1 Peter 3

1 Peter 3:10-4

Division 4. (1 Peter 3:10-22; 1 Peter 4:1-6.)The world-trial, and the trial in the world. We come now to relationship to the scene around, a world which is against God, therefore against us, and which is going on to judgment at His hands. God reigns of necessity, for no opposition can displace Him; and the righteous, as those in harmony with the government of God, have the happiness of this. Yet, spite of all, the Lord’s words remain: “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” That is fully realized here: the very character which is acceptable to God, and bringing blessing from His hand, nevertheless being that which may, and naturally will, bring in the trial. Faith is continually needed for the realization that, after all, God reigns, and that nothing escapes from His control. The very need of patience, as another apostle has told us, is that which works in us a spirit of quiet subjection to Another’s will, and which leads into the experience of how good is that will. And thus, instead of despair in looking around upon a scene of conflict and evil, it works in us hope.

1. We have here, first, the fact that under such a government as that of God righteousness must of necessity be a requisite for blessing. If we love life and would see good days, then we must refrain the tongue from evil, and the lips, that they speak no guile; we must turn from evil, and do good; seeking peace with all, as followers of the Prince of Peace; for “the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears open continually to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” We are never, therefore, to pursue a policy of adaptation to our surroundings. We are never forced to yield because of the dominance of evil. “Who shall harm you,” he asks, “if ye have become zealous of that which is good?” But at once this seems to be contrary to the fact, not, of course, of God governing, but of the world being what it is. The world may indeed accept much of what is good because of the consequences of it. Men would sooner be served by those who would conscientiously serve them than by such as would serve themselves at their expense;* but then, on the other hand, if they are going to be consistently righteous all the way through, when this righteousness may cause the interests of an employer, for instance, to suffer, this, it is plain, will not be so acceptable; and thus, we must be prepared, after all, to suffer for righteousness’ sake.

The apostle looks this full in the face. He asks, as it were: is this, then, in reality an exception to the rule that none shall harm those earnestly seeking good?

He answers, no, it is no exception. It is in reality only blessing. “If ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye.” There may be, of course, the sacrifice of that which, after all, is not our portion, but only, in that way, an increase, in fact, of that which is our portion. Thus there is no loss, there is gain. We lose the temporal to gain the eternal; with the continual ministry of God also to us, and His care over us all the way through, so that we need not fear the fear of other men, nor be troubled about results as they are. We have only in our hearts to sanctify the Lord whom we serve -to take care that His name and His service are not dishonored in us; and thus we shall be sustained by that strong hand which already rules upon the Father’s throne: for God has “translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Here we have a hope which brightens everything, a hope that can give account of itself, a hope that we can cheerfully give account of to others, and yet in the spirit of meekness and fear as always; of course, a fear not of men, but of God; walking under the control of this, having a good conscience. The very thing for which they revile us as evil-doers shall testify in their own consciences in spite of all, and put to silence the revilers. *Thus it is said of our Lord that He “increased . . . in favor with God and man,” and of the early Christians that they were “praising God and having favor with all the people.” So in the Old Testament, we are told if a man’s ways please the Lord He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. The preferment of Joseph and Daniel shows how acceptable the people of God are to the extent that they do not run counter to the will of man; and the persecution of both indicates the inevitable suffering for righteousness’ sake. One day, even on earth, it will be true without qualification that righteousness only brings a reward. -S.R. 2. This, then, is the world through which we pass It is the world of the Cross; and by this we are crucified to it, and it to us. We must make up our minds, then, to suffer whatever God may please to permit, only to take care that it is suffering for well-doing, and not for evil-doing. The suffering for evil, as far as we are concerned, has been taken for us by Another, as the apostle reminds us. He has suffered for sins, the load which we laid upon Him, and from which we must now ourselves walk free. For us, as God would have it, there is to be no suffering for sins any more; which yet, in the government of God upon earth, may be, and will be, if we are not walking according to God; but what shame and dishonor to Him who has delivered us, and given us another character, as those washed in His blood and renewed by His Spirit! There follows here a passage which has been the subject of much controversy, and which we must therefore consider the more carefully. It has been thought by many (and perhaps this is increasingly the view taken in the present day) that it speaks of a salvation-work going on among the dead as well as among the living, which Christ began Himself by preaching in Hades to the spirits there. Nor need it be denied that there are expressions which, at least at first sight, seem to favor this. We are assured, nevertheless, that it is only a doctrine caught at which prevents any one from seeing what it so plainly says; and as this is now, to a large mass of Christians, the removal of a difficulty instead of the creation of one, we can well understand the keenness with which such a meaning is contended for. “Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in Spirit,” -in His human spirit, as they infer, -in this spirit (disembodied) He went and preached to spirits in prison, disembodied also. These, too, we are to notice, are a special class, suggesting and meeting a great difficulty. In the judgment of the flood in Noah’s days, the whole population of the earth, except eight persons, were at once swept away in what might seem to be hopeless condemnation.

