Analysis:—Further exhortation to readiness of suffering in consideration of a deeper motive. Only thus do we attain to resembling Christ, who suffered for our sins, whose sufferings had every where, even in the world of the dead, salutary effects, and led to the most blessed issue
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might 19bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By20which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 21The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: 22Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Pe_3:18. Because Christ also suffered.—If, according to our ideas, any one ought to have been spared the cup of suffering, it was Christ; but He also suffered on account of sins and for their atonement.
Once, cf. Rom_6:10; Heb_7:27; Heb_9:7.—It requires not to be repeated and as compared with eternity, it is a short suffering, being compressed into the space of several years and days. It probably relates to the exhortation which follows that we also should once for all die unto sin, 1Pe_4:1. (Lachmann reads:
ðåñὶ ἁìáñôéῶí ἡìῶí ἀðÝèáíåí
.).—
ðåñὶ ἁìáñôéῶí
, on account of sins, cf. 1Pe_2:24; Rom_8:3. Sins were the originating cause of His sufferings and their blotting out His aim.
A just person for (in the stead of) unjust persons.—
äßêáéïò ὑðὲñ ἀäßêùí
. Although
ὑðÝñ
per se may be rendered “for the benefit of,” yet both the circumstance that the context opposes one innocent person to many guilty persons and the word
ðñïóÜãåéí
clearly express the idea of vicarious suffering; for
ðñïóÜãåéí
relates to Christ’s office of High-priest. Defilement by sin under the Old Testament barred all approach to God; the Priest had the privilege to draw near to God and to mediate the people’s approach to Him. This is rendered in the LXX. by
ðñïóÜãåéí
. Vide Weiss, cf.
ðñïóÝñ÷åóèáé
1Pe_2:4.—The word
ἅðáî
confirms this view, cf. Heb_9:27-28.—The repeated reference to the sufferings of Christ shows in the opinion of Gerhard, that the Apostle cannot weary to make mention of His sufferings, hence he calls himself 1Pe_5:1, a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
Put to death indeed in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.—
Èáíáôùèåßò
is best joined to
ðñïóÜãåéí
. The restoration of men to the lost communion with God is conditioned by the sacrificial death of Christ, by His resurrection and royal power.—
æùïðïéåῖí
not =
ἐãåßñåéí
, cf. Joh_5:21; Rom_8:11; 1Co_15:22.—
óáñêß
,
ðíåýìáôé
; the two Datives denote the sphere to which the predicate must be supposed to be limited, cf. Winer, § 41, 3. a. The Datives are evidently parallel and must be taken in the same sense. The sense of the first is clear: He was put to death as to His outward, sensuous nature. If this is established, it is impossible to interpret the second member as follows: He was made alive by the spirit that had been given to Him, by the higher divine part of His nature. Weiss:—The parallelism indicated by
ìÝí
and
äÝ
, rather requires us to render, “as to His Spirit He was made alive,” (animated.). Death hardly affected the spirit and soul of Christ, but both at the moment of Christ’s dying were for a short time put into a state of unconsciousness. But hardly had Christ surrendered His spirit into the hands of the Father, when the Divine Spirit filled and penetrated Him with a new Divine life. Flacius already observes: “the antithesis clearly shows that Christ was put to death as to one part of His nature, but made alive as to another. It is a modus loquendi taken from or alluding to the universal lot of the godly, cf. Gen_45:27; 1Th_3:8. Roos:—“His soul, for its great refreshing, was endued with and penetrated by heavenly strength.” Others take the view that His death ensued in virtue of the weakness inherent in the flesh, His reanimation in virtue of the strength peculiar to the Spirit, cf. 2Co_13:4. But
èáíáôùèåßò
; does not well suit this interpretation, which is somewhat forced. [Luther: “This is the meaning, that Christ by His sufferings was taken from the life which is flesh and blood, as a man on earth, living, walking and standing in flesh and blood and He is now placed in another life, and made alive according to the spirit, has passed into a spiritual and supernatural life, which includes in itself the whole life which Christ now has in soul and body, so that He has no longer a fleshly but a spiritual body.” Hoffman, Schriftbeweiss 2, 337, says: “It is the same who dies and the same who is again made alive, both times the whole man Jesus, in body and soul. He ceases to live in that that, which is to His Personality the medium of action, falls under death; and He begins again to live, in that He receives back this same for a medium of His action again. The life which fell under death was a fleshly life, that is, such a life as has its determination to the present condition of man’s nature, to the externality of its mundane connection. The life which was won back is a spiritual life, that is, such a life as has its determination from the Spirit, in which consists our inner connection with God.”—M.] [Wordsworth: “St. Peter thus guards his readers against the heresy of Simon Magus, and the Docetæ who said that Christ’s flesh was a phantom; and against that of the Cerinthians, and other false teachers, whose errors were propagated in Asia, who alleged that the Christ was only an Aeon or Emanation, which descended on the Man Jesus, at His Baptism, but departed from Him before His Passion.”—M.]
