1 Peter 3:18-22
Jay Wegter
The theme Peter is addressing is the underserved suffering which believers experience for righteousness’ sake. Our text (3:18-22) is a continuation of the theme from verses 13 through 17—Christian suffering for the sake of righteousness. This passage brings comfort as it is designed to build and encourage the afflicted. For, Christ suffered unjustly and we are called to suffer for righteousness sake. Our willingness to suffer unjustly is grounded in Christ’s willingness to suffer for our sake. The heart of the gospel is His penal substitution accomplished at the cross.
v. 18 – “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” Christ died once, that word ‘once’ emphasizes a completed work never to be repeated—it was once for all time. “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb 10:10, 14).
An interpretive problem would be as follows: do the terms: ‘flesh and spirit’ refer to the material and non-material sides of man? Or, do ‘flesh and spirit’ refer to Christ’s two natures—human and divine? The answer is “No,” in regard to options one and two. For it says in Hebrews of Christ’s earthly life: “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety” (Heb 5:7).
So, “Flesh” here in 1 Peter 3:18 is a reference to Christ’s earthly life—the reality of His death as a human being. He was put to death in the flesh—that is his physical body, but He was made alive in Spirit, that is the spiritual realm. This phrase, ‘made alive in the Spirit’ points to His resurrection as His entrance into a permanent eternal existence.
To summarize, the best understanding of ‘flesh and spirit’ in this verse (18) are Christ’s two modes of existence, before and after His resurrection. Thus, ‘alive in the Spirit’ is not a reference to a disembodied Christ (as the Gnostics would wish); but to His resurrected state (Edmond Hiebert).
Christ’s suffering as depicted here is in keeping with Peter’s theme of the relative unimportance of temporal suffering compared to the endless enjoyment of our eternal inheritance. Christ was willing to suffer for us in order to bring us to God. “. . . fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).
It should be no surprise to Peter’s readers that they should be following in Christ’s steps in terms of suffering (Wayne Grudem).
There is a link also here between suffering and being conformed to Christ: in his first epistle to the Corinthians Paul says of the Apostles: “[we are] always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you” (2 Cor. 4:10-12). See also Philippians chapter three. (Calvin).
Christ’s work of substitution involves the perfectly righteous One dying on behalf of the utterly unrighteous. Peter expands on this through the end of this chapter showing us a richer understanding of the blessed outcome of the injustice Christ endured at the cross.
We could summarize our Lord’s accomplishments as follows: Christ’s triumphant sin-bearing brings believers all the way to God (winning for us access to God: “for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father” Ephesians 2:18). His atoning work gains victory over Satan and the powers of darkness, and Christ’s obedience to the Father results in Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of God—above all earthly powers.
The incomprehensible sense of alienation endured by Christ was the cost of these accomplishments (MacArthur). The aim of Christ’s vicarious suffering is victory and triumph. The Son of God conquers death by dying and liberates His people from their bondage to sin, their guilt and fear, and their enslavement by Satan.
vv. 19-20—“. . . in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.”
The spirits are fallen angels. Christ goes to the place of angelic confinement. Because they are spirits this is a place we cannot locate spatially. Christ literally descended into this location but He did not go there to suffer, He went there to preach. The exact content of His proclamation is not stated, but it was not good news He preached. He addressed the fixity and permanence of their doom.
This passage tells that these fallen angels were those who disobeyed at the time of Noah. It is interesting in these verses that these confined demons abandoned the bounds set for them by God. This rebellion took place at the time of the construction of construction of Noah’s Ark. This points to a last ditch (go for broke) effort by Satan to consolidate his holdings, keep his prize, even if his demonic minions must violate their fixed boundaries in their seduction of mankind (Hiebert).
This connects with the demonic rebellion recorded in Genesis 6:1-4, 2 Peter 2:4, and Jude 6 (NIV commentary). “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:1-5).
