The Answer--1 Peter 3:13-22

Introduction

A person approaches you aggressively. He looks angry. Suddenly, he puts his nose to your face and growls, “What’s wrong with you?”

What do you tell him? How do you handle it in a way that might diffuse the situation? More importantly, how would you answer his question?

What you experienced in that illustration was real. How do we handle questions about our faith, even directed by those hostile to the Christian faith?

That is the problem with evangelism. Most people say, “I don’t know enough to teach someone.” Let’s peel away that excuse and expose it for what it is. We don’t know how to answer questions. We have this terrified pose that someone will ask a question (perhaps angrily), and we won’t know how to respond.

Peter’s audience can sympathize. But there’s no embarrassment but more life and death. The response needed to come while standing in front of a judge who will determine whether they live or die.

We see the warning in the opening verses of the letter.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6–7, ESV)

When that moment comes, what reply will you give for your faith when faith gets put in a furnace? When faith is challenged, what is your response?

It is part of a more significant issue of how should a Christian handle suffering?

It is not high on our concern list. The underlying issue of answering for your faith hangs like a faint aroma in every human encounter we have.

Let’s see how Peter coaches them to deal with their plight when it comes.

Discussion

The Background of Suffering

As seen in 1 Peter, a growing hostility and encroaching persecution is a wave coming at the Christians of Asia Minor. It is the smell of smoke before the heat of the fire singes their souls.

Peter does say that the usual circumstance of life is good people are not harmed for their goodness.

“Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?” (1 Peter 3:13, ESV)

If they maintain their pursuit of doing good, the likelihood of harm is not average. Christians need to be zealous for good. It should mark their life.

It is a term that could be translated as “ardent lover.” In the band of the twelve apostles, one apostle was Simon the Zealot. We know little of his life, either before or after Christ. All we know is how he is described. A zealot.

The zealots were a political faction with the Jews who despised the Romans. They set their heart on a simple goal—to eradicate the Romans from Palestine. They employed whatever workable method. They were terrorists and assassins, prepared to lay down lives for the passionate love of country.

Peter says if you are that passionate about portraying good, you build people up and are looked upon favorably.

But Peter only states a general situation. It is no guarantee that if you do good, you will not be harmed. Instead, there is a chance of something else.

“But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,” (1 Peter 3:14, ESV)

Many Christians for the next two centuries would suffer for righteousness’ sake, as Jesus foretold in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Peter, though, wants to make a point. If it comes, it is not an earned consequence but undeserved. But it also has a purpose.

You will be blessed because good will ensue. Because of that, do not fear or be troubled. With two words, Peter paints a portrait of the terrorized. Like a storm stirs a lake into a froth, mistreatment creates its own emotional storm. Dread grips hearts.

Yet, it is not due to your behavior that created your problem. God is with you and will protect you.

Is Peter counseling that Christians should be stoical, accepting the inevitable with courage and grace? Are we to become human punching bags for the religious bigots that hate Christians?

He says, “don’t waste the opportunity. Have a response to the question ‘why’.”

The Answer

Here we meet a familiar verse that pops up from our memory.

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV)

Peter says we should “make a defense.” It’s a term that English has hammered into the wrong form. The Greek word “apology” means anything but an uttered, “I’m sorry.”

Instead, it was an argument of an attorney in court answering charges, presenting evidence that would clear his client and put an end to the pursuit. It is a picture of what Christians faced in their future. They would be grabbed, thrown into the court of a Roman magistrate to answer for the charges brought against them. It might be what you do when a hostile neighbor accosts you and hurls insults at him. And it may even be an answer given to a person puzzled over how such good people could be accused of such vile charges?

What kind of answer is this?

Comes from a sanctified heart

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV)

The first key to an adequate answer to a hostile or apathetic listener is clear priorities. Keep Christ front and center in both your life and your response. He is the Lord. Make sure he is there in your life before the charge comes.

It must make sense

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV)

Peter steals a word out of the Greek philosopher’s mouth—logos. From it, we speak of logic, things that make sense and that are reasonable, supported by good evidence.

When we give our answer, it should be thought out so that a reasonable person would understand it.

The old Scottish preacher said that faith was “better felt than telt.” The problem with it being only a personal emotional reason makes it less than believable. Many people believe in conspiracies and other delusions. It needs to line up with evidence and reality.

