Partakers of His Victory

A. Intro: The Gift of a Hard-to-Understand Text

The passage we come to today is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, passages to understand in the entire New Testament.

And before we even get into it, I thought it might be helpful to ask “why?” As in, why would God inspire a passage that is so hard to understand? What’s his purpose here? What can we learn from the simple fact that some parts of the Bible are tougher to understand than others?

I want to answer those questions by pointing to three opportunities that a passage like this presents to us.

1. First, this passage gives us an opportunity to love God with our minds. God gave us brains—they are an important part of who we are. Jesus highlighted this part of us when he said the greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). And one of the best ways we can love God with our mind is by thinking deeply and carefully about His word.

Which means that a passage which is hard to understand, like this one, gives us a unique opportunity to display our love for God though hard thinking. The ache in your brain is one of the ways you say “I love you” to the Person who gave you that brain, as you work hard to think His thoughts after Him.

2. Second, a passage like this is a good opportunity for humility. I knew right away this week that I needed help. I needed help from other scholars, people who had studied this passage for a lot longer than me, and also from the Holy Spirit. When we come up against passages that we don’t understand right away it’s a good reminder that we don’t know everything or have everything all figured out.

It’s good to have things fly over our heads from time to time—it makes us look up and reminds us that there’s a whole world up there. We might not need to live in that world all the time, but we also shouldn’t pretend that the world is limited to the things we’ve been able to figure out.

3. Third, this passage reminds us of our place. Here’s what I mean by that: I don’t think this passage was nearly as hard to understand for the original readers of Scripture. One of the things we’ll discover today is that Peter thinks in categories that the early Christians probably had an easier time grasping than we do, almost two thousand years later.

It’s a good reminder that while the Bible was written for us, it was not written to us. Peter didn’t address this letter to Emmanuel Baptist Church in Nipawin. He wrote it to a group of Christians living near the south coast of the Black Sea in modern-day Turkey. And properly understanding the Bible means that we have to try to understand how those people thought in order to understand what this means for us today.

I wonder how many other parts of the Bible require something similar, but too often we assume we know what a passage means and rush on without carefully considering what the human author meant to his original audience. That’s a really important step we need to take before we consider what God is saying through that human author to you and I today.

More could be said, but there’s at least three key reminders that a passage like this gives us before we even dive in. So, let’s love God and embrace humility as we do our best to grasp what God has said to us here.

B. Big Idea: Better to Suffer for Doing Good Than Evil (v. 17)

Let’s start by remembering the context, which means, the stuff that Peter has already said. In last week’s passage he was preparing his readers for the experience of suffering for doing good. And he ended with an important reminder that, as they answer their enemies, they need to be gentle and keep a clean conscience, so that, whatever bad things their enemies say, none of it will ever be true.

And in verse 17 he explains why with a reason: “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil” (1 Peter 3:17). Here’s why you need to speak gently and keep a clean conscience. Here’s why you need to make sure you don’t give your enemies any ammunition. Because if it’s God’s will for you to suffer for doing good, that’s better than suffering for doing evil.

This is basically what he told slaves up in chapter 2: “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God” (1 Peter 2:20). And now he’s repeating it for all of us to remember.

This is so important for us to keep in mind as we go in to the rest of the passage here. This is the big idea. This is the pastoral burden on Peter’s heart behind everything else he shares. This is a key to unlocking this passage. He wants to help his readers suffer well and know that it’s better to suffer for doing good than doing evil.

C. The Example: Christ

Now you might ask: “Why? Suffering for doing what’s good doesn’t sound all that great. Shouldn’t things go well for me if I do good? Why is this better?”

The answer that Peter gave to slaves up in chapter 2 was that suffering for doing good is what we’ve been called to as we follow in Christ’s footsteps, who suffered for doing good.

And that’s exactly the same point Peter makes down here in verse 18 as he introduces us to the example of Christ. And the first component in Christ’s example is innocent suffering.

1. Innocent suffering

Why is it better to suffer for doing good? “For” or “because,” “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” (1 Peter 3:18).

Notice that word “also” at the beginning. Christians suffering innocently can remember that Christ also suffered innocently. He suffered, though He was righteous. This is a reason for us to embrace innocent suffering. Our suffering is like His.

At the same time, there are some key ways in which our suffering is not like His at all, and this passage also speaks to them in a powerful way. First, notice how Peter says “Christ.” This is not a name—it’s a title. “Christ” basically meant “king” to the Hebrew people. Jesus was not just a man but God’s anointed ruler, destined to reign over all things as the Son of God.

