Title: Preaching to the Spirits in Prison
Contents
18 For Christ also died for sins once, 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 19 who also preached in the spirit to the spirits in prison. 20 These were the ones who disobeyed in the days of Noah, when God waited patiently while the ark was being prepared. Only a few people in the ark were saved by water, only eight. The sign of salvation is baptism, not the removal of impurities from the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience to God 22 He ascended into heaven! He is at the right hand of God, and angels and authorities and powers are subject to him.
1. Words that begin
At the worship service last Sunday, the saints who live by faith in the Lord in a world that are crooked and disobedient are bound to suffer in many ways. He also said that God makes the saints overcome such hardships, overcomes the persecutors, and furthermore grants the hope of eternal life.
Now, I would like to talk about the Lord who redeemed us, who became the example of the noble sufferings of the saints who live through such noble sufferings.
2. Christ the Atonement
The Apostle Peter said, “Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous.”
'Once' is hapax (?παξ), meaning 'only once', 'a crucial one time'; ‘For sin’ (peri hamartion, περ? ?μαρτι?ν: ‘against sin’) is a customary phrase for a sin offering.
According to the law of atonement in Leviticus, sinners could be forgiven by offering cattle, sheep, etc. However, this sin offering had to be offered whenever a sin was committed. But by dying just once, Christ became the eternal sin offering for mankind under sin.
Therefore, those who believe in Christ are no longer bound by the sacrificial law stipulated by the law. Hebrews 7:27 says, “He has no need, as those high priests offer daily sacrifices first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people, for he has accomplished this by offering himself once for all.”
The purpose of the innocent Christ's suffering and death for us sinners is to bring us to God.
It is a prosagaga (προσαγ?γ?) to ‘lead’, and has a Jewish and Greek background.
In Exodus 29:4, Moses is used to bring Aaron and his sons to God to become priests; In Leviticus 3:12, it was used to bring an offering before God.
Please believe that Jesus Christ, who was crucified and died, became a way for all those who have been cut off from God because of sin to come directly to God.
In the royal palaces of Greece, there were the offices of Prosagogeus, that is, ‘guide’ and ‘accessor’. His job was to decide who was allowed to approach the king and who was not. He had the key to the so-called interview. Please believe that Jesus Christ is the One who leads people before God through His Atonement, approaches Him, and opens the way to God.
To take an example from the New Testament, it is said that through Christ we have peace with God and access to grace through him (Romans 5:2), and that through him both Jews and Gentiles have access to the Father in one Spirit (Romans 5:2). Ephesians 2:18), and in him, through faith in him, we gain boldness and access to God confidently (Ephesians 3:12). In coming to God, Christ is our way and our door.
The Lord who atoned for us did not end with death. The Lord was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. In other words, as a human being with humanity, He was put to death, but as a Holy Spirit, He was raised to life.
3. The Spirit of Christ preached in the days of Noah
Of the redeemed and resurrected Christ, Peter said, “He also preached from spirit to spirit to the spirits in prison.” This verse and the following verses are the most difficult part of the book, so there are many different interpretations of this verse in whales. It took me four days to comment on this one verse too. I'll give a detailed explanation later when I'm explaining it, and I'll just tell you the conclusion.
Peter's purpose was to lead people to God by means of the Holy Spirit, who died on the cross and rose again by the Holy Spirit, and also preached to people through Noah through the Holy Spirit in Noah's day. The rest is now in Hell. Peter explains this by saying, “They were disobedient in the days of Noah, when God waited patiently while the ark was being prepared. .
Judaism gladly recognized Noah as the model of the righteous with whom God made eternal covenants and the progenitor of a new mankind. Likewise, in the early church, Noah was a prophet of righteousness that God preserved when he destroyed the wicked world. Because Noah heeded God's warning and allowed his family to be saved, he became a model and model of righteousness through faith.
On the other hand, all others despise or ignore God's long-suffering love, and do not obey the voice of God calling through Noah, and then perish and end up in Hell.
The Flood, the method of destroying the disobedient in Noah's day, was a way of salvation for Noah and his wife and their sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, who obeyed and rode into the ark. In John 3:18, Jesus said, “He who believes in him will not be condemned, but he who does not believe is already judged because he does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
When I talk about Noah, I think of people who are really sad and frustrated. They were asked by Noah to make money, and they went in and out of the ark countless times to build the ark, saying, “What kind of flood is the flood. Only the weather is nice... Even with cancer, the old man is senile.” These are the people who made fun of me. They rode on the ark countless times before the ark was completed, but at the crucial moment, they did not get on the ark and they perished.
4. Baptism symbolized by water
Peter refers to the water through which Noah got into the ark by which he was saved, which he calls baptism, the sign that now saves us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Baptism means that man who lived under sin died with the Lord and lived with the Lord again. Therefore, baptism is not a ritual cleansing of the body, but a request for a good conscience from God. In other words, the saints who are spiritually united with the Lord who is at the right hand of God who is at the right hand of God and who rules all beings in the material world and the spiritual world after resurrection and ascension, should seek inward holiness before God, not external purity.
In the latter part of 1 Samuel 16:7, it is said, “I do not see as men do; men look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
5. Conclusion
To save sinners, Christ, who died on the cross and ascended into heaven to rule all things, did missionary work to all people not only at that time but also through the Holy Spirit. I hope that those of us who died with him and lived again with him will also boldly preach the word of the Lord at any time, any place, in any situation, and live a life that leads even one more person to God.
(Pungseong Methodist Church. Book: Complete New Testament Commentary Series/ Interpretation of difficult scriptures/ Prosperous prayer/ Salvation Before Jesus Came/ Salvation Before Jesus Came/ Understanding Paul’s Humanity/ Sermonbook 18. 426-3051)