How good, it is urged, to have a ray of light thrown upon this by such a text as the present: these hapless ones given to us as an express example of God’s care for those dying without salvation, and yet, it might be, susceptible of it! May we not accept this as being help provided for us by God Himself with regard to that which must be felt by every one as a mystery of His ways? What is to become of the masses who have never heard the gospel? Are they to be all looked upon as involved in a common ruin, even although Christ died for sinners, and there is in His death the amplest provision made for all the world? We must treat, therefore, this question seriously, as it deserves; but it is plain that there is danger of seizing upon a false hope just in proportion to its very attractiveness. Moreover, a hope of this kind may be practically more hurtful than the gloomiest view of that which (unless the text before us shall speak plainly about it) has certainly been left in obscurity. In a world like this, where, confessedly, men are not ready to accept that which God has at such a cost provided for them, and which is in itself so infinite a blessing, it may be dangerous enough to give men a hope -if it be not well justified -of an “accepted time” which is not the present time, and in which too, one would say, those to whom the gospel would then be preached would have much more favorable circumstances for hearing it, a much more decisive call for its acceptance, than anything which could be given here. In this case, one must say that “the day of salvation,” for the mass, is really not the present time at all, as Scripture declares it to be, but the time when, life here ended, all the seductions of the world and sense ended forever, the blessing would have nothing to counterbalance it in the thoughts of those already shut up, as here expressed, “in prison,” looking for final judgment only. It will be said, of course, that it is only of those who have not had the gospel preached to them in this life that hope is given; but what, in fact, are we to understand by this? Where are we to draw the line between those who have really heard and those that have not heard the gospel?

How many, even in the present day, have but distortions of the gospel preached to them instead of the reality? How many are hindered by the circumstances in which they are from any serious consideration of the gospel when it is preached? How many ears are practically stopped by that of which the apostle could speak as “the ignorance of unbelief”? If all are to be put in any wise upon an equal footing in this respect, who is there that at the present time could be considered as just upon an equal footing with those to whom the gospel, as it is claimed, will come with all the brightness of a light from heaven, cast, as it were, into the very darkness of the antechamber of hell? How simple for souls to say, We, at least, have never been given such a chance as this, and to encourage themselves with an expectation of more favorable circumstances, in which they, too, may be led to receive a gospel which will then have no drawback or abatement of it whatever. Thus, surely, we are bound by our very love to souls to examine seriously what such a text as this may afford us in the way of hope such as is claimed for it. We are not, indeed, on that account to refuse it if it be of God; but we are surely to beware of the natural readiness to accept that which gives the cheeriest view of life that can be, and brings its cheer even from the dark prison of the dead itself. Let us look, then, at what we have here, word for word, as the pen of inspiration puts it before us. “Christ,” it is said, “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in flesh, but quickened by (or in) Spirit.” There is no preposition in either case, but we have to supply it. It is urged, and it would seem rightly, that the dative case here, in which we find both “flesh” and “Spirit,” has, in fact, the force of an adverb: so that we might put it -however bad the English -as “flesh-wise” and “Spirit-wise.” Christ was put to death flesh-wise; that is, as regards the flesh. Death, in fact, could only affect that; it had no further power over Him, who, when He died, died with the blessed assurance for us, “It is finished,” as He committed His spirit to the Father. There is no difficulty so far; but, “quickened Spirit-wise:” what shall we say of that? In the first place, what does “quickened” mean in itself? It should be plain that it is in sharpest contrast with being put to death, and that it means, in opposition to it, “being brought to life.” It cannot have the force of “preserved alive,” as some would make it: the word is never used in such a sense. But then it is the One who was put to death who was made alive, and, one would say, could only be “made alive” in regard to that as to which death had come in. Thus, if He was put to death in flesh, He must be quickened as regards that which suffered death. If it were in His flesh He was put to death, His flesh must be quickened.

