Sermon and translation by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, 07 June 2009
INTRODUCTION
One of the few things I remember from my college Chemistry class is how to remember the difference between the solvent and the solute in a mixture. You often have to dissolve things in liquids in Chemistry labs, and it's helpful to keep straight which word applies to the liquid and which word refers to the thing being dissolved in the liquid. My Chemistry professor had a great way to remember the two terms. He did it by mispronouncing a Bible verse from John 4:22. You want to remember which is the solvent and which is the solute? Professor Dameron reminded us, “Solvation is of the juice.” The solvent is the juice, the liquid. But we're not studying solvation this morning, we're studying salvation and its relationship to baptism.
Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of I Peter chapter 3 – It's almost at the end of the Bible – I Peter 3. While you're turning there, let me give a little context to this passage:
· Peter was one of Jesus' disciples almost 2,000 years ago. He was the first to recognize who Jesus was: "the Christ, the Son of the Loving God." Peter was also one of the first to see the empty tomb and realize that Jesus had been resurrected after being put to death.
· This letter of I Peter was written toward the end of Peter's life, and it was written to Christians throughout the Roman empire.
· The Christians of Peter's day were already beginning to experience persecution from the Roman empire, and more intense persecution was yet to come. Archaeologists have uncovered an exchange of letters written 60 years after I Peter between the Roman emperor Trajan and the governor of Bithynia agreeing that Christians should be executed unless they would worship the emperor – this was serious business! Peter wrote to encourage a suffering church to persevere in the Christian faith.
· In 5:12 he writes, “Through Silas... I am writing to y'all calling [you] alongside and testifying: the true grace of God in which y'all must stand is this!”
· Peter's purpose was not just to see the church survive; He wanted to see it MULTIPLY throughout the world. Peter encourages the believers to stand firm in the faith and live godly lives IN ORDER THAT others would also believe in Christ. 2:9: “You are a chosen progeny ... a people [who have come] into acquisition so that y'all might declare the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
· He approaches this by helping us be sure of our salvation and also by helping us understand how to share our salvation with others.
I PETER 3
15. But y'all must begin to sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord,
ready always for a defense
toward every one who asks of you a word concerning the hope in you,
but with meekness and fear,
16. maintaining a good conscience,
so that in what you are talked down about,
the abusers of your good conduct in Christ might be put down.
17. For it is better to suffer - if the will of God so wills - while doing good, than while doing evil,
18. because Christ also suffered concerning sin,
[only] once -
the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous,
in order that He might lead us to God,
after having been put to death in the flesh,
but having been made alive in the Spirit.
19. in Whom He preached after going even to the spirits
in prison 20. that were un-persuaded then when the patience of God was waiting
in Noah's days during the equipping of an ark,
into which a few (that is, eight) souls were saved through water,
21. the antitype of which is now saving you also: baptism –
not displacing dirt from the flesh,
but rather a request for a good conscience in God
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22. Who is at the right hand of God
after having proceeded into heaven,
angels and authorities and powers having been subjected to Him.
Our passage starts with a command at the beginning in verse 15, “sanctify/set apart/regard as holy Christ as Lord in your hearts,”
The verse before said not to be afraid of what the world is afraid of, but rather sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts: This has several implications:
1. Jesus Christ is God. (Lord was the New Testament name for the Old Testament name Jehovah-God.) The first few chapters of the book of Acts describe how Peter made a controversial stand among the Jewish leaders on this point. “...this Jesus whom y'all crucified, God made both Lord Himself and Christ.” (2:36)
2. Jesus Christ is Sovereign. No other person or thing in the world should be able to make you do anything.
3. We must acknowledge the special place of Divine Lordship that Jesus has. Other words used throughout Peter's book for this “sanctifying Christ as Lord” include “faith” or “belief” and “hope” - 1:21 through Jesus y'all are “believers in God, the One who raised Him out of the dead and gave to Him the glory so that your faith and hope would be in God.”
4. This sanctifying Christ as Lord must be done “in our hearts;” outward actions alone cannot fulfill this call for an internal faith in Jesus. Going to church, getting baptized, singing praise choruses - whatever religious behavior you do is not what makes us right with God. When we believe that Jesus really is God and that He really is in charge of your life, then we are right with God, and then all those good things like praying and taking a place of involvement in the community of God's people, flow out of a heart that is in the right place.
5. But remember that it doesn't end with your own inward faith. Our inward faith must be shared outwardly with the world. That's why v.15 says that when we sanctify Christ as Lord, we will be people who are “ready to make a defense toward every one who asks of you a word/reason/account concerning the hope in you.” This raises 3 questions:
·
Do you have the hope? Are you right with God?
Most people place their hope in humans. I was just reading an article
comparing the political views of evangelical liberals and evangelical conservatives.
