But at all cost God's will must be done; "by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." After this episode which has to do with men here, not in the unseen world, he returns to the relative duties of Christians, and exhorts them to watchfulness with sobriety, to fervent love, and also to "use hospitality one to another without grudging." Because of what they did in the times of Noah, leaving their own habitation, giving themselves over to fornication and going after "strange flesh", after the daughters of men. Besides that, not only is there holiness in drawing near to God, but royal dignity stamped upon the believer. Beautiful Christian trait: courtesy. We shall see that this comes later on in our epistle, and therefore I need say no more upon it now. Our relationships with God can never be right, if our relationships with our fellow-men are wrong. The idea of the New Testament is not that Jesus descended into hell but that he descended into Hades. Therefore, "If Christ is said by Paul to go and do, what he did by his apostles, Christ may with equal propriety be said by Peter to go and do what he did by Noah."[33]. They are scattered over the earth, and can find no rest for their souls, any more than their feet. It is as if God had purposely put verse 11 to negative the conclusions which men have drawn from a misunderstanding of verse 10. This passage, therefore, cannot be adduced to support the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, because: (1)The essential ideas which enter into the doctrine of purgatory are not to be found in the word used here; (2)There is no evidence in the fair interpretation of the passage that any message is borne to them while in prison; (3)There is not the slightest hint that they can be released by any prayers or offerings of those who dwell on the earth. (ii) He lays it down that that sacrifice was for sin. You can't do it with words; they have to see the Gospel demonstrated in your life. This is what we've been called to do. Then he begins his exhortations, and first of all with the personal snares of every day, with what the Christian had to contend with in himself. Personal / Relative Pronoun - Dative Neuter Singular, Verb - Aorist Participle Passive - Nominative Masculine Singular, Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular. He came to do the will of God, and this not as the law proposed, in order that it might be well with Him, and He might live long in the earth; He never had such a motive though He fulfilled the law perfectly. "He that would love life, and see good days,". serving divers lusts and pleasures, to which they were in He must remember that women are the weaker sex and treat them with courtesy. It comes, second, from the fact that the Christian has a new standard of comparison. Take Psalms 22:1-31 or Isaiah 53:1-12, where we have the sufferings which belonged to Christ, and the glories after these. ScienceQuantum Mechanics and Chaos TheoryThe Passion of the Christ and the Theory of EverythingStars and fractals: the many hearts of wisdomHow the Bible relates to Homer like Ape to DogHumanitiesScience, religion and data retentionHow circumcision created the modern worldThe Cosmology of ConsciousnessThe Metaverse and the Angel of the AbyssOnline e-books (free, no tricks) Weird Patterns in History and Movies Tolkien, the Bible and Serbia, BibleBiblical namesInterlinear New TestamentLots and lots of topical articlesHebrew dictionaryGreek dictionaryMiscellaneousThe gospel of impurityThe many Hebrew roots of the Greek languageEndosymbiotic eukaryosynthesisWhy you want to study the Bible, HousekeepingCookies, Copyright & ContactPlease consider helping us financially:Through PatreonVia Paypal. It is into this very snare that unbelief has brought men in Christendom. As Bigg puts it: "The sighs of the injured wife come between the husband's prayers and God's hearing." he does not do, and of the evil that he does, he has a dread of God, knowing that He must bring into judgment the good that he knew but did not, and the evil that he knew and did. You see that's what it's actually saying, pity-full. The simple fact is that love of God and love of man go hand in hand; the one cannot exist without the other. They observe, and then, he said, they have to see a miracle and answer to prayer. You remember when Peter was arrested for the preaching of the Gospel and they beat him and told him not to preach anymore in the name of Jesus Christ? in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient, Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament, Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. The very point of Christianity is this, that as to election it is personal strictly individual. Thirdly, it seems very strange, that Peter, speaking of the apostles, should immediately, as though forgetting himself, go back to the time of Noah. I mean, it wasn't a --it was a two-way street. Now, there are some women who are outstanding artists, and they can paint a beautiful face. Prosagein ( G4317) means to bring in; prosagoge ( G4318) means the right of access, the result of the bringing in. (iii) He lays it down that that sacrifice was vicarious. (3) The Descent Into Hell ( 1 Peter 3:18 b-20;4:6 Continued). The one cannot exist without the other; it is only when we forgive others their sins against us that we are forgiven our sins against God ( Matthew 6:12; Matthew 6:14-15). I shall discuss these views in the exposition to follow. 