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.
Sounds good, yes, to think that all those millions who have died and gone to hell before the mercy of the cross became a reality now can be saved to eternal life in heaven. Everybody goes to heaven! Do they?
There’s a problem with that in my view, and this is my view and interpretation from my simple understanding, and that is that Peter is using the word ‘spirits’ in prison, not people in hell that Jesus proclaimed to.
People, all people, since Adam, have had a choice – a choice to obey God or not, a choice to honour Him with their life, or live in rebellion to God’s gift of life. We, as humans, have but one life to live on this earth. We die once, then comes judgment (Heb.9:27)
Angels, on the other hand, whom I have referred to as ones who long to look into the things we are coming to understand here, may have a 2nd chance…
This is the view I hold. That Jesus, in the spirit, proclaimed the good news of His triumph over sin to those who rebelled in the early days, the days of Noah, and committed sin by coming to earth and having relations with human women in the days of Noah – Remember that in your bible studies? Did that get taught in Sunday School? (Gen 6:1-4)
It is to these spirits ‘in prison’, a term in scripture only used to refer to Satan and his fallen angel followers, that Jesus preaches to in my view. He gives them a chance to see that sin can be covered, that forgiveness is real and that Jesus has power over sin and death.
Now whether that is to simply show them that He has the victory and their plots to mess with God’s creation have failed because of Christ’s willingness to die for us and basically rub it in their faces or give them the chance to repent, I do not know… but I do hold to this interpretation.
You can disagree with me completely and I will not be offended… In fact, a good discussion on this would be welcome! The amount of references and ideas on the way to understand this verse and context is too much for a sermon time, but something we can definitely talk about more someday.
Then the referral to Noah and baptism. In the days of Noah, who was one of very few on the PLANET who followed God, the world had fallen into utter wickedness. Humanity had one thing on its mind, evil.
So God commanded Noah to build an ark in the midst of a world that had never seen rain. He then floods the world and wipes out everything except for those in the ark, just 8 people and a bunch of animals. God’s seemingly crazy plan of salvation for the few who would follow it.
Kind of like God’s seemingly crazy plan of salvation of dying on the cross in our place because of our sin, taking the punishment we deserve on Himself. And now all one needs to do is believe and be saved. They can even show others they believe by being baptized physically in water – or spiritually by the Holy Spirit’s fire.
Do we consider baptism as a reference to Noah and the flood? Does the picture of the world being washed clean of sinfulness by the waters of the flood not correspond well to a person being washed clean of their past sin by the blood of Jesus being shed for us?
Is it not a beautiful thing to think that God would have enough patience and mercy to save humanity on the account of one family remaining faithful to Him in spite of the rest of the world falling into utter wickedness?
God is still waiting – in His mercy and grace He waits for sinners to come to faith, for people to turn from their wicked ways and acknowledge Him as Lord and Saviour.
We baptize people by dunking them in a tank of water, a lake, an ocean, a hot tub, a cold river or whatever gets them wet head to toe. It’s an outward picture of an inward condition, that of dying to self and rising to new life in Christ.
Baptism is not a bath that gets us clean on the outside, it’s a call out to God to help us live life according to His will and no longer living for ourselves. Baptism is saying to God, I will follow you wherever you lead me and saying to the world, I’m done with you!
It’s thumbing our nose at Satan and saying, nah, nah – I’m not with you anymore! It’s also putting a target on us to let the world and the Enemy know we are on God’s side now. And the proverbial arrows may fly…
Does baptism save us? No. Did the thief on the cross get baptized before Jesus said he would be with Him in paradise? No. Should a believer be baptized? Yes. Why? To proclaim to the world that we believe and as an act of obedience to do as Jesus did. For even Jesus was baptized!
And it is Jesus, Jesus the One who died and rose again, Whom we love, worship and serve. It is Jesus who has gone into heaven (v.22) and is seated at the right hand of the Father with all the power and authority under heaven and earth!
It is Jesus who has angels, authorities and powers under His command. Jesus is the One with power over everything, life and death – not anyone on earth, not anyone online, not anyone in here or out there. It is Jesus.
This is the reason we have hope, because we have Jesus. And we now need to live for Him, in this flesh while we’ve got it and in the spirit where we do battle against the Enemy.
So I ask you – do you HAVE a good conscience? Do you live in the hope of the resurrection? Do you trust God’s Word? Do you live as a baptized believer, standing up for Truth and standing against the schemes of the Devil?
Do you trust in the Name that is above every Name? Do you live each day as if Jesus is coming back that day?
Are we subject to Him? Are we willing to suffer for Him, if only for a while?
Are we willing to go to the places where it’s hard to preach the god news, whether it’s the prison of selfishness a loved one is living in, or the streets of our city where people are imprisoned in sins of all kinds? Jesus is with us, Amen!
Let’s pray.
"Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
