The Good of Good Friday – 1 Peter 3:18-22
This sermon was preached on March 3, 2024. It is a continuation of our series in 1 Peter. It was preached by Pastor Logan Mauldin. Unfortunately, we had difficulty with the stream itself, it failed after only the first point and the rest of the sermon was lost, please see the notes below.
The Good of Good Friday – 1 Peter 3:18-22
March 3, 2024
Redeemer Baptist Church
As you turn in your Bibles to our passage for this morning 1 Peter 3:18-22, let me begin by saying that here at Redeemer Baptist Church we are passionately committed to biblical truth. One of our core values is Sola Scriptura, leaning on the Bible as our authority. We seek to joyfully submit ourselves to the truths of the Bible - even if it’s uncomfortable or flies in the face of culture. We want everything we do to be grounded on the foundation of Scripture.
So, one of the ways we commit to Biblical Authority is to study through books of the Bible together. Pastor Rob has been working through the Gospel of Matthew. And I have been working on the book of 1st Peter every time I get a chance to preach. I think this is the 22nd or 23rd message since we began looking at the book back almost 2 years ago. Now that can be hard to follow when I’m not preaching week in and week out, but it means that when it comes time for me to preach, I’m not ordinarily going to pick some topic that I want to discuss, maybe based on current events in our culture, and selecting verses to support that topic. I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing that every once and a while, but I’d just rather go verse by verse through books of the Bible.
And, studying through the Bible verse-by-verse has a number of advantages. First, we get to view passages in their context. That is, we look at verses in the light of the verses before and verses after, and within the context of the whole book. And indeed, within the larger context of the Bible itself.
Secondly, it forces us to study the whole Bible – not just passages we want to cover. In fact, it keeps us from skipping difficult passages, or passages we wouldn’t normally choose. I say that, because the passage before us today needs those two advantages. That is, I’m thankful we’re looking at the passage in its context, to aid in its understanding, and to be honest, I probably wouldn’t pick this passage if left to me. This is an extremely difficult text – not for what it says. In fact, the message of these verses is quite glorious. But there are elements of the passage that are notoriously difficult to interpret and leave you wondering, not so much what is Peter saying, but why did he choose to say it that way?
For example, one of my commentaries said, “This passage in I Peter is the one most debated and written about; from the earliest days of the church, it has been understood in different ways... Even among today’s interpreters this passage has the reputation for being perhaps the most difficult in the NT.” So here we are coming to this text after several months away from 1st Peter, teaching what many believe to be one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament. This should be fun.
In fact, the reformer, Martin Luther said of this passage, “This is a strange text and certainly a more obscure passage than any other in the New Testament. I still do not know for a certainty what the apostle meant.” I can see many saying, are you kidding me? Can we just skip it? No way, and actually, I wouldn’t want to. You see, our commitment to the Word of God compels us to study, learn and grow from even difficult texts. And after sinking a few months of study into this passage and reading all of the different opinions, I would say further, that studying it within its context will not only help us understand it, but will deeply encourage us. So read it with me – 1 Peter 3:18-22.
“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, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 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. 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, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
Remember, the context: Peter is writing to exiled and suffering believers in the minority in Asia Minor. They are being persecuted for their faith, and he is writing to encourage them. In chapter 1, he reminded them of the great salvation they have – their living hope. In chapter 2, he began the main body of the letter, encouraging these believers (and us) to live beautiful lives. Lives that will glorify God on the day of his visitation, even if they slander you and malign you. And he goes on to describe this beautiful life, encouraging them to joyful submission to the authorities that God has put in place and to one another. He is clear that this kind of submission may cost you, and this launched him into the main purpose for his writing, to encourage believers to suffer for the cause of Christ.
