Are you a person in need of encouragement this evening? Maybe for all of us, the answer in some way is, "Yes." If you don't think that you're a person in need of encouragement, you are surely near someone who is, and you will be that person someday soon. I had a professor once tell me in seminary that if you ever need to speak to a crowd of people that you do not know and you want to speak a word that will apply, speak a word of encouragement or comfort. There is a way in which suffering is the universal experience of all, this side of eternity, because we do live in a broken world.
Suffering for Your Faith
And Peter has been particularly talking about a certain type of suffering, suffering because of your faith, suffering because of your stand for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this passage that we're looking at now that's there in your 'Order of Worship' is intended to be a passage of encouragement. And I'm very concerned for us that as we look at this passage, which is a bit of a curious passage, a passage which has been the subject of lots of discussion, that you not lose sight of what the passage is intended to do.
Peter would encourage the people that he's talking to by first pointing to the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, pointing to the Old Testament example of Noah, and then pointing to the work that God is doing in His children in the 'here and now.' And in that way, remind people, not only of their calling as those who are called as God's ambassadors and as His ambassadors, called to experience suffering for the sake of the Gospel, but be reminded of who they are as the children of God. Let me read again for you, beginning with verse 18: 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.
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, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. We were going through this book as a staff this year on Tuesdays, and the person who was leading this said, "I'm very thankful that Paul Tripp is now preaching through First Peter, and he will make words that are hard to understand understandable for us that evening."
Hmmmm! Well, let's look at the passage as I've laid it out. First, the example of Christ, notice what he says, "Christ also suffered." Christ is one with us in this experience. It's wonderful that the One to whom you pray, the One who is your hope in life, the One whose grace you depend upon, walked where you walk, lived where you live, suffered as you suffer. You don't seek the help of one who is unable to understand your experience, but is a fellow sufferer. Jesus, in that way, is an example for us, and the pattern in looking at Christ and looking at Noah is: Christ, by his very life, proclaimed the Gospel, was mocked, and rejected, and suffered, and was vindicated by the power of God.
Noah, by the act of building that ark, believing in the reality of coming judgment, preached the Gospel in his day, and was vindicated by the power of God. And you will be saved by that same God - that's the logic of the passage. But as Peter thinks of Christ as an example, he can't just think of Christ as an example; he immediately thinks of Christ as more than an example; as Christ our substitute. And you have one of the clearest, most crisp statements of the Gospel in all of Scripture in these words, "...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..." and then the passage goes on.
"Christ also suffered once for sins." Christ's sacrifice was the final sacrifice. God sent His Son to be the Lamb, to live a perfect life, to face all the harsh realities of life in a fallen world, to face the full range of temptation, to live through all of that without a sin in word, thought, deed, or desire, and to go to the cross on our behalf, finally making that sacrifice that would be acceptable to God and would finally satisfy His anger. Not with your hands, but with your heart, you should be applauding at this moment.
Once for All
That once-for-all sacrifice is the hope of the universe, no compromises, no deals. Without that Lamb, without that sacrifice, there is no hope for us, because we are born in sin, and we are unable to rescue ourselves; we're unable to achieve acceptance with God. And so he says next, "...the righteous for the unrighteous..." That sacrifice was a substitution; Jesus the Righteous One, who knew no sin, now stands in the place of sinners, and He takes our punishment on His back. He does that so that we might be accepted with God, because we cannot achieve that acceptance, and we cannot, in ourselves, satisfy the demands of God's righteous anger.
And here's what it says: "That He might bring us to God." What's the result of that? The result of that is that we would have a personal relationship with, acceptance with, that holy God, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the Creator of the universe. Sovereign God Almighty by the work of Christ adopts us into His family and actually becomes our Father. Now why would Peter let his telling of the Gospel move to that crescendo? Because these were people who were being mocked and rejected, and he wanted them to reflect on this ultimate, awesome reality of their lives, even though they were misunderstood, even though they were mistreated, even though they were mocked, they had received the most glorious, wonderful acceptance that any human being could ever want: they now had acceptance with God because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I would say to you tonight: you and I must never get used to that. We must never take that for granted. If you're a believer, say to yourself, "God loves me; God has accepted me; God parents me by His wisdom and power and grace! I have been adopted into His family. Praise Him! Praise Him! Praise Him! Praise Him!" May you never take that for granted, because I am persuaded that one of the best defenses against fear of man, one of the best guardians against the idolatry of acceptance and respect that so tempts all of us, is to find rest for your souls in the acceptance of your Father.
You don't need to look for identity; you don't need to look for acceptance; you have identity, and you have acceptance because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise Him! And I don't need to go out there needy, begging for somehow, someway, you to offer me reason and meaning and purpose - I have it in Christ! And, oh, will it hurt when people mock you and reject you? Is that pain real? Well, sure it is because we've been designed for community; we're social beings, and that is painful, and so you need to guard yourself against the temptation to ride the roller coaster of peoples' responses to you, as if the condition of your soul is dependent on that.
It's not, because Christ purchased your acceptance, and that acceptance is eternal. It's not based on what you can do, or you would have done, or you will do. It's based on one thing: the work of Christ! And then Peter reminds us of God's vindication of Christ in the resurrection, "...being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit." Christ the rejected One, Christ, the One who suffered. No greater injustice than that moment when the only perfect Person who ever walked on earth is tortured and killed as a criminal.
