"What Jesus Did For You"

As we get started this morning, I want to point out that… Most of the Bible is easy to understand. But as you study through the Bible you will at times come upon those “problem verses,” those verses that are not so easy to under-stand.

Today, we come to a section of Scripture that has been debated by great theologians, for many years… There is a pretty universal agreement among commentators, Bible scholars and pastors that this passage is one of the most difficult in the entire Bible to understand. So, not surprisingly, there are a number of different opinions about many of the details here.

We are not going to settle that debate this morning... … But we do want to get the practical help that Peter gave to encourage Christians in difficult days.

You will remember that Peter is writing to the suffering church and how in verse seventeen he turned his attention to the challenge of suffering for doing good.

Many Christians in the modern day United States do not realize that suffering simply for being a believer is the norm for Christians in many if not most of the rest of the world! There are still people around the world who die for their faith even in our modern age.

In this final section of chapter 3, Peter reminds his readers (the early church and now us) of what Christ did for us. He reminds us that Christ also suffered for doing what was right…

Chuck Swindoll said that "Jesus... the perfect God-man, was mistreated, hated, maligned, beaten, and finally nailed cruelly to a cross. He suffered awful consequences, even though He spent His life giving and serving. One thing is certain: if people treated a perfect individual that way, then imperfect people cannot expect to escape mistreatment. If mistreatment hasn't happened to you yet, it will."

Please stand as we read our passage this morning… 1 Peter 3:18-22…

3 Things that Christ did for us:

Meat:

Although our passage today contains one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament, it begins with something that anyone can understand… v.18 says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.”

First of all…

1. He Died For Our Sins

Romans 5:8 “8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 “3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,”

There is something unique about Christ’s death… there are several things that are unique about Christ’s death… namely, the fact that it didn’t last… but it...

1.1 Only Happened Once

“For Christ also suffered once for sins…”

Peter lays out that the work of Christ was unique and need never be repeated… This was different from the Temple Sacrifices…

The Temple sacrifices had to be repeated on a daily basis. But Christ made the perfect sacrifice, once and for all time, when he offered Himself as the sacrifice for sin… It was…

1.2 A Sacrificial Death

Peter says, He died “for sins”… but He did not die for His own sins because He didn’t have any… He died for our sins… He sacrificed Himself for us… It was…

1.3 A Substitutionary Death

His death was “the just for the unjust.”

He took our place, he bore our shame. He paid the price for all our sin.

Look back at 1 Peter 2:21-24 “21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

22 “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;

23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously;

24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”

He took our place… He is our substitute…

Ill: Think of it this way… You have committed an awful crime, one that is punishable, only by the death penalty… The ruling is made, the gavel is struck, you are guilty and sentenced to die.

The day comes… you’ve eaten your final meal, you’re in the room where they will carry out the punishment… and just before they start the process, someone who loves you very much walks in and says “Wait!… I have a signed order from the judge that states I can be a substitute for this punishment and the prisoner can be set free”

You leave, free as a bird… and your substitute dies…

That is exactly what Christ did for us… and He did it… “That He might bring us to God...”

The Greek word that is translated “bring” (prosago) conveys several word pictures.

1. It is the picture of the presentation of a sacrifice.

2. It is also the picture of High Priest entering into the Holy of Holies in the Temple.

3. It is also the word used to convey bringing an individual into the presence of a King.

You don’t just stroll into the presence of a great king and say, “Hey, How’s it going?” You had to have someone to introduce you properly.

For us, that is Jesus! John 14:6 … Jesus Said... “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

The second thing that Christ did for us is…

2. He Proclaimed Victory Over Death

1 Peter 3:18-20 “18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,

20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.”

vv. 19-20 have given rise to many varying interpretations. In fact verse nineteen is held by many to be among the most controversial passages in the entire New Testament.

- Roman Catholics sought to find in these verses some biblical support for the doctrine of purgatory.

- One evangelical commentator noted that there are nine Greek words in verse nineteen and scholars disagree about the meaning of all of them.

After studying this passage this week, I came away impressed and overwhelmed by an almost unlimited variety of interpretations. As I said earlier… I am not going to settle centuries of debate, by individuals much smarter than I.

However, I am not one to skip over a passage of Scripture, so we will make our way through it… and as we do I want to say this… when dealing with problem text we need to follow a couple of simple rules.

Problem verses (or any other single passage) should not be the basis for a new or otherwise unsupported doctrine.

I say that, because if you are just going to use one verse, out of its context, then you can make the Bible say anything that you want.

2. Never focus on the mysterious or unclear portion of the text, so much, that you start to neglect the main teachings of a text.

You can get so caught up with trying to figure out what this might be saying and completely miss the main point that God would want you to see.

The difficulty is understanding what Peter means in verse nineteen which states, “By whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.”

According to Peter sometime between His death and His resurrection Jesus made a special proclamation to the spirits in prison.

The three questions that arise from this passage are, Where did Christ go?, What does Christ proclaim? and To whom did Christ go?

Where did Christ go…

Look at Acts 2…

In Acts chapter 2 we find one of Peter’s Sermons… and in that sermon he talks about King David…

(Read vv.29-31)…

We can gather from this passage that Christ, at some point, visited the place called Hades… Let me be clear… “Hades” is not Hell!

The word “Hades” refers to the realm of the dead, a temporary place where they await the final judgment. Hell is the permanent and final place of judgment for the lost. Hades was and is temporary place.