In chapter 2, he cited Jesus as the example of the just sufferer – that is, one who suffered unjustly. He serves as our example, that we should follow in His steps – also suffering for doing good. He gets to chapter three, and again cites the suffering of Jesus. But he expands infinitely on that – He tells us why Jesus suffered. This is going to pay off in one amazing phrase in verse 18 of our text today. I’ll talk about that more in a moment.
But so you can see the whole picture, Jesus suffered for us. He was put to death in the physical realm, but made alive in the spiritual realm. In that realm, he went and preached to the spirits in prison, and proclaimed his victory and the righteousness of God. That’s where Noah comes in.
Like Peter’s audience, Noah and the other seven with him suffered - through a worldwide flood. But God delivered him, just like He’ll deliver us. After all, after Jesus suffered - being put to death and buried - He was raised from the dead, and ascended to the Father. And by doing so, His victory over evil was proclaimed and complete. So hold on in the midst of suffering - your victory through the resurrection of Christ is coming, too. That’s the point of the text.
It’s a great text in three parts:
- The Suffering of Jesus (v. 18)
- The Spiritual Ministry of Jesus (v. 19-20)
- The Resurrection and Enthronement of Jesus (v. 21-22)
Let’s look at these together starting with the suffering of Jesus in verse 18.
Now, you should notice that verse 18 begins with the conjunction, for. That points us back to verse 17 where he’s just called us to suffering for good, saying that God wills it so. That doesn’t sound like much fun. But we should be encouraged as we move into our text today, because Christ also suffered. Some translations have “died,” and that is okay (though it is not literal) because he’s going to describe Christ’s suffering as dying. The righteous for the unrighteous.
Just like chapter 2, Peter holds out Jesus as our example. But Christ didn’t just endure suffering, his suffering accomplished something.
Christ suffered once for sins. This is a clear statement of Jesus suffering in our place. Theologically, we call this vicarious substitutionary atonement – He died for us and our sins. You see, the Scripture is clear – He had no sins of His own for which to die. But He died for us – the righteous one for the unrighteous sinner, in our place, as our substitute. He suffered the death we deserve because of our sin.
Hebrews tells us that after this, He sat down – mission accomplished – at the right hand of the Father in heaven. So Christ died for sins once for all who would believe – the just for the unjust. Just, perfect, holy Jesus for unjust, imperfect, unholy sinners. Isaiah 53:4-5 says it like this:
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”
This is the gospel. We are sinners, and there is nothing we can do about our condition, because we are unjust. Unrighteous. Our sins have violated God’s very nature, and the wages of our sins is death. This is the bad news of the gospel.
But the good news is that God did something about our miserable, lost condition. When there was nothing we could do, He stepped in and did it for us. In the person of His Son Jesus – who took on flesh, and lived a perfectly just life. He didn’t deserve to die – He had done no wrong. But here Peter says the just died for us, the unjust. He died for our sins.
Peter, in the first message of the Christian church, talked about the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God. The people were convicted of their sin, which nailed Jesus to the cross. And they asked Peter, what must we do? And he said, repent – that is, confess your sin and turn away from it, and be baptized – we’ll talk about that in a moment – and you will be saved.
And so I ask you – have you done that? Have you repented, and trusted in Jesus as the Son of God, who died in your place for your sin – the just for you, the unjust. Have you asked Him to forgive you – have you confessed Him as Lord? If you haven’t, you can do that today. Now you might sit there and think, wait just a minute, I’m a pretty good guy. And you might be, if we were using the rest of us as the standard. You might be good compared to most everyone else. But we’re not the standard – the holy, just God is. And we have all violated His good and perfect nature. So I pray you will trust in Christ today, or that you would be reminded of the reason that Christ suffered.
That’s where Peter goes in the next phrase in our text. To what end did Jesus die? What was the purpose of His dying for us? If you think about it, there are lots of benefits of the gospel. We get the forgiveness of sin. The removal of guilt. The righteousness of Christ. We get to escape the penalty of sin, namely, punishment in hell forever. Instead, we get eternal life. We gain an eternal inheritance. We get heaven as our home – streets of gold, no more sickness, no more pain, no more death. That’s a pretty good list, but is that it? Is that the end for which Jesus died – is that ultimate hope of the gospel? What does our text say?
