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NORTH PINE BAPTIST CHURCH
Sunday 24th August 2025
1 Peter 3:18-4:6
“Right Conduct: Conquering the Old Self”
In a moment we are going to read 1 Peter 3:18-4:6.
When Martin Luther wrote his commentary on 1 Peter he described these verses as …
A wonderful text is this, and a more obscure passage perhaps than any other in the New Testament, so that I do not know for certainty just what Peter means.
But Martin Luther is from the 1600’s, so maybe modern commentaries have a better idea.
There is little question that these verses constitute the most difficult passage in the entire letter ~ Paul Achtemeier (1996)
(These verses) are by all accounts the most difficult to interpret in 1 Peter—some say the entire New Testament ~ Daniel Doriani (2014)
Few passages have so many themes and different ideas intertwined. It is no wonder that commentators have shaken their heads in despair ~ Scot McKnight (1996)
Those scholars … Paul, Dan and Scot … they have more biblical scholarship in their little pinky than most pastors have in their whole bodies.
So if people like this
… and they are joined in their assessment by many other highly regarded scholars.
… if people like this are saying these are really difficult verses.
… then we want to approach these verses with an abundance of humility, and caution.
With those boundaries in place let’s read the text.
1 Peter 3:18-4:6
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, He went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to Him.
These are the verses which are the most difficult. But we keep reading
Why keep reading? Because of the opening words of 1 Peter 4 1
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body …
Whatever is going on in 1 Peter 3:18-22, in the mind of Peter, there is a connection between those verses and the next verses in chapter 4.
We have a “therefore” connection. Which means 1 Peter 4:1-6 are expressing a consequence, or a sequence of events, or an application, of what has been said in 1 Peter 3:18-22. That is the “therefore” connection.
We also have a thematic connection. 1 Peter 3:18 talks about the suffering of Christ – then there is a description of an action that resulted from the suffering of Christ. Then 1 Peter 4:1 again connects in a “therefore” fashion, to the suffering of Christ, with another description that results because of that suffering.
So that is why we keep reading and see 1 Peter 3:18-4:6 as a single unit.
4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. 2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. 4 They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is the reason the Gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
Let’s work towards some sort of understanding.
Peter opens this section with a motivation.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
This motivation flows out of, and underpins, what Peter has just said in 1 Peter 3:17
17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins
No one likes to suffer.
We are not talking here about the suffering that comes with ill-health, or financial struggles, or life-circumstances beyond our control.
Specifically Peter is focussed on the suffering that comes as a direct result of being a disciple of Jesus. It is a suffering that we can choose to avoid.
Don’t let everyone know you are a Christian – and you can avoid suffering.
Don’t stand out as a goody-two shoes and make others feel inferior – and you can avoid suffering.
Don’t impose your moral views – and you can avoid suffering.
Avoiding this type of suffering is very tempting.
But avoiding suffering by for the sake of Jesus isn’t a response that aligns with the principal Peter expressed in 1 Peter 2:12
12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.
You can’t be a “living good” Christian and have a Christianity that is invisible to the pagans. So “living good” Christians will suffer. Peter hammers this point home on multiple occasions.
6 In all this (the new birth that gives eternal life) you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. (1 Peter 1:6)
19 For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. (1 Peter 2:19)
17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. (1 Peter 3:17)
16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. (1 Peter 4:16)
Being a Christian and suffering.
“Living good” and suffering.
It all goes hand in hand. And because we naturally want to avoid suffering, we constantly need a motivation.
“Why would we want to put ourselves in a place of suffering?”
“What would motivate us towards this outcome?”
3:17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
…
4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude.
1 Peter 3:17-18; 4:1
What is our motivation? Our eternal life before God has been secured by a Saviour who suffered.
A suffering that Jesus took – because of our sin. Not His. Ours.
A suffering of the righteous for the unrighteous. And just to be clear, we are the unrighteous.
A suffering that took the life of Jesus in a most brutal and full-of-suffering event that culminated in His crucifixion.
As disciples we walk in the footsteps of the Saviour who suffered. As we follow our Saviour … living good among the pagans … we will suffer.
The journey of discipleship is a journey of suffering.
Which is not the best recruitment slogan is it.
Trust Jesus as your Saviour.
And your trust will be rewarded with … suffering.
Not the best recruitment slogan – until we have a look at the results that came about because Jesus suffered. Let’s get those verses up on the screen again.
Put up – don’t read
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive, He went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
After He suffered … specifically after He was made alive … Jesus went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits
Chronologically we are talking about an even that happened after Jesus rose from the dead.
That is important to see because there are some who use this verse as a proof text for the belief that, between His death and resurrection, Jesus went to the abode of the dead and preached to all the Old Testament era saints.
In that same belief the result of this preaching s that the Old Testament saints were released from the abode of the dead and brought into the presence of God.
That belief is a whole other discussion.
But, for now, let’s remember the chronology in Peter. Jesus makes a proclamation to the imprisoned spirits AFTER He rises from the dead.
So, the imprisoned spirits are not the same as the dead Old Testament saints.
This is not a verse that is talking about a decent of Jesus into hell between His death and resurrection.
So, who are these imprisoned spirits?
those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. (1 Peter 3:20)
These imprisoned spirits have been around for a long time.
