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.  (ESV)

Preamble

Peter is writing to persecuted Christian Jews, scattered throughout Asia Minor (much of modern day Turkiye, 1 Peer 1:1).

He is encouraging the Christians to remain stead-fast – they need to be prepared to suffer for righteousness sake.

John Gill notes that the suffering of the Christian Jews was: For the doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ, [which] was the great stumbling block to the Jews, and on account of which they persecuted the Christians.[1]

This objective truth – is rejected by the world, even today – the truth is, there is a need for salvation, and that only comes through Jesus Christ.

In 1 Peter 3:15, he urges them to be “always being prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”

In 1 Peter 3:17 Peter makes this remark: “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.” Which is the pre-amble to today’s sermon.

It is better to suffer doing good, than doing evil. Probably even the world would agree. But the good here is not what the world wants to hear – the good here is proclaiming the gospel. Proclaiming all are under judgement, and all, through the grace of God, can be saved, to everyone who believes.

That the role of the Church, including this church and indeed all believers  is to carry on what the first Christians did – taking the gospel to utter ends of the world.

The verses we have before us today are the counter to these Christian Jew’s who are suffering.

Peter says – Jesus also suffered, and it is because he suffered, we have the gospel which is the way of salvation; and thus a better hope; our suffering is not as Christ suffered – our suffering is due to our sin, Christ’s suffered because of our sin. He knew no sin (2 Cor 5:21), yet suffered.

Peter is contending that our suffering is justified, and should be without fear or being troubled (1 Peter 3:15), but Jesus suffered for righteousness sake.

Peter commences his arguments, with perhaps one of the greatest statements in the Bible. Now, we are talking about Peter here, who as we recall, was a man who opened his mouth and put both feet into it, yet he utters some of the most amazing words possible.

We have recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke that it was Peter that who testifies that, Jesus was:

"the Christ, the Son of the living God.", or the “Christ of God”[2] (Matt 16:16, Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20)

In 1 Peter 3:18 he says:

For Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.

It is this sentence I will focus today, under three points:

1. Sin
2. Substitution
3. Salvation

Sermon

1. Sin

The problem we have is that of alienation.

Talked about by everyone. Last week we learnt (WHO made known), or it was made better known, that one of the greatest threats to human life is loneliness; we are alienated – socially, materially, personally & psychologically. But we see that being isolated spiritually is missing: the world rejects God. Thus missing is the real reason, the why; that men and women are by nature alienated from God. Paul puts it bluntly

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds (Colossians 1:21)

Isaiah says:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; (Isaiah 53:6a)

In summary

• We were, in our nature unworthy of God
• Unfit for heaven, unfit to be in the presence of God
• Unable to fix or rectify our circumstances

We are alienated by sin.

• Our sins have separated us from God
• We have turned our backs on God
• Passive indifference
• Active disobedience.

Today the world is grasping for solutions to intractable problems. But like the Jews of Jesus’ days, the world is looking outside of themselves, for an external cause of their woes.

Every newspaper, every socialist, is attempting to find an external cause for the gap; for the injustices committed every day; for the out-right evil we see on our streets every night. But this is done within a moral order consisting of:

• Don’t believe in judgement,
• Don’t believe in punishment

This means we cannot hold ourselves or anyone else responsible for the mess - the alienation they are in.

Yet

• We all have suffered guilt: suffered shame on doing something wrong.
• We have all known the cause; our own fault – the world rejects that view.

The place they avoid is within themselves. This is not new.  The Jews were committed to dealing with the external; they had tens of thousands of rules to do so, but Jesus says them:

There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." (Mark 7:15)

And Jesus goes on to say:

And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."  (Mark 7:20-23)

We are turned in on ourselves.

Where do we come from, where are we now and where are we going?

• We have a problem (Apollo 11)
• It is broken
• And we cannot fix it

The problem

• Death is an enemy – it is not natural – a result of man turning from God
• Brought in by a man who ignored God and did his own thing.

In Genesis we find God saying, ‘If you do this which I have forbidden, you will surely die!’ (Gen 2:17).

And low and behold, he did and we all die, separated from God.

• COVID has taught us the essential fear of death – the response of the whole world was all about avoiding death.
• We all have a fear of death – all fear stems from this – the fear of death, the reality that death forever separates a sinner from God.

2. Substitute

To fix the problem we need reconciliation.

But this cannot take place without payment. One cannot reconcile one’s financial records without reconciling the outputs with the inputs; expenditure with the income.

Sin cannot be merely swept under the carpet, so to speak. It needs to be paid for.

The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). So we either pay, that is we die, or someone else pays, and that someone else dies. In this verse in 1 Peter 3 we learn that Jesus Christ is the substitute – he died, so we do not need to die.