This is what I said earlier – this is one of the most glorious phrases in the Bible. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that (this is the purpose clause – this is why Jesus ultimately died for sinners) so that, He might bring us to God. All those other benefits – they are the necessary means to the end of bringing us to God, and the overflow of being brought to God. Jesus, by His death and resurrection, opened the way to be reconciled to God. The best part of the Gospel, the ultimate end of the gospel, is we get God.
John Piper wrote a book called, God is the Gospel. In it, he asks,
“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”
The answer is no! All those other things are just side benefits. The best most fundamental part of salvation is that we get God. He redeems us from slavery to sin, He reconciles us to Himself. We get God. If your mental image of heaven is all about your enjoyment with no God, you are dreaming of hell. Not heaven.
This is what puts the Good in Good Friday! What makes the suffering of our Savior glorious? All of the sufferings of Christ lead us to God. Not just in heaven one day, but now! We are living in the already, not yet reality of eternal life, and it is God himself who will satisfy our souls forever. This reconciliation with God is the final and highest gift that makes the good news good.
Peter is proclaiming this to a people suffering for their faith, and in the midst of all the suffering his readers were facing, this is good news. The gospel of Jesus brings you to God. In the midst of all we are facing in our day, increased polarization and hostility, a planet that doesn’t work right because it has been subjected to futility, natural disasters, viruses, etc. – this is good news! Because Christ suffered in our place for our sins, we get God! Despite everything else going on, if you are in Christ, you have hit the jackpot.
With that in mind, let’s move quickly then through the rest of the text.
I think that we are now moving from looking at the suffering and death of Jesus to the new life and ministry of Christ into eternity. The passage continues, “being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.” Here’s where we start to get into the confusing part. So, we have to interpret this more confusing part in light of the simple message that comes before and after.
Many of you have heard and even recited the Apostle’s Creed. It was a summary of the faith composed in the late first or early second centuries. It says…
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
He descended into hell,
on the third day He rose again from the dead;
and sat down at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
Did you see that? Some versions have taken out the “descended into hell” part or have changed it to descended into death. Well, where did that phrase come from and what does it mean? In large part, it comes from the text before us today. It’s one of the many interpretations of this passage. But here’s the question that I want you to ponder – did Jesus descend into hell between His death and resurrection? And If so, for what purpose?
I’m not going to go into all the different interpretations of this passage. It would take us until this evening, but I will let you know that there are two broad categories.
Category #1: The first category of interpretations understands that after the death of Jesus, and before His ascension into heaven, He went into the abode of the dead to preach to those who were disobedient during the days of Noah and the flood. This view has two sub-views. One view sees Jesus preaching to demonic beings (that is, evil spirits and demons). Another view sees Jesus preaching to people (that is, disembodied spirits -- those who have died, and are awaiting the final judgment).
Among these views, there is a question about what exactly Jesus was preaching to these spirits. Some say that Jesus was preaching the gospel to these spirits. Others would say that Jesus was proclaiming His victory to those who had rejected Him and His ways. When you place all of these factors together, you can see how you can come up with a wide variety of views. Pretty simple when you boil it down like that, the first category of interpretation is that Jesus descended into Hades to preach something to some group of people for some purpose.
Category #2: The second category of interpretations has a different chronology. Rather than understanding these words to be describing the actions of Jesus during the time between His resurrection and ascension, they understand these things to be taking place during the days of Noah. Let’s read the text again and go a little bit further so you can see how this might work.
Jesus was “made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 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.”
In other words, when Noah was preaching (as 2 Peter 2:5 describes him “A preacher of Righteousness), it was actually the spirit of Christ within Noah that was preaching through him. When verse 18 speaks of Christ being made alive it specifically states that this was a spiritual life. This isn’t yet the physical resurrection, but is thinking about all that Jesus is accomplishing while his body is in the tomb.
