Sermon Tone Analysis

12. Victory in Jesus (1 Peter 3:18-22)

The Apostle Peter, writing about the Apostle Paul’s letters, admits that in 2 Peter 3:16

We could probably say, “Yeah, Peter, tell us about it.

What’s up with this passage, though?”

I think we’re in pretty good company with Martin Luther, who said about today’s text, “This is a strange text and certainly a more obscure passage than any other passage in the New Testament.

I still do not know for sure what the apostle meant” (Pelikan 1967: 113).

Our denomination’s Confession of Faith in its first chapter dealing with Scripture tells us:

“The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.”

(WCF 1.9)

So how we work with the text today must be governed by that principle.

The overall theme of 1 Peter is that Christians must withstand persecution and persevere in their faith.

That much is clear in this passage.

But what’s with baptism, the ark, Noah, and spirits in prison?

And does this text say that baptism saves us? (Heiser, 336)

Bernard of Clairvaux said, “what is difficult to understand ought to be for Christians delightful to inquire into.”

And as Augustine wrote long before, “Just as there are shallows where a lamb may wade, so there are depths in the Scripture where an elephant may swim.”

[Cited in Packer, Quest for Godliness, 99] (op cit Rayburn).

So, let’s humbly wade into the text today.

I’m sure we will soon reach the point where our feet don’t touch bottom.

Two questions arise from this morning’s text:

Do you see Jesus’s victory?

Have you joined Jesus in his victory?

I. Do You See Jesus’ Victory?

Peter’s thinking here in verses 18-22 is connected with verse 17: 1 Peter 3:17

Why is it better to suffer for doing good, rather than evil?

Because Jesus has already pioneered that trail marked with righteous suffering — and it was the trail to his vindication and glory, His victory (see Sanchez, 131).

Peter takes us from Jesus’ death in verse 18 and brings us all the way to Jesus’ exaltation in verse 22.

Peter encourages those believers he is addressing, believers who are under the threat of persecution and indeed, are being persecuted, to not give up hope.

They are to hold on to the hope they have in Jesus and also, as we have seen here in our series on 1 Peter, they are being held by Jesus to receive that hope.

He reminds them that they are not alone in their suffering: they are to remember Jesus.

I want us to notice three things:

The example of Christ’s sufferings and death

The encouragement of His resurrection

The encouragement of His exaltation

Let’s look at

The example of Christ’s suffering and death

1 Peter 3:18

Though we, too, might suffer and even die for our faith, We may look to Jesus, Who has already walked that path of righteous suffering and Who has faced death Himself.

Jesus's suffering and death is an example for us: 1 Peter 2:21

But His suffering and death is much more than an example for us: they were unique and unrepeatable.

1 Peter 3:18

He is our Saviour because His once and for all suffering and death , that Righteous One suffering and dying in the place of the unrighteous, satisfied the wrath of God for His own, taking their place, suffering the shame and just penalty due for their sins.

By this act, He brought us to God, no longer as rebels.

He reconciled us to the Father by His blood.

His death for us opened the way to God for us.

Next, let’s notice

The encouragement of His resurrection

We are told that He was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”

His suffering and death was not the last word; neither is our righteous suffering and death the last word.

Though we were “in the flesh,” we are now made alive in Christ “in the spirit.”

What Peter is saying here is that Jesus, who was born in the flesh as we are, though without sin, died in the flesh, the natural body.

He was buried, “but,” then He was raised from the dead, raised “in the spirit,” that is, made alive in the realm of the Spirit with an incorruptible, spiritual body.

Jesus’s resurrection, which is the first fruits of the great resurrection to come for us, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, is one with a body that is “imperishable, undefiled, …unfading, that great inheritance to come in the new heavens and new earth.

Yes, Peter tells us, we will suffer, and yes, we will die.

But we will also live again, for as Jesus was raised from the dead, so shall we be.

Death is definitely not the last word.

That is what we look for.

Jesus’ path took him from righteous suffering, and death, and then resurrection.

next, let’s notice

The encouragement of His exaltation

Jesus triumphed in this victory over sin and death, but also as Paul tells us in Ephesians 6: 12, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

In His resurrection, Jesus proclaimed His victory and their defeat!

Peter tells us about this in verses 19 and 20:

Who are they?

The letters of 2 Peter and Jude helps us out a bit here:

Jude 6

These imprisoned spirits are fallen angels who disobeyed God in the days of Noah, referred to in Genesis 6, and are now part of the demonic realm.

In His resurrection, Jesus proclaimed His victory over them and the whole of the demonic realm.

We can take comfort in the fact that Jesus has defeated them, and all things are put under His feet Ephesians 1:22

And not only that, He is not just resurrected, but He is exalted. 1 Peter 3:22

God’s plan of salvation and kingdom rule had not been derailed by Jesus’s sufferings and death—in fact, it was right on schedule.

The crucifixion actually meant victory over every demonic force opposed to God.

This victory declaration is why 1 Peter 3:14–22 ends with Jesus risen from the dead and set at the right hand of God—above all angels, authorities and powers.

So, putting all this together: Peter tells us that it is better to suffer for doing good rather than to do evil., because God will vindicate those who endure righteous suffering, just as He vindicated His beloved Son through suffering.

If God is for us, who can be against us?

No one — because even the demonic realm is under Jesus’ authority.

We have the example of his sufferings and death

We have the encouragement of His resurrection

We have the encouragement of His exaltation

In the midst of our suffering for righteousness’ sake, we can take heart that God is at work to sustain us in our suffering and to bring us through that suffering to Himself, to the vindication and glory that Christ suffered in order to offer it to us.

Our second question today is

II.

Have you Joined Jesus in His Victory?

There is a lot of division in the Christian world that exists over interpretation of this verse.

Some believe that baptism, by the action itself, brings us salvation, or is the means by which salvation comes.

Others believe that it is necessary to be baptized to be saved.

What is Peter, and the Holy Spirit speaking through Him here in Scripture, telling us?

Let’s begin some matters of interpretation of Scripture.

Types and Antitypes

The word the ESV translates “corresponds to” is the word “antitype.”

An antitype is that thing that is prefigured by or corresponds to the type.

A “type” is a person or thing or event or practice that foreshadows some reality still to come; in other words, it’s what some call an embodied prophecy.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, for example, regards Israel’s passing through the waters of the Red Sea as a type of baptism.

Peter here in 1 Peter 3 sees the waters of the flood in the same way, as a type or foreshadowing of baptism.

Typology is founded on the conviction that the same God who is at work in all eras of history and is working out the same purposes in all that history, has left his fingerprints, as it were, all over that history.

There is a continuity of action and meaning because there is one God and one salvation from the beginning of history to its end.

Because he knew what was to come, he filled prior history with anticipations of later historical fulfillment.

Think of the OT offices of prophet, priest, and king.

They were important in their own right and necessary for the people of God, but they were also embodied prophesies of the coming one who would be the prophet, the priest, and the king, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Romans 5:14, Paul tells us that Adam was a type of Christ.. Paul is saying that in some way, Adam foreshadowed or echoed something about Jesus.