Well, if you've read the text for this morning, you know, you might guess that there's a lot I would like to just say before I ever get to the message. Even before I get up, is there anything worthwhile saying? Maybe one thing would be after, this is not so much important, but just to note that your handout is longer because I actually wrote stuff. I gave you a lot more of what I have. My message is no longer than usual. The other thing is when you come to a passage like this, and Martin Luther was one who was pretty dogmatic about a lot of things. And I think in some senses very humbly came to a conclusion about almost every scripture in the Bible said of this passage, I don't know what Peter is saying. Now I think we have reason to be a lot more optimistic than Martin Luther was for several reasons, things that have come to light since Luther. But as we come to this passage, there's a lot of things that at first confuse us. And we say, well, what does that mean? We want to get to this. How do we understand a passage like this? And what I just want to say to you is one of the, not one of the, the primary fundamental way that you approach any passage is how from this do I ultimately in the end preach Christ? Now, you can't be artificial and weird about that, like finding Christ in weird ways. But ultimately, we know that the scriptures preach Christ. And so I want you to know that my goal this morning is not to have us have some enlightenment about, oh, that's cool, that's what that means. I just want us to come away from here seeing Christ and really That's Peter's point. Here of all places that we might see Christ. So let's pray for that and then let's dive in. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this, your word. Thank you for giving us a taste for it and a delight and a hunger for it. And we pray now that first of all you would Let me be out of the way and just help us to come face to face with the text and with your truth in it. And that as a result of what we see there, we would worship, our faith would be strengthened, our fear would be abolished, and our holiness growing. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. Let me just read the passage in case you haven't read it. I'm going to read it in the ESV because I don't have it written out how I've translated it, so we're going to change some significant things. Having said that, this is a passage where you can translate all sorts of different ways in a lot of different places. We're not going to talk about that this morning, but let's just read how the ESV has it. Chapter 3, verse 15 to 22. I'm sorry, verse 18 to 22. 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. All right, so let's put this in context, starting off. Peter's been exhorting us never to be afraid. Never to be afraid of those who would persecute or mistreat you. Never to live in fear, not even of the future. The possibility of suffering for righteousness sake. Instead of being afraid, we are to do what? In our hearts, we are to sanctify Christ as Lord. And we saw last week that when we do that, when we sanctify Christ as Lord, there's not room in our hearts for fear. Instead, we're always ready to make a defense to anyone who demands from us an accounting for the hope that is in us. So now we come to a really, really important question, and Betty was asking about this. We were talking about this last week. How do we, in our hearts, sanctify Christ as Lord? How do we do that? And really, all that stuff we just read that was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, here we are here, and here we are there, and what's Peter talking about? All of that is Peter's answer to that question. It is Peter's answer to the question, how do I sanctify Christ as Lord? Peter says, let me show you how. And then he gives us these verses. So we'll start with verse 18, the first four words. Peter writes, for Christ also suffered. Here we go, okay. In all of our suffering, and in all of our thoughts of the future, that whatever suffering it might bring, Peter says, whenever you think about that, think about it in the light of the suffering of Christ. Never, never separate between those two realities. In chapter two, Peter put before us the pattern of Christ's sufferings as something we should copy, that should be reproduced in us. So 1 Peter 2 says, what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called. because Christ also suffered. See, there's that phrase, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps. And then he goes on to describe how we copy Jesus in our suffering. Now here in chapter three, it's very similar. Peter says, it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. And then look what he says, for Christ also suffered. You cannot comprehend the meaning of your sufferings unless you see them in the light of the sufferings of Christ. So whatever sufferings you are going through right now, even if it's not sufferings for righteousness sake, even those sufferings, we need to see in the light of the sufferings of another. who suffered for us and as an example for us. Now this time in chapter three, Peter's point is different. In chapter two, Peter was saying, copy his sufferings. Walk in his footsteps. In chapter three, Peter's saying, okay, these are sufferings you can't copy. These are unique. Something that's totally unrepeatable can never ever be copied by you. never ever experienced by us. And so Peter goes on to say, for Christ also suffered. Yes, he