Though he was put to death in the flesh, his spirit was unleashed and was not held by the bounds of humanity any longer. So this interpretation says that the Jesus who had already accomplished the full satisfaction of God’s justice on the cross proclaimed a call for repentance through the voice of Noah. Noah is being used here as an example. Peter could have said Abraham or Moses or any of the prophets, but he chose Noah because he’s going to pick up on that story and some of the themes.
The spirits that he is preaching to were not in prison when he was preaching but were alive, but since they spurned the preaching of Noah they faced physical judgment and now their souls are in prison awaiting final judgment.
At first glance, such an interpretation may seem strange. How exactly was Jesus preaching through Noah? I think that Peter has already primed us to think this way back in 1:10-11 where he says, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.”
See the “Spirit of Christ in them" in that text. As the prophets had the spirit of Christ within them, it makes sense that Noah might have had a similar experience when he preached to those in his day. Peter had experienced the Spirit of Christ preaching through him at Pentecost as well so this isn’t really far fetched.
It might sound like I’m cheating, but I can actually see both of these interpretations being different ways to understand the text and I think that Peter may have even meant for both views to be understood. That would explain the seemingly mixed metaphors and kind of jumpy narrative structure. Both categories of interpretation have their merits, and each of them have subsequent views that have pressed the metaphor too hard and cause it to break the bounds of orthodoxy.
So really quickly, let me take you through three things that I think Peter is trying to get us to focus on as we consider the workings of the resurrected Christ in 19-21. Very simply, he is:
- Proclaiming Justice and Grace
- Delivering Sinners
First, Peter says that Jesus was spiritually proclaiming justice and grace. If Jesus was preaching through Noah, and subsequent preachers of repentance and righteousness. Then those people are without excuse. They were disobedient (All have sinned) and the preaching of repentance was a grace being shown to them and they further disobeyed by rejecting grace. But God is also just in choosing Noah and every other scoundrel that the Bible speaks of as God’s chosen people.
You can easily argue that this isn’t fair because all of the people that the Bible speaks of as “chosen” are just as bad as those referred to as sinners. That is because all are sinners, but God shows grace. But how is it fair that some get punished for their sins while others get forgiveness? Jesus is the answer. God delays judgment for those Old Testament saints in his grace knowing that they have placed their hope in God to save them. So God provided the promised answer to their hopes in Christ.
If Jesus did descend into the abode of the dead to proclaim anything, he preached that Jesus was the answer that all his people had been hoping for and he took his people from their bondage in waiting to paradise while he also preached the justice of God to those who remained in prison.
That would have included the spiritual beings that had rebelled and thought that they had victory at the cross. Jesus told them the whole plan and let them know that what they thought was victory is actually sealing their defeat forever. That Jesus is the only way past, present, and future for anyone to come to God. He took the wrath that they deserved and gave them his infinite life. Jesus’ bodily resurrection was the proof that this spiritual reality was true.
So Jesus spiritually preached the Justice of God in judging sinners and the mercy and Grace of God in redeeming sinners in himself. This goes into the second thing that Jesus spiritually did. Jesus spiritually delivered sinners. That is the gospel, but this was not a second chance. It is appointed to men once to die and then the judgment. There is no second chance, but for those Old Testament saints there was a period of waiting for the hope of their salvation. And Jesus preached victory, forgiveness, and consolation to them and took them home to be with him in paradise.
I think this is why Peter uses Noah, because with Noah he can use the illustration of the flood. Hear verse 20 again, “the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.” The flood of God’s justice could have swept away all human life and if God had no grace they should have been wiped out. But God is committed to save a remnant through Jesus Christ. That is seen in Noah through the flood, or the exodus generation through the Red Sea. God withholds judgment on those that otherwise deserve it because of his mercy and he delivers sinners and transforms them.
