Triumph through Suffering

1 Peter 3:15-22

As we begin a new year of taking our next steps in following Christ, what experiences lie ahead? Peter provides us with some helpful, God-given thoughts to prepare us for the future – even if the year ahead will bring more hardship and suffering our way, though it will certainly also bring God’s blessing.

As Peter wrote these words, he wrote to a group of believers and churches in a region called Asia Minor, which is called the Anatolian Peninsula today, or modern-day Turkey. He wrote this letter to them at a time when Nero, the deranged emperor of Rome, was either about to or had already begun his infamous persecution of Christians.

Through this cruel program of persecution, Nero assigned multitudes of Christians to the cruelest forms of humiliation and torture, bloody and grotesque deaths in the Coliseum, and even lined the passageways of his palace with living, impaled believers lit up as torches. Though such treatment did not spread from Rome to Asia Minor, it would certainly have given the believers to the east a cause for fear. Would they be next?

Peter acknowledges this very real concern further into his letter when he says, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is [about] to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (1 Pet 4:12). While we may not be facing the same degree of concern about our future, we may face other very real concerns:

• Will we fall into a financial crisis?
• Will anyone litigate us for our moral beliefs?
• Will close relationships be broken?
• Will our freedoms be threatened?

Peter helps us know how to respond to the prospect of future, unknown difficulties like these and more. In doing so, he teaches us that the best and proper strategy for facing our future is not to cling tightly, anxiously, or superstitiously to the wish that our future will be problem- and suffering-free. Instead, it is to follow Christ closely.

As we follow Christ, though we may not and probably will not avoid suffering, we will certainly experience God’s blessing and triumph through him. Are you prepared to suffer, if necessary, for following Christ?

Suffering for Christ is nothing to be afraid of.

Who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good?

What is Peter trying to say by asking this question? At first glance, it sounds like he is suggesting that if we live good and godly lives – as Christ himself also lived – that no one will harm or mistreat us. Yet Peter has already acknowledged that we should expect to be distressed by “various trials” and “tested by fire” (1 Pet 1:6-7). Elsewhere, Paul said, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim 3:12). After all, Christ himself lived the most godly and perfect life possible and suffering most incredibly as a result. Should we expect any better treatment than he when we behave less godly than he and identify ourselves publicly with him?

Peter is not telling us that if we behave well then we will increase our odds of living a comfortable life that avoids suffering. Instead, he is reminding us that whatever harm or mistreatment we experience for following Christ, it is nothing to be afraid of. Though it may seem scary, it isn’t as scary as it seems. As the psalmist explains, “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (Psa 118:6).

But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed.

Peter further acknowledges that much of our suffering as followers of Christ will not be avoided by doing right but will be caused by doing right, instead. Remember when Christ was accused of breaking the law because he healed a blind man? There are many other such examples from his earthly ministry in which he was accused of wrongdoing for simply doing the good and right thing. Paul experienced similar treatment at times, such as when he said, “Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” (Gal 4:16).

When this happens, we are blessed. We must not confuse our suffering for following Christ as being a sign of God’s displeasure but should rather view it as a privilege to suffer for him and a pathway to future blessing. Listen to what Christ himself taught about this, teaching which Peter himself had heard Christ teach and to which he is undoubtedly referring here in this letter:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:10-12

So, as you suffer for Christ, you accumulate real blessing and reward from God in his future, eternal kingdom. This is a forward outlook on our suffering, but both Christ and Peter give a backward look at our suffering, too. This is important because we easily feel that we are being treated more poorly and unfairly than anyone else – but this is not so.

“For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you,” Jesus said. And Peter says:

“And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.”

With these words, Peter quotes from – you guessed it – the OT, Isa 8:12. This instruction was originally given through the prophet Isaiah to the southern kingdom of Judah who was following God. Meanwhile, the rebellious northern kingdom was forming an alliance with neighboring Syria to harass and invade them, while the much larger Assyrian Empire – a pagan world superpower – was threatening to invade them all. So, this was not the first time God’s people had faced the threat of painful persecution from ungodly people.

To suffer well, we must prepare our hearts in advance.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,

Peter tells us view Christ properly in our innermost beliefs, feelings, and thoughts. He is teaching us to revere and uphold Jesus Christ as our Lord and God above all else – not just in theory or in an academic or intellectual way, but in a committed and genuine way. What does this mean? It means to believe that Christ whom we follow is not only a man who lived, suffered, and died for us but who is, in fact, the God of the OT and eternity.

You see, in quoting from Isa 8:12, Peter was also aware of Isa 8:13, the very next verse, which says,” The Lord of Hosts, him you shall hallow; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isa 8:13). That’s what Peter is talking about here. Jesus Christ is the God who made the world and commands uncountable angelic armies.

Knowing this, we should prepare our hearts to keep this truth firmly in view when emotional, material, and physical suffering comes our way. In those moments, it is easy to lose sight of the greater, invisible realities that Christ is our God, and he is far more fearsome and mighty than anything this world can throw at us.

As Christ himself taught