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:
Confirmation of 1 Peter 3:17, by the glorious results of Christ's Suffering innocently.
For - "Because." That is "better," 1 Peter 3:17, by which we are rendered more like Christ in death and life: for His death brought the best issue to Himself and to us (Bengel).
Christ - the Anointed Holy One of God: the Holy suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust.
Also - as well as yourselves (1 Peter 3:17). Compare 1 Peter 2:21: there His suffering was made an example to us; here, a proof of the blessedness of suffering for well doing.
Once - for all: never again to suffer. It is "better" for us also once to suffer with Christ, than forever without Christ (Bengel). We now are suffering our "once;" it will soon be a thing of the past: a bright consolation.
For sins - as though He had Himself committed them. He incurred death by His "confession" (1 Timothy 6:13); as we are called on to 'give an answer to him that asketh a reason of our hope.' This was "well doing" in its highest manifestation. As He suffered, "the Just," so we ought willingly suffer "for righteousness' sake" (1 Peter 3:12; 1 Peter 3:14; 1 Peter 3:17).
That he might bring us to God - us, "the unjust," justified together with Himself in His ascension to the right hand of God (1 Peter 3:22). Thus Christ's death draws men to Him (John 12:32); spiritually now, in our access into the Holiest, opened by Christ's ascension; literally hereafter. "Bring us" by the same humiliation and exaltation through which Himself passed. The several steps of Christ's progress are trodden over again by His people, they being one with Him (1 Peter 4:1-3). "To God" х Theoo (G2316), dative, implying more than pros (G4314) Theon (G2316)] - namely, that God wishes it (Bengel).
Put to death - the means of bringing us to God.
In the flesh - i:e., in respect to the life of flesh.
Quickened by the Spirit. 'Aleph (') A B C, Origen, omit the article. Translate, as the antithesis to "in the flesh" requires, 'IN spirit;' i:e., in respect to His Spirit. "Put to death" in that mode of life; "quickened" in this. Not that His Spirit ever died and was quickened again; but whereas He had lived like mortal men in the flesh, He began to live a spiritual "resurrection" (1 Peter 3:21) life, whereby He has power to bring us to God. Two explanations of 1 Peter 3:18-19, are possible: (1) 'Quickened in Spirit,' i:e., immediately on His release from the "flesh," the energy of His undying spirit-life was "quickened" by the Father into new modes of action, namely, 'in the Spirit He went down
(as subsequently He went up to heaven, 1 Peter 3:22; the same х poreutheis (G4198)]) and heralded [not salvation, as Alford, contrary to Scripture, which everywhere represents man's state after death irreversible. Nor is mention made of conversion of the spirits in prison. Note, 1 Peter 3:20. Nor is the phrase here 'preached the Gospel' [euangelizoo], but heralded х ekeeruxen (G2784)]; simply made announcement of His finished work (so х keerussein (G2784)] Mark 1:45, "publish"); confirming Enoch and Noah's testimony; thereby declaring the condemnation of the diluvian unbelievers, and the salvation of Noah and believers (Birks thinks Christ announced His finished work to those who repented when the flood suddenly came, but who were shut out from the ark): a sample of the opposite effects of the word preached on all unbelievers and believers respectively; also a consolation to those whom Peter addresses, in their sufferings from unbelievers. This case is selected for the sake of "baptism," its 'antitype' (1 Peter 3:21), which seals believers as separated from the doomed world] to the spirits (His Spirit speaking to the spirits) in prison (in Hades or Sheol, awaiting the judgment, 2 Peter 2:4), which were of old disobedient when,' etc.
(2) The strongest argument for (1) is the position of "sometime," "of old," connected with "disobedient;" whereas if the preaching were long past, we should expect "sometime" to be joined to "went and preached." But this transposition may express that their disobedience preceded His preaching. The participle expresses the reason of His preaching, 'inasmuch as they were sometime disobedient'
(cf. 1 Peter 4:6). Also "went" seemingly is a personal going, as in 1 Peter 3:22, not merely in spirit. But see below. The objections are, "quickened" must refer to Christ's body (cf. 1 Peter 3:21, end); for as His Spirit never ceased to live, it could not be "quickened." Compare John 5:21; Romans 8:11, etc., where "quicken" is used of the bodily resurrection. Also, not His Spirit, but His soul, went to Hades. His Spirit, commended at death to His Father, was forthwith "in Paradise."