But He was vindicated by the power of God, and that One who died on that cross by the power of God, rose again from the grave, vindicated by God's power and God's plan. Then we move to the example of Noah, verses 19 and 20: 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. Now you may have read that verse and thought what in the world is this talking about?
What Is the Writer Trying to Capture?
What in the world is the writer trying to capture? And I think there have been many interpretations of this, people who would say Peter is talking about something Christ did between the cross and the empty tomb, and that's what this is talking about. Well, let me give you what I think Peter is doing here and demonstrate. I think that the operating phrase in this passage that will help us is: "When God's patience waited in the days of Noah." I am persuaded that that's the period of time that's being addressed here.
And the two phrases that go before that - "in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison" and "because they formerly did not obey" - are both defined by that temporal phrase: "when God's patience waited in the days of Noah." What Peter is saying is that it was Christ who preached the Gospel through Noah in the days, those 120 years, when God was being patient as Noah was building that ark and that ark itself being a warning to those people to repent. Now if you remember, and you probably don't, this is exactly the kind of thing that Peter does when he talks about the prophets in verse 11.
He talks about the prophets inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. Peter says, "It was Christ speaking through the prophets who predicted the life of Christ." In the same way, Peter is saying, "It was Christ who was speaking through Noah during this period of time when God was patiently waiting, giving an opportunity for people to repent." Now you say, "Well, why does he call them, 'the spirits in prison?'"
Well, it's really a very common way of speaking. When we talk, we mix history. You'll say, "The queen was born in 1925." You've mixed history, because she wasn't the queen in 1925; but you know that people will understand what you're talking about. You don't have to say, "The person who has now become the queen, but wasn't the queen then, was born in 1925," because you know that people will understand that. And so these people, who were rebellious and mockers and rejected the message of God's servant are now the spirits in prison who are awaiting the final judgment.
And then the passage says, "...while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water." Noah was called to suffer, and that suffering was extensive. It took a long time to build that ark. There was no water; it looked like an act of distinct foolishness; he looked like a crazy man. But he acted on one thing: the command of God. And he believed that God is; he believed that God's Word was true, and he acted accordingly; and by that act, he preached a message of repentance to the people who watched him.
Imagine being that man; imagine what he endured day after day, year after year, decade after decade, until that ark was built and that flood came. And the faith of that man was vindicated by the power of God as Noah and his family alone were saved from the death and destruction of the flood. And that naturally leads Peter to his third point: that you now are being vindicated by the work of God in you and for you. Baptism, which corresponds with 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, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, and authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
What does he mean by, "Baptism...now saving you?" He's talking about what baptism represents. And he says that, he says, "...not as a removal of dirt from the body." He's not talking about the physical act of baptism, that thing itself saving you, but what it represents. And it represents cleansing; it represents inclusion into the people of God, that baptism represents the work of God on our behalf, things that God does for us by His grace that we could never do for ourselves. And then he says of Christ, "who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him."
Jesus Interceding for You
Not only have you been saved, and are you being saved, but Jesus now is in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you. I love what it says in Ephesians, Chapter 1, that Jesus rules over all things for the sake of his body the church. Jesus now exercises His Lordship for you and for me. He rules over every situation, over every location, over every circumstance, and He must rule because His rule guarantees that all that He has promised, and all that He has said He will provide, will be done because He rules every situation and every location where those promises must be fulfilled.
Your Savior is now Lord and rules on your behalf! And you need not doubt, and you need not be afraid because He will complete His work! There'll be a day when the mockery will end. There'll be a day when there'll be no more torture, and no more rejection, and no more suffering, and no more sadness, and you will live with Him forever. And He will not relent; He will not sit down; He will not quit; He will not rest until that work is complete in every one of His children. He reigns; He reigns on our behalf.
I would ask you this evening: when you're discouraged, what do you do? Head for more chocolate? I'm serious. Cut open the tube of chocolate chip cookie dough and try to numb yourself with sweets? Turn on the television and watch for hours, hoping you can escape your discouragement? Question the love and faithfulness of God? Give yourself to victim themes, repeating to yourself how unusually hard your life has been, harder than anybody you know? What do you do when you're discouraged? This is your model: you encourage yourself with the example of Christ, with the substitutionary work of Christ on your behalf.
You encourage yourself with the Gospel. You encourage yourself with the legacy of the people of God, story after story of how God rescued and vindicated His people by His power. And you encourage yourself with the reality of the redemption that is now going on for you right now. Yes, you are saved, but you are being saved, and you will be saved, and you remember that you are never alone, but you have been drawn into the family of God, and King Christ now rules on your behalf. In a word, when you're discouraged, do you preach yourself the Gospel?
Do you seek someone who will preach to you the Gospel? Or do you go somewhere else? As long as you are living in this fallen world, as long as suffering exists, you are a person in need of the Gospel. There's never a day in your life where you don't need the Gospel. And may God make us people who run to the Gospel, who run to the Gospel, who run to the Gospel. There find our hope, there find our encouragement, there find reason to continue, in Christ and His work in us and His work for us. Let's pray: Thank you, Lord, for the truth of Your Word.
Thank you that there is no encouragement more powerful than the encouragement of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to remember who we are in Christ, to remember Your substitutionary work, to remember our adoption, to remember Your position at the right hand of the Father now, to remember how that, again and again, you've vindicated the faith of Your people by Your power. And may we live as people of courage and hope who, even in the darkest of circumstances, stand and move forward, not because we're strong, and not because we're able, but because we've found hope in You. In Jesus's name, Amen.