1Pe_3:19. In which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.—
Ἐí ᾦ
is evidently to be joined with
ðíåýìáôé
, not=
äéὰ ðíåýìáôïò
, but really in the condition of a spirit separated from the body. Bengel:—”Christ dealt with the living in the body, with the spirits in the spirit.”—
êáὶ ôïῖò ἐí öõëáêῇ
.—
êáß
=even to the spirits in prison He did preach; so great was His condescension and so far reached the consequences of His voluntary, vicarious sufferings. As Paul the Apostle, Eph_4:9-10, adverts to the descent of Christ to the lowest parts of the earth, doubtless in close connection with the exhortation, cf. 1Pe_5:2, and with the evident meaning that the example of Christ should move believers to descend to the weakest and most abandoned persons, of whose salvation none entertained any hope, so here the descent of Christ to the world of departed spirits occurs in connection with the preceding exhortations to perseverance in well-doing and suffering.—
ἐí öõëáêᾖ
not=in the realms of death, for the word always denotes a custody, a place of confinement, a prison, Rev_20:7; Mat_5:25; Mat_14:3; Mat_18:30; Mat_25:36; Mar_6:17; Mar_6:27; Luk_2:8; Luk_12:58; Luk_21:12; Luk_23:19; Joh_3:24; Act_5:19; Act_8:3; 2Co_6:5; Heb_11:36; consequently it has not the abstract sense of being bound. But this prison must be in the realms of death, cf. 2Pe_2:4; Judges 6; Mat_5:25-26. This evidently follows also from the comparison with 1Pe_4:6. That it is not a mere condition, but a locality in Hades, is manifest both from
ðïñåõèåßò
, for one does not go, i. e., travel into a condition, and from the parallel
ðïñåõèåὶò åἰò ïὐñáíüí
of 1Pe_3:22. As heaven is a definite locality, so is the netherworld (Hades).—The power of the death and life of Christ operates in two directions, downwards to the realms of death, and upward to the higher regions of heaven.—
ἐêÞñõîå
. Gerhard takes it not so much of verbal as of real preaching, as in Heb_12:24, not in order to liberate them or to give them time for repentance, but in order to show His glorious victory to the spirits of the damned. But the usus loquendi of
êçñýôôåéí
, and 1Pe_4:6, which should be connected with the passage under notice, militate against his view. The word occurs joined with
ôὸ åὐáããÝëéïí
in Mat_4:23; Mat_9:35; Mar_1:14; Mar_16:15. Where it is found alone, it is understood that the chief burden of His preaching was: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come nigh, repent and believe the Gospel, Mar_1:38; Mar_1:15; Mat_3:1; Mat_4:17; Mat_9:35. It was just this kind of testimony which was to constitute the sum and substance of Apostolical preaching, Mat_10:7; Mat_24:14; Mar_3:14; Mar_6:12; Mar_13:10; Luk_9:2; Act_9:20; Act_10:42-43; 1Co_1:23; Php_1:15 : 2Ti_4:2. It is never used of judicial preaching. It is, therefore, by no means so indefinite an expression as Bengel supposes, but one which has a very definite meaning; further light, moreover, is shed on it by
åὐçããåëßóèç
of 1Pe_4:6. The unequivocal sense is: Jesus proclaimed to those spirits in the prisons of Hades the beginning of a new epoch of grace, the appearance of the kingdom of God, and repentance and faith as the means of entering into the same.
1Pe_3:20. Now follows a further definition. They are men, who once were unbelivers, in the time of Noah. Their having repented on seeing the flood break in, or during the long interval until the coming of Christ, is a gratuitous and arbitrary conjecture. Their unbelief was practical, exhibited by their disobedience, for so Peter invariably takes
ἀðåéèåῖí
, cf. 1Pe_2:7. They ridiculed the prediction of the coming floods and despised the exhortation to repent.
When the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few persons, that is eight souls, were saved by water.—
ἈðåîåäÝ÷åôï
(The Text. Rec. had
ἅðáî ἑîåäÝ÷åôï
, but our reading is doubtless correct.), the goodness of God, exhibited as
ìáêñïèõìßá
, in the long postponement of punishment and judgment, and the waiting for amendment;
ðïôå
cannot be separated without violence from the following
ἐí ἡìÝñáéò Íῶå
. It waited 120 years for repentance, Gen_6:3.—Since Noah was a preacher of righteousness in word and deed to his contemporaries, 2Pe_2:5, and since the difficult building of his floating house, covering so long a space of time, ought to have excited their serious consideration, their unbelief appears so much the more culpable.—
êéâùôüò
=
úֵּáָä
, the well-known name of the ark, cf. Mat_24:38; Luk_17:27; Heb_11:7.—
êáôáóêåõáæïìÝíçò
, denotes the difficulty and long duration of the building which was progressing in their sight.—
åἰò ἣí ὀëßãáé
, into which a few souls fled, and were saved, through, and by means of, the water.
äéÜ
suggests both ideas in connection with the comparison with baptism which follows.