… so long ago they were around when the ark was built.
Genesis 9:29 tells us that “Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.”
That means the only candidates who could fill the criteria for being the “imprisoned spirits” of 1 Peter 3:20 are the candidates which fit chronologically between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 9:29.
We find a very good candidate in Genesis 3:1
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Again, remember the context … the focus of Peter is on the suffering of Christ.
Why did Christ have to suffer? Ultimately Jesus suffered because we are sinners.
How does sin come into the world? Ultimately because Adam and Eve were tempted?
Who is the tempter? Satan … the deceiver … who is a spirit.
How did Satan become the deceiver … the tempter?
We don’t have time to give an extensive answer but, when you pull all the relevant pieces of Scripture together, we know that Satan is a powerful heavenly angel who rebelled against God. We also know that Satan gathered a following of angels.
Some time after the creation of the heavens, but before Genesis 3:1, Satan and his angelic followers rebelled against God and God removed them from heaven to some sort of prison. Scripture doesn’t give much detail.
They were imprisoned on the earth.
They were imprisoned to the realm where Satan rules.
We don’t know exactly where – and it doesn’t really matter.
But what we do have here is a candidate – actually a group of candidates – who meet the criteria of being spirts who are around in the days of Noah, and who continue to be around in the days after Jesus was made alive.
The fallen angels.
These are the ones to whom Jesus went and made a proclamation after He rose from the dead.
That may sound like an out-of-the-box interpretation.
But this is the interpretation which the majority of scholars cautiously hold to. Yet it is still and interpretation that brings a lot of unknowns.
Where is this prison?
Did Jesus do this on His way to heaven after the ascension?
There are heaps of unknowns – including what Jesus proclaimed.
However, on the basis of what Peter writes, that proclamation would have gone something like this.
You imprisoned spirits.
In the days of Noah you saw.
You saw that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. You saw what I did in the flood and only 8 people were saved.
You saw the covenant I made with Abraham … and then century after century of rebellion and sin.
And through all this history you thought you were winning the spiritual battle.
And then came my ministry. Where you watched Me constantly suffering as people discredited and questioned and doubted. Suffering as I preached the message of hope and salvation.
And you saw that moment when I was really suffering.
… brutalised by humanity.
… forsaken by my father.
… I died.
You celebrated, death has the victory.
But you were wrong.
I rose, and you have no victory.
Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it is today. People are being saved.
Saved because of My resurrection.
Saved because my place is at God’s right hand where all angels – the faithful and the fallen – and all authorities and all powers are in submission to Me.
These may be really difficult passages, but the heart of the message is clear.
The suffering of Jesus has secured the victory over the sin that was introduced into this world in Genesis 3.
That is the message which Jesus proclaimed after He arose from the grave to the imprisoned spirits.
A suffering Saviour is not an image of defeat – it is foundation of for eternal victory.
What does this message mean for us.
Now we move on to 1 Peter 4:1
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin.
Arm yourself.
It is military language. Language that applies to battles, and warfare, and armies.
Christ suffered in His body so that we can be armed for battle – the only battle that really matters. The battle that has been raging since Genesis 3:1. Ephesians 6:10-13 describes the battle in this way.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
Stand! In the battle against the very same forces to whom Jesus made that proclamation.
Stand! Against the rulers, authorities, dark powers and evil spiritual forces.
Stand! Not as those who
… are overwhelmed by sin.
… and drowning in sin.
… and struggling with sin.
But standing as those who are done with sin.
Stand! As those who know that, because of the suffering of Jesus, our old self has been conquered.
Stand! As those who
… are done with the effects of sin.
… and done with the shame and guilt of sin.
… and done with the brokenness of sin.
We are done with sin. (NIV)
We have finished with sin. (NLT)
Our flesh has ceased from sin (ESV)
Not in the sense that we don’t sin anymore.
But in the sense that we are done with the victory robbing that sin keeps trying to bring into our lives.
We are done with sin because we have taken the victory of Jesus of over sin.
We are done because the of the victory that Jesus secured through His suffering.
We are done because we have been armed, and we have chosen to be armed, with the same attitude of Jesus.
The attitude which understands how the spiritual battle works.
Suffering for Jesus is not defeat.
Suffering for Jesus is an encouragement because the suffering confirms that we are done with sin.
As we suffer for Jesus the hope rings out.
We suffer because we already have the victory.
We suffer because we are done with sin.
There is so much more in this passage – but that is enough for today.
It’s enough because there is an important question being asked through these verses.
Does our life that we live before the pagans show the pagans, in no uncertain terms, that we are done with sin?
We are done with sin because we are armed by the victory that is ours because we are followers of a Saviour who suffered.
We are done with sin because the same attitude as Christ who suffered in His body, and so we suffer for Him.
We are done with sin because the suffering of Jesus gives us the all we need to stand in the battle against the rulers, authorities, dark powers and evil spiritual forces.
Are we done with sin?
Or are we allowing sin to rob us of the victory.
Being those who know Jesus, and who know He will bring us to God.
While at the same time allowing the guilt and shame and brokenness of sin to rule our lives.
Here is the proclamation.
The suffering of Jesus arms us to live in the victory and be done with sin.
Are you taking up that armour?
Prayer