suffered like us. Yes, he suffered. He knows what it's like, but his sufferings, let's think about what his sufferings were. They were once, Peter says, for sins. The righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. Think of all your suffering. Think of all the suffering you might ever endure and think, could this ever be said of your sufferings? This is unlike any others. And so the first key in your handout, and we're gonna unpack this and explore this, but understand at the beginning, the first key to truly in our hearts sanctifying Christ as Lord is that we must be diligently believing, diligently meditating, on the infinite saving value of Christ's sufferings for us. I think maybe as Christians one of our biggest problems, practically speaking, is that we aren't diligently believing and diligently meditating on these things. You know, one of the best times, you may say, I'm too tired, but you think of something, most of us, maybe sometimes you climb in bed and you drop off before you have a chance for a single thought to go through your mind. But what a wonderful time to be diligently believing than when you're waiting to go to sleep. not to mention through the day, but when Peter says that Christ suffered for sins, he uses language that the Old Testament uses to refer to sacrificial offerings. And so let's look at Leviticus 5 where it says, he shall bring for his transgression, the person who has sinned, shall bring for his transgressions against the Lord for his sin. It's the same Greek phrase that Peter uses, for his sin, which he has sinned a you lamb of the flock. The priest shall make an atonement for him for his sin, which he has sinned, and his sin shall be forgiven him." And so it's in light of verses like that, it's in light of the whole Old Testament priesthood and temple that we come to see Christ suffering. and His death in the light of these animals offered on the altar. His suffering was not the same thing as the suffering and death that countless others have experienced. And that's just something for us to meditate on and grasp. We know that. But let's grasp it more. His suffering and His death was unique. It was a sacrificial offering for sins, for our sins. And now, Peter, after comparing it to the Old Testament sacrifices, he distances it from those sacrifices saying that unlike those daily sacrifices on the altar, Christ suffered, we can go to the next slide, Christ suffered once for sins, not repeatedly. Praise God. Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, which is what we all were, which is what you were, that He might bring us to God and give us full, complete, unhindered, unrestricted access to the King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the infinite saving value of Christ's sufferings for you. And if you would truly in your heart Sanctify Christ as Lord. This is where it starts. I say where it starts because Peter's only setting us up. We must be diligently believing and meditating on these sufferings for us. So, now we have a question, right? What does the suffering of Christ for us have to do with His Lordship over the whole world? Think about that. What does the sufferings of Christ for me have to do with His Lordship over all? Peter answers that as we move ahead. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. This is going to be a key to understanding this entire passage. Some say that the resurrection is an impossibility, and we're like, well, I can see why. People generally don't rise from the dead, right? But let's point this out, that if Christ's death is what the Old and New Testament scriptures say it is, okay, if Christ's death is what Peter just said it is, if it was that, then what's actually impossible is that he should not be raised from the dead. See, I mean, as soon as I believed what His death was, I have no problem believing in His resurrection. With Christ, it is not just that His death was followed by resurrection, like, oh my goodness, it was followed by resurrection. No, with Christ, it's that His death required the resurrection. It was the infinite saving value of that death as opposed to all the deaths and all the sufferings of everyone else in the history of the world that actually made the resurrection inevitable, in a manner of speaking. And so because of how they're connected together, you cannot talk about Christ's death and what it was without ultimately talking about His resurrection. And so the second key And this is what Peter was setting us up for. If you, in your heart, would sanctify Christ as Lord, then you must be diligently believing and meditating on the saving power of that resurrection life that Christ is now living. That's what Peter's gonna help us do this morning. See, if you get it set up right, the rest of the passage will come together. Peter says, you need to be meditating on Christ's resurrection life and its saving power, if you're gonna sanctify him as Lord in your hearts. And so, here's how we do this. Peter says, in the first place, Jesus was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. As we move through here, there's tons of views from all over the place. I feel confident enough to just preach this view, but understand that there are others, okay? In the New Testament, whenever spirit is contrasted with flesh, we think spirit is the intangible part of me and flesh is the touchable part. But in the Bible, when spirit is contrasted with flesh, flesh is not referring to this. Flesh is referring