What is man?-> "And Yahweh God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (chay nephesh)." (Genesis 2:7; KJV) "Because humans are essentially souls, the Bible often simply refers to people as such. For example: ‘All the souls (nephesh) that came with Jacob into Egypt’ (Gen 46:26 KJV). ‘Souls’ in this verse simply refers to the people that accompanied Jacob to Egypt. Another example would be Joshua 10:28 where it shows Joshua taking the city of Makkedah and killing ‘all the souls (nephesh) that were therein’ (KJV). In the New Testament Peter spoke of the ‘eight souls (psuche)’ that were saved in Noah’s ark (1 Peter 3:20); 'souls' here obviously refers to the eight people that were saved in the ark. Most modern versions of the Bible would translate nephesh and psuche in the above three passages as ‘persons,’ ‘everyone’ or ‘people’ (see, for example, the New International Version).” (Eternal Torment or Everlasting Destruction? by Dirk Waren)
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. 21 There is also an antitype which now saves us--baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
Some see support in this text for activity on Jesus' part between His death and resurrection. They think that Jesus had a mission while He was dead. “Commentators with a theory to uphold make a big thing out of the ‘went’, encountering innumerable difficulties when they suppose that he went while dead and buried! As a matter of fact, ‘He went and preached’ is just a Biblical way of saying He preached. ‘Such expressions are often redundant in Greek.’ (Albert Barnes)
“Speaking of the preaching of the apostles themselves, Paul said that Christ ‘came and preached peace to you that were afar off’ (Eph 2:17); but Christ preached to the Ephesians through human instruments, nevertheless it is said that he ‘came and preached’ to them. 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.’ (Macknight)...” (Coffman Commentary)
This text is a call to duty, that is submission and unity of the faith (1 Peter 3), even Christian baptism (1 Peter 3:21-22) a fount open to all. With repentance [by faith] and submission to the ordinance of baptism comes eternal salvation by the Spirit. (Acts 2:38) You were called to this [submission], “that you may inherit a blessing,” even zoe life- abundant and eternal.
Peter's words are based on Psalm 34- a Psalm of David when Yahweh delivered him from destruction. David begins by blessing and praising Yahweh for His mercies. (Psalm 34:1-3) Then he explains, “I sought Yahweh, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant,”— being persevered as seeing Him who is invisible. (Hebrews 11:27) — “’and their faces were not ashamed”— because of their religion. “'This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.' He ascribed his escape to a peculiar interposition of God, which eventually still more encouraged his faith and hope. And he realizes to himself the effects of these events on others, who would look to God, in distress and danger, and ‘be lightened,’ or flow unto Him, and find comfort and safety, while they conversed together on the case of David : and he calls on all, to join him in extolling the name and celebrating the praises of his gracious Deliverer; as unable to do it adequately himself.” (Thomas Scott)
And the hero of that story, as ever, is “‘the Angel of Yahweh'— the uncreated Messenger, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Angel of God's presence, and of the covenant, the Captain of salvation, the Leader and Commander of the people— 'encamps all around those who fear Him.' His salvation is as walls and bulwarks about them; or as an army surrounding them.” (John Gill)
As Peter, king David appeals to us to look into the matter: "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!" etc. Psalm 34:8-11 Paul then quotes King David in Psalm 34:12-16 for our instruction — ”’For He who would love life (from chay) and see good days (love length of days),' etc.— So, Peter seems to have had in mind quality as well as quantity of life in mind. “Notice, incidentally, that the creation text also speaks of the ‘life’ that God breathed into Adam. ‘Life’ is translated from the Hebrew word chay… (living) and is equivalent to the Greek ‘zoe’…, which is used in the phrase ‘eternal life’ throughout the New Testament. See, for example, 1 Peter 3:10, which quotes Psalm 34:12, or Acts 2:28, which quotes Psalm 16:11, both cases in which the Greek zoe supplants the Hebrew chay." (Dirk Waren)— "'let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it.” (1 Peter 3:10-11) The two former clauses dealt with the domain of word; these two with the domain of action." (A. J. Mason)
The deliverance speaks of Christ's resurrection. "The righteous cry out, and Yahweh hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken". (Ps. 34:17-20)— In David's danger, God had preserved him, so that he had escaped without a broken bone, but this was fulfilled in Christ, "in whom the type of the passover lamb had its accomplishment, and this passage also; see Exodus 12:46b— 'Do not break any of the bones’; and seems better to agree with Him than with any of His members, since the bones of many of them have been broken by one accident or another.” (John Gill) "Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned" (Ps. 34:21-22) "Utter destruction shall be the lot of all the ungodly." (C. H. Spurgeon) For a conditionalist, this means that they will ultimately be destroyed.