A few persons, put designedly, not only because, as Steiger remarks, this narrative shows per se the relation of believers and unbelievers, but also because the fact itself supplies the strongest motive for Christ’s descent into the realms of death, as an act demanded by the grace of God. Only eight souls were saved in the deluge—many thousands and thousands, who were very diverse as to their moral condition, perished; how conclusive, therefore, the inference that that event took place in the world of spirits, which Peter, however, knew, not from inferences he had drawn, but doubtless in consequence of a special revelation. As the time of Noah was elsewhere viewed as an important type of after-times, cf. 2Pe_2:5; 2Pe_3:6-7; Mat_24:37, etc., so here also it ought to be taken in a typical sense, while the activity of Jesus ought not to be considered as being limited to the generation of Noah. By the example of Noah’s family, Peter was taught the dealings of God with all men, who, without any fault of theirs, have not known the salvation in Christ. This passage of Christ’s descent into Hades belongs to those which have suffered most from the treatment of commentators. Some distorted the preaching of Christ into mediate preaching by Noah or the Apostles, others into preaching, which, although having taken place immediately in the realms of death, was yet confined to the godly only. Steiger has enumerated their vagaries; they carry their confutation within themselves, and rest, one and all, on dogmatical embarrassment. Our explanation is supported by many passages, e. g., Act_2:27; Act_2:31; Psa_16:10; Eph_4:8; Act_13:35; Act_13:37; Act_2:24; Luk_23:46; Mar_15:37; Mar_15:39; Php_2:10; Luk_16:19. Cf. Koenig, Christ’s Descent into Hell; Güder, Doctrine of Christ’s Appearing among the Dead; Zezschwiz, Petri ap. de Christi ad inferos descensu sententia; Herzog, Real-Encyclopædie, Art. Hades; [and the Excursus on the Descensus ad Inferos at the end of this section.—M.]
[Wordsworth:—”St. Peter’s Epistle was probably written in the East (see 1Pe_3:13). There the belief in two opposite principles, (dualism), a Good and Evil, was widely disseminated by the religion of Zoroaster, and by the Magi of Persia (see Psa_45:3; Psa_45:7). There also the Ark rested after the waters of the Flood.
The author of this Epistle, written in the East, may have heard the objection raised, on the history of the Flood, against the Divine Benevolence and the Unity of the Godhead, and he appears to be answering such objections as those, and to be vindicating that history. He shows the harmony of God’s dispensations, Patriarchal and Evangelical. He teaches us to behold in the Ark a type of the Church, and in the Flood a type of Baptism. He thus refutes the Manichæan heresy. He says that God was merciful, even to that generation. He speaks of God’s long-suffering, waiting for them while the Ark was preparing. He states boldly the objection, that few, only eight souls, were saved in the Ark, and contrasts the condition of those who were drowned in the Flood with the condition of those who have now offers of salvation in Baptism. He says that the rest disobeyed while the Ark was preparing. He uses the Aorist tense (
ἀðåéèÞóáóé
). He does not say, when the Ark had been prepared, and when the Ark was shut, and when the Flood came, and it was too late for them to reach it, they all remained impenitent. Perhaps some were penitent at the eleventh hour, like the thief on the cross. Every one will be justly dealt with by God. There are degrees of punishment, as there are of reward (see Mat_10:15; Luk_12:48). God does not quench the smoking flax (Mat_12:20). And St. Peter, by saying that they did not hearken formerly, while the Ark was preparing, almost seems to suggest the inference that they did hearken now, when One greater than Noah came in His human spirit into the abysses of the deep of the lower world, and that a happy change was wrought in the condition of some among them by His coming.”—M.]
1Pe_3:21. Which, in the antitype, is now saving us.—
ὅ êáὶ ἡìᾶò
(The Textus. Rec. reads
ᾦ
, an easier reading. Lachmann reads
ὑìᾶò
instead of
ἡìᾶò
; so also Tischendorf;) resumes 1Pe_3:18, after the Apostle’s manner of returning after a parenthesis, to what had gone before, and by making it the subject of further elucidation, cf. 1Pe_2:24; 1Pe_2:21. The thoughts now mentioned are by no means accidental, and such as might have, been omitted, but the
ðñïóÜãåéí
of 1Pe_3:18 remained to be explained, as to the manner how it was effected, viz.: by baptism, whereof that saving water was a type.—
ὅ
relates to
ὕäùñ
, similar to the members of Noah’s family.—
áíôßôõðïí
, antitypal, in the antitype, that is, as baptism. Two appositions to
ὕäùñ
. The water of the flood is here viewed only in the light of having been saving to Noah and his family, inasmuch as it carried the ark.—
óþæåé
, the Present is used because the saving has only begun and is not yet completed.