to our earthly mortal existence. Now, I mean, I could still be in the body and not be living an earthly mortal existence. It's different. Flesh refers to our earthly mortal existence with all of its weaknesses, all of its limitations, and especially the fact that if I'm in the flesh, I'm ultimately vulnerable to suffering and to death. Now what that means for us, if we're in the flesh, it assumes that I'm a sinner too, that I'm fallen. And so in the Bible, the flesh is synonymous with our sinfulness, our sin nature. But now let's take the case of Jesus. Think about Jesus in light of that. Jesus was without sin. He didn't have any, but he still came, not just in the body. It wasn't like the spirit inhabiting a body. He came in the flesh. That's the beauty of the Incarnation. So He came in the flesh. He was without sin, yes. But do you know the kind of life He still lived? He lived a life that all of us sinners live. He lived a true earthly life, mortal. He was subject to weaknesses, growing weary and tired and even mentally anguished. All of its limitations. And then even finally, he was capable in the flesh, not just in the body, but in the flesh of experiencing suffering and death. So it wasn't just Jesus' physical body that made him subject to death, it was his real existence like you and me in the flesh. Now then, maybe we can understand what's the contrast Peter's setting up. Jesus was put to death in the flesh. In other words, in the realm of the flesh that He was like all of us. In that realm, He was put to death. That's the only realm you can be put to death in. But He was made alive in the Spirit. What does that mean? Well, if flesh is the realm of weakness and frailty and mortality and death, what is spirit? Spirit is the realm of immortality and power and life. Spirit is not the realm of not having a body. He still had a body. He was made alive in the body. But now he is in the body in a different way than he was before. No longer in the flesh, subject to all of its weaknesses and limitations, but in a different realm. A realm that no human being, and Jesus was human being, no human being has ever gone to before. Jesus, the first and the first fruit, the only human being at this point who has ever entered into the realm of the Spirit. Existing in that realm, still in the body, but no longer in the flesh in that sense. So what Peter is reminding us of, to sum that up in your handout, is that Christ has been physically, bodily raised from the dead as still a human being, but not to the same kind of existence. This is important for Peter that we understand this. He was raised not to the same kind of existence he had before. not to life in the flesh. He was raised to a wholly new kind of existence, which is still a mystery to us. What is this existence? It's awesome, we know that. Power and glory and immortality. But it's still a mystery. lived out in a wholly different realm. As long as we're in any way in the flesh, that realm we cannot fully comprehend. Christ has been raised to a life that partakes now only, only of immortality and power and glory. Only. A life now lived wholly in the realm of the supernatural, all-powerful Spirit of God. This is the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. And that's worth meditating on. So the second key to, in your heart, sanctifying Christ as Lord is to be diligently believing and meditating on the saving power of that resurrection life. Christ is living. So now Peter goes on to describe the saving power. of this life that Christ is living. Verses 19 to 20a. Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which He also went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Now, you be exegetes here. That means you interpret the Scriptures. Work at it. In light of what we have said, in light of how we've set it up, in light of how Peter has set it up, what do you think this is about? In which Christ also 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. Now throughout history there have been a lot of interpretations of these verses. One group of interpretations, don't forget where we've been, okay? I don't want to take too much of a detour. One group says that in that short time between his death and his resurrection, maybe you've heard of an idea like this. Between Christ's death and his resurrection, while his body was still in the grave, the spirit of Jesus descended into hell and preached to the spirits of human beings. who had lived during the days of Noah. Now there's a lot of variations on that view. What was he preaching? To which spirits was he preaching? It's crazy. Another major interpretation is this. It wasn't between his death and his resurrection that Jesus was preaching in the spirit. It was actually before he was even born, pre-incarnate Christ. So that he preached, Christ was preaching actually through Noah. when Noah was apparently preaching to his generation before the flood. Now there are huge problems, I would say, just massive problems with both of those interpretations. Although there are good people who hold to the second. First of all, spirits. This is weird, but if I said that this room was full of spirits, What do you think I was saying? Well, there are spirits in the room, angels, spirit beings. You don't think of spirits, we shouldn't and the Bible doesn't think of spirits as the spirits of disembodied or dead humans. When you think spirits, you think spirit beings. And especially when Peter just says, the spirits. He doesn't say