Jesus, Noah & Baptism Series

Jesus, Noah & Baptism

A study through Peter August 20, 2023

Jumping back into 1 Peter today, we are going to look at just 4 verses… that are perhaps some of the more… shall I say ‘interesting’ verses in the NT? We’re going to explore the correlation between Jesus, Noah, baptism and…spirits in prison that Jesus preached to… sound interesting?

Turn in your Bible with me to 1 Peter 3:18-22. (I’m reading the ESV)

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.

In the previous section we saw that Christians often suffer for doing good; we take a stand for the Truth and can be chastised for doing so. We try to bring hope to the world that is filled with hopelessness, trying to pull people from the grip of sin, and so many refuse to even listen.

This portion of Peter’s letter looks at the greatest suffering that was brough upon Jesus Christ, Who suffered the pain of bearing ALL sin upon Himself; yours, mine, everyone’s sin. We have not suffered like He did – Only Jesus could bear such a burden. My sufferings, be they the hate of people who are not believers, or the little things I complain about in my everyday life, do not come close to what Jesus bore.

Therefore, I cannot and should not, be complaining when things get difficult in this life. We suffer because we are in a sinful world, Jesus suffered to take the punishment for our sin. We deserve to suffer because we are sinners – Jesus is perfect and does not and should not have to suffer – but He DID!

The righteous for the unrighteous. The perfect for the imperfect. The sinless for the sinners. All with the purpose of bringing us back into a right relationship with the Father. We may suffer a little for trying to bring people to the same place.

We get rejected at an offer to come to church. We get teased that we are weak and need for some kind of crutch like religion to get us through life. We may get left out of family events if we bring up matters of faith. We get ignored at the office because we are the church-goers… But do we complain about our sufferings, or do we realize it’s all part of knowing we are right with God because of what Jesus was willing to suffer for us that we suffer now?

Jesus was willing to die so people like you and me can be saved; what are we willing to do to see people saved and brought back to God?

He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Jesus physically died on the cross, was buried, but was raised by the Holy Spirit to have the greatest victory ever, that of defeating sin and death. He IS alive, now and forevermore.

And He lives in you as a believer. Think of that correlation; when we come to faith in Jesus, we truly DIE to ourselves and our sinful nature. We, like Paul says in Galatians 2:20, no longer live but Christ lives in us. And the life we live we live by faith in Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us.

We too are truly alive in the Spirit when we are saved – having been woken up from a life destined for destruction and now living with eyes wide open to things that are unseen, the knowledge of things that are eternal rather than the temporal things of this world. Kind of a spiritual awakening, but not the new age definition of it… Jesus died, but is alive, and so are we! AMEN!

So let’s talk about v.19 then, shall we? Alive in the spirit, Jesus proclaimed or preached to the spirits in prison. The picture is often painted here that this is Jesus, descending to hell in the spirit, and bringing the gospel message that He has now paid the price for the sins of those who have died prior to this moment and who now have an opportunity to hear the good news, to put their faith in Christ, and be released from purgatory and be whisked into heaven on the basis of trusting in Jesus’ Name.