In that case there can be no question that it is resurrection that is spoken of here. It is not in this case the intermediate state state, but the resurrection. But how are we to understand, then, “Spirit-wise”? Is it His own personal spirit that is implied? or is it, on the other hand, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit? It is plain that the Spirit of God is put commonly in contrast, with the flesh, and it should be plain that the Spirit here is not Christ’s human spirit which could not be in accordance with Scripture, spoken of as quickening the body. It is not by the human spirit that the body is raised. By some, the Spirit is interpreted as meaning here His deity, in contrast with His humanity; but there is no instance in Scripture, that one can find, of Christ’s deity being called His spirit. The Spirit of Christ, as we have it in the second epistle, as found in the prophets, is the Holy Spirit, not the divine Person of Christ.

It is the same, of course, in the eighth of Romans, where the apostle declares that “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” We have, also, in the first chapter of Romans, what might seem to be a similar antithesis, where it is said that the Son of God is come of David’s seed “according to flesh,” but “marked out the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead.” “According to flesh” and “according to Spirit” are here in clear contrast, and the Spirit is, without controversy, the Spirit of God, and not the deity of Christ. Here, too, the expression is used in connection with resurrection, although it is true that the resurrection of the dead does not speak simply of His own resurrection, but would include, according to the plain force of the words, the resurrection, for instance, of Lazarus, which certainly marked Him out as “Son of God in power,” and was declared by Himself to do so.

This does not exclude His own resurrection, however; which, in fact, was that which most fully marked Him out in this way, as is plain. We have, therefore, on the whole, in this passage in Romans, that which may throw light upon what is before us here in Peter. The One who has come as David’s Seed according to flesh is clearly spoken of in such terms as Israel’s Messiah, and in connection therefore with Jewish promises. The apostle, speaking for us as Christians, says in this way, in the fifth chapter of the second of Corinthians, that “if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no more.” Christ in resurrection begins for us, as is plain, that new creation to which we in Him belong; and thus we can see here, where the apostle is writing to the Jewish saints of the dispersion, that Christ was put to death in the flesh, the end of Jewish hopes naturally for those who had thus rejected their Messiah. These are, as the apostle has said in the opening of his epistle, only “begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead.” The words, therefore, would have a special force here if “quickened Spirit-wise” speaks, in fact, of resurrection. In this way, “Spirit-wise” would be equivalent to “quickened by the Spirit.” “In Spirit” would have no force at all; nor, as to the Lord’s human spirit, could “quickened” in the sense of “made alive” apply at all. So far, then, we have nothing that would naturally lead us to think here of the Lord as in the intermediate state in Hades. Had this stood alone, it seems most certain that no one would have dreamt of applying the words to this; but we have now what is evidently a supplementary statement: “In which, also, He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” That “also” shows plainly the supplementary, or parenthetical, character of the statement; and if it be not the Lord’s human spirit which is spoken of in what immediately precedes, then, of necessity, it is not His human spirit here. Thus we have no option, as it would seem, but to refer it to the Spirit of God. The statement then will be that “by the Spirit He went and preached to the spirits in prison,” and this is not in any wise in direct connection with His quickening by the Spirit. It by no means necessarily follows this: it may equally precede it. But “He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” This is dwelt upon to show that it was an actual journey, as it were, made by the spirit, the human spirit of Christ. We have already seen that it cannot be this human spirit, unless His human spirit could have died. There could be no quickening apart from this; but it is well known that we have a similar phraseology in the second chapter of Ephesians, where the apostle speaks of Christ having slain the enmity by His cross, and then coming and preaching the glad tidings to those afar off and to those nigh, that is, to Gentiles and Jews alike. Here there can be really no question of a journey of the man Christ Jesus, and it is surely by the Spirit that this preaching took place: the apostles and other ministers of the gospel being the instrument of it, as Mark represents them going forth and preaching everywhere, “the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.” The coming and preaching in this case speaks evidently of the heart in the message. The Spirit comes, and in Him Christ comes. The Spirit comes as the direct fruit of His work, and to make it good in the souls of men.