the spirits of the dead, or the spirits of the righteous. It's always qualified whenever it means anything about humans, and rarely does it mean that. So, spirits refers naturally to angelic or demonic beings. Hebrews chapter 13, one. To which of the angels, has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? Are they not all ministering spirits? Why are they called spirits? Because they don't have bodies. I mean, their essential nature is spirit. Now they can take on bodily form, inhabit bodies as we see. Matthew 8 says, they brought to Jesus many who were oppressed by demons and he cast out the spirits. Whenever the spirits, you see that without any qualification, it's angels or demons, demons in the Bible. Luke 10, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you. but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." So, it naturally refers not to human spirits of the dead, but angelic or demonic spirits. Second of all, the spirits of the dead, nowhere in the Bible are they pictured as being in prison somewhere. But spirits, evil spirits, are. So 2 Peter chapter 2, in which Peter was almost certainly reflecting on we're going to look at in the Old Testament. God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept. The idea in kept is in prison. They're in chains. They're in prison until the judgment. And who did Christ go and speak to? To the spirits in prison. The most important thing for us to ask ourselves, this is the most important, what does Peter mean by those two little words, in which? Go to the next slide there. Maybe not, maybe, oh, there it is, sorry, yeah. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. Now you know what all that is. In which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Here we come back to the main point for Peter. It's this. When Jesus went and did this, which we're all so confused about, what is he doing? Well, the first thing you need to know. is that when he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, he was displaying the power and the glory of his resurrection life. That's the key to understanding. He was displaying the power and glory of his resurrection life, his life in the Spirit. In other words, the point here is not the pre-incarnate Christ preaching through Noah. That is not Peter's point. The point is not the disembodied spirit of Jesus preaching in hell while his body still lay in the grave. That's not his point. The point for Peter is the preaching, in your handout, of the resurrected Christ. That's what's going on here. Christ's first sermon. After death. After resurrection. Who lives now wholly in the realm of the supernatural, all-powerful Spirit of God. And so in that light, what do you think Jesus is saying? to the spirits in prison who disobeyed. Well, could you take a guess what he's proclaiming? Your doom is sealed. You are defeated. The final word has been spoken. I have triumphed. In your handout, he is proclaiming to all the powers of evil, his final victory and triumph over them. Brothers and sisters, this isn't just an empty doctrine. It's actual living reality and truth. Peter says it happened. This is history. But why these specific spirits? We still have questions, don't we? Why those spirits? Why the spirits who are in prison because they did not obey when God's patience was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared? Okay. I can't preach this sermon this morning on Genesis chapter six. We did that many years ago, Genesis chapter six. If you would like to see the sermon that I did preach on that passage, let me know, I will send you a copy. But for right now, I'm gonna assume the conclusion I came to back then, and that I believe Peter is assuming here, and that Jude assumes. So let's read Genesis chapter 6. Who are these spirits? What do they do? Now, again, I can't preach the sermon on Genesis 6. I'm just going to give you the conclusions. When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God, who I absolutely believe without any shadow of a doubt in my mind, are angelic beings. The sons of God here are angelic beings. They saw that the daughters of man, human women, were attractive. And they, the angelic beings, and again, you have to interpret this somehow, so I'm just putting my interpretation in. This has been the interpretation throughout history, until Christ really. The angelic beings, in human form, Certainly spirits can't cohabit with human women, but they would have had to take on human form. We see angels eating food at Abraham's tent. Or perhaps they inhabited human bodies. People gave themselves up to those spirits and inhabiting those bodies, there was cohabitation. However it happened, it was an evil and unnatural and perverse union. And they took as their wives any they chose. Now, the fact that they could take any they chose tells you that the human fathers and brothers and perhaps daughters were willing accomplices. Why would men give their daughters to angelic beings in human form or inhabiting human bodies? Why would they do that? It's all in a quest for power. And perhaps the unending life, the unending life that these angelic beings had, which would make sense of the punishment that God inflicted when he goes on to say next, then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. And I think what these men were saying is, let's try to become like the spirit beings, giving our daughters in marriage. And God says, no, no, he is flesh. and his days shall be 120 years. He was