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment” (2 Pet 2:4). In 2 Peter 2:4 this place of demonic confinement is a verb form which means to confine in a place called Tartarus. It is a name from classical mythology, a subterranean abyss, in which rebellious gods were punished. The word was however taken over into Hellenistic Judaism and used in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch in connection with fallen angels (Linguistic Key to the New Testament).
Christ’s victory and His message of conquest did not end Satan’s rule (but certainly numbered its days); but it did enable Christ to build His church so that the ‘gates of hell’ could not prevail against it. “. . .I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (Mt 16:18b).
Satan is still described as the god of this world in 2 Cor. 4:3-4. “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:3-4). It says in 1 John 5:19 that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. It’s interesting in the Book of Job that Satan appears before God and then gives his arrogant reply that he’s been walking all over the earth implying that he won this dominion by gaining the loyalty of our first parents in the Garden. “The LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?” Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it” (Job 1:7).
In addition, when Christ is tempted in the wilderness in Matthew 4 Satan says that all the kingdoms of the world belong to him and he has the power to grant them to whom he wills. “Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me” (Mt 4:8-9).
Now for me and perhaps for you, this begs the question, if Satan knew Christ’s death would destroy his dark temporary kingdom built upon human and angelic crime then wouldn’t Satan want to keep Jesus alive? Spurgeon has an interesting insight. He says, “God baited the hook for Satan with the mortality of Jesus of Nazareth (as if Satan could be rid of his divine foe in human form by murdering Him).
Apparently what Satan (willfully blind by his own self-deception) did not count on was that Christ’s death would be vicarious and substitutionary and that Christ’s death would be the basis of the new covenant—and that Christ’s death would be a representative work—that of the last Adam. And as the last Adam, Christ would by one act of obedience usher in grace and life.
“So then as through one transgression (Adam’s) there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness (Christ’s) there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:18-19).
Therefore, when Christ descended into this prison of demons, He must have interrupted a premature celebration, for news of the death of Jesus of Nazareth had reached the demonic prison. But, when our resurrected Lord arrives, Christ proclaims His victory over them and over their mighty leader, Lucifer.
Now another word about this prison for demons, in 2 Peter 2:4 their “prison” is translated “pits of darkness.” It’s a place of torment even lower than Hades. Its punitive design conveys the idea of the heinousness of their demonic sin; they are deserving of the most severe form of torment and isolation. These demons violated the boundaries that God had set for them. This is alluded to in Jude 6 and 7, 2 Peter 2:4, and Genesis 6:1-4.
“And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 6-7).
No doubt Lucifer’s goal in seeking to corrupt every last man, woman, and child was to thwart the redemption promised in Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Gen 3:15). The evil one did everything in his power (including out of bounds activity) to prevent the Seed of the woman from being conceived and opposing him. He attempted to demonically pollute the entire human race. Now these demons that were confined (v. 19), had along with Satan already been cast from heaven. But at the time of Noah they wanted their own vile, malicious, and filthy passions to be fully expressed through every living human being without exception. Scripture says only eight were found uncorrupted by this demonic campaign or agenda (Genesis 6:3; 11-13; Jude 6-7; 2 Peter 2:4-6) (MacArthur).
What a tiny minority eight people must have been in a world which had existed for more than one and a half millennia. If we calculated the rate of population growth which took place between 1800 AD and 2000 AD—at that rate of growth (from two people in the Garden until the time of the Flood) there would have been a population of 11 million people. But, if we calculate into that equation the longevity of life recorded in the genealogies of Genesis, then the population at the time of the Flood could have easily have been in the trillions of people.
Now back to Christ’s proclamation to these captive spirit beings. His victory proclamation is the culmination of a cosmic conflict which began early in history, not long after creation week. Christ’s victory over the demons is also recorded in Colossians 2 where it says Christ made a public display of them. “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him” (Col 2:15).
Satan and his hordes were defanged and disarmed by the work of Christ. They lost their most important weapon—death. What was once on Satan’s key ring is now on Christ’s. “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev 1:17b-18).
According to Hebrews 2 it was our fear of death due to the guilt and bondage of our sins that held us in bondage. “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Heb 2:14-15).
