Of Water and Spirit

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER OF PETER

OF WATER AND SPIRIT

1 Peter 3:13-22

13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened."   15 But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.   17 It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

NIV

Once again, we have arrived at a very difficult passage or portion of this letter. We should pay attention to the idea of not being harmed by being eager to do good and maybe we will get to that at some time. What draws our attention the most and which has always been the most significate question within us, is this statement about Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison during the days his body lay in the grave. What is of interest in our investigation is that if, in fact, Jesus went to hell, hades, or as the Roman Catholics believe, purgatory, then why did he select only the spirits of those who were disobedient in the time of Noah? God saved only eight and destroyed the rest of mankind in the flood because of their wickedness. Why then would Jesus go to the place of confinement of those spirits and offer them redemption? Did not Noah preached to them in those hundred years he took to build the ark? We know the Apostles Creed says Jesus descended into hell, or to the dead, but it does not indicate that he preached to anyone. This is the idea of Jesus preaching to those who lived and were disobedient while Noah was building the ark. Why would Jesus show favoritism to just those who were destroyed by the flood, and not to others who died in disobedience after the flood? It is a question we will most likely never know until we arrive in heaven. What is also interesting is to bring in the concept the Jews, which Peter was, believed about the spirit of a man at death. It was a customary idea that when a man was put into the grave, or a tomb that spirit hung around for three days, and then on the fourth day left, for the place of the dead.  We believe that is why Jesus waited for Lazarus, his friend, to be in the tomb for four days before raising him from the dead. As far as the Jew would have been concerned it would not have been much of a miracle for Jesus to merely have the spirit hanging around in the tomb to rejoin the body. If that were the case, if then they believed that, would not Peter also believe that and so why would he infer the spirit of Jesus left the tomb to preach to only a specific group of disobedient spirits who died in the flood? Again, we are not going to be able to answer this question satisfactorily for ourselves. So then do we just have to accept the generally held interpretation? There is an abundance of scholarly works debating the interpretation of this passage in Peter and how it relates to the idea within the Apostle Creed about Jesus descending into hell. It would take us a whole book to explore this to its fullest, reading all the historical works of the origins of such thinking about Jesus preaching to this specific group of people in Hell. So then, do we just pass it by and leave it for another day? That seems the best for now. What we do know is that Jesus is alive and he is sitting at the right hand of God making intercession for our disobedience. Yet, at the same time we have been both baptized by water, and of the Spirit.