wanting to attain longer life than his 800 to 900 average lifespan. No, no, I'm going to shorten now his lifespan because of this sin. His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God, the angelic beings, came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man... Now this is what sets us up for the flood. What man was doing in giving his daughters to these spirits was so heinous. It was the ultimate now display of their wickedness and evil. that God says, "...the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." I think we can be glad we did not live in that generation. Now, let's put this together because we're coming back to Peter. Notice how in Genesis 6 here, the wickedness of humans is tied together with the disobedience of angels. of a specific group of angels. So the emphasis in Genesis is on the wickedness of the humans, okay? Because what happens after this? You get the flood and it destroys who? The humans. The flood, as far as we know, didn't wipe out the angels. Wiped out the humans. But the problem is the humans weren't the only ones that sinned so heinously. The angels sinned too. So a tradition developed in Judaism which said that these specific angels or their spirit offspring in the tradition were also judged and they were put in prison until the final judgment should come. And we know that Peter was familiar with this tradition. He knew it. So there's a whole lot about this tradition that's probably not true. But some of it apparently was rooted in the truth. So, it's with Genesis 6 in mind that Jude writes in verse 6, the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, in other words, they did not stay in their own realm but transgressed the boundaries God had set between the spirit and the flesh, but left their proper dwelling, their proper place, he has kept in eternal chains in prison under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Now, Peter is also assuming the background. When he writes in here about preaching to the spirits in prison, he's assuming Genesis 6. And the traditions interpreting that passage, which he only takes the part of it that God inspired him to know is true. So, only now, Peter's assuming the background of spirits who cohabit with human women, only now we learn something entirely new. Only learn it in Peter. in a sense. We could assume it from Paul and other places, but Peter only says this explicitly. That it was to these imprisoned spirits that Christ went in the full power and glory of his resurrection life in the spirit, okay, before he went to them, where was I? To proclaim his victory over them. and the sealing of their final doom. So now maybe we can answer the question, why did it go to those spirits in specific? There's two answers to the question. First one is this. Think about it. If the generation of Noah that Noah's day was the worst that ever existed, and I believe it was, I don't know that it'll ever get that bad. Maybe at the very, very, very end. But it was bad enough that God wiped out the entire human race, except for Noah. If that generation was among the most evil and depraved that ever existed, then what do you think these spirits that were imprisoned long before the final judgment? Not all the spirits are in prison, just these. What does that tell you about these spirits? They also must have been, I would assume, among the most evil, the most wicked, and perhaps also the most mighty and the most powerful of their kind. So when Christ goes and announces His victory over those spirits now in prison because they were formerly disobedient, He is announcing His victory over what? All, yeah. All. There's no one that escapes His victory over all the powers of darkness and evil. But there's another reason Peter uses this example. It's because he wants to get to Noah. And he sees in Noah and the story there a parallel with his readers in his days who were suffering for Christ's sake. So, verse 20. Hopefully we're gradually putting this together and it's making sense. Verse 20 says, well, let me back up. Christ was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. Others were made alive in the flesh, but Christ in the Spirit. in which he also went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited. Now here goes, let's talk about Noah. It leads naturally into Noah. While the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight persons, were saved through water. It doesn't say in the ark. He says, through water. That's key. So all of a sudden, we were all in the spirit mode, right? Now Peter says, let's go into the human mode. He assumes that you are familiar here, not just with the disobedience of the angels, but with the wickedness of the human beings. who ended up being destroyed in the flood. So for Peter, and here's what he's doing, for Peter, Genesis 6 is this perfect illustration of spirit and human and the connection between the realms. Now he doesn't tell us this for us to go off with crazy ideas, no. It's an illustration of how always in your handout, behind the evil and wickedness of men, which Peter's readers were experiencing in their day, behind that evil and wickedness, there is at some level, in some way that is mysterious to us, there is the powers of darkness. The motivating, instigating activity of those spiritual powers of darkness, just like in the days of Noah. That was an extreme example. So the apostle Paul says, We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. Now, Paul recognizes there is the