obey God and suffer for it at the hands of those who persecute the righteous. As Paul wrote elsewhere, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).
In this fallen world, you and I can’t choose whether or not we will experience suffering. But what we can choose is the reason for the suffering that we experience. When the circumstances and choices of life come upon us, we can choose to do what is wrong and suffer the consequences and regrets of a disobedient path, or we can choose to follow Christ in the path of righteousness and suffer the hostility and persecution of an unbelieving world. And that’s what’s makes verse 17 so important. Peter told his readers—many of whom were under a great deal of pressure to make the choice of what kind of suffering they would experience—that “it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil”.
Note carefully that Peter said, “if it is the will of God”. We should never go out and ‘seek’ suffering or bring persecution upon ourselves. That would be a matter of exercising “our will”—not of submitting to “God’s will”. But whenever we are called upon, in the providence of God, to make that choice—that is, whenever the circumstances of life are such that we must either choose to suffer for doing evil or suffer for doing good—then we should know that it is always infinitely better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
And how can that be? In verses 18-22, Peter goes on to explain how what he says in verse 17 can be true:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him (vv. 18-22).
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Now; I need to tell you that this is considered to be one of the most difficult passages in Peter’s letter. You’d be surprised at how many books, or journal articles, or Bible commentaries, or dissertations, or theological papers have been devoted to solving the perplexing interpretive problems that it raises. If I were to try to tell you all the different approaches theologians and Bible scholars have taken to this passage, I’m sure it would make for a very confusing and boring sermon.
But let’s not get so bogged down with the details that we lose sight of the basics. I suggest that we remember why Peter wrote this whole letter. He wanted his persecuted brothers and sisters to be clear-minded and faithful to the Lord Jesus, and—if God so choose—to willingly suffer for His cause. And so, in order to motivate them to that end, he described to them the spiritual truths they needed to know and to believe. We can be very sure that he didn’t want the things he said in this passage to be confusing to his readers.
I believe that the thing Peter wanted to set before them, most of all, was the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If you’ll look ahead to 4:1-2, I think you’ll plainly see that this is so. Immediately after the passage before us, Peter told his readers;
Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God (4:1-2).
And when you look past all the complexities and interpretive details of this morning’s passage, you find that what Peter does in it is show his readers the glorious reasons why, when they suffer for Jesus, they always do so victoriously. This morning’s passage isn’t so much about setting us an example for our own suffering—because we could never suffer the kinds of things that Jesus was said to have suffered for us in this passage; and we could never bring about the results by our suffering that His suffering brought about for us. Rather—and this is very important!—this morning’s passage shows us that what Jesus did for us brings about a certain ‘context’ for our suffering.
It teaches us that the victory that Jesus brought about by His suffering for us establishes the victory of our own suffering for Him!
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So; what are the victorious things Jesus brought about in suffering for us? What kind of a victorious ‘context’ does His suffering establish for us in our own suffering for Him? First, notice that . . .
1. HE BROUGHT ABOUT OUR RECONCILIATION TO GOD (v. 18a).
Peter establishes for us that it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God . . .” (v. 18a). What a great victory this is! I’m glad the Holy Spirit led Peter to mention it first!
Notice the details. First, it tells us that Jesus suffered—or as some translations have it, Jesus “died”—”once for sins”. It’s a wonderful thing all by itself for us who suffer in this fallen world to know that our Lord also “suffered”. As one dear brother put it to me the other day, when we come to Jesus in our times of suffering, He ‘gets it’. He knows all about suffering. But more than that, His suffering was “once”—that is, He suffered “once for all” in His suffering for our sin. As He Himself declared from the cross as He died, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Another death did not need to occur for our salvation. Nothing more needed to be done.