It could have been easy for Peter’s readers to look around them and see themselves as better than those that are ridiculing them and persecuting them. Just like it could have been easy for Noah to look down his nose at the “sinners” all around him. Or for us to act as if we aren’t also sinners. There is only one group that Christ died for. That is the unrighteous. Jesus said, “I didn’t come to save the righteous but sinners.” For one, those are the only people that he has to work with. There is none righteous, no not one, all have like sheep gone astray.
If God is to save anyone, it will be sinners, and he saves them through trials and tribulations. That is what the water symbolizes. For Noah it is a worldwide flood, for the Hebrews coming out of Egypt it was a raging river that parted so they might walk through. Salvation is always seen as God’s work, and it is never easy for those being saved. Being born again, passing from death to life is a trial that takes our whole lives. And it is good that we should suffer in this tribulation of new birth now (if that is God’s will), instead of suffering forever because of our unrighteousness.
The final section moves to Jesus’ Resurrection and Enthronement. In it, we see Jesus at work is in Resurrecting a Restored Family. See verse 21, “Baptism, which corresponds to this… now saves you.”
Corresponds to what? To the ark passing through the waters. Now saves you. Do you see the construction here? The Ark was the passing through the water (the ordeal and tribulation) that saved Noah, and Baptism is the passing through the water that “saves” us. God is the one who saves by grace through faith, but God chooses this water passage as an image of his salvation. And how does it save? Keep reading
“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.” An appeal to God for a good conscience? What does that mean? It means that to be saved isn’t to be washed and become ritually pure, because all those things get dirty again. Salvation in Christ is a recognition that we are guilty. That we don’t deserve to stand before a holy and righteous God. It is repentance and a begging God to give us a covering that will last. Not like animal skins or the blood of goats and bulls. But a good conscience.
Do you think that God likes you? I mean sure, he showed that he loved you because he paid the price for you to be redeemed, but you know what you have done. I know the evil that I have done. It would be very easy to slip into thinking that this whole idea of salvation is just deceiving or pulling the wool over God’s eyes. Like we’re phonies hiding behind Jesus’ blood. We even preach this way sometimes, and it can leave us looking at ourselves as worthless and thinking that God might love us but he doesn’t really like us, he’s just kind of stuck with us because of Jesus. But this is not the real story because of the resurrection.
When Jesus rose, he didn’t just conquer death. He didn’t just proclaim victory, he didn’t just save sinners, but he also caused re-creation to happen. His resurrection is the first fruits and the promise of our resurrection. We can now look at God as our loving father not a harsh judge. Because we have actually been made new. We have died in Christ and we have been raised in him. We have new pure holy life in Christ. That is what Peter means when he talks about a clean conscience. We are all acutely aware of the sin that separates us from God. But in Christ that dividing wall has been broken down and we are his children welcomed into his family. God really does like us because of the resurrection.
So, I hope as we approach Easter this year that you can see the Good of Good Friday and marvel at all that Jesus accomplished throughout all time and space on Saturday and how he brought us to God in his victorious resurrection on Sunday.
I’m out of time, but as we move to taking the Lord’s Supper, I want you to notice the last verse 3:22, and how Peter wraps it up. “Jesus Christ who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
We worship a God who is done fighting and has sat down in victorious rest. After God was done creating in Genesis, he rested from his labor. Now we see Jesus in the same way when salvation was accomplished, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father. He resumed his enthroned position on high, the place that he inhabited since before the foundation of the world. All of his enemies have been subdued and are under his feet.
Now clearly, there is an already-not yet nature of this subjection. Yes, the enemy of our souls still prowls about, seeking those he may devour, chapter 5 tells us. But he has been ultimately defeated. I think this message would have been a great encouragement to those who were being mistreated, oppressed, persecuted because of their faith, and I hope it is an encouragement for us today.