flesh and blood enemies out there who are out to get us and be hostile and persecute and mistreat. But he sees behind that the powers of darkness. Peter sees that same connection. Not just between the wickedness of the humans and the spirits, but he sees a connection between the judgment, the judgment of the spirits and the wicked humans. In your handout, the Bible paints a picture, and Peter's assuming that here, of a connection between the evil and the punishment of the invisible world, and the evil and the punishment of the visible world. Now. And maybe you say, oh boy, I can't, I'm trying to hang with you, I'm trying to hang. Well, don't worry about it too much. Take the handout home and read it again. Study the passage. It'll help. But it's against all this backdrop of evil and judgment that now there's salvation. This is what's wonderful. The salvation of righteous Noah and his tiny, tiny little family of eight people stands out so wonderfully and so, so beautifully. Let me ask you a question. Why in the world was God so patient in the face of so much evil? I mean, that's bad. That's bad. You've got men marrying spirits and spirits marrying men. Does it get worse than that? And yet God was patient. Why? Because the ark wasn't finished. That's why. Because God had purposed to save a few. Eight. Eight people. That's why he waited. We're beginning to see a parallel, and oh, first of all, this is important, I almost missed this. So all those years, the ark is being prepared, God waits, and in the end, in the end, here's the strange thing. The very waters that brought death and destruction to everyone else, those waters were actually the means of righteous Noah's deliverance. See, and we're right to think of the ark as a means of his deliverance, but Peter doesn't emphasize the ark as the means. That's assumed, it's indirect, but Peter sees the waters as his deliverance. That's important. Yes, God saved Noah from the flood by means of the ark, that's true. But he actually delivered Noah from all the evil and all the wickedness of that perverse world in which he was living. How did he deliver him from that world? By means of the flood. He saved him through the water. Are you beginning then to see a parallel? We'll come back to this in a minute. A parallel with the Christians that Peter is writing to. The Christians Peter is writing to were a small minority in your handout. a small minority, living like Noah was, sojourners and foreigners in an evil and hostile world, just like Noah before the flood. And now, let's watch this. Here we go again. Okay, I'm starting to get comfortable with that. Peter springs another one on us, okay? But it's really good. Just like Noah was saved from his evil and wicked generation. We're not talking about being saved from his own sin here so much. Talking about being saved from the world out there that persecutes and mistreats. Just like Noah was saved from that generation through water, so Peter's readers have also been saved in the same way. Through water, just like Noah. In fact, Peter says something and then it's as though he catches himself. He says, and now this water, what was the water he was just talking about? The water of Noah's flood. This water of Noah's flood saves you. Oh, wait, and then he corrects himself. This water, or actually baptism, which corresponds to that water, now saves you. You, you is his main word, because it comes first, you. So here we are back to us. How does the water of baptism, and I'm just gonna use this as our visual, correspond to the water of Noah's flood? Well, I think it's fairly simple. In the water of baptism, there it is, you can just look at that if it helps. In the water of baptism and our immersion in it, we have a picture, not just of being washed and cleansed, We have a picture of our passing with Christ safely through death. In fact, safely through death and judgment and all the wrath of God poured out on the rest of the world. We pass safely through that, even dying ourselves with Christ, only so we might be raised with Him to a wholly new existence. No longer only in the flesh in your handout, but sharing even now, even now at some level, in some way, we are both in the flesh and in some way, in one way, in the Spirit, because we're in Christ. So we share with Him in the power and the glory of His life in the Spirit. This is the reality for us who have put our faith in Christ. And so we see that we can identify with Noah. Not just as a righteous minority. We are still a righteous minority in the world. That we can identify with Him in that way. But also, we can identify with Noah as a people who are saved, in your handout. Saved not, the point here isn't from our sin, although that assumes this, but saved from this evil and hostile world out there that persecutes and mistreats and we are saved through water. The water in which we passed with Christ through death and into that resurrection life that he now lives. I give you, there is room for many weeks and months of wonderful meditation in that right there, but let us move on. Now Peter clarifies, not a removal of dirt from the body, but a response of faith to God. There are so many questions about this verse, and so I can't tell you all about them, but I feel guilty almost. I put a response of faith. The word is either a pledge or appeal, and I think either way it ends up meaning a response of faith to God out of a good conscience. So let me ask you, what is it that saves us? We looked at