2 Peter 2:4) and that they were disobedient in the days of Noah (1 Peter 3:20). (i) He lays it down that the work of Christ was unique and never need be repeated. [Note: E.g., Michaels, pp. To this double motive there is added another consideration on which it all rests, and without which neither of these things could be. For Christ also died once and for all for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Obedience is always right, but not to man when he would force the dishonour of God. But when it is a question of drawing near, let us not forget that we are a holy priesthood. It was not necessary to speak of them precisely as they were at the time when it was delivered, but only in such a way as to identify them. It was to the purpose to direct them to the fact that he was saved as the result of his steadfastness to Him who had commanded him to preach to that ungodly generation. He went and preached unto the spirits in prison. All this was thoroughly in season; and after it, as we are told, the blindness was taken away, and he was filled with the Holy Ghost. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they may also without the word be won by the conversation or behavior of the wives ( 1 Peter 3:1 ); Or the lifestyle of the wife. human soul of Christ, but his divine nature, is designed by the Confound the one with the other and you upset the gospel: distinguish sanctification in principle from the beginning for all from sanctification in practice in the various measures of believers, and you learn the truth of what Peter here teaches, which is forgotten for the most part in Christendom. It is implied in the expression, as already remarked, that he did this himself; that it was the Son of God who subsequently became incarnate, and not the Holy Spirit, that did this; though the language is consistent with the supposition that he did it by the instrumentality of another, to wit, Noah. Here too the apostle does not merely speak, nor is it ever the habit of scripture to speak, in an abstract way of election. Sympathy comes to the heart when Christ reigns there. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil ( 1 Peter 3:10-12 ). Several reasons support this view: (a) Peter calls Noah a herald of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), where herald represents Greek kryx, preacher, which corresponds to the noun kryss, proclaim, in 1 Peter 3:19. This is the reading also in the Complutensian Polyglot. The men do not have an advantage over the women or vice versa; as far as in Christ, we are all one. The whole attitude of ancient civilization was that no woman could dare take any decision for herself. And always as far as the wife, it is subjection to the husband. There is in this passage the solution of one of the most haunting questions raised by the Christian faith--what is to happen to those who lived before Jesus Christ and to those to whom the gospel never came? And who is he that will harm you, if you are followers of that which is good? Will the dust praise thee? Salem Media Group. as some, to preach to the devils and damned spirits, that they If you yield to nature, you gratify it; but if you suffer in refusing its wishes, then "he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." As Christians, we are under a far more searching principle, namely, the grace of God (Romans 6:1-23), which assuredly ought to produce far better and more fruitful results. God himself.". God may have judged them in this world, but this is not all. In what sense does baptism save us? Certainly this mode of speaking would be most unsuitable. On the Cross God dealt with man's sin in a way which is adequate for all sin, for all men, for all time. The epistle to the Hebrews of all the Pauline epistles is that which most approaches the testimony of Peter, and coalescing in it to a large extent. And, indeed, you find this not merely in Peter but in Paul. (3) The language employed does not demand this interpretation. There is tupos ( G5179) , type, which means a seal, and there is antitupos ( G499) , antitype, which means the impression of the seal. American Standard Version. We know that in human relations it is not so. Quintilian, the Roman master of oratory, wrote: "A tasteful and magnificent dress, as the Greek poet tells us, lends added dignity to the wearer: but effeminate and luxurious apparel fails to adorn the body, and only reveals the sordidness of the mind." Today He also waits, so patiently that some people conclude that He will never judge (cf. There may be no sense of liberty yet, nor even joy in the Lord; there can be no solid peace whatever. (iii) The whole idea and effectiveness of baptism is dependent on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto a weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered ( 1 Peter 3:7 ). He in no case desired to do a single thing that was not the will of God. "No particular stress should be laid on the clause he went. 2 Timothy 4:18 (see , b. under the end); , 1 Peter 3:20 (the Sept. Genesis 19:19, and often in Greek . It was ever right that love should go out towards others, whether in general kindness towards all mankind, or in special affections towards the family of God. He is and can be put to death by his family members if he leaves the Islam faith and becomes a Christian. So opening the prison. In 1 Peter 3:19 it states that Christ 'went and preached to the spirits in prison'. "The opinion which states that Jesus Christ descended into hell, to announce his coming to the ancient patriarchs, and to deliver them from that species of prison, where they had so long waited for him, is incontrovertible; and we (the Catholics) consider it as an article of our faith: but we may doubt whether this be the meaning of St. Peter in this place.". but it would The spirits are characterised as in prison. Jesus preached to the souls in prison. incarnate, he