Second, it tells us that Jesus suffered as “the just for the unjust”. That is, He—the righteous Son of God, who knew no sin—took the guilt of our sins on Himself and paid the death penalty on our behalf. He took our place—the righteous for the unrighteous!—the innocent for the guilty! As Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5:21; “For He [that is God the Father] made Him who knew no sin [that is His Son, our Lord Jesus] to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
And third, it tells us that Jesus did this for us “that He might bring us to God”—that is, to reconcile us to Him. Because of what Jesus has suffered for us, the barrier of our sin before a holy God is removed, and we are now free to enter into a full relationship of love with Him. When we place our faith in what Jesus has suffered for us, God the Father declares us to be 100% righteous in His sight. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:1-3;
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:1-3).
And this establishes for us the context of absolute victory whenever we suffer persecution for following Jesus and walking in righteousness with Him. We may have to, at times, suffer at the hands of men for following Jesus. We may be mocked, or ridiculed, or laughed at, or lied about, or spoken of as evildoers. We may even be treated unjustly, or threatened, or actually physically harmed—as happened to some of those to whom Peter wrote, and as actually happens to many of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the world today. But—and I say this with the utmost compassion for those who suffer for Jesus—what, ultimately, does it matter what people think of us or do to us if we are right with God?
As Jesus Himself once said;
And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5).
And now that Jesus has completely reconciled us to the ultimate Judge of all the earth, through His suffering for us, we have nothing whatsoever to fear from Him. That means that we have nothing to fear from anyone else whenever we suffer according to His will! What victory!
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Now; Peter next says that Jesus suffered for us, “being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah . . .” (vv. 18b-20a). And I suggest to you that this shows us that, as a result of Jesus’ suffering for us . . .
2. HE DECLARED JUDGMENT UPON THE FORCES OF THE ENEMY (vv. 18b-20a).
As you might suspect, this is one of the difficult parts of this passage that I told you about earlier. But I believe that we can make good sense of it.
First, Peter tells us that Jesus suffered for us, “being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit”. This is telling us that Jesus actually, literally, physically died on the cross. His death was a true death in all the fullness of His humanity; so that we can truthfully say that He died “for” us as one of us. But He was also made alive three days later; and this was done by the Holy Spirit—the very same, mighty Holy Spirit who now lives in all who are saved by Him. As Paul said in Romans 1:4, Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
And then, we’re told that it was by this same Spirit that our Lord also “went and preached to the spirits in prison”. I believe that the “spirits” that are being spoken of are angelic beings who are sinful—fallen with the devil in his rebellion against God,; confined in some way and kept under guard; awaiting final judgment. In 2 Peter 2:4—in the context of the story of Noah and the judgment of the flood that God brought upon the earth long ago—we’re told that “God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment”.
And finally, we’re told that these imprisoned spirits are those “who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah”. Way back in Genesis 6, we’re told;
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:1-3).
The beings that are here called “sons of God” may be these very angelic beings who—it would seem—crossed the line, as it were; and interacted with “the daughters of men” in such a way as to corrupt the human race. It was a crime so dreadful that it provoked God to save only the family of Noah and to destroy the rest of corrupted humanity.
In Jude 6, we’re told this about our holy God; that “the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day . . .” And although this involves some theorizing on my part, I’d like to suggest to you that these angelic beings—knowing that it was God’s plan to send His Son centuries later to be conceived and born into the human family, and to redeem fallen humanity through Him—sought in the days of Noah to corrupt the human race before that could happen by intermingling with the race and defiling the very nature of humanity itself.
You see; the Bible tells us that redeemed human beings are destined to be the judges of those fallen angels. Those evil spirit beings had everything to gain in corrupting the human race and making it impossible for the Redeemer to be born from it. These wicked angels are now kept under lock and key—awaiting the day of judgment, when they will be cast forever into the lake of fire. And when we’re told that Jesus went to them in the Spirit—I believe sometime between His burial and His resurrection—He preached to them and proclaimed their defeat! They had failed! Evil had been dealt the fatal blow! The devil’s plan has been thwarted! Christ has died and reconciled fallen humanity to God; and now, the forces of the evil one are doomed!
As it says in 1 John 3:8; “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” And this, then, is yet another glorious way that our Lord’s suffering has brought about victory for us! As a result of His death on the cross, He has declared judgment upon the forces of the enemy! He went to their prisons, showed Himself to them, and declared their defeat!