The answer should provide reasons for the hope, the basis for living differently. It should explain why the traits we spoke of in our last lesson are present in a Christian life. What drives him.

Lactantius, a Roman writer of the early second century, explained the confusion of the Romans. He says that people inquired what was so good that it seemed preferable to life itself “so that neither loss of goods, nor of the light, nor bodily pain nor tortures deter them.”

That’s the hope that is within us.

Anything less and Christianity gets dismissed as far-flung superstition for the weak-minded.

Given with the Right Attitude

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV)

No threats or arrogance found a voice. It was hard to dismiss such a meek person who treated you with the utmost respect, even if you wanted to take all that was important to a man.

Could it be that the message of Christ doesn’t penetrate culture today, not become people reject the message of truth? Perhaps the attitude of the messenger prevents most people from hearing “the answer.”

I have known preachers who gleefully said of others, “I am going to pin them to the wall.” They took great delight in winning a debate, demolishing an opponent in arguments. Many want to be winners in a spiritual blood battle rather than the patient messenger with the most important message of all times.

The how is as important as the what.

Peter adds to the attitude:

“having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” (1 Peter 3:16, ESV)

Sincerity has a great power to persuade. When a person pays with all that is dear for something, it makes an opponent think, “Am I proud of myself for doing this to that person?”

Perhaps Peter reflected on his own experience on Pentecost. They jeered when he first stood before the crowd, accusing them of being the worst kind of drunks. Within a few minutes, they were cut to the heart, begging for a remedy for their guilt.

But Peter does understand that even this may not be enough to stop the pain.

“For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” (1 Peter 3:17, ESV)

Even if suffering comes, Christians should see that God can use it for greater purposes. It is the mark of a true believer to have his life used by God, even in a way he would prefer not.

But what is a “reasonable answer” to give?

The Content

Peter doesn’t leave it to us to try to craft our own message. It is heaven’s message we carry because it is what has changed the world and our lives.

“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.” (1 Peter 3:18–20, ESV)

The message never changes. Jesus was God’s son, come to earth. Here, men killed him, executing him in the cruelest of ways on a Roman cross. His lifeless body laid in a sealed tomb for three days. Then, on the third day, the tomb was empty. The risen Christ appeared to individuals and multitudes before returning to his original glory in heaven. It was this death, burial, and resurrection that took away sin and gave us hope beyond the grave.

It sounds reasonable and something we would expect until we read the passage closely and find a problem. It is a part of this passage that continues to confound scholars as to its meaning.

It is found in verse 19.

“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.” (1 Peter 3:18–20, ESV)

He went and preached to the spirits in prison. What does that mean?

The truth is this is one of what Churchill called “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” No one really knows for sure. Still, I think there is a way to let the passage and Peter point us in the right direction.

If you listen to the religious world, many believe that Peter is teaching that Jesus went to hell and preached to people to give them a second chance at salvation.

The view renders a joke the idea of earthly response to the message sealing our eternal destiny. If there are “eternal do-overs and mulligans,” the Christian life on earth becomes a fool’s errand.

Where does all this come from?

In the third century after Christ, many believed that the faith needed codifying. In it they developed things called creeds. One of the more popular creeds used by many religious groups today (as part of their conversion processes) is called the Apostles Creed. It was said each of the twelve apostles wrote believes essential to Christianity, and it was compiled together.

Listen to it:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker 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, dead and buried; He descended into Hell; The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven; And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit; The Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body; And the life everlasting. Amen.

In the middle, in a section that those who developed the creed said belonged to Thomas are the words “He descended into Hell.”

Is that what this says? Let’s look at what Peter wrote again:

“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.” (1 Peter 3:18–20, ESV)

Notice what it does not say:

It doesn’t say that Jesus went to hell. That is from the Apostles Creed, not Peter.

And it also does not say that he offered anyone a second chance. That is someone reading into the text.

This highlights some issues about how to interpret the Bible. We can approach any text in two ways.

The first is to use “exegesis,” in which we look at what the text says and let it “speak” its message for itself, regardless of our preconceived notions.

The other is to employ “eisegesis.” That form of interpretation begins with a conclusion and searches the text for something to confirm the prior belief.

Some start with the Apostles Creed and “read it into” 1 Peter 3. However, it is best to see what the text says for itself.

It is essential to let the simple and plain explain the complicated and obscure passages. Some want to make complex passages interpret all passages. Many use this reasoning when they come to the book of Revelation. They want it to define the rest of the Bible rather than the context of the Bible, guiding us to find out what the difficult must mean.

