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19 (d) This activity was not confined merely to the unrighteous who are alive like yourselves. In His Spirit thus quickened by death He journeyed to the underworld. He descended into Hell there to proclaim (good) tidings to the spirits in prison. 20 Of these the most notorious and typical examples were the spirits of those who suffered in the flesh as a punishment for evil-doing in the olden days of Noah, when they rejected God’s long continued offer of mercy all through those years while the ark was being prepared.
[In the book of Henoch (x.lxxxix. etc. see Charles, Eschatology) from which St Peter appears to borrow several phrases in the Epistle, there is constant reference to the Flood; and the spirits of those who were judged in this life are assigned a separate place in Sheol (c. 12). For the idea that bodily suffering, even when it is a punishment for sin, may be a factor in the salvation of the soul, cf. 1Co 5:5, “To deliver unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”; 1Ti 1:20, “Whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn (by chastisement, παιδευθῶσι) not to blaspheme.” Also 1Co 11:32, “When we are judged (with sickness and death) we are chastened of the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world.”
Again in the statement that “it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment” our Lord implies that the inhabitants of those cities must not be regarded as eternally damned because they were so terribly judged in the flesh. For further ideas about “the Harrowing of Hell” see additional note (p. 83).]
(e) In the Flood the same water which drowned the guilty world floated the ark and so saved Noah and his family from perishing. Water was not only the means by which the defilements of the world were cleansed but was also the medium by which Noah and his family passed from the old world into the new, as it were through death into a new resurrection life. 21 Thus the Flood may be regarded as the copy of the spiritual reality of “death unto sin and new birth unto righteousness” which is now represented in Baptism. When we pass beneath the water of Baptism we represent the drowning of the old sinful self, the putting off of the filth of the flesh. But the saving efficacy of Baptism lies in the new birth unto righteousness, the profession (in answer to interrogation) of having a good conscience toward God, which is represented by our emerging from the water, claiming to share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In every case therefore suffering and death are factors in the termination of the regime of sin and the attainment of a new life. In Christ’s case we find that by dying in the flesh once and for all for sins (not His own but those of others) He was thereby quickened in spirit for new and wider service. In the case of those who perished in the Flood their judgment in the flesh led to their receiving the good tidings of Christ bidding them to live in the Spirit (cf. 1Pe 4:6). In the case of Noah and his family the water of destruction was the means of their salvation; and the same lesson of dying in order to live is taught in Baptism.
22 (f) There remains one further thought that suffering culminates in final glory. The Lord who rose from the dead is now seated at the right hand of God exalted above angels, principalities and powers. So we too “if we suffer with Him shall also be glorified with Him.” 1Pe 4:1 This conception of suffering in the flesh as a termination of the regime of sin, a quickening of the spirit for new service and a factor in attaining glory, was the armour with which Christ equipped Himself in His earthly life (cf. Heb 12:2, “For the joy which was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame.” Heb 5:8, “He learned obedience by the things that He suffered.”) Let it be your armour also in meeting persecution and equipping yourselves for service. In your Baptism you claim ideally to have shared in Christ’s death, and any sufferings in the flesh which you may have to undergo are only helping to make that ideal a reality for you, helping to terminate the regime of sin, 2 that the time which remains for you to live in the flesh should be no longer devoted to the lusts of men but to the will of God. 3 I say “the time which remains,” for that which is past, your old heathen days, is all too long to have worked out the wishes of the Gentiles, walking as you have done (πεπορευμένους—perfect participle) in wanton immoralities, lusts, wine-bibbings, revellings, drinking-bouts, and unlawful idolatries. 4 Your heathen neighbours no doubt regard you as fanatics, and revile you for refusing to plunge headlong into the same excess of prodigal recklessness with them. 5 But (like Noah’s contemporaries) they will have to render an account to God, whose judgment is in perfect readiness both for the living and the dead. 6 Such judgment of the dead is perfectly just because they also received the message of good tidings, and the purport of the message to them was the same which God gives to you. Your suffering in the flesh is a call to live in the spirit. Their judgment in the flesh after the pattern of men was a call to live in the spirit after the pattern of God.