was before Abraham, he was in the days of Noah; and This is, indeed, a more tolerable sense than the former; but it will be difficult to show, that men, in the present state of life, are called "spirits", which seems to be a word that relates to the souls of men, in a separate state from their bodies; and especially that carnal and unconverted men are ever so called; and besides, the apostle is speaking of such who were disobedient in the times of Noah; and therefore not of the Gentiles, in the times of the apostles: add to which, that the transition from the times of the apostles, according to this sense, to the days of Noah, is very unaccountable; this sense does not agree with the connection of the words: others are of opinion, that this is meant of the souls of the Old Testament saints, who were , "in a watch", as they think the phrase may be rendered, instead of "in prison": and said to be in such a situation, because they were intent upon the hope of promised salvation, and were looking out for the Messiah, and anxiously desiring his coming, and which he, by some gracious manifestation, made known unto them: but though the word may sometimes signify a watch, yet more commonly a prison, and which sense best suits here; nor is that anxiety and uneasiness, which represents them as in a prison, so applicable to souls in a state of happiness; nor such a gracious manifestation so properly called preaching; and besides, not believers, but unbelievers, disobedient ones, are here spoken of; and though it is only said they were sometimes so, yet to what purpose should this former character be once mentioned of souls now in glory? The case for Christianity must be presented with winsomeness and with love, and with that wise tolerance which realizes that it is not given to any man to possess the whole truth. This is exactly what modern presbyters think they may and ought to do every day of their lives. We might put it that the Old Testament event symbolically represents and foreshadows the New Testament event. As we shall go on to see, this most probably means that in the time between his death and his resurrection Jesus actually preached the gospel in the abode of the dead; that is to say, to those who in their lifetime had never had the opportunity to hear it. The true beauty isn't that which you put on outwardly but the true beauty is that which is inward, which shines out.I do not believe that Peter is intending here to issue a prohibition against the ladies looking nice. And you can get a horrible cycle going here as it works against the marriage to destroy it. I can understand them, but do not in the least agree with them. No debates have been so acrimonious as theological debates; no differences have caused such bitterness as religious differences. For he that will love life, and see good days ( 1 Peter 3:10 ), Now here Peter goes back and just quotes a portion out of the psalms. You can easily judge whether that day is come now. (i) There are those who wish to eliminate it altogether. A more probable explanation is that these "spirits" were the unbelievers who disobeyed God in Noahs day by rejecting his preaching. 19 After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. The old English word was conversation, which doesn't mean verbal but it means your lifestyle. Not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing but contrariwise blessing knowing that ye are thereunto __ called that ye should inherit a blessing. That government may differ in character and depth; there may be at a fitting moment a far closer dealing with souls (as undoubtedly this is the case since redemption). There are few passages where the value of a lovely Christian life is so vividly stressed. The conditions of our own age tend to blunt the edge of the mind to sensitiveness in pity. He's referring, of course, to the cross. But it may be inquired, Why he puts in prison the souls of the godly after having quitted their bodies? It was the sign of a good woman that she must see as little, hear as little and ask as little as possible. Verse 19. It speaks of the descent into Hades and the very word descent suggests a three-storey universe in which heaven is localized above the sky and Hades beneath the earth. In the word of God, then, we find that the accomplishment of the prophecy supposes an earthly place, with visible power and glory given to the Jewish people. This word introduces us to a special way of looking at the Old Testament. A click on the Greek will lead you to the corresponding article in Abarim Publications's online Biblical Greek Dictionary 1 Peter 3:1 Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; likewise adverb the def art nom-pl-fem In other words, Peter is not preaching something he didn't practice, but he did this very same thing himself. It never places all the responsibility on one side. Proud member Christ, upon his death, went in his human soul to hell; either, Ministry, then, is clearly in itself a distinct thing from speaking; it is another kind of service to which he is called of God. By which Spirit, his own Divine energy and authority. He brought good tidings, therefore, of some kind to the "prison" and the spirits in it. The plural "spirits" describes human beings only one other place in the New Testament (Hebrews 12:23), but it describes evil spirit beings frequently (Matthew 10:1; Mark 1:27; Mark 3:11; Mark 5:13; Mark 6:7: Luke 4:36; Luke 6:18; Acts 5:16; Revelation 16:13; et al.). There is an instance of what I referred to that the essential moral principles. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to he revealed in the last time." 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