baptism. Well, it's not the water of baptism in and of itself. Peter's clear about that. The only thing that water can ever do, really, is just wash dirt off your bodies. It's all it's good for in and of itself. And now there isn't any magical qualities that God associates with that water when baptism's happening. Baptism in your handout is an outward sign and seal of the good conscience that we already have. of the clean hearts that God has given to us as a free gift. So when I'm baptized, when you're baptized, that washing of the waters and passing through the waters into life is a sign and seal of the free gift God already gave you, that clean heart that you have, that good conscience through faith. At the same time, baptism is not just that. It's not just God's work in signing and sealing something to you. It's also the formal, concrete expression of our faith, which flows out of what? Out of our good conscience and the clean heart that God has given to us. So while baptism, when we hear baptism saves you, we think of baptismal regeneration. Like when I got in the waters, all of a sudden my soul was made new. I was a new man. I was a new creation. Peter didn't have to worry about that doctrine because it wasn't around. The Roman Catholic Church wasn't there yet. This wasn't taught. And so Peter could say baptism saves you. When we say that, all we've got is baptismal regeneration. Peter says it, and we shouldn't be afraid of it. Because Peter sees in baptism, he sees our salvation in a way that I don't think we do today. He sees us being saved. He sees it being enacted before our very eyes. He sees us passing through the waters of judgment and death and coming out like Noah did, rising with Christ to a new resurrection life. And He sees also in our submitting to baptism our pledge and appeal to God that comes out of a pure conscience that He's given to us. So in his sermon at Pentecost, Peter says other things that we're not comfortable with today because we've got baggage. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 22, Ananias says to Paul, rise and be baptized and wash away your sins. Be baptized and wash away your sins. Peter says that because he sees in baptism the enacting of our salvation. But the water itself doesn't do anything and it doesn't have any magical qualities and nothing happens automatically in that moment. So, it's in this way. If we see what baptism really is, and we have a really hard time with this, I know. But if we can really see how Peter saw baptism, that just like Noah and his family, then we can see that we too are saved through water. And that this baptism is not just a picture of being saved from our sin, it's a picture of all of salvation, even its fruits and results, which includes being saved even from the world out there. Not just from the sin in here and the death that I deserve, but from the hostile, persecuting, evil world that attacks God's people. Your salvation includes that. Peter wants his readers to know that. We know Peter's thinking of rescue and deliverance. When we hear saved, we think the spiritual deliverance. So I might use words like rescue and deliverance because then we think of being rescued from the evil world. We know Peter's thinking of that because of how he returns now to where he started. Okay, here we come to the conclusion. He picks up now right where he left off. This water, or I mean baptism, which corresponds to that water, now saves you through the resurrection. of Jesus Christ. Now, weren't we just talking about the resurrection? Well, I think after all the spirits and the humans and the baptism and the water and the Noah, I think I remember resurrection. Yeah, because it never left Peter's mind, okay? Peter never stopped thinking about the risen, exalted and glorified Christ. And now that he's done all this, he says, now, my beloved readers, let me bring you back to where we left off. We already know what this resurrection is, don't we? Christ has been raised. Now, I put in my notes here, just meditate again on this. I know you've heard it this morning already more than once, but now just meditate again on this. Christ has been raised, not to the same kind of existence he had before, not to life in the flesh no longer, but to a wholly new kind of existence that we cannot comprehend fully even now, lived out wholly in a different realm. Christ has been raised, yes, to a life that partakes only, only, only, only of immortality and power and glory. A life now lived wholly in the realm of the supernatural, all-powerful Spirit of God. Therefore, therefore, it's through His resurrection that we are rescued, that we are delivered, that we are saved. From all the evil and hostile powers of this world, when I say powers of this world, you can think spirit and human, because there's a connection. How can this be true? Now, here is what I said. I'm gonna put it all together, okay? So, let's put it together. We're gonna go back to the beginning, kind of, and just go through it. We already know that it was in the power and glory of his resurrection life, that's the life he had when Christ went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. What did he proclaim to them? His final victory and triumph over them. Now then, we've seen from the story of Noah how it's the invisible powers of darkness that Christ went and proclaimed to. Those are the powers of darkness that always stand behind the world and its persecution and mistreatment of God's people. All throughout