So, let’s start with the phrase “the spirits in prison.” Who are they? The text tells us that they were “alive during the time of Noah.” When we return to Genesis 6, we find the world engulfed in wickedness. This distressed God enough to begin again with the righteous man Noah and his family. Through hundreds of years, Noah continued his work, ignored and, I am sure, scorned by the wicked of the time.

What was this prison? Peter does not call it hell. Instead, if you take Noah and his times, their prison was their own refusal to repent. Their prison was a spiritual one of their own making. With sin and stubbornness of heart, they locked themselves away from the pleas that might have saved them.

Then, what is the proclamation? The term indeed means “preach.” But the Greek word simply means to “act as a herald” or “to announce.” By what means was this proclamation made? How did Jesus proclaim the message to the spirits in prison?

For that, we consult the context of 1 Peter and the New Testament.

In 1 Peter 1, we find a reference to “the spirit of Christ” again. Here it is used of the prophets in which the spirit of Christ is “in them.

...inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. (1 Peter 1:11)

It sounds parallel to what Peter says in 1 Peter 3.

Then, when Peter writes his second letter, we meet Noah. In that passage, he uses the concept of proclamation.

if he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; (2 Peter 2:5)

Peter’s use of the term to describe Noah is the same word rendered “proclaim” in 1 Peter 3.

In the spirit and through Noah, it seems best that Christ proclaimed the message of obedience to an obedient generation in Noah’s time.

This fits with what is said by Paul about Abraham.

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” (Galatians 3:8)

If God could preach to Abraham, Christ could preach to the lost of Noah’s generation.

That brings up the topic of baptism.

He starts with Noah and how he and his family were saved.

20 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. 21 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, (1 Peter 3:20-21)

It says they were brought “safely through the water.” The language says that they passed through the water from one side to another. They left a world filled with iniquity, and through the water itself, came safely to the other side.

It is this image that Peter uses to discuss baptism.

20 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. 21 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, (1 Peter 3:20-21)

He calls baptism something that “corresponds” to the waters of the flood. He uses language quite familiar to the times but more unfamiliar to us.

The language is “type and antitype.”

The best way for us to understand it is to think about how currency is printed. A metal engraved plate gets a coat of ink and is then pressed onto the paper. The result is the printing the appears on a bill we use at stores.

The type is the metal plate that makes the impression, and the antitype is the visible result left on the paper. What you have on the plate is what you get on the paper.

Peter says that in the same manner that Noah and his family found safety by passing through the water, we find spiritual safety by passing through the waters of baptism.

Many have to do some twisting and torquing to get out of the plain message of this verse. They deride those who hold to the importance of baptism by saying, “is the water magic?” Derision is a tool of a mind out of arguments.

Peter makes it plain that the water is not magic. But the water, when coupled with the heart of the person being baptized, creates the condition called “saved.”

20 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. 21 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, (1 Peter 3:20-21)

It is not a physical bath but has a more significant meaning. It is an appeal to God. Peter uses a word that has the ordinary meeting of signing a contract agreeing to the conditions of that contract. Every contract I sign always asks me to initial paragraphs noting that I read, understand, and consent. This is what happens in baptism.

Without the conscious decision to leave an old life and go through the death, burial, and resurrection of baptism are pictured in the passage.

It is what gives us our identity and the hope about which we can speak.

And Peter ends by giving the basis that the hope of baptism gives us.

who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. (1 Peter 3:22)

We serve Christ because he is alive and rules over all things.

That is our answer for our hope.

Conclusion

The way to meet the challenge of suffering is to be ready to answer any challenge given.

How do we defend our faith? We may never find ourselves in a court of law. But we do engage the court of friends, families, and acquaintances? For the Christian, it is not about defending ourselves.

And Peter has given us the instructions we need.

We need to answer sincerely. The lives we live should reflect the message we speak. We know that when there is dissonance between speech and action, we always trust the action. Be a genuine Christian in all you do.

We also need to answer reasonably. Our faith needs to make sense to others because it is based on fact. It is not fantasy, nor is it superstition. If we cannot give a clear, reasoned explanation of Christianity, we need to take another look at the why of our lives.

Finally, we need to answer gently. We cannot beat others into faith but must be patient. It may take years and will take more than words. But our message will be heard if we present the Master we follow and just point to him.