And this Christ suffered once for sins. This is language that comes from the Old Testament which speaks about a sacrificial death. Animals died for sin, which means that the animals died instead of the person who committed the sin. This is reinforced by the next phrase in our verse which says “the righteous for the unrighteous.”

You and I are unrighteous. We have hell to pay, literally, for all of our pride and rebellion against God. But Christ, the perfectly righteous one, suffered for our sins. He died as our substitute, instead of us, fully absorbing the judgement and wrath that our sins deserve.

And unlike the animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant, Jesus’ death pays for our sin once and for all. That word “once” is so important because it shows the ultimate finality of Christ’s death. Nothing more can be added to what He did, and nothing can be taken away. It was a perfect, once-for-all sacrifice that has paid for us effectively and permanently.

“Christ … suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous.”

The Goal of His Suffering

And what was the goal of His death? What did it accomplish? Peter makes sure that we know Christ’s death wasn’t just an example. It was so much more than that. It effectively accomplished something.

And what did it accomplish? Many things, no doubt. Christ’s death paid for our sins, bought us forgiveness, satisfied the judgement of God. But what makes all of that good news? Why is it good to have our sins paid for? Why is it good to be forgiven? Why is it good to have God’s judgement removed from us? The answer is that we can be reconciled to God. As Peter says here, Christ died for us “That he might bring us to God.”

Jesus didn’t just die so we could get out of hell and go on our merry way. He died to bring us back to what we were made for: relationship with our Creator. We were made for God. And so often when Christians talk about our sins “separating us from God,” we use that as a polite way of avoiding the word “hell.”

But truthfully, if we really knew God in all of his glory, and if we loved Him as He deserves, then the thought of being separated from Him for all eternity would be hell. We were made for God. In His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). And Christ died to bring us to God, that we might enter into and share in the love and joy of God forever (John 17:26).

This is such a beautiful and crucial way of understanding the gospel, and I encourage you to memorize these words. They are your life.

And think of how these words speak comfort to suffering Christians. When we suffer, one of the great ways Satan tempts us it to make us feel like God has abandoned us. Or that this suffering is his judgement on us. That He either hates us, or that we are truly alone in the universe. But when we remember that Christ’s death has effectively brought us to God, we know that no suffering can separate us from His love.

And so we can suffer like Jesus. Think of Jesus praying to His father in the garden, or crying out in lament on the cross. Or committing His spirit into His Father’s hands as He breathed His last. Jesus suffered knowing that this was all a part of His Father’s good plan, and this would not ultimately keep them apart.

And so as we suffer, knowing Christ suffered to bring us to God, we can suffer in faith as we trust in the God who has not forsaken us. Think of Jesus in the garden The fact that Christ died to bring us to God provides the foundation for us to suffer well, and to even enjoy the fellowship of sufferings with Jesus as we take up our crosses and follow Him on the bloody road to Calvary.

2. Victorious Resurrection

But suffering is not all there is to the story. There’s a J-Curve shape to Christ’s life. His descent to death was not the end. There’s a victory on the other side.

As verse 18 goes on to say, “being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). “Put to death in the flesh” is clearly talking about His physical body dying. He really died. But that wasn’t the end, because he was, as the ESV says, “made alive in the spirit.”

Now this is one of those phrases that arouses a ton of questions. Some people think this is talking about what happened to Jesus in between his death and resurrection. Perhaps it’s because they hear “spirit” and think about the unseen part of us, divorced from our bodies, which lives on after death.

But that’s not what is going on here, for a few reasons. First, Jesus’ spirit didn’t die, and so it would make no sense for Peter to talk about Jesus’ spirit being made alive. Second, time and time again in the New Testament, this verb “made alive” is uses to speak about Christ’s resurrection. If we were just to read these words, “being put to death in the flesh but made alive,” we would just know this is talking about his resurrection. And so it is.

But what’s going on with those words “in the spirit”? What’s the meaning of those words? And I think there’s two suggestions that can be made. The first is that “Spirit” speaks about the new resurrection life that Jesus was raised to, the firstfruits of the New Creation, an era marked by the operation of the Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 15:44-46, Paul talks about our resurrection bodies as being “spiritual” bodies, not that they are not physical or not real, but that they have been raised by and empowered by the Holy Spirit and exist in the new creation era dominated by the power of the Spirit.

So that’s one option. The second option required that we understand that the sense of the original language doesn’t demand the word “in.” What Peter wrote in the Greek language can just as easily be translated as “by.” “Made alive by the Spirit.” And that’s actually how both the NJKV and the CSB translate this phrase. This is also an idea we see elsewhere in the New Testament—that Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit (Romans 8:11).

