Good weekend to you my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
When you encounter something hard to understand, whether you are reading or watching or listening to something, how do you normally respond? Disregard it, take special note and set out to research it so you can understand it? Maybe you discuss it with friends, post it on social media asking the world for their opinion? Do you agree there are many things about the Bible and God and life in general that are really complex, very hard to understand and in fact we may not get the full answers until the end of time when we finally stand in God’s presence, and we can ask Him directly? I wonder if you already have a list of those types of questions you hope someday to ask God?
We’re on a journey together attempting to understand what the apostle Peter intended as he was writing his first letter to Christians all across the Roman empire in the middle of the first century, but we’re also trying to see how these truths apply to our lives today, giving us hope in 2023. We understand Peter was NOT writing in English or French or Spanish or Chinese but rather he wrote in the one official language of the Roman empire at that time… Greek. You and I most likely read the Bible in our mother tongue, the language which is most familiar to us. For me that is English.
We’ve come to a fascinating and perplexing part of Peter’s 3rd chapter which has caused religious debate and head scratching for centuries all over the world. Peter writes: “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (1 Peter 3:18) We discussed this yesterday. Sinless Jesus, God the Son, suffered and died for the sin guilt of every person so that any person who will acknowledge their inescapable sin; repent to God of their sin; and trust God’s promise that the death of Jesus is sufficient payment for their sin; then God will draw that person into relationship with Him and will pardon or forgive their sin and declare them righteous!
In that spiritual process God delivers them from the bondage and condemnation of their sin, and they are adopted into God’s family. Furthermore, God places His Holy Spirit within them, and they are assured of eternal life with God in His presence forever. One of the terms Jesus used for this experience is being ‘born again by the Holy Spirit’. (John 3:3-7) Do you see all the key components of our salvation as accomplished by the incarnation, atonement death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Peter then continued writing with an extremely powerful statement which is our focus today: “He [Jesus] was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18) This helps us understand what happened when Jesus Christ died, breathed His last, on the cross. John the beloved disciple was an eyewitness to that crucifixion and John writes: “Jesus said, ‘It is finished’. With that He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” (John 19:30) It means the physical body of Jesus Christ died at that moment on that cross. You and I understand death. Our heart stops beating, our lungs stop breathing, our brain ceases to function and immediately our body begins the normal decaying process of death. That happened to the body of Jesus as it will happen to you and me.
But there is another very important aspect of death, which is the primary reason Jesus, God the Son, came to earth to give His life so we could be forgiven of our sin! Each human being is comprised of three parts: their human body; their ‘soul’ which is their thinking and intellect, their emotions and feelings, their reason and will, their personality; and finally, the third part of each of us is our spirit. The spirit is that spiritual part of us that when we are born is a sinful human nature in rebellion against God. And when we are born again by God, as we trust Jesus Christ to be our Savior, we are rescued from the domination of that sinful nature, God births a new, righteous spiritual nature in us which can have a wonderful, personal, vibrant relationship with Holy God. When a person who has trusted Jesus Christ to be their Savior dies, their spirit goes to be with God in heaven, along with their soul, while their body remains here and decays.
For the person who has NOT trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation from their sin, they have not received a new spiritual nature, all they have is their sinful nature which is in rebellion against God and therefore at death that sinful nature and their soul goes to a place awaiting their final judgment and their eternal separation from God.
In the Old Testament of the Bible that waiting place is often called ‘Sheol’ and in the New Testament it’s often called ‘Hades’. (Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 16:23; Rev. 1:18) This is a place for Satan, his demons and the souls/spirits of all who have rejected God, have not trusted in God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. From there, these souls/spirits will rise at the time of the final judgment when they will stand before God’s throne, and then they’ll be sent to hell for all eternity. (Revelation 20:13-15)
In view of that, The Holy Spirit led Peter to write this statement next in 1 Peter 3:19 “After being made alive, He [Jesus] went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits – to those who were disobedient long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah when the ark was being built.” Ok friends, what do you think that means? I believe Scripture shows us there are two groups of ‘imprisoned spirits’. First, they are those we were just describing, the souls/spirits of people from all time past, who rejected God, didn’t believe in God’s offer of Salvation from their sin. Peter uses the example of the days of Noah. If you read that story in Genesis 6&7, you’ll see God’s evaluation was this: “God saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen. 6:5) It grieved God deeply that the human race He had created, wonderful and in His image, had turned away from God, turned to Satan and embraced every conceivable form of evil and wickedness.
The second group of ‘imprisoned spirits’ are, I believe, Satan and all the demons, the rebellious angels who turned against God and God thrust them out of heaven and they established the evil, wicked, dark kingdom. While Jesus died so repentant human beings could be forgiven and transformed by the power of God, Jesus did NOT die an atonement death for Satan and the demons. They will never have any chance for redemption. And both these groups of beings will eventually end up together, for all eternity, in the place called Hell. And that’s why they are called ‘imprisoned spirits’ because there is no escape from their destiny. (Rev. 20:13-15)So, if the Spirit of Jesus Christ went to this place after His death but before His resurrection, and Peter says Jesus “made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits” what do you suppose that proclamation was? I believe it was in part, the very last words Jesus had spoken from the cross: “It is finished”! (John 19:30) Jesus was declaring, both on the cross, and to the imprisoned spirits in Hades, that HE, God the Son, had completed the mission for which God the Father had sent Him to earth. (John 3:16)
Jesus had successfully incarnated Himself into a human baby, born in a stable in Bethlehem! (Luke 2) Jesus had lived a perfect, sinless human life. Jesus had proclaimed God’s truth to the world. (John 17:8) Jesus had been victorious over every evil spirit which threatened Him and even over Satan Himself. (Matt. 4:1-11) Jesus had allowed God the Father to put the sins of humanity upon Jesus and Jesus had taken the full judgment wrath of God for all that sin. (2 Cor. 5:21)
The FULL price had been paid so ANY person could now repent of their sin and trust in the death of Jesus to be their full payment, (Rom. 3:23,24) and God would forgive their sin, break the hold of sin in their lives, adopt them into His family, place His Holy Spirit in them, and assure them of eternal life in heaven with Him at the time of their death.
Jesus was proclaiming that this deliverance, this salvation had been earned by Jesus and was now available to EVERY living human being, but it was NOT available to those spirits in Hades. They had rejected God; their eternal destiny was sealed! Now friends, I don’t know how long it took for Jesus to do that, but we know the body of Jesus was dead for 3 days. What did Jesus do the rest of that time? Well, I believe Jesus did what every person will do who has been redeemed, rescued, saved by Jesus from their sin, at the time of their death. The Spirit of Jesus went to heaven, into God’s Presence in great victory and there was a celebration in heaven!
Now, at the end of those three days, the Spirit of Jesus returned to earth and was reunited with His earthly body in the resurrection, and then He spent 40 days showing Himself alive and healed from the torture and the beatings, and He fully proclaimed all that God had for Him to proclaim as He proved He was alive.
And then on the 40th day after His resurrection, Jesus Christ, in His resurrected body, and His soul and Spirit ascended into heaven, (Acts 1:11) to a glorious reception, where He sits today in sovereign authority over all, and continues every day to save any and all who believe in Him, (Heb. 7:25) while He also intercedes with God for His people. (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 1:3)
Now that my friends is worth celebrating today, and here’s a song to help us do that!
Today’s Scripture is 1 Peter 3:18, 19.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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