Not putting-away the filth of the flesh, but inquiry of a good conscience after God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.—Now follows a more particular account of the nature of baptism, first, negatively, theft, positively. The end contemplated is not, as in the case of Jewish lustrations, purification from the filth of the body. Steiger cites Justin Martyr, Tryph. p. 331, “Of what avail is that baptism, (that of the Jewish lustrations) which cleanses the flesh and the body only?” It is rather an
ἐðåñþôçìá óõíåéäÞóåùò ἀãáèῆò
. In explaining this dark passage, it is necessary to begin with the more lucid points. The antithesis of the putting-away of the filth of the flesh suggests a reference to the moral import of baptism, to inward, spiritual cleansing. Hence the Apostle names this
ἀãáèὴ óõíåßäçóéò
as the end contemplated in baptism. With this we have to connect the apposition
åἰò Èåüí
, for a good conscience toward God, which is much more than a good conscience toward men (1Co_4:4), is just what we need. Connecting, with the majority of commentators,
åἰò Èåüí
with
ἐðåñþôçìá
, as indicating the end of
ἐðåñþôçìá
, would yield a very harsh expression, which cannot be illustrated by 2Sa_11:7, besides, the apposition would then appear to be superfluous. But since the Genitive
ἀãáèῆò óõíåéäÞóåùò
corresponds with
ῥýðïõ óáñêüò
, it must be like the latter, the Genit. objecti, not the Genit. subjecti. As to the matter itself, the good conscience cannot be supposed to be existing at baptism and preceding it, for the Apostle elsewhere regards a good conscience as something received at, and effected by, baptism, Act_2:38. If the good conscience were anterior to baptism, it would be difficult to see how salvation, by means of baptism, could be necessary. What, then, is the meaning of
ἐðåñþôçìá
, which occurs only once, and that in this passage, in the New Testament? We should expect a word signifying the cleansing of the conscience: but
ἐðåñþôçìá
is never used in such a sense; nor does it signify promise or pledge, as Grotius explains the word from the usage of Roman law, nor address, confidence, open approach, but simply asking, inquiry. This gives quite a good sense: baptism is the inquiry for a good conscience before God, the desire and longing for it. This would define the subjective side of baptism, with reference to the circumstance that from the earliest time certain questions relating to the state of his conscience were proposed to the candidate for baptism. Lutz approaches the right explanation: “Baptism is the request for a good conscience, for admittance to the state of reconciliation on the part of such as have a good conscience toward God, a petition for the pardon of sin, which is obtained by the merits of Christ.” Similar are the views of Wiesinger and Weiss, except that they erroneously join
åἰò Èåüí
and
ἐðåñþôçìá
. Adhering to the idea of asking, the thing asked may be conceived, as follows: How shall I rid myself of an evil conscience? Wilt Thou, most holy God, again accept me, a sinner? Wilt Thou. Lord Jesus, grant me the communion of Thy death and life? Wilt Thou, O Holy Ghost, assure me of grace and adoption, and dwell in my heart? To these questions the Triune Jehovah answers in baptism, Yea. Now is laid the solid foundation for a good conscience. The conscience is not only purified from its guilt, but it receives new vital power by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
äé
’
ἀíáóôÜóåùò
is better joined with
óõíåéäÞóåùò ἀãáèῆò
than with
óþæåé
, from which it is too far separated. In 1Pe_1:3, the living hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, here, the good conscience. The mediating features of
ðñïóÜãåéí ôῷ Èåῷ
and of
óþæåéí
have now been indicated. [Most commentators connect
äé
’
ἀíáóôÜóåùò
with
óþæåé
, treating the intervening sentence as a parenthesis.—M.]
[Wordsworth:—From the Book of Common Prayer: “Baptism represents to us our profession, which is to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto Him, that as He died and rose again for us, so we who are baptized and buried with Christ in His death, should be dead to sin and live unto righteousness,” “continually mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living,” in order that we who are “baptized into His death may pass through the grave and gate of death to our joyful Resurrection, through His merits who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
Waterland, On Justification, p. 1 Peter 440:—“St. Peter assures us that Baptism saves; that is, it gives a just title to salvation, which is the same as to say that it conveys justification. But then it must be understood, not of the outward washing, but of the inward lively faith stipulated in it and by it. Baptism concurs with Faith, and Faith with Baptism, and the Holy Spirit with both; and so the merits of Christ are savingly applied. Faith alone will not ordinarily serve in this case, but it must be a contracting faith on man’s part, contracting in form corresponding to the federal promises and engagements on God’s part; therefore, Tertullian rightly styles Baptism obsignatio fidei, testatio fidei, sponsio salutis, fidei pactio, and the like.”
Baptismal interrogatories were used in the primitive, even in the Apostolical Church, and Peter seems to refer to them here. See Act_8:37; Heb_6:1-2; cf. Rom_10:10. Justin Martyr, Apol. 1, c. 61; Tertullian, de Spect., c. 4; de Coronâ Mil., c. 3, and de Resurrect. Carnis, c. 48. “Anima non lavatione sed responsione sancitur.“ Cf. Cyprian, Ep. 70, 76, 85; Hippolytus, Theophan., c. 10; Origen, Exhortatio ad Martyr, c. 12; Vales in Euseb. 7, 8, and Euseb. 7, 9, where Dionysius, Bp. of Alexandria, in the third century, speaks of a person who was present at the baptism of some who were lately baptized, and heard the questions and answers,
ôῶí ἐðåñùôÞóåùí êáὶ ἀðïêñßóåùí
. See more in Wordsworth.—M.]