Thus the divine heart is emphasized by the expression “He came and preached.” In that sense He is never absent now, but His words are fulfilled: Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age;" but we do not apprehend any personal human presence in this. The same urgency may surely, therefore, be intended here when we find that “He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” But does it not say, at least, that it was to those already spirits, (that is, having passed out of the body,) that He preached; and to these as in prison also, awaiting judgment? Thus, are we not brought back to the necessity of this being a work of the Lord, whether personally or by the Spirit, among those in the separate state? Here we must notice that it is a distinct class of these, at any rate, that is brought before us. It is simply the class of those who beforetime “were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing.” This is, we are told, but a special example of those to whom He preached, noteworthy in illustrating the difficulty of conceiving the wholesale condemnation of the world at that time, whatever may have been the state of individual souls. But let us note carefully that there is, in fact, nothing but a more or less conjectural help as to the difficulty. It is well known that some who take all this as applying to the Lord’s preaching in Hades in the separate state, nevertheless deny any evangelism in it, or any evangelic result therefore.

Plainly, nothing is stated with regard to this in the passage. We may import it into it, but that is all that we can do; and there seems at the first glance even an opposition to this in the fact of there being dwelt upon that longsuffering of God which waited in the days of Noah.

We have in Genesis, as we know, the specific statement that it was for 120 years. All that time the ark was preparing before eyes that must have looked on with wonder certainly, whatever might have been the incredulity of the spectators. Such a thing would necessarily make a noise, and Noah, in the life he lived amongst men, as the history has shown it to us, was one whose conduct in this respect was likely to make it still more a wonder. It is curiously said that we have no hint of any actual preaching upon Noah’s part.* What hint have we, on the other hand, of any evangelization, or its happy effects, among the spirits in prison? Noah most certainly preached in the very preparation of the ark itself, the most effectual witness of his faith in the judgment coming; and the explanation of this, of what he was looking for, could not possibly be hidden. Here, the dwelling upon the longsuffering of God while that open testimony lasted -120 years -is certainly not favorable to the thought of a preaching to these selfsame persons as spirits afterwards, when all that time the longsuffering had proved vain.

Moreover, as has often been noticed, it is striking that it is exactly as to this generation of men that God’s own words are on record: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh.” Thus Scripture seems to bear witness of its prophetic character in the anticipation of questions that might arise with regard to this judgment of a whole generation. Moreover, while the general result is stated to have been in their case only disobedience and ensuing judgment, nevertheless this in no wise necessitates the thought of there having been no escape from eternal judgment in souls brought to repentance even when the flood had already begun.