In Colossians 2 that mountain of personal guilt (due to our habitual law-breaking) carried by each of us was likened to a document calling for our death and damnation. But, by Christ’s work of liberating us and divesting demons of their chief weapon, according to Colossians 2 that document of indictment was nailed to the cross. “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col 2:13-14).
And according to Hebrews 2, Christ’s victory won by His redemptive work cancelled our slavery to Satan. Christ’s death achieved the great result of bringing sinful man back into fellowship with God and this effectual operation of Christ’s work for us required His resurrection. It is the risen Lord who brings us to God (Romans 4:23-5:2). “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (Rom 4:25). So Christ’s victory over sin and death was also a victory in the world and realm of Spirits.
v. 21 –“Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
The language in verse 21 has been a puzzle to Bible interpreters. For it says, “baptism now saves you.” But Peter’s sermon is not giving us instructions on how baptism is to be carried out. It is a statement about the salvation accomplished by Christ. Peter is actually saying that the rescue which took place through Noah’s Ark is a symbol of the salvation depicted by baptism.
We could say it this way, the Ark which saved but a few human beings through water portrays the salvation now available in Christ. The water of the flood portrays the water of baptism. Amidst global destruction there is deliverance from judgment. Unless we should mistake baptism for the means of salvation Peter tells us that what is being described here is not about any saving value of the act of baptism, (i.e. washing of body by the waters of baptism), but the emphasis is upon the salvation associated with a cleansed conscience.
What is front and center here is that through the proclamation of the Gospel, Christ saves from sin and its just punishment. The gospel proclaims the good news of the appeasement of sin’s penalty—this stirs the conscience and the Holy Spirit brings conviction (John 16). This calls for the response of faith and repentance and the commitment to Christ and His work. This is concretely and contractually expressed in an act of baptism (i.e. the sinner’s saving faith is publically expressed in baptism) (NIV commentary).
Baptism is the public sign of the transition from the old way of life to the newness of life in Christ. Those who are baptized in the first century world were regarded with suspicion and hostility. Thus, Peter’s theme of suffering unjustly is still in view. The term Peter uses in verse 21 “an appeal to God for a good conscience” communicates that the new believer out of a clear conscience is willing to accept the duties and demands of Christ his Lord.
Baptism is a symbolic picture of the resurrection of Christ as well as the picture of our own spiritual resurrection and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Let’s hearken back for a moment back to the salvation of the eight on the ark. Noah obtained life through death in the sense he was buried in the ark as a kind of grave coffin, a coffin shaped box. Among the total ruin of the world he and seven others were preserved.
So also today, death is set forth in baptism. We passed through a radical identification with Christ’s death as our entrance into eternal life (His death was my death to sin, self, and Satan). It is sad that in the Roman Catholic religion, followers do not distinguish between the sign and substance, between the symbol and the thing. They fix their hope of salvation on the symbolic object itself—the act of baptism. As a consequence, the water of baptism takes their thoughts away from the blood of Christ (Calvin).
The Greek word here for the ark symbolizing baptism or salvation is antitupon—from which we get the word, ‘antitype’. Deliverance from the flood by the ark is a spiritual analogy; it’s an earthly expression of a heavenly reality. The ark was lifted up over the holocaust and deluge of judgment beneath. According to 2 Peter 3 this points clearly to a final judgement of fire and fury where the whole universe will be purified. (95% of the earth’s crust is igneous and metamorphic, but 75% of the earth’s surface is made up sedimentary strata. “Billions of dead things buried in water-born sediment all over the earth.” Ken Ham).
In the Genesis flood, the very mechanism which destroyed the world, a cataclysm by water, becomes the means by which Noah is delivered. For, the same waters which extinguished everything with breath lifted the ark safely above the maelstrom beneath. As a final note, let us remember that the wrath poured out on Noah’s world lifted the Ark above destruction and produced salvation, and the wrath poured out on our Savior at Calvary’s cross gained for us mercy, life, forgiveness, compassion, and grace.