1Pe_3:22. Who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected unto him.—Now follows, as the further consequence of the sufferings of Christ, His ascension into heaven, and exaltation to the right hand of God. A former sufferer is now exalted to the highest dignity of heaven. Thus this verse beautifully connects with the exhortation to willingness of suffering, cf. 1Pe_3:17-18, and paves the way for 1Pe_4:1, etc.—
ὅò ἐóôéí ἐí äåîéᾷ
; cf. Ps. Exodus 1; Rom_8:34; Eph_1:20; Col_3:1; Heb_1:3; Php_3:20. He has been received as sharer of the Divine government. He is not only King of His Church, but of the whole world.—
ðïñåõèåὶò åἰò ïὐñáíüí
=having gone into heaven. It is incorrect that this designates, not a locality of the universe, but a relation to the world. Wiesinger.—
ὑðïôáãÝíôùí
, cf. Heb_1:4; Eph_1:21; Col_2:10. The spirits, in their various gradations, are now subjected to Him who has suffered so much and so deeply. We do not pretend to determine whether they can be distinguished, with Hoffmann, as
ἄããåëïé
, inasmuch as they are the executors of the Divine will, as
ἐîïõóßáé
, inasmuch as they sway authority in this world, and
äõíÜìåéò
, because they bring about the alternations of this world, cf. Mat_28:18; Luk_24:49; Act_2:32; Act_2:35; Act_3:21; Act_3:26; Act_4:10-12; Act_10:40-42.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The fact that the Apostles do not separate the vicarious element of the sufferings of Christ from its typical element suggests an important hint to preachers as to the treatment of the atonement of Jesus.
2. The restoration of the lost communion of sinners with God is, according to 1Pe_3:18, one of the main ends of the sufferings of Christ; but His resurrection is also a co-operating factor in this great work, 1Pe_3:21.
3. There are no stronger motives for perseverance in well-doing, even where it involves the endurance of great suffering, than those taken from the innocent and vicarious sufferings and death of Jesus. As His sufferings and death conducted Him to life and to a greatly blessed sphere of work, so we are warranted to believe, if through suffering for righteousness we are made like Him, that suffering and death itself will also conduct us, and others by us, to life and blessedness. That which has affected the Head will also in different degrees affect the members, cf. Eph_2:5; Eph_2:7.
4. Christ’s descent into hell, or rather into Hades, which transpired, not after, but before His resurrection (cf. Act_2:27; Act_2:31), is by no means a subordinate point in the Apostle’s creed that may be surrendered to unbelief, but a fundamental article. But doubtless it is not founded, as Weiss assumes, on a conclusion reached by the Apostle’s reasoning, as if he had inferred the necessity of Christ’s preaching among the dead, both from the exclusiveness of the salvation wrought by Christ only, and from the justice of God, but rather on an illumination of the Holy Ghost, whose organs the Apostles were. The justice and love of God now appear to us in glorious light, and withhold the definite sentence of condemnation until all men have decided with full consciousness concerning Christ and His Gospel. He is set as the rock of salvation or stone of stumbling for all the world, 1Pe_2:6, etc.
5. Hades is not the final, absolute place and state of punishment; this is evident from Rev_20:14; Rev_20:10; the lake of fire and brimstone, the fiery pit,
ãÝåííá
, is that final place. There are in Hades two provinces or regions, separated from one another by a gulf. The one is a place of repose, comfort and refreshing, Abraham’s bosom, Luk_16:22, probably that paradise to which before His resurrection and ascension (Joh_20:17) Jesus went with the thief, Luk_23:43; lower paradise, as contrasted with the upper, to which Paul was transported, 2Co_12:2; 2Co_12:4; cf. Rev_2:7. Another part of the lower world contains the different prisons of human souls, who in their bodily existence had despised the word of God, acted against the light of conscience, and died in guilty unbelief. Here Jesus, as a spirit, appeared to fallen spirits, to some as Conqueror and Judge, to others, who still stretched out to Him the hand of faith, as a Saviour. We may, therefore, suppose with König that the preaching of Christ begun in the realms of departed spirits its is continued there in a manner adapted to the relation of the world of the dead, and analogous to the manner in which such provision has been made adapted to our earthly relations (cf. 1Ti_2:4; 2Pe_3:9), so that those who here on earth did not hear at all, or not in the right way, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, shall hear it there. If this truth had always been sufficiently recognized, the anti-scriptural opinion of universal recovery would hardly have found such extensive circulation. [But see the Excursus, below.—M.]
6. Baptism is here taken as a means of grace, although not described from every point of view, but only according to its subjective condition, the desire for a good conscience, which coincides with
ìåôÜíïéá
and according to its saving power which is mediated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
7. This passage in connection with Act_5:32 contains a testimony for the visible ascension of Christ, which has recently been questioned, and, alas! occasionally also by professedly believing teachers.