We are certainly not obliged to add to the difficulties here by making the judgment itself as harsh as possible, when the Spirit of God emphasizes in this very case God’s longsuffering. To suppose that, after all, that Spirit that would not always strive with men was to strive effectually after the judgment itself had shut them up in prison, is surely contrary to the whole character of what is here. “The spirits in prison” were there as having been disobedient when the longsuffering of God waited upon them in the days of Noah. That is undeniably the case. They were “spirits in prison” as the fruit of that disobedience. Does it follow that the preaching was to them when in this condition? or does the apostle speak of a class, now spirits in prison," who were disobedient to the preaching of the Spirit in the days of flesh? It is most certain, at least, that they were that; and the vivid way in which the apostle speaks here is suited to emphasize the effects of that preaching, they having been disobedient.
Thus, unless there is a clear reference to the Lord as in the disembodied condition, we have really no ground for thinking of this as any preaching of the gospel at all; but we have already seen that the preceding words do not, and can not, refer to the disembodied state, except upon the principle that we can make “quickening” to be either “preserving alive,” or believe that the human spirit of Christ had need to be quickened after death. We can understand, therefore, why this going and preaching is given us as a supplementary statement to what went before. This former preaching was by the Spirit of Christ, thus by Christ Himself; the Spirit of Christ being, as we have seen, that which the apostle elsewhere speaks of as having been in the Old Testament prophets. It is thus the style of the epistle. But all this clearly adds emphasis to the fact that, after all, only “few, that is, eight souls were saved through water:” the very judgment upon the world becoming in this way the means of salvation from it to those who escaped. They were saved through water, the water itself bearing up the ark so that it should escape the judgment; and the apostle immediately goes on to apply this when he says: “Which figure (or like figure) doth also now save you.” It is plain that, in some way or other, baptism is given us as a like figure to the flood. The word used for “figure” is “antitype,” which has caused many to think of baptism being the antitype of that of which the apostle has spoken; but there is here put upon the word a meaning which, according to Scripture, it does not have. We have the same word in the epistle to the Hebrews, (and there alone in the New Testament,) where the apostle speaks of the things in the earthly tabernacle being the “figures of the true” (Hebrews 9:24). Antitypes in the common sense they certainly could not be: it would be the most perfect inversion of the truth conceivable; and it would be equally contrary to the language of Scripture to speak of baptism as an antitype at all. One can understand, of course, the force of it for those who believe in ritualistic views of sacraments; but we need not enter into this here. The word is clearly, as in Hebrews, “figure,” or, more fully and literally, “answering figure,” which the common version gives as “like figure.” The simple force seems to be a figure answering to the facts, and thus we can understand how the apostle should say that baptism (as such a figure) “saves.” It is an expression of that which, as a corresponding reality in the soul, does save.

We have seen the doctrine of this already in the sixth of Romans, It is noticeable that as the apostle was one of that primal company of Christians who, notably, never were baptized with Christian baptism at all, -so far as any record shows (and thus would be in a sad condition if baptism were ordained for that which ritualism assigns to it,) he says: “doth now save you.” He cannot say “us” in this way. He is careful also to add, parenthetically, that baptism is not (what could be the only effect of the water) “the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the request as before God of a good conscience.” Notice that he has no idea of any effect of water but that of “putting away of the filth of the flesh.” He has no mystic conception of water, by any possible consecration of it, affecting the soul.

Meaning it has, of course, and an important place when this meaning is realized. This, also, has been obscured by the mistranslation of what follows as “the answer of a good conscience before God.” It is quite plain, according to what we have seen in Romans, that the “answer” of a good conscience it cannot possibly signify. People are baptized “to Christ.” Baptism is a gospel type, and men come to it, therefore, as confessed sinners, to meet Christ in the value of His work for them. Thus “the request of a good conscience” can be clearly understood. The conscience is made good as the result of this work of Christ, and it is this that is ideally sought in baptism. It is found, in fact, not by the baptism itself, which is only burial, the sentence of death upon the sinner carried out, thoroughly, (although in the faith that Christ has died for sinners,) but thus that good conscience itself is obtained by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the witness of the acceptance of His work, a glorious and perfect one of Him “who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being subjected unto Him.” Yet the One thus accepted of God is still the rejected of man, and thus we can see how forceful is the statement of the apostle with regard to that old world swept away by the flood, and the connection of that baptism by which we enter openly into the place of Christian disciples with the judgment of man which received in that flood a statement so terribly emphatic. If question arises in the hearts of those still going through a world which rejects even the precious gospel of grace now, how forcible is the admonition of that previous rejection of God’s longsuffering witness 120 years before the judgment came! The force of this is entirely done away by the thought of any preaching after death to spirits in prison. The whole is here in perfect consistency with itself when we take it as a warning corresponding to that which the Lord has given of the times that would precede His coming in judgment, as days which would be like those of Noah. That coming was, as we know, continually before the eyes of Christians at this time; they had not learned, as so many have since, to put it off into a far-off distance; and thus the apostle’s words would have here the fullest possible significance. 3. But the apostle has more to say to us with regard to these matters, when he exhorts Christians that, as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, we should arm ourselves with the same mind; “for he that hath suffered in the flesh,” he adds, “hath ceased from sin.” Christ suffered the contradiction of sinners against Himself. He “suffered” only, did not, and could not, yield to it. He suffered to death itself, by death passing out of the whole scene in which this contradiction was realized. The conflict for Him was over. He had ceased from it.