The account of the Rich man and Lazarus gives us a glimpse into this two chambered place…

Look at Luke 16… (Read vv. 19-26)

Prior to Christ’s resurrection it was the two chambered place, Paradise and Hades, where the souls of mankind went. But the residents of Paradise were delivered by Christ when he rose from the dead.

Ephesians 4:8–9 NKJV

8 Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” 9 (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?

It is very probable that it was during this journey, He made His proclamation.

What Does He Proclaim?

The word Peter uses for ‘proclamation’ is the Greek word ‘kerusso’. The word means: to announce, to proclaim. It is good to note that this word is used elsewhere in the New Testament to refer to the preaching of the gospel; however, when Peter discusses the proclamation of the gospel in his epistles, he always uses the word ‘euangelizo’(e-van-ga-leezo) which is the most common word for the gospel.

If we follow the author’s linguistic pattern, it would seem if Peter meant the proclamation of the gospel, he would not have used the word ‘kerusso’ but the word ‘euangelizo’ (e-van-ga-leezo). If we are to maintain consistency within the epistle, we must acknowledge Peter had a different proclamation in mind.

When a Roman general had won a victory, he would have a runner go ahead of him and that runner would proclaim (kerusso) that the victory had been won.

This is what I see Jesus doing here… He is making a declaration that what seems to be Satan’s time of greatest victory is, in actuality, Satan’s time of greatest defeat, and what appeared to be Jesus’ time of greatest defeat is actually Jesus’ time of greatest victory.

Remember, Peter is writing to the persecuted. He is writing to saints who are suffering. These are men and women who have been victimized by Satan. What an encouragement to know what appears to be Satan’s greatest time of victory in their lives is in reality Satan’s time of greatest defeat, and what appears to be these suffering saints time of greatest defeat is in reality their greatest time of victory.

Jesus was saying to them and to us… “You do not need to fear Satan or his dominion because you are victorious in me.”… I believe that Christ made a proclamation of victory.

Who did He make this proclamation to?

Peter says “to the spirits now in prison”

Again, scholars are widely scattered in their identification of these spirits.

1. Are they Old Testament saints?

2. Are the people who were alive in Noah’s day, men who ignored the proclamation of Noah during that 120 year period of divine patience?

This view is taken from v.20…

1 Peter 3:20 “20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.”

3. Are they fallen angels who sought to sabotage God’s redemptive plan?

This is an area where we can focus so much on trying to figure out the answer, that we start to neglect the main teachings of a text.

I am not dogmatic on any of these views… lets face it… they may all be wrong… So...WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS TEXT?!?! We focus on what we do know!…

Christ made a proclamation and again, the Greek word “kerusso” was generally used to describe “proclaiming a victory”… and with His resurrection, we know that Christ, does indeed, have Victory over Death.

And because of that victory…

3. He Delivers Us From Judgement

1 Peter 3:20-21 “20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

21 There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,”

For 120 years while Noah built the Ark, he preached and warned his contemporaries of the coming judgment. Everyone except his immediate family (just eight people, Noah and his wife, along with Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives) got into the Ark.

While he worked on the Ark Noah faithfully warned his generation of the coming judgment and the people just laughed and said, “It will never happen!”

Hebrews 11:7 tells us that… “7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”

It is interesting to consider that Noah’s work on the Ark was a demonstration of his willingness to spend this life in preparation for the next!

I wonder what the lives we live demonstrate to our friends and family about what we believe about eternity! Are we living out what we say we believe, just like Noah did?

Back in 1 Peter 3:21 We read… “21 There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,”

People have used this verse to defend the doctrine that people are saved by being baptized in water. But that is horribly out of context.

Peter does not say that baptism saves us or that the water washes away sins, in fact, he goes out of his way to make it very clear that baptism cannot put away the filth of the flesh!

Even in the example he uses, Noah was not saved by the water, he was saved from God’s Judgement because he had enough faith to be in the Ark.

We are not saved by the water any more than Noah was saved by the water. Noah and his family were saved by faith, because they had faith enough to be in the Ark.

When we put our faith in Christ, we are immediately spiritually baptized by the Holy Spirit and delivered from the judgement and punishment of our sins.

Peter explains that a believers “physical” baptism (being submerged in water) does not have any saving ability or cleansing effect on the flesh, but that it is “the answer” or literally a pledge of a good conscience.

Last Sunday I quoted Dr. M.R. Dehaan and I will quote him again… “In the early days of the church. . . , baptism was a declaration that the believer was identifying himself with that group of people who were called Christians and were despised and hated… As long as a man gathered with Christians, he was tolerated, but once he submitted to baptism, he declared to all the world, “I BELONG TO THIS DESPISED GROUP, and immediately he was persecuted, hated, and despised. ”

When these persecuted Christians would gather at the banks of a river or the shoreline of the sea, it took amazing faith to walk out and declare to the world that they were a follower of Christ.

They were declaring to the world that “even though you may hate me, ridicule me, laugh at me, torture me, or persecute me in any way… I have been delivered from the everlasting judgment of sin and I am a follower of Jesus Christ”… as v.22 says…

1 Peter 3:22 “22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.”

Closing:

As much as this passage of Scripture is debated… There is no question that it specifically reveals that…

Christ Died for our Sins

He Proclaimed Victory over Death

and He delivers us from Judgement…

I do not know what you are going through this morning. I do not know the storm crashing against the shore of your soul. But I do know you can find peace by putting your faith, hope, and trust in Jesus Christ, the One who suffered for you.

On the cross He won a mighty victory: victory over your sin and victory over your shame. His victory can be your victory if you will reach out in faith and claim it for your own.