history, all throughout the world, wherever it happens, those invisible powers of darkness are behind it. We've seen from the story of Noah also how long ago God saved a small remnant of people. from that evil and wicked generation. How did he save them? Through water. Through water. Peter sees in that how we too have passed through this same water, the waters of judgment, we have passed through those waters in our baptism. So that we share even now in all of the saving power and all of the saving glory of Christ's resurrection life. All that remains then is for Peter to remind us again of what that saving power is. In verse 19, this is what Peter said. Peter said that Christ went Paruamai, that's the word Peter used. Christ went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison. Now, you know Peter never forgot where he left off because now he goes back and he picks up that same exact word. He says, now, let's go back. And this is what he says. This water or baptism, which corresponds to it, now saves you. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who went. Who went not only and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, but he went into heaven and is now at the right hand of God with angels. Oh, no. Spirits, angels, authorities, and powers. He's talking about here the spirit powers, the invisible powers of the invisible world. But for Peter and all the New Testament writers, when you talk about those powers, you're talking about all the visible powers of evil that are underneath them that we see. So Christ has went into heaven at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him. Oh, brothers and sisters, now this is good news for us. This is good news for us living still in this world surrounded by hostile powers who would persecute and mistreat God's people. Here is the Lordship of Christ. This is, all of these verses have been all about His Lordship. And it's not just an empty doctrine. This is like living real stuff that gives you power and wisdom and the grit to live life every day. Peter's message to us is this. And you know what? This is what I love about the scriptures. Peter could have just come out and said it. Let me just summarize what I could have said a long way. Let me say it the short way and the simple way, right? Instead, Peter says it like this. Do you know why? It's because our salvation is rooted in real realities. It's not just an idea that Peter could have told us about. It's because these are real things and out of these flow the life you live and the existence you have. It's because in the wisdom of God, which is mind-boggling even in this passage, He has accomplished your salvation. And the more you can root your salvation in these kinds of realities, the stronger of a Christian you will be, the more joyful of a Christian you will be, the more fearless of a Christian you will be. And so Peter's message to us is this, after all of that, it's this, whatever persecution or whatever mistreatment you may ever endure for the sake of righteousness, we know, oh, we know, this can never be the final word. Now, again, I could have said that to you. Let's say someone was suffering and I said, well, whatever happens, we know it's not the final word, That's not as powerful as if we understand all of what we just went through. Now we know, like we didn't know before. How do we know this? Because in our hearts, we have sanctified Christ as Lord. Because like Noah, Let's personalize this now by faith. Like Noah, we have passed through the waters in our baptism so that we might live with Christ. So that through His Lordship over all the powers of darkness and evil in this world, we might also be rescued and delivered from these same powers. that are still at work in this world. How do we know that suffering and persecution can never be the final word? Because we know that the God who waited in the days of Noah to save only a few, that is, eight persons through water, He is the same God who today has already, and Peter's emphasis is on the already. His emphasis is not on the not yet. Peter says, I'm just going on the already here. Who has already worked in Christ to save and rescue and deliver us. Do you feel like being afraid right now? This is just my prayer, really. This whole thing is just a confession. So if you can confess this by reading along, if you'd rather confess it by just listening, I want to make this the confession of our hearts. He who suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God. He who was put to death in the flesh and made alive in the Spirit, who also went and proclaimed to the spirits now in prison, who went into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers, having been subjected to Him, He is Lord over all. He is Lord over all. May then this truly be the constant, reverent, joyful confession of your hearts. In our hearts, may we always sanctify Christ as Lord. What good news? Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful passage. I'm so glad, Lord, that in your time you brought me to this passage. and your church. I pray that you would give us understanding. I pray that you would help us, O Lord, to grasp it and to grasp in it the glory and the Lordship of Christ in His resurrection life and what all of that really means and how in that is our rescue and deliverance. Lord, comfort your people. drive away all fear. Let us rest in this truth, and let us give to Christ, day by day, the glory that He is worthy of. In Jesus' name, Amen.