The article emphasized that conservatives tended to emphasize passing laws
against abortion and for a traditional definition of marriage,
while liberals tended to emphasize overcoming poverty and sickness. What struck me was that the conservative view
focused on the government as an institution that makes laws based upon
God's ethics and enforces those laws, whereas the liberal view of
government tended to focus on the salvation of mankind from all that is
wrong in the world – war, sickness, poverty, etc. Most liberals probably
don't realize that they have elevated the government to the role of God
in saving mankind, and most conservatives probably are not truly placing
their hope in the true God to save the world from all that is wrong, but
the question is, who are you looking to, to save the world? No human
institution has the power to be a reliable savior.
·
If you are placing your hope in God to save
the world, does your spiritual hopefulness show?
I remember the manager at the Pizza Inn where I worked many summers ago
criticising me by calling me a fuddy-duddy. I was too head-down in my
responsibilities to bring joy and hope into my work environment.
Needless to say, that manager didn't ask me about my faith. If, however,
you have a hopeful outlook on life, some people will be interested in hearing
about your worldview!
How do you express hope in God at home and at work? One of the biggest
aspects of our hope is expressed in 1 Corinthians 15:25ff - we believe that Jesus
is currently bringing everything that is in rebellion to Him back under
subjection to Him. He is fixing everything that is wrong with this
world, and there will be a time when everything that is currently wrong
will be made right. In the new heavens and new earth that He creates
(Isa. 65:17; Isa. 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1) there will be
nothing left of what is currently wrong with this world; no death, no
sickness, no losses, no poverty, no pain, no war, no injustice. Jesus is already
using us to begin rolling those things back here and now! And since Jesus
is God, He has the power to do this.
Can you imagine what Jesus can do through you to roll back the
effects of sin and brokenness in your work and in your home? Can
you imagine what it will be like in heaven when that process is
completed? Think about those things, and hope will show in you!
·
(1. Do you have the hope? 2. Does that hope show?) 3. Are you ready
to give that defense – to explain the hope of Christ to anyone who asks you
about it? If not, I suggest that you memorize verse 18, “Christ also suffered
concerning sin, [only] once - the righteous/just on behalf of the unrighteous/unjust,
in order that He might lead you to God, after having been put to death in the
flesh, but having been made alive in the Spirit.”
This Jesus whom Peter had seen crucified and then raised from the dead around
30A.D., did these things for a specific purpose: to bring us to God.
How does that work? Well, it talks about sin at the beginning of verse 18. Sin is everything we do that breaks God's commands and everything we don't do to measure up to His perfection. No one can measure up perfectly to God's rules in the Bible (Romans 3:9-20), and so God is obligated by His own justice to punish every human being on earth! The punishment for sin is death (Romans 6:23). However, God showed His love to us and sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to become a man and actually take on Himself the punishment for sins that we humans deserve. When Jesus was a man, he lived a perfect life; Jesus is the “just/righteous” one in this verse, and we are the “unjust/unrighteous” ones, because we all have sinned. When Jesus died, He died “for our sins,” taking on Himself the punishment of death which we deserve so that He might bring us to God. This is the essence of the Gospel, that Jesus died for our sins to bring us to God! This is all we need to say to explain our Christian faith – not that hard, is it?
SALVATION PICTURE #1: NOAH’s ARK
Let's go on – verse 19 – "in Whom He preached after going even to the spirits in prison 20. that were unpersuaded then when the patience of God was waiting in Noah's days during the equipping of an ark, into which a few (that is, eight) souls were saved through water, "
Whoah, what's going on here? (DRAW TIMELINE) You see, Jesus is here, around 30AD, and we've just jumped back in time about 2½ thousand years to Noah. It's the same idea of sharing the story of salvation from sin, just in Old Testament terms. – God delivering His people from the judgment of sin!
Now, I'm aware of the fact that some people interpret this passage differently and say that this is describing a preaching excursion done by Jesus in His spirit without His body while His body was dead, and that this preaching was done to other spirits. This is mostly based on conjecture and extra-Biblical writings about the spirit world which are interesting and even plausible, but not particularly useful to us. Here is my defense:
· I believe that Jesus was raised “in the Spirit” with a capital “S” - as in the Holy Spirit - because Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit had a part in the resurrection of Christ in Rom 8:11 “But if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.”
· I believe that Jesus suffered hell while on the cross, not after his resurrection, and that His cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” (Mt. 27:46) tells us that He was undergoing the separation from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (“My God, My God”) in a heart-wrenching experience far more painful than divorcing your husband or wife or losing a close brother or sister. Separation from God is hell. Yet Jesus told the thief next to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” (Lk 23:43-46) and then said to God, “Into your hands I place my spirit” and then He died. This indicates that upon physically dying, Jesus’ spirit went to be with the Father and also to meet that thief in heaven.