• Did not die as an example but as a substitute, the righteous for the unrighteous
• He was not a martyr, but a live substitute, who died in our stead.

And it was not some quite diginified death in his sleep; the verse says he suffered.

• Christ - suffered once
• He bares judgement I deserve
• He deals with the wages sin, being death

The depth of his suffering is laid bare in Isaiah 53

Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.  (Isaiah 53:4-7)

He took the place we deserved

• It was God’s love that provides a substitute

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Romans 5:8)

• It provides meaning to the OT saints that look forward, in an opaque kind of way, to the shadow of the coming Saviour.
• The OT all points forward to the Lamb of God with all its shedding of blood
• It gives meaning to the Lord’s Supper.

It is God in love, rich in mercy, and full of justice that enabled Him to provide reconciliation, a means to pay for our sin.

It was not the physical suffering that weighed him down – it was our sin, our transgressions, our iniquity that weighed Jesus down. Isaiah says the Lord laid on Him the iniquity[3] of us all.

• As Alistair Begg[4] says:  when you clean something, something needs to get dirty – clean a window – the window wipe gets dirty.

Jesus bears all our dirtiness.

• Did not die as an example; he did not die for some political reason; he died to bear the sin of many (Hebrews 9:28).

Religion might say, try this, try that; but Christ says, come to me.

Our verse put it this way: the righteous for the unrighteous

• He was righteous, and he died for us, the unrighteous.

For some, Christ dying on cross – is intellectually offensive – foolishness, except those believing

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  (1 Corinthians 1:18)

He died, but now he lives – made alive by the Holy Spirit. Jesus suffered, but now glorified.

In verse 22 we see his current position:

who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him. (1 Peter 3:22)

We have no fear – this same Jesus, our Savour has all power under him; all beings good and bad are subject to him.

3. Saviour

The sentence finishes very personally - that he might bring us to God. That he might bring you and I to God

There’s a way back to God from the dark paths of sin;
there’s a door that is open and you may go in;
at Calvary’s cross is where you begin, when you come as a sinner to Jesus.

(Eric H Swinstead)

We cannot access God– it is God that crosses the boundary, the chasm between the righteous and unrighteous, because of His mercy. We are alienated from God, but we have a way to God.

The way is provided by God – no need to build a bridge, do good things, earn your way, but rather believe there is a saviour, but more than that – Satan believes Jesus; but believe he came, died for my sins, was buried and rose again.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  (John 3:16)

Oh, the love that sought me!
  Oh, the blood that bought me!
Oh, the grace that brought me to the flock,
Wondrous grace that brought me to the flock!

William Spencer Walton (1850-1906)

So what happens when we have been brought to God

This is the crux of the Christian’s life. This is what this Church needs to consider carefully. We need to be practicing the love of Christ.

There is a thought floating around Christian communities, developed over the past couple of decades, that one only needs to believe in Christ to be saved; and it is true that once we are saved, sealed with the Holy Spirit we cannot be lost. But then the Christian merely goes back to his former life. But, this must be very dispiriting to God. And as the Jesus said:

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." (John 14:21)

The Lord has purchased us to do His good purpose. Our bible study completed the Book of Hebrews last year. One of the messages of Hebrews is Christians must move from the simple ABC’s of salvation onto the meat of sanctification. The writer puts it more bluntly: we must move from milk to meat (Hebrews 5:12, 13). Indeed the Hebrew’s were so immature the writer was unable to discuss more weigher things with them – things which were potentially going to cost them their lives.

And this is the state to the Church today. It is so immature it cannot deal with weightier things. Internally, Scripture is not studied – every Christian has a duty to learn scripture, but it is simply not happening:

David writes:

Through Your precepts I get understanding; (Ps 119:104)

As Paul writes

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

How can we be imitators of God, if we don’t know God, and how can we know God, if we haven’t read God’s word, since the Word is God.

Externally, the Church is weak against the might of Satan’s wretchedness because she has abandoned her first Love; Jesus Christ. The Church’s strength is in Christ. We hide within, and don’t get out; our place is to be ambassadors for Christ in the district we live – it’s not this building people need to see, but Christ in you.

Summary

• The world is broken; the cure is in Jesus
• For you: – believe there is a Saviour, believe and he died in your place, believe he was buried, but rose again.
• Know, that a believer is accepted by His love
• The rest of passage from 1 Peter 3:18 -22 speaks to this – Christ rose and went about his duty
• There’s a way back to God, and it’s through Christ alone.

Summarised by a hymn:

And can it be that I should gain
An int'rest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?

(Charles Wesley)