AP

Suffering for the Risen Lord

1 Peter Studies (9)                                                                                       1 Peter 3:18-4:3

Verse 18 is an explanation following on from Peter’s instruction about doing good and suffering (1 Peter 3:8-17). It provides a summary of the way and purpose of salvation. How do we obtain salvation? By Christ’s death on the cross for our sins. Note that Peter emphasizes the once-for-all nature of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross (see also Romans 6:10; Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 9:26-28). For what purpose? To bring us to God, literally, ‘to lead us to God.’ The term was used in a technical sense of someone who gained an audience at court for someone else, e.g. a friend who already had access to the court. So Christ leads us into the presence of God the Father, where he pleads for us on the basis of his sacrificial death. Dressed in Christ’s righteousness, we gain an entrée into God’s presence.

Christ was made alive by the Spirit after his bodily death. We see here the contrasts between body and Spirit as it relates to Christ; his body endured death, while his resurrection gave life. The blessing of the resurrection followed Christ’s suffering for doing good, just as we in Christ may enjoy eternal life after suffering.

Verses 19-21 Peter tells us that Jesus preached (between his death and his resurrection) to those who were disobedient in the days of Noah building the ark before the flood. He preached to their spirits, the disembodied state of those who disobeyed Noah’s warnings. At that time, only 8 people were ‘saved through water.’ Literally, “they were brought safely through” – by the agency of water that buoyed up the ark. The very waters that drowned the rest of the human race were life to the eight people in the ark. The flood waters symbolize baptism; not physical cleansing, but the ‘pledge of a good conscience toward God’ (v.21).

The writer to the Hebrews compared the Old Testament ordinance to the new: “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:13-14). We are exhorted: ^“Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). Water baptism only saves the believer in type; a person is saved the moment he/she places faith in the Lord Jesus. Baptism is a sign of the salvation received or promised.

Jesus went to the place of the departed dead, called ‘Sheol’ in the Old Testament and ‘Hades’ (hell) in the New Testament. It is the place where people are imprisoned until the Day of Judgment. Peter refers to that in the next chapter (1 Peter 4:5): “But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” He repeats the prison idea in 2 Peter 2:4: “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell (Tartarus, an abyss beneath hell for fallen immortals), putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment…” The disobedient angels (i.e., demons) are “the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day” (Jude 6). They will be judged and condemned to the Abyss/Bottomless Pit (Revelation 9:1-2, see also Luke 8:31).

Verse 21b-22 Peter continues by stressing the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. He writes that Jesus “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities and powers having been subjected to him.” Peter had witnessed Christ’s ascension (Acts 1:9). In this verse too, the idea of power or authority is prominent. Jesus’ exaltation was not simply a matter of his person being glorified, but of him being honoured with authority over all things in heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18).

Paul also gives us a breathtaking view of the authority of our risen Lord. He tells us that when God raised Jesus to his right hand, he gave him a name and a place that was “far above [i.e., far greater than] all authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is to be named, not only in this age, but in the age to come” (Ephesians 1:21). Both Paul and Peter refer to several other “authorities” over which Jesus has supremacy. These terms likely refer to both heavenly and earthly powers of one sort or another – angels, demons, human authorities.

Whether Paul is referring to a hierarchy of powers is not immediately clear; what is obvious, however, is the absolute supremacy of Christ over all other powers and sources of rule. Seated at his Father’s right hand, he is ‘far above’ them; his ‘name’ is far greater than theirs. As Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:9-11): “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” All the demonic powers will have to bow before Jesus, as well as all believers and unbelievers. All will have to acknowledge Christ’s authority, willingly or unwillingly. For believers, this will be an absolute joy

As believers, who possibly have to suffer for the name of Christ, we can take heart in knowing that all we have to do if we are persecuted is to be firmly settled in our heart and mind that Jesus, our Saviour, is Lord, and he will look after the rest, as he has done for countless others for more than two millennia! Today’s martyrs in Nigeria, Uganda, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, and other places are in the presence of the risen Lord, awaiting their own resurrection at the last day (see Revelation 6:9-11).

Verse 4:1 In the previous verses Peter spoke about Christ’s suffering for us. Now he urges us to have the same attitude of suffering ‘for doing good.’ The idea of ‘arm yourselves’ comes from Greek soldiery. We are to put on our armour and take up our weapon. The Greek noun, from the same root as the verb ‘to arm,’ was used of a heavily-armed foot-soldier who carried a pike and a large shield, in contrast with lightly-armed troops. We need the heavy armour to withstand the attacks of the enemy and have the same attitude towards suffering as Jesus did.

The words ‘suffered in the body’ have the same construction as 3:18, ‘put to death in the body.’ Jesus suffered in the body as a result of unjust treatment. In 4:1, the Christian who has suffered in the body is one who has received ill-treatment from the persecutors. Satan only directs persecution to obedient believers who have ceased from sin. We are released from sin; it has no more power over us. God broke the power of sin in us when he saved us. Paul wrote more extensively about the delivery from the slavery to sin in Romans 6.

Verse 2 In this verse Peter tells us why God breaks the power of the sinful nature when we are saved. It is so that we should no longer live in the sphere of ‘evil human desires’ but in the sphere of ‘the will of God.’

Verse 3 Peter reminds his readers that before they believed, they did just what the pagans did – they had been pagans themselves. They lived in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatries. In today’s neo-pagan culture, these practices are very common again. All those practices are now forbidden for Christians, who have been raised to newness of life. Paul also speaks about these in 1 Corinthians 10, with examples from Israel’s past!

Questions:

Not everyone who comes to Christ has had such a sordid past as the pagans addressed by Peter and Paul. How, do you think, should we address such people, who have lived a much more moral and upright life?

Is contemporary Christianity sufficiently alert to the reality that the Christian life is one of spiritual warfare? Has the church of our day become spiritually pacifist?

– Alida Sewell