Now, once the Ark settled onto Mount Ararat and Noah and his family and the animals were given permission to leave the Ark, they exited the Ark into a new world. The old world order and the old world animals of ‘Jurassic park’ no longer dominated the landscape. New world plants and animals, fauna and flora would dominate the landscape. (EX. Remember, don’t let your kids play near the velociraptors.)
This appeal to God for a clear conscience is associated with baptism because those who come to God desire a cleansed conscience and wish to be delivered from the burden of guilt and the threat of condemnation and hell. And, in believing gospel, they desire to be delivered through the shed blood of Christ for real legal guilt plagues their consciences (MacArthur).
When Peter says baptism now saves you he is referring to the gospel dispensation in which we now live. Union with Christ in His death and resurrection is proclaimed by the sign of baptism. It is an outward sign of an inner reality (Galatians 3:27; Col 2:12). Baptism is meaningless without the inner reality of a new creation, just as the dollar sign on a check is worthless without money in the bank.
The Greek word here for appeal refers to an interrogation by question and answer intended to establish a formal agreement. This is the language of solemnly forming a legal contract. Both faith and commitment are in view. The KJV translation is faithful here “a pledge out of a good conscience.”
Thus, a conscience purified by the blood of Christ is assured acceptance with God. And, baptism is the believer’s answer to the work God has done in his heart. So baptism as a public sign is a believer bearing witness to the world of what God has done for him.
It’s difficult to find one English word that fully captures the meaning of this Greek word ‘appeal’. Another way of expressing the meaning of the Greek word is as follows, the interrogation of a good conscience results in an answer or testimony. This is not only faith in Christ’s work on our behalf but a commitment to live in obedience to our Savior. The motive is as follows: the free pardon of our sins means that upon our resurrection we can bear the sight of God and stand before His tribunal assured of the remission of our sins and the renovation of our person (Calvin).
v. 22—“. . . who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”
The culmination of Christ’s suffering is that He is exalted. All authority has been given to Him. He will pronounce the destiny of every creature; He will consummate history. “He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him”(Eph 1:9-10).
The almighty God governing the universe is our incarnate Lord, He intercedes for us, able to save us to the uttermost. “. . .but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Now as to the use of this glorious doctrine, Scripture speaks of Christ’s ‘unfinished work’ of interceding for His people: “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:24-25). He is exalted to God’s right hand, and able to aid His suffering saints. “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16).
Peter’s readers were facing a very real onslaught from evil powers through their human enemies. Thus, his readers would find real encouragement in this that all angelic beings have been subjected to Christ. His rule and reign are universal—there is no authority that is not subjected to Christ. His victory has been gained—the rest is mop up (Hiebert).
Christ is raised and gone into heaven and occupies a place of power and authority. “The LORD says to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet’” (Psalm 110:1). He is preeminent, supreme Lord, every knee will bow to Him (Phil 2:9-11). Therefore, all the enemies that oppose Christians in Asia Minor need not be a cause of fear for everything is subject to Christ. “For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Cor 15:2) (NIV commentary).
‘At God’s right hand’ signifies the place of preeminence, honor, and victory. And due to the work He has completed in His unimaginable humiliation our Savior was elevated to this place of preeminence. Now all things are under His feet and have been subjected to Him.
In speaking of Christ’s exaltation, it says in Ephesians: “. . . which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:20-23).
Our Savior is now judge of the world and He will bring all history to its conclusion. What a comfort this must have been for Peter’s readers whose physical welfare was in danger every hour. The spirits that animated the human enemies of these believers were utterly subjected to Christ their Creator.
The Lord intends that by faith in His Word we behold Christ suffering in our nature in order to bring us to God. And the Lord also intends that by faith in Scripture we behold Christ exalted in our nature and seated at the right hand of God above every power and authority.
And what is the most common imperative associated with Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of the Father? Draw near with confidence. This is not for comfort only, but for supply when we are assaulted by affliction and temptation. “For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” (Heb 2:18).
By way of example: in the Pentateuch, the difference between a single woman being accosted sexually or being complicit with sexual advances (or aggression) was whether or not she cried out for help.