The theory (1) would thus require that His descent to the spirits in prison should be after His resurrection! Compare Ephesians 4:9-10, which makes the descent precede the ascent. Scripture elsewhere is silent about such a heralding, though probably Christ's death had immediate effects on the state of both the godly and the ungodly in Hades: the souls of the godly, perhaps, then were, as some fathers thought, translated to God's immediate presence; sheol was divided into Paradise and Gehenna (Psalms 16:10; Luke 16:22-26; Luke 23:43). The way into the heavenly Holiest was not made manifest while the Levitical dispensation stood, nor until Christ the Forerunner ascended into heaven (Romans 10:6-7; Ephesians 4:9; Hebrews 9:8; Hebrews 11:40; Matthew 27:51-53; John 3:13; Colossians 1:18). But prison is always in a bad sense in Scripture: so that good spirits cannot be meant here. "Paradise," and "Abraham's bosom," the abode of good spirit in Old Testament times, are separated by a wide gulf from Gehenna, and cannot be "prison." Compare 2 Cor. 21:2,4 , where "paradise" and the "third heaven" correspond.
Also, Why should the antediluvian unbelievers in particular be selected as objects of His preaching in Hades? Explain: Quickened in spirit, in which (as distinguished from in person; "in which," i:e., in spirit, obviating the misconce ption that "went" implies a personal going) He went (in the person of Noah, "a preacher of righteousness," 2 Peter 2:5. Alford's note (Ephesians 2:17) is the best reply to his argument from 'went," that a local going to Hades in person is meant. As 'He CAME and preached peace' by His Spirit in the apostles after His death and ascension, so before His incarnation He preached in Spirit through Noah to the antediluvians (John 14:18; John 14:28; Acts 26:23); "Christ should show" х katangellein (G2605)], 'announce light to the Gentiles') and preached unto the spirit in prison, i:e., the antediluvians, whose bodies seemed free, but their spirits were in prison, shut up in the earth as one great condemned cell (parallel to Isaiah 24:22-23), 'upon the earth ... they shall be gathered together as prisoners gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison,' etc. (just as the fallen angels are judicially regarded as "in chains of darkness," though for a time at large on the earth, 2 Peter 2:4), where 1 Peter 3:18 has an allusion to the flood, "the windows from on high are open" (cf. Genesis 7:11); from this prison the only way of escape was that preached by Christ in Noah.
Christ, who in our times came in the flesh, in Noah's days preached in Spirit by Noah to the spirits then in prison (Isaiah 61:1, end, "The Spirit of the Lord God hath sent me to proclaim the opening of the prison to them that are bound"). So in 1 Peter 1:11, "the Spirit of Christ" 'testified in the prophets.' His 'Spirit strove' with the antediluvian men, but did not continue to do so, because man was "flesh," and suffered it to quench the Spirit (Genesis 6:3): so now they are "spirits in prison." Then His preaching had little success; now that He is gone to heaven (1 Peter 3:22) the Spirit's power in Him is infinite, owing to the resurrection. To share in this His resurrection power of the Spirit of life, they must be willing to suffer in the flesh. They have a double motive to this set before them:
(1) Christ's example of the blessed effect of voluntary suffering in the flesh;
(2) Christ's accession of power now, as compared with then (Matthew 28:18).
As Christ suffered even to death by enemies, and was afterward quickened in virtue of His "Spirit" (or divine nature, Romans 1:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 13:4), which henceforth evinced its full energy, the first result of which was the raising of His body (1 Peter 3:21, end) from the prison of the grave and His soul from Hades, so the same Spirit of Christ enabled Noah, amidst reproach, to preach to the disobedient spirits fast bound in wrath. That Spirit in you can enable you also to suffer patiently now, looking for the resurrection-deliverance. Be not afraid of suffering from well doing, for death in the flesh leads to life in the Spirit (cf. 1 Peter 2:19-24; 1 Peter 3:17).