Either way we understand it, I’m suggesting that we should make the “Spirit” in this verse a capital-S Spirit. The Holy Spirit. Again, that’s how translations like the NIV and KJV and CSB do it. And whether we understand this to mean that Christ was raised from the dead in the new creation realm dominated by the Spirit, or that He was raised by the Spirit, it’s almost certain that “made alive in the Spirit” is talking about Christ’s resurrection from the dead. He died, and He rose again.

This means that 1 Peter 3:18 is one of the best single-verse summaries of the gospel in the Bible. “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” (1 Peter 3:18).

And can you see how that is not just true, but fits wonderfully with Peter’s message to his readers? Yes, they might suffer with Christ, but that suffering is not the end. Christ’s enemies did not have the last word. He was vindicated by the Spirit, as 1 Timothy 3:16 says, when He was raised from the dead. And because we’ve been born again to a living hope through Christ’s resurrection, that His resurrection will be ours, and that even if Jesus’ enemies hate and kill us, Jesus will have the final word as we rise to new life with Him.

3. Triumphant Proclamation

But that’s not all. The tall side of the J-curve keeps rising into the next phrase in verse 19 and the first part of verse 20, which reads like this: “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” (1 Peter 3:19–20).

Ok. These are some of the really tough words we need to untangle in this passage. And it will be worth it. We need to dig, but there’s some real gold beneath the surface.

Let’s start by considering who “the spirits in prison” are. We might think of human spirits when we think about this, but in the New Testament, “the spirits” without any additional modifying words never refers to human spirits. “Spirits,” plural, like we see here, almost always refers to angelic or especially demonic spirits.

So if we read this verse with the rest of the New Testament in mind, we’re probably going to think that these spirits are supernatural beings. And that makes sense when we consider that these “spirits” are said to be “in prison,” because—verse 20—“they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, when the ark was being prepared.”

What do we know about spirits who disobeyed in the days of Noah? And to help answer that question, I invite you to turn to Genesis 6. Jordan preached on this verse just over a year ago but it will be helpful for us to review: “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown” (Genesis 6:1–4).

“Sons of God” is a term used throughout the Bible to refer to powerful angelic beings who have power and authority in this universe under God’s rule. Job 1 says “there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord.” Psalm 82 refers to this divine council of small-g gods when it says “you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you” (Psalm 82:6). And Genesis 6 describes some of these supernatural rulers being consumed with lust for human women, and abandoning their God-given role by taking on human form and having children with these women.

And this was the abomination that triggered God’s declaration in verse 3 that man had about 120 years left, which probably refers to the time of waiting before the flood. Verse four speaks about the Nephilim, the offspring of these sickening unions, who were giants and heroes in the ancient world.

Now modern people are uncomfortable with this, and some Bible scholars try to rescue the Bible from God by inventing all kinds of creative ways around the basic meaning of this passage. Modern people are uncomfortable with this because we’ve bought into the modern lie that what we can see with our eyes is all that there is, that our world can be explained by us perfectly, and that if we can’t explain something with science, it must not exist. We’ve bought into the lie that we’re so much smarter than the ancient people, and that they had to invent these myths to explain the things they didn’t understand.

But the truth, testified in Scripture and which I think we all know deep down inside, is that we live in an enchanted world. We live in a haunted cosmos, as one author has put it. We live in a world in which God presides over a divine counsel of powerful beings, good and evil, who all report to him. We live in a world in which powers, good and evil, wrestle with each other for control over territory and nations, like we read in Daniel 10. We live in the world described by 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.”

That’s real, brothers and sisters. We live in a world shaped by invisible empires. This was just normal to Paul to think in this way. Think of how the author of Hebrews encourages Christians to show hospitality to strangers. If you were going to tell Christians why they should welcome strangers into their homes, what would you say? Here’s how Hebrews 13:2 puts it: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

I had an encounter with an angel when I was 9 or 10, and I’m not embarrassed to say that, because this isn’t woo-woo stuff. This is basic Bible stuff. We live in a world where angels with flaming swords guarded the Garden of Eden, and armies of them showed up to celebrate with some shepherds when the Messiah is finally born. We live in a world where Michael and Gabriel aren’t just names but are real beings, and are doing something, somewhere, right now, as surely as we’re sitting in this room together.

And we live in a world in which, early in its history, some of these powerful spirits left their proper place and had giant offspring with human wives, and in response God destroys the earth with a flood, like we see in Genesis 6. That might seem strange to us, but it was not strange to Peter. This was a mainstream belief in his day.

Jude 6 refers to this idea when it says, “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—” (Jude 6). And Peter himself actually refers to this in 2 Peter 2:4 when he writes, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;” (2 Peter 2:4).