It may be that the devil will inspire some people to harass and harm us for following Jesus. But when we suffer for Jesus’ sake, let’s always remember that we suffer at the hands of an utterly defeated enemy. Jesus has already proclaimed His defeat and assured His judgment! What victory!
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Now, Peter wrote of how “the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah”; and went on to say that this was “while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . .” (vv. 20b-21)
Peter here tells us that the water of the ancient flood was a picture of something else—an “antitype” or “symbol” of something that saves us. That something is baptism. But Peter is very careful to say that he’s not talking about the ceremony of baptism that occurs in a church. The mere ceremony of baptism cannot save anyone. Peter says that the baptism he’s speaking of is, “not the removal of the filth of the flesh”—that is, not the washing of water upon the body by a baptismal ceremony. Rather, he is speaking of “the answer of a good conscience toward God” which the ceremony of baptism represents—that is, the spiritual ‘baptism’ by which the Holy Spirit fully unites us to, and identifies us with, the death and burial and resurrection of Jesus.
I hope that, if you are a genuine believer in Jesus and have trusted Him as your Lord and Savior, you have made a public profession of it through the ceremony of baptism. It’s a matter of obedience. If you haven’t been baptized yet, you need to be. And if you have been publicly baptized in a local church, I hope you have been taught that it is a symbol of a spiritual reality. You have been placed in to Christ; and are now united to everything He did in His suffering for you. When He was crucified, you were crucified with Him. When He was buried in death, you were buried in death with Him. And when He was raised three days later, you were raised with Him to newness of life. And it’s our spiritual identification with Jesus that saves us.
This leads us, then, to yet another way Jesus’ death has brought about victory for us. It’s that . . .
3. HE PROVIDED THE GUARANTEE OF OUR SALVATION (vv. 20b-21).
Think of it! The very thing that was the judgment of sin—that is, the cross—is also the very thing that saves you. That is pictured to us in the flood of the Old Testament. Only eight people were saved—only those who obeyed God and entered into the ark. And do you notice that Peter says they were “saved through water”? This is telling us that the very water that brought horrible judgment upon the world was also the very thing that lifted those eight people—who were safely in the ark—and carried them along to salvation.
If you are fully identified with Christ—baptized into Him—then you are safe from the judgment of God for sin. And the ultimate proof of this is the resurrection. The resurrection is the guarantee of our salvation through our identification with Christ—who, as the Bible tells us— “was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:25).
No matter what you may suffer for Jesus Christ, you can rejoice in the knowledge that you have been ‘baptized’ into the resurrection of Christ, and are certain to be raised with Him. What victory!
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Finally, Peter sets before his suffering brothers and sisters one more reason to rejoice in the victory Jesus brought about for them in His suffering; and that is that . . .
4. HE NOW HOLDS SUPREMACY OVER ALL AUTHORITY (v. 22).
After telling us of how Jesus, by His suffering for us, has brought about our reconciliation to God, has declared judgment upon the forces of the enemy, and has provided the guarantee of our salvation, he now adds that Jesus, “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him” (v. 22).
To say that Jesus is in heaven “at the right hand of God” is to say that Jesus now holds the place of primacy over all. He is supreme. As Paul puts it in Philippians 2:9-11;
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
And do you realize what this means with respect to our suffering in Christ? It means that, when someone insults us for our devotion to Christ, or speaks badly of us, or does evil to us, or treats us unjustly, they are—unwittingly—serving Jesus’ will. If angels are now made subject to Him, and authorities in the spiritual realms, and powers in high places, then so are people, and governments, and human institutions or movements among men that seek to harass and harm His people. They are merely His puppets that do His sovereign bidding. He brings about His own purposes through their rebellion. What victory!
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You and I should never be surprised when we’re called upon to suffer for the Lord Jesus. It should be expected. As Peter says in 4:12-13, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”
That, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is why it is infinitely, victoriously better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.