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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - 1 Peter 3:18 - 3:18
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1Pe 3:18. Ὄτι, because) That is better, by means of which we are rendered more like to Christ, in death and in life: for His passion brought the best issue (result) to Himself, and the best fruit to us.-Χριστὸς, Christ) The Holy One of the holy. These are neatly turned expressions: Christ for sins, the just for the unjust.-ἅπαξ, once only) never again to suffer hereafter. It is better for us also to suffer once with Christ, than for ever without Christ.-περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν, for sins) just as though He Himself had committed them.-ἔπαθε, suffered) and that too in such a way, that His enemies slew Him on account of His confession. But His preaching was not thereby hindered; for He discharged that office, both before the day of His death, and on the day of His death, and immediately after His death.-δίκαιος, the Just) [Who has accomplished good for us in a most pre-eminent way, 1Pe 3:17.-V. g.] Why should we not suffer on account of justice? 1Pe 3:14.-ἵνα ἡμᾶς προσαγάῃ, that He might bring us) that He Himself, when He departed to the Father, might justify us, who had been alienated from God, and might bring us to heaven (1Pe 3:22) together with Himself, by the same steps of humiliation and exaltation which He Himself passed through. From this word as far as ch. 1Pe 4:6, Peter closely connects together the path or progress of Christ and the faithful (by which path he himself also was following his Lord, according to His prediction, Joh 13:36), intertwining therewith the unbelief and punishment of the many.-τῷ Θεῷ, to God) who willed it. More is signified by the Dative than if he had used a Preposition [πρὸς Θεὸν], unto God.-θανατωθεὶς, being slain by death) as though He now had no existence. Peter shows us how our προσαγωγὴ, access to God, was effected.-σαρκὶ, in the flesh) The flesh and the spirit do not properly denote the human and divine nature of Christ: comp. ch. 1Pe 4:6; but either of them, so far as it is the principle and fixed condition of life, and of the working which is in conformity with it, whether it be among mortals, of however righteous a character it may be; or with God, even that which is in glory: Rom 1:4, note. To the former state the soul in the body is more adapted; to the latter, the soul either out of the body, or when united with the glorified and spiritual body: 1Co 15:44.-ζωοποιηθεὶς, quickened) This process of quickening ought to be explained as antithetical to that of being put to death. As to the rest, Christ having life in Himself, and being Himself the life, neither ceased, nor a second time began, to live in spirit: but no sooner had He by the process of death been released from the infirmity which encompassed Him in the flesh, than immediately (as illustrious divines acknowledge) the energy of His imperishable life began to exert itself in new and most prompt modes of action. Wisely therefore does Hauber refer the burial of our Redeemer in some way to His exaltation, in the Contemplations about the Burial of Jesus Christ, p. 8. Comp. the dissertation of Essenius, p. 10. This quickening, and in connection with it His going and preaching to the spirits, was of necessity quickly followed by the raising of His body from the dead, and His resurrection from the tomb, 1Pe 3:21. Christ liveth unto God, Rom 6:10. Comp. the phrase according to God, ch. 1Pe 4:6. The discourse of our Lord, John 6., which Peter had received in a becoming manner, Joh 6:68, had been fixed in the heart of Peter; and with that portion, and especially Joh 6:51; Joh 6:53; Joh 6:62-63, may be compared that which Peter writes, 1Pe 1:2; 1Pe 1:19; 1Pe 3:18; 1Pe 3:22; 1Pe 4:1.