1 Peter 3 v 15 - 4 v 6				Encouragement in tough times 						 3.6.01

When you're having difficulty with something, it's often encouraging to know someone else is finding it tough too.  For a preacher it's nice to know that Martin Luther no less had difficulty understanding these verses in 1 Peter!  What is this passage about?  Who are these "spirits in prison"?  What have they got to do with Noah's ark?  And what's the connection with baptism, never mind the resurrection, niteclub culture, judgement day and dead Christians?

As I've frequently said before, one of the keys to properly understand particular verses of the Bible is to set them in their context.  Then we now what the writer was saying to his/her original audience and can discern what universal truths and principles we can apply to our own day.

So let's remember that Simon Peter wrote this letter to 1st century Christians many of whom were facing persecution for their faith. (1 v 6)  He was writing to encourage and instruct them, emphasising their main source of hope as Jesus and His resurrection from the dead (1 v 3). 

No one enjoys pain and suffering and injustice.  We try to strive for peace, justice, and help those in distress and rightly so. But Peter is a realist and knows from his own experience that the world resents truth and holiness therefore authentic followers of Jesus can expect persecution.

Much of the thrust of what Peter has been saying in ch 2 & 3 is that Christians must live exceptionally good lives, working hard, paying taxes, proving faithful, blessing enemies, witnessing for Christ graciously, giving critics no excuse for slander.  Believers should even be willing to suffer "for doing good", suffer unfairly for Christ for after all He suffered unfairly for us, "the righteous for the unrighteous to bring [us] to God" (v18).  The irony is that in the providence and will of God much good can come from such suffering.  The classic example is the Lord Jesus Who in His cross and resurrection offers salvation to the world.  By His wounds we can be healed. And it is this truth, God's ability to bring good out of suffering, that I think Peter is trying to illustrate with these quite difficult verses from 3 v 18 on. Let me try and summarise them under four headings:
Victory
Cleansing
Freedom
Hope.

First of all then a picture of victory in v 18 & 19.  Yes Jesus suffered and died on the cross but God by His Holy Spirit raised Jesus to everlasting life, heavenly glory and authority over angels, authorities and powers (v22).  And somewhere in that progression of His resurrection to His ascension Jesus kicked in the very door of Hell and proclaimed victory over the powers of evil.  These "spirits in prison" are in fact demons, fallen angels.  We know that from 2 Peter 2 v 4 where it says "For God did not spare angels when they sinned but sent them to Hell, putting them in gloomy dungeons to be held for judgement ..." .  The Old Testament reference is Genesis 6 just before the flood when fallen angels mingled with humans resulting in great evil and violence.  Now Jesus Christ since His resurrection is God's appointed judge and His first act in this role was to pronounce sentence on the enemy.

So Jesus' suffering and death was in fact a doorway to resurrection and victory over the powers of evil.  It may look at times in this life that Christians are losers, suffering for their stand but in fact we're on the winning side. 

The second picture is one of cleansing where Peter links the Great Flood to Christian baptism.  The Flood was a judgement, a ruling of God, wherein He punished and cleansed the Earth and yet through the waters of the Flood came Noah's family in the Ark, guided and preserved by God, purified and saved by Him through the same waters which destroyed those outside.  Going under the waters of baptism symbolises dying and rising again, death being God's judgement for sin but cleansing and new life being His free gift to all who trust in Christ. As Peter says in v21 it is not the water or the ritual that is the crucial thing in salvation, but the loving, trusting response of a person whose conscience has been cleansed by God's grace.

For those who are willing to forsake sinful ways and live a life of sacrificial obedience to the Lord, He promises cleansing, rescue, salvation, life.

And this gives us thirdly the opportunity to experience a new kind of freedom.  Non-Christians are bound by worldly ideas and values, ruled by "evil human desires" so it's not really surprising if, given a chance, many indulge in "debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry". (4 v 3)

Sounds just like a niteclub doesn't it?  Where people go to go wild.  And people think that's really free, to do whatever you want but in fact it ends up in bondage, problems of addiction, unplanned pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease not to mention violence, fear, guilt, confusion, disillusionment, cynicism.

But we don't have to be bound by the world's fashions and values.  There's a better kind of freedom in which we live the rest of our earthly lives and all eternity for the will of God.

In Christ's service we discover perfect freedom and with this finally comes hope.  Hope that Jesus Christ is coming soon to judge the living and the dead.  Evil powers and sinful people will be punished forever.  Christians who have suffered persecution and even martyrdom will be vindicated and rise to enjoy eternal life.  That's the context of 4 v 6.  People who had heard the Gospel and been converted and subsequently died, perhaps as martyrs were not to be thought of as losers or beyond hope. No, they were the real winners for although like all human beings they had suffered physical death, in Christ they were assured of receiving from God everlasting life.

So to Christians, this passage says be prepared and willing to sacrifice and even suffer for Jesus, as He Himself did for us for this is in fact the way to victory, cleansing, freedom and hope.  To non-Christians it says simply change, or be a loser forever.

In Christ we're going to win.
To Him be honour and glory.

AMEN