There is a natural life or lifetime, and a spiritual life. "We see here that natural 'life' is common to all men—the same thing in all. We see that, at death, it comes to an end. We see that it is the gift of God, which He can remove at pleasure, and does remove by death. We see it contrasted as that 'which now is' with 'that which is to come.' We see that men, as such, are not spoken of as having form in any other way than this. That is to say, they are not spoken of as having any other life now; and they are not spoken of as having another form when the present one is ended. Such, then, as thus stated, are simply facts. Then, there is a spiritual form much more frequently mentioned." [The Perishing Soul According to Scripture; with Reference Also to Ancient Jewish Belief, and the Christian Writings of the First Two Centuries by J M. Denniston.]
Did Jesus die? "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor 15:3-4) "Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain— perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body." Paul describes different kinds of flesh— "there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds." He also compares heavenly bodies with celestial bodies contrasting their glories. He then concludes: "So also is the resurrection of the dead." (1 Cor 15:39-42) Here is what is revealed concerning the change from man's earthly to heavenly body:
(The Earthly House)...............(The Heavenly House)
It is sown in corruption......... It is raised in incorruption
It is sown in dishonor............. It is raised in glory
It is sown in weakness........... It is raised in power
It is sown a natural body........ It is raised a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:42b-44)
At Christ’s coming, we will share in His glory. We will be resurrected and receive a new body that is incorruptible, glorious, powerful and spiritual. Jesus said, "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
So let's look at the text in question-->.
Suffer for His name sake. "For Christ also suffered once for sin,"— and what He suffered is properly called death in its normal sense of the word. And Jesus suffered death once, in contrast to the manifold sacrifices of the Old Testament typology.—"the just for the unjust,"— the blameless Lamb for sinful humanity. As a type, the burnt sacrifices were slain and only then destroyed entirely by fire. — "that He might bring us to God," which was and is the purpose of the type and antitype, that is to clear the conscience for communion with the God of Israel. —
"being put to death in the flesh but made alive (zōopoiētheis) by the Spirit"(18)— The King James Version variously translates “zōopoiētheis” as “make alive, give life, quicken."- “The first clause is clear enough being a reference to the crucifixion of our Lord; but there is a wide disagreement among scholars as to the meaning of ‘made alive in the Spirit.’” (Burton Coffman) “It is amazing that some read this as if it meant ‘kept alive,’ or ‘continued alive’; whereas the true meaning of the words, as in the text, is ‘made alive or resurrected!’... In the New Testament, these words are never used in the sense of maintained alive, or preserved alive." (Albert Barnes)—
But in reality "being made alive in the Spirit" speaks of Jesus’s resurrection and thus the Spirit’s ability to give life, ultimately raise the dead. “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life (zōopoiei), so also the Son gives life (zōopoiei) to those he chooses.” (John 5:21) “It is the Spirit who gives life(zōopoioun); the flesh is useless.” (John 6:63a) —
“’by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,’— "The whole antediluvian world to whom the preaching was directed were said by Peter in this passage to have been ‘in prison’ at the time of the preaching of Noah. If that is what he meant, then the figure harmonizes perfectly with Jesus' preaching to the citizens of Nazareth and others of that generation, referring to his message as ‘a proclamation of release to the captives,’ that is, the captives in sin (Luke 4:18)…— ‘who formerly (aforetime) were disobedient’— ’Aforetime’ flies like a banner over the whole passage; those souls Peter identified as ‘spirits in prison’ when he wrote were living souls generations earlier in the time of Noah. In the time of Noah they were disobedient; in the time of Noah, Christ preached to them; in the time of Noah, most of them rejected salvation; in the time of Noah ‘few’ were saved.— ‘when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah.’ etc.—This is a further elaboration of the ‘aforetime,’ just mentioned. That ‘aforetime’ was ‘when’ the longsuffering of God waited. In the days of Noah ...This is another phrase pertaining to the ‘aforetime’; it was in the days of Noah.— ‘while the ark was a preparing’— ...This is still another clause pertaining to the ‘aforetime’; therefore, there is really no excuse for construing the events of these verses as things that happened during that three days and nights Jesus was in the tomb. Furthermore, the ‘aforementioned’ time is the only time specified in the whole paragraph.” (Coffman Commentary) “in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.” (19-20)
“'There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism'— The water of baptism is like waters of judgment – similar to the waters of the flood, and showing clearly what we deserve for our sins. Coming up out of the waters of baptism corresponds to being kept safe through the waters of the flood, the waters of God’s judgment on sin, and emerging to live in ‘newness of life’ (cf. Rom. 6:4). Baptism thus shows us clearly that in one sense we have ‘died’ and ‘been raised’ again, but in another sense we emerge from the waters knowing that we are still alive and have passed through the waters of God’s judgment unharmed. As Noah fled into the ark, so we flee to Christ, and in him we escape judgment... 'Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God'—... No man, as long as he has not obeyed the divine commandment to be baptized, can ever have, even if he should live 200 years, a good conscience as long as he is un-baptized. Therefore, full agreement is felt with Nicholson's endorsement of the New American Standard Bible's rendition thus: 'And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you - not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience.'" (Coffman Commentary)'— "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 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 3:21-22) "...Christ’s ascension foreshadows our future ascension and rule with Him (1 Thess. 4:17; Rev. 2:26–27; 3:21)." (Wayne Grudem)
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