· If you track the grammar of the Greek sentences in verse 18 and 22, the verb tenses of the participles give a timeline of events: Jesus was put to death in the body, He was resurrected, and then He completed the reconciliation of us with God. Then we see in v.22 that God placed all angels, authorities and powers under subjection to Jesus, and Jesus went up into heaven, and now Jesus sits at the right hand of God, in a position of closeness, favor, and authority.
· I believe that the Holy Spirit is the agent through which Christ “went and proclaimed” His message of finding the hope of salvation from God, because this is a consistent theme throughout scripture:
a. Rom 1:4 Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power, according to the Holy Spirit, by the resurrection from the dead”
b. Earlier in the book of 1 Peter (1:11-12) the Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit of Christ” and was “preaching” through the Old Testament prophets “the Spirit of Christ who was in them… testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow… these things, have now been announced unto you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven...”
c. Later in 2 Peter 5, the apostle remembers Noah again and calls Noah a “preacher.”
d. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1 teaches us that it is the Spirit of God Who can reveal to us the thoughts of God.
e. Preaching was done by Noah and other prophets, but the source of their message was Jesus, who delivered His word through the means of the Holy Spirit,
· Verses 19 and 20 say that the audience who heard the message of the Spirit of Christ was “spirits in prison, [who were] disobedient/lit. un-persuaded in the days of Noah.”
a. The fact that this is limited to the days of Noah indicates to me that this is a specific story from history illustrating the Apostle Peter’s point about the way God saves us.
b. Note that the audience was “un-persuaded” by the preaching and “disobedient,” so whoever they are, they are not God’s people.
c. Peter uses this word “un-persuaded/ disobedient/unbelieving” consistently throughout his book to refer to human beings (1Pe 2:7-8, 1Pe 3:1, 1Pe 4:17, cf. Act 14:2, Rom 10:21, John 3:36 “He who believes on the Son has eternal life; but he that does not obey/believe the Son shall not see life…”)
d. That leaves me to interpret the word “prison” figuratively as the “prison-house of sin” as was pictured in Isa 61:11 “The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me, because Jehovah has anointed me to evangelize lowly ones. He has sent me to bind up those who are broken of heart, for the calling out of liberty to the captives, and opening of the eyes for those which have been imprisoned”
e. I believe this paints a picture of Noah who became aware through the Holy Spirit communicating to him the word of God concerning God’s wrath against mankind’s sin and the only way to be saved from the deluge, which was by building the ark. For over a hundred years, Noah built this boat and told the people around him that God was going to flood and kill everyone who had sinned unless they would trust in God’s way of salvation and get on that ark. They were unpersuaded, but Noah and his family trusted in God’s way of salvation and stepped into that boat, and they were saved from the wrath of God.
· Now, the story of Noah was one picture of God speaking through His people to share the hope of salvation. This is something Jesus wants to keep doing through us, In 1 Peter 3:19, it says Jesus went and preached to the people of Noah’s day, and then in Mark 16:15 when Jesus gave the Great Commission, he used the exact same words “going… preach the good news”
· The picture of God’s salvation in Noah’s day reminded the apostle Peter of another picture of salvation, namely baptism.
SALVATION PICTURE #2: BAPTISM
Look at verse 21, " water, 21. the antitype/symbol of which/the like figure/corresponding to that is now saving you also: baptism – not displacing dirt from the flesh, but rather a request for a good conscience in God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22. Who is at the right hand of God after having proceeded into heaven, angels and authorities and powers having been subjected to Him.”
Peter jumps back to the present, and shows how we are still saved in the same way. Notice that Peter is still taking about sin with the mention of a good conscience, he is still talking about salvation, and he is still talking about Jesus' death and resurrection.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that the O.T. things were types that point us to spiritual realities in the N.T. (Heb 9:24)
Paul's letter to the Colossians clearly tells us in chapter two that all the powers and authorities were put in subjection to Jesus as a result of His death on the cross. It is Jesus' death and resurrection that saves us. So why does Peter say that Baptism saves us? Oho! Is he talking about getting sprinkled or dunked? No, Peter expressly says that he is not talking about that, it is "not the removal of dirt from the flesh."
So if it is not water baptism that saves us, what
sort of baptism is Peter talking about that saves us?
It is the appeal to God for a good conscience – for forgiveness of sin
so that we may escape the punishment we deserve for our sin and be brought to
God.
The word "appeal" is a better translation than the word "answer" which some other translations use. Not only does the Greek word mean "request," but also we cannot have a clean conscience until AFTER we have been saved, we have to ask God for that clean conscience, and He gives it to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
How is that a “baptism,” and what would that have to do with “water?”