For us, also, that death of Christ apprehended by faith is the ceasing from sin, although, necessarily, in a different way from what it was with Him.* We have not passed out of the scene -we live in it; and yet our life is, in the true sense of this, outside it. We belong to another scene altogether, and our “life is hid with Christ in God.” Thus the acceptance of the work of Christ marks an entire change in our own condition. We can live no more in the flesh to fulfil the lusts of men, but for the will of God, although this may entail for us such suffering in the flesh as Christ had, the contradiction of sinners remaining and working in all that is around us. For us, the time past is abundantly sufficient -now that through grace we have waked up to righteousness -to have wrought the will of the nations, of men who now turn round in wonder upon those who have left their ranks, who can no more run in the evil ways which are the mere overflowing of a heart away from God. For this, therefore, men will speak evil of those who have done so, in order that they might live to God a life according to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
And here follows a passage which has been similarly taken to that which we have just been looking at, and in a similar interest. Here, moreover, we find, as some understand it, a gospel preached to the dead as dead; “For to this end was the gospel preached also to the dead, that they might be judged as regards men after the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.” Here is a gospel preached which has effect (or is expected to have), and we must carefully consider the effect in order to the apprehension of the whole passage. We have just been shown, in fact, the effect of the death of Christ for those who in faith realize it. It is the ceasing from sin, the ceasing from the will of the Gentiles; for which the Gentiles judge those who do so. This is the very effect of the gospel which we have here. The effect is a life “according to God in the Spirit.” That is simple. But it should be as simple that this of necessity goes with a judgment by men after the flesh, a fleshly judgment passed upon those who have now learned to live a spiritual life. That is all simple, and there should be no difficulty with regard to it. The difficulty is only here, that this gospel is said to have been “preached also to the dead.” The only question can be: Is it to the dead, then, as dead, that it was preached? or simply in life to those who have passed away, and are now among the dead? Here, the effect spoken of should be in itself decisive. Suppose a preaching to the dead as dead, it is difficult to understand how men after the flesh should judge their turning to God in this condition. Is it their fellow-prisoners in the pit who do so? It is plainly that of which the apostle has been speaking, while a life “according to God in the Spirit” naturally speaks of a life lived here, not of a simple change in men who have, as to present things, ceased to live.

The apostle has, in fact, already been speaking of a judgment to come, both for the living and the dead. The judgment upon the living is at the coming of the Lord, for which all Christians are taught to wait as that which is near at hand.

From this judgment of the living, Christians have escaped. They wait for Jesus Christ as their Saviour, One who has delivered them already from the wrath to come. But the dead? Here the same principle obtains. To these also the gospel has been preached, not as dead but as living -but with this effect, that they are delivered from the judgment of the dead, as those who might live on to the coming of the Lord are delivered from the judgment of the living. Thus, all is really clear and consistent with the whole context.

The apostle is speaking in it, as is plain, only of Christians, or at least of those to whom the gospel has been preached; and the effects which he deduces from it are perfectly inconsistent with the thought of any evangelizing of the dead as dead. The whole purport of what is here is but an expansion of what he says at the beginning, that as Christ path suffered for us in the flesh, we are to arm ourselves with the same mind.

We are to make Christ’s suffering our ceasing from sin, so as no longer to live as men around are, in the lusts of the flesh, but to God, a life which His coming judgment will show to have had the most decisive significance.* \