One House : 1 Peterਨਮੂਨਾ

Christ’s Victory

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.

1 Peter 3:18–22 ESV

Few texts in the New Testament have caused more interpretational debate than 1 Peter 3:18-22. Who are the “spirits in prison?” What does Noah’s ark have to do with baptism? The answers to these questions are a topic of lively discussion. It helps us to remember this passage in context.

Peter is encouraging the church to suffer righteously, just as Christ suffered. Why did Christ suffer? So that through his suffering we could enter into God’s presence (verse 18). This is the good news! It’s not new news, however. Peter says that Christ preached this same message through Noah to the corrupt peoples of the earth who died in the flood. These are the spirits who are now in the prison of hell. In those days, only eight people, Noah and his family, were saved from the floodwaters. Peter says that those same flood waters were a type of what was to come—they pointed forward to Christian Baptism. Just like the ark saved Noah and his family from the waters of the flood, so Christ saves us through the waters of baptism. As Paul says in Romans 6, when we enter into the baptismal waters, we’re united with Christ in his death, but when we’re raised out of the waters, we are united with him in his resurrection—we’re saved from that death and into a new life. This is why Peter can say, “baptism, which corresponds with this, now saves you.”