Learning That The Mercy Of God Extends Even To those Spirits In Death

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,

the just for the unjust, that He might

bring us to God, being put to death in the

flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by

which also He went and preached unto

the spirits in prison; which sometimes

were disobedient, when once the 

long-suffering of God waited in the

days of Noah, while the ark was a

preparing, wherein few, that is,

eight Souls were saved by water.

1 Peter 3: 18 -- 20

     Peter is reminding us that Jesus Christ suffered and not due to His sins but for ours. Jesus did not become a martyr when He died upon the cross for this was the very purpose for why He came to earth and that was to put to death death itself. Furthermore, by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross we are now able to be brought to God.  Jesus died on the cross in the flesh but as God He was quickened, that is, given the vigor and stimulation and to be restored to a life that allowed Him to go to those spirits in prison and preached to them who were at times disobedient. Who are those spirits in prison? Some would say they are the fallen angels but why would this be true for the angels who fell from heaven have no opportunity or chance to be saved.  Did not be angels receive from God or nature and receive from Him their goodwill by the Holy Spirit imbuing them with love?  Therefore there is no natural efficient, as for the evil will for evil, since evil itself is the origin of evil in mutable spirits by which the good of their nature is diminished and corrupted and the will and evil is made by nothing else than the defection from God.

     When a person dies he or she is separated from The body and their in spirit.  These spirits are those who are sometimes disobedient at now are being offered mercy and those who would accept it should be saved and those who did not accept it would be utterly destroyed.  What does it mean that they were in prison?  The Greek word is an interesting word because we often translate that word in prison when also can mean to guard or to watch to keep watch in the stands for a condition of imprisonment.  In other words those spirits were held in confinement but by the mercy of God Jesus went and preached to them the Gospel for why else would he go to them unless this was not true.

     Peter reminds us about the eight persons who were saved from death in the great flood that encompassed the earth destroying much of all life and changing the very landscape of the earth.  And then Peter goes on to show was that this great flood was also a figure in regards to baptism, not of the flesh but of a good conscience toward God and this is by the resurrection of Jesus Christ Who has gone into heaven and at the right hand of God: "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him" (1 Peter 3: 21 -- 22).

     Peter is going to speak much about the suffering of Jesus Christ and our suffering.  Let us understand that the saints of God by suffering the first death which is due to evil for the truth sake, are freed from the second death.  When a man dies faithfully for the truth sake, it is still death he is avoiding.  What do I mean?  This man submits to the separation of soul and body, lest he be separated both from God and from the body, it and then the whole first death is completed and the second death received him everlastingly.  Death is good too none while it is being actually suffered, and while that is doing the dying to its power; but it is meritorious Lee endured for the sake of retaining or winning what is good.  What happens after death and its absurdity?  It is not absurdity to say that death is good to the good, and evil to evil.  For the disembodied spirits of the just are at rest; but those of the wicked suffer punishment, untill their bodies rise again -- those of the just of life everlasting, and of the others to death eternal, which is called the second death.

     Keep your eyes on the prize even in the face of death and suffering for by doing so you will be strong in your faith, firm in your hope, and be welcomed into heaven and be called a wise and faithful servant of God.  What joy that will be for the one who remains faithful to God.

There seems a way that seems right to a man,

     but in the end it leads to death.

Even in the laughter heart may ache,

     and joy me in and grief.  The faithless

will be fully repaid for their ways, and 

    the good man rewarded for his.

                           Proverbs 14: 12 -- 14

Keep a good conscience toward God

Richard L. Crumb