· The O.T. symbolized cleansing from sin by sprinkling, pouring, and dipping in blood and water. The cleansing from sin symbolized by washing with water is indeed an essential part of our salvation, as we have seen.
· Heb 10:19-22 “Having boldness therefore to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus… (22) let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience: and having our body washed with pure water”
· Isaiah connects a physical outpouring of water as a symbol of the Holy Spirit becoming involved spiritually in people’s lives in 44:3 “I will pour water on the thirsty and cataracts upon the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring.”
· The Bible also speaks of the baptism of the Holy Spirit as being Christ’s New Testament counterpart to John’s pre-Christ water baptisms: (Mat. 3:11) “I [John] indeed baptize you in water unto repentance: but He [Jesus] who comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you in/with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (This is the most-repeated statement on baptism in the Bible. See Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:31, 33, Acts 1:5; 11:16). Jesus and the disciples continued to use water baptism, but they included the coming of the Holy Spirit upon new believers in the meaning of baptism. The union of the Holy Spirit with our spirit is an essential part of our salvation too.
· Tit 3:3-7 “For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. (4) But when the kindness of God our Savior, and His love toward man, appeared, (5) not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy, He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, (6) which He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; (7) that, being made righteous by His grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
Did you notice that the verb “saves” is in the present tense?
· There is a sense in which salvation is a fait accomplie, as the Aorist tense of “that He might lead you to God” says in v.18. Through His self-sacrifice on the cross, Jesus took care of the legal aspect of our salvation. We were saved (past tense) by His death on the cross.
· Yet there is a sense in which our salvation is present tense: We are in the process of being saved. How is that? Paul explains this most clearly in First Corinthians: 1Co 1:18 “the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are being saved it is the power of God… 15:1 Now I make known unto you brothers, the gospel which I preached unto you, which you also received, in which you also are standing, 2. by which also you are being saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached unto you...” As the Holy Spirit sanctifies us by bringing the Word of God to bear on our lives and we continue to believe it, we experience God’s continuing work of salvation.
· And salvation has a future tense. Mar 13:13 “You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” The picture is of the final judgment day when each one of us will give an account to the Lord and will be judged. At that point there will be a final pronouncement made, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you… Depart from me, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire” (Mat 25:34,41). That sigh of relief, “Yes, all these years of trusting Jesus when I couldn’t see Him have been rewarded as He recognized me and accepted me!” That is the future salvation scenario, and it includes being glorified in heaven with Him.
Notice also that the wording is very vague about the person making the appeal. We can all assume that a person can make an appeal to God for the cleansing of his own conscience, but can a parent appeal to God for a good conscience for their child? I believe the answer is, Yes.
· 1 John 5:16 “If someone were to see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he will ask and He [God] will give to him life--to the ones who are sinning a sin not unto death.”
· I also base this upon other places in scripture where God makes it clear that His covenantal relationship with His people is intended to continue into future generations. I have brought up many passages before on this, to today I’ll just bring one back up from Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Act 2:38-39 “Peter said unto them, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Himself.’”
Note, however, that the baptism of infants is framed in the language of promise and request, not in the language of actual regeneration and salvation.
1. Children are “heirs” – they have a natural right to the spiritual blessings their parents have just as they have a natural right to the physical blessings of their parents
2. But an heir does not always get the inheritance in the end. Sometimes the heir refuses his inheritance. Esau sold his inheritance for a pot of soup, and in grievous circumstances, the children of believers sometimes do the same.
3. I believe that is one reason why the Bible uses the word “promise” so much to refer to salvation:
(a) “Repent and be baptized…For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off” (Acts 2:38-39) Peter spoke this before a crowd of Jews to whom God had promised salvation, but not all of the people in that crowd received Peter’s message.
(b) Peter later said in (2 Peter 1:4) “He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” Note the subjunctive “may become partakers.”
(c) The heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11 didn’t sit back and ignore the promises, they believed the promises and v.33 says “through faith … they obtained promises.”
4. We baptize our children because these promises and this inheritance is theirs by right, and the Bible teaches us we have a reasonable expectation that they will obtain the inheritance by faith, but we acknowledge that our children need to believe those promises themselves and want to receive that inheritance. That is why parents take the vow at the baptism of their child to “look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for [the child’s] salvation, as you do for your own… and promise to set before him a godly example… pray with and for (him)… teach (him) the doctrines of our holy faith…, and strive by all the means of God’s appointment to bring (him) up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
So, now that we have looked at Peter's explanation of salvation,
· Do you have the hope? Do you acknowledge the special place of Divine Lordship that Jesus has by trusting Jesus to save you from everything that is wrong in you and in the world?
· Does your hope show? Do you bring joy and enthusiasm for the future into the world?
· Are you ready to give a reason for the hope of Christ to anyone who asks? Be ready – even during Chemistry class!