8. “The doctrine of this section has,” as Richter says, “nothing in common with the heresies of purgatory and universal recovery. But it affords a lucid example that the atonement once made (Act_5:18) is of universal import for all men and for all times. It affects even the dead, and the decision of their eternal destiny depends upon their relation to the announcement of the death and resurrection of Christ.”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Suffer gladly for Christ’s sake, because He also has suffered for you and for all. Look at the glory into which your Head has entered through suffering.—Consider that suffering happens to us only once in the flesh, 1Pe_3:18, and that it has manifold blessings for us and for others.—The universal sin-offering of Jesus, the fulfilment of all the typical offerings.—The atonement having been made for all men, must also be preached to all men.—It was part of the reward of the perfect obedience of Christ that He should receive the keys of hell and death. Hence He was able to enter the realms of death and remove thence as many as He chose without the ruler of those prisons being able to prevent it.—There are in the prisons of the unhappy realms of death, in which unconverted souls are detained unto judgment, differences and degrees of which some are more supportable and others more fearful and insupportable, Mat_10:15; Mat_11:22.—The descent of Christ into the dark and horrible regions of the world of the dead exhibits the stupendous power of His commiserating love.—Christ appearing to them as Conqueror and Judge, did not proclaim to them the sentence of condemnation but announced to them the only way of salvation from their long, more than two thousand years’ imprisonment.—Let nobody die with the false consolation of hearing the Gospel hereafter in the world of death.—As here, so beyond the grave, there are not wanting witnesses of Christ and preachers of the Gospel.—The success of Christ’s preaching in those prisons is not recorded; Peter may intend to give a hint on the subject in mentioning the few who escaped the flood.—A threefold fruit of the sufferings of Christ: 1. He has brought us to God by reconciling us to God through His blood and becoming our peace, Rom_5:10; Eph_2:13; Col_1:20; Col_1:2. He brings us daily to God, for through Him we have access to the Father by faith, Rom_5:2; Eph_2:18, and by His Spirit He renews us day by day. 3. He will bring us to God in the end, when it shall appear what we shall be.
Besser:—“It is infinitely better to suffer once with Christ than to suffer eternally without Christ.”
Bede:—“The ark was lifted up with Noah and his family: so we are carried upward and made citizens of the kingdom of heaven by baptism. As the water of itself did not save Noah, but only by means of the ark, so the water of baptism saves us not as water only but as water with the true ark which is Christ. All the power of baptism flows from the sufferings of Christ, from the wood of the cross.” Despair not, little flock; look through the mist of thy tribulation upward to the Prince of glory, to thy King, before whom every thing lies prostrate.—To what manifold and rich glory do sufferings lead!—How will it fare with those who cause tribulation to believers?—Do not abuse the long-suffering of God, believe that the punishment, of God comes irresistibly and with more fearful weight, if His grace has been neglected.
Starke:—Away, popish mass! We need no more offering for sin. The one offering of Christ is mighty and valid for eternity, Heb_10:12.—O, the riches of the love of God and of Christ! For a righteous man one will perhaps suffer a little, but Christ has suffered every thing for sinners, Rom_5:7-8; Rom_5:10.—The vengeance of God comes slowly but it strikes hard. Long spared, fearfully punished; such has been the experience of thousands who lived after the first world, 1Co_10:6, etc.—Our baptism should continually remind us not to act against the dictates of our conscience or to sin against God, Rom_6:4.—There are orders among the holy angels, although we do not understand their nature and condition, Col_1:16.
Lisco:—The glory of the grace of Christ.—The duty of Christians to make a good confession in word and deed.—The history of the victory of Jesus Christ, the Head of the kingdom.
[As Fronmueller’s views on this passage, 1Pe_3:19-20; 1Pe_4:6 are rather onesided and the doctrinal inferences drawn from them laid down rather too dogmatically, it is but fair that the question in all its bearings should be laid before the readers of this Commentary, which is-done in the subjoined excursus, taken from an article prepared by me for the Evangelical Review., January 1866.—M.]
EXCURSUS ON THE DESCENSUS AD INFEROS
[The object of our Lord’s descent to Hades.—The passage, 1Pe_3:19, stands in the context from 1Pe_3:18-20, in a literal and grammatical translation, as follows: “Because Christ also suffered for sins once, a just person on behalf of unjust, in order that He might present us to God; put to death indeed in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, which were disobedient formerly, when the long suffering of God was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing,” etc. The reasons for this translation appear from the exegesis, to which we now proceed.
ὅôé
, 1Pe_3:18, gives the reason why suffering for well-doing is better than suffering for evil-doing; because it establishes the conformity of Christians to Christ their Head. He suffered for sins once, that is, He voluntarily underwent suffering for our sins: He made Himself our sin-offering, He suffered in our stead, and His sufferings were the means of everlasting blessedness to others and of eternal glory to Himself; so we also suffer, and for sins, not indeed for the sins of others, but for our own, and by parity of reasoning it follows that the sufferings of Christians not only conform them to Christ (with reverence be it spoken), but are the means of everlasting blessedness to themselves and of eternal glory to Christ. This applies not to all suffering, but only to suffering for well-doing. This “beam of comforting light falls on the sufferings of Christians from this
ἄðáî
through
êáß
,” Besser.
êáß
indicates the analogy and shows that
ἄðáî
belongs to Christ and His followers. He suffered once and once only, once for all. So it will be with us. Our suffering is only once, limited to a short space of time; it is only for a season, and our present suffering is not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. The way to glory lies through the valley of humiliation. Christ suffered as a just person on behalf of unjust; of course the comparison is only relative, for although we are called
äßêáéïé
in 1Pe_3:12, and suffer as
ἄäéêïé
, yet is our
äéêáéïóýíç
infinitely inferior to that of Christ, and our suffering not vicarious like His, for we suffer not
ὑðὲñ ἀäßêùí
, but
ðåñὶ ἁìáñôéῶí ἡìῶí
. The end of our Lord’s suffering is stated in the words
ἴíá ἡìᾶò ðñïóáãÜãῃ ôῷ èåῷ
, “that He might bring us near to God.” “This is the fruit of our Lord’s passion, that He brings the wanderers back to the Father, and the lost to the homes of blessedness;” or, in the words of Bengel: “That going Himself to the Father, He might bring in, who had been alienated, but now justified, together with Him into heaven, 1Pe_3:22, by the selfsame steps of humiliation and exaltation, which He Himself had trodden. From this verse onward to 1Pe_4:6, Peter thoroughly links together the course of progress of Christ and believers (wherein He Himself followed the Lord according to His prediction, Joh_13:36), in conjunction with the unbelief and punishment of the many.” The Apostle next proceeds to specify the manner how Christ opened the way of our being brought to God. We have here a double antithesis
èáíáôùèåßò
and
æùïðïéçèåßò
, and
óáñêß
and
ðíåýìáôé
; the two nouns have been variously explained. Oecum., Theoph., Gerhard, Clarius, Calov, Horneius, Capellus makes them erroneously to denote the human and the divine natures of Christ; Castellio (also Com. a Lap., Flacius, Estius, Bengel) interprets: Corpore necatus, animo in vitam revocatus; Grotius paraphrases
óáñêß
by “quod attinet ad vitam hanc fragilem et caducam,“ and explains
ðíåýìáôé
by that divine power. There are many other variations; without entering upon their discussion, we hold with Alford that the two nouns have adverbial force and that this construction removes the difficulties which otherwise spring up. The fact is that quod ad carnem, Christ was put to death, quod ad spiritum, He was brought to life. “His flesh was the subject, recipient, vehicle of inflicted death; His spirit was the subject, recipient, vehicle of restored life. But let us beware, and proceed cautiously. What is asserted is not that the flesh died and the spirit was made alive, but that “quoad” the flesh the Lord died, “quoad“ the spirit, He was made alive. He, the God-man, Christ Jesus, body and soul, ceased to live in the flesh, began to live in the spirit; ceased to live a fleshly mortal life, began to live a spiritual resurrection-life. His own spirit never died, as the next verse shows us.” Alford.—”This is the meaning, that Christ by His sufferings was taken from the life which is flesh and blood, as a man on earth, living, walking and standing in flesh and blood, * * * and He is now placed in another life, and made alive according to the spirit, has passed into a spiritual and supernatural life, which includes in itself the whole life which Christ now has in soul and body, so that He has no longer a fleshly but a spiritual body.” Luther.—“It is the same who dies and the same who is again made alive, both times the whole man, Jesus, in body and soul. He ceases to live, in that that, which is to His personality the medium of action, falls under death; and He begins to live, in that He receives back this same for a medium of His action again. The life which fell under death was a fleshly life, that is, such a life as has its determination to the present condition of man’s nature, to the externality of its mundane connection. The life which was won back is a spiritual life, that is, such a life as has its determination from the Spirit, in which consists our inner connection with God.” Hofmann, Schriftbeweiss, 2, 336.
ἐí ᾦ
. 1Pe_3:19, clearly refers to
ðíåýìáôé
and must be rendered “in which,“ not by which as in E. V.
êáὶ
may be connected with the whole period and rendered “in which He also went, etc.”—(Alford), or with
ôïῖò ἐí öõëáêῇ ðíåýìáóé
, and translated “in which He went and preached also (or even) to the spirits in prison,” Steiger. The latter construction seems preferable, for it not only avoids the awkwardness of subordinating the whole period to what precedes, but also gives prominence to the new idea that the activity of Christ reached even to the spirits in prison. On
ôïῖò ἐí öõëáêῇ ðíåýìáóé
see below,
ðïñåõèåὶò åἰò ïὐñáíüí
denotes the actual presence of the Spirit of Christ in the place of departed spirits, for
ðïñåõèåὶò åἰò ïὐñáíüí
in 1Pe_3:22 clearly shows that the participle must refer to local transference.
ἘêÞñõîåí
is=almost
åὐçããåëßóáôï
(from cf. 1Pe_4:6, whose
åὐçããåëßóèç
is used with reference to the dead); our verb in connection with
ôὸ åὐáããÝëéïí
is found in Mat_4:23; Mat_9:35; Mar_1:14; Mar_16:15; it implies the preaching of the gospel in Mar_1:38; Mar_1:15; Mat_3:1; Mat_4:17; Mat_9:35; it has this meaning in the following passages: Mat_10:7; Mat_24:14; Mar_3:14; Mar_6:12; Mar_13:10; Luk_9:2; Act_9:20; Act_10:42-43; 1Co_1:23; Php_1:15; 2Ti_4:2; it is never used in the sense of judicial announcement and N. T. usage clothes it with the meaning “to preach the gospel.”
1Pe_3:20 describes the character of the spirits in prison; they were still disobedient (
ἀðåéèÞóáóéí
), i. e., exhibited unbelief in disobedience. They derided the prediction of the coming flood, and despised the exhortation to repentance,
ðïôÝ ὄôå
distinctly marks the period of their unbelief, viz., the time during which the ark was preparing. The long suffering of God gave them one hundred and twenty years’ time for repentance. In
ἀðåîåäÝ÷åôï
, which is doubtless the true reading (A. B. C. K. Z.) the full time during which the exercise of the Divine long-suffering took place, is brought out, just as
êáôáóêåõáæïìÝíçò
intimates the difficulty and protracted duration of the building of the ark.
Sound exegesis clearly establishes the Apostolic declaration, that our Lord Jesus Christ, after His crucifixion, went in spirit to the place of departed spirits (Hades, Sheol as in Syriac) and there preached to those spirits, who, in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, persisted in unbelief and disobedience. Why, what and with what effect he preached there, is not revealed. The Apostle’s declaration, however clearly established, has been felt from the earliest times to present many and great difficulties, and occasioned an almost endless variety of interpretations, the main features of which will appear in the following classification. Making the
êÞñõãìá
of our Lord the starting point, we have the following survey (given by Steiger):
Christ Preached. I. Mediately: 1, by Noah, 2, by the Apostles. II. Immediately, in the realms of the dead: 1. to the good; 2. to the good and the wicked; 3. to the wicked.
I. 1. Christ preached mediately by Noah. Augustine, Bede, Thomas Aquinas, Lyra, Hammond, Beza, Scaliger, Leighton, Horneius, Gerhard, Elsner, Benson, al., and among more recent authors John Clausen, and Hofmann, (Schriftbeweiss II. 335–341) hold that Christ preached by Noah to his contemporaries, that preacher of righteousness not preaching of himself, but in obedience to the prompting of the spirit of Christ; so that while Noah was the instrument, Christ was virtually preaching by him. In illustration of this view we quote Augustine (Ep. 99 ad Euodiam; cf. also Ep. 164): “Spiritus in carcere conclusi sunt increduli qui vixerunt temporibus Noe, quorum spiritus, i. e., animæ erant in carne et ignorantiæ tenebris velut in carcere conclusæ Christus iis non in carne, qui nondum erat incarnatus, sed in spiritu, i. e., secundum divinitatem prædicavit; and Beza: “Christ, says he (the Apostle), whom I have already said to be vivified by the power of the Godhead, formerly in the days of Noah, when the ark was preparing, going forth or coming. not in a bodily form (which He had not yet assumed) but by the self-same power through which He afterwards rose from the dead, and by inspiration whereof the prophets spoke, preached to those spirits who now suffer deserved punishment in prison, as having formerly refused to listen to the admonitions of Noah?”
This kind of interpretation, notwithstanding the respectable authorities who advocate it, will be rejected by candid scholars as arbitrary and ungrammatical. As arbitrary, because the Apostle neither intimates any such figurative preaching of the spirit of Christ in Noah, nor that Noah preached at all; as ungrammatical, because
a. The subject of discourse is not the Logos but the God-Man (Calov), and the means by which He preached is not the Holy Spirit, but the spirit of Christ
ἐí ᾦ
sc,
ðíåýìáôé
).
b. The object (
ðíåýìáôá
) designates not living men, but departed spirits (cf. Luk_24:37; Heb_12:23; Rev_22:6).
c. The metaphorical
öõëáêÞ
of Augustine “caro et ignorantiæ tenebræ” and the “qui nunc in carcere meritas dant pœnas” of Beza are inadmissible, the former because it destroys all local reference and thus spiritualizes away the historical value of the Apostle’s declaration, the second because it takes an unjustifiable liberty with that declaration in transferring to the present what manifestly belongs to the past:
ἔðáèåí
,
èáíáôùèåßò
,
æùïðïéçèåßò
, and
ðïñåõèåὶò ἐêÞñõîåí
set forth historical events in chronological order, and the
ôïῖò ἐí öõëáêῇ ðíåýìáóéí
“describes the local condition of the
ðíåýìáôá
as the time when the preaching took place,” (Alford).
d.
ἀðåéèÞóáóéí ðïôÝ
interrupts the chronological order, and plainly separates the time of Christ’s preaching from the time of their disobedience. Bengel says: “Si sermo esset de præconio per Noe,
ôὸ
aliquando aut plane omitteretur, aut cum prædicavit jungeretur;” and Flacius, as he disjoins the kind of preaching from the disobedience of those spirits, so on the other hand, he conjoins it with their imprisonment or captivity.
e.
ðïñåõèåßò
, as compared with 1Pe_3:22, cannot be resolved into a pleonasm; giving to the words their common meaning
ðïñåõèåὶò ἐêÞñõîå
must mean, “he went away and preached.” (Hensler).
I. 2. Christ preached mediately by the Apostles. This is the view advocated by Socinus, Vorst, Grotius, Schen, Schlichting and Hensler. It is distinguished, like I, 1, by the metaphorical interpretation of
ôïῖò ἐí öõëáêῇ ðíåýìáóéí
;
ἐí öõëáêῇ
=the prison of the body (Grotius) or=the prison of sin (Socinus, Schlichting, Hensler;) and the
ðíåýìáôá
either=the Jews (sub jugo legis existentes,) or=the Jews and Gentiles (sub potestate diaboli jacentes).
ðïôÝ
is explained in the sense that those to whom Christ preached have now ceased to be unbelievers; Hensler, who gives this explanation, is constrained to read in the next clause
ὅôé
. But it is a purely arbitrary assumption, unwarranted by the facts of the case that all have believed.
ðïñåõèåὶò ἐêÞñõîåí
, according to the advocates of this view, refers to the efficacy of Christ through the Apostles, but it requires an uncommonly fertil