So that’s what’s going on here in 1 Peter 3:19. These are the spirits who were in prison because of their disobedience in the days of Noah. Dark and lustful powers awaiting judgement as the centuries and millennia went by.

And these are the spirits whom the risen Lord Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, goes to proclaim his victory over. That’s what’s going on here. This is not Jesus in hell before his resurrection. This is Jesus, after His resurrection, perhaps in connection with His ascension, going to this gloomy prison by the Spirit to declare His victory over these rebellious powers.

Notice how verse 19 says “in which he went and proclaimed.” This is another reason to understand the “spirit” in verse 18 as the Holy Spirit, because then verse 19 is saying that Jesus went to this prison in the Spirit. Several times in the Scripture we find the Holy Spirit taking people and bringing them to where they otherwise would not go. Sometimes this happens in a supernatural way, where the Spirit picks someone up and brings them somewhere totally different (1 Kings 18:12; 2 Kings 2:16; Ezekiel 3:12, 14; 8:3; 11:1, 24; 43:5).

Sometimes the Spirit brings someone somewhere in a more natural way, like in Matthew 4:1 where “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” And I highlight that verse because it’s such a great contrast to our passage. Think about Jesus, in weakness, was led by the Spirit into the wild places to face off with the devil. And though the devil had his hour (Luke 22:53), in his death Jesus triumphs over the dark forces, disarming them and putting them to open shame like Colossians 2:15 says. These prideful powers have been humiliated by the victory of God’s son. And now the Spirit raises Jesus up in power, and in the Spirit Jesus goes to the place of imprisonment to make sure that they know he’s won as he personally announces their defeat and his total victory over them.

Imagine this scene playing out on a human level. Imagine the hero of the story, right after his moment of triumph, walking into the visiting room of a dingy maximum-security prison. The villain comes out, seething, unrepentant, chains rattling on the floor. They pick up the phones on either side of the glass and lock eyes as the hero says, “I just came here today to tell you that I’ve won.” And he puts down the phone and walks out.

Wouldn’t that give you shivers? And that’s just a tiny picture of the drama playing out here. And is it any wonder why Peter points to these truths in this context? The Jesus we follow is not just a Jesus who suffered unjustly. He’s also a Jesus who was raised by the Spirit and who has triumphed over all the powers opposed to him.

And so as we follow in His steps, enduring suffering like Him, we know that we’ll share not only in His suffering but also in his victory.

Think of it another way: Nero and the mighty Roman Empire was just a front, a puppet state, for the unseen forces who are the real rulers of this fallen world. And Jesus towers above them all, counting the days until all opposition to Him is crushed forever.

So yes, it’s better to suffer for doing good than evil. As we suffer with Christ, so shall we reign with Him (2 Tim 2:12).

4. Exalted Ascension (v. 22)

Now, our passage goes on to talk more about what happened in the days of Noah, and what that has to do with baptism, and trust me—it’s all connected. But it’s a little much for some sermon. So we’re going to come back to verses 20 and 21 next week. For today, let’s look down to verse 22, where this section is rounded out by Peter by speaking about Christ’s exalted ascension. Right at the end of verse 21 we hear about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and then verse 22, “who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”

Jesus is the king of kings, and not just the ones we can see with our eyes. The capital-S son of God has ascended and taken His throne at the head of the divine counsel, and every small-s son of God, every angelic authority, every demonic power structure, is under his feet, and must bow to His reign and authority.

Yes, we live in a universe inhabited by angels, authorities and powers—and yes, they’ve all been subjected to Jesus Christ. See, that’s why all of this talk about powers and angels doesn’t make us superstitious or fearful. We need to reckon with how powerful the spirit world is—because it only elevates Christ who is greater still.

And so, brothers and sisters, what do we do with a passage like this? We believe it! We believe it when our own hardship and suffering threatens to choke our faith. We believe it when fear of being on the outside makes us want to hide our faith in Christ. We believe it when we feel tempted to lash out and repay evil for evil. We believe it every step of the long, hard road as we carry our crosses behind Christ.

We believe it when the darkness feels like it’s going to win. We remember that, as great as the darkness is, Christ is greater by far. As powerful as the darkness is, Christ has conquered it all. As black as the grave is, the light of Christ will shine. On the other side of every death is life, victorious, eternal, everlasting.

We will suffer in this life. We will suffer at the hands of humans. We will suffer by the malice of dark forces. Some of that suffering we may taste this very week. And none of this is reason to fear. As Charles Simon said in a letter to his friend, “My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory.”¹H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.

And so we’re going to end today by singing these words together, in the face of whatever faces us in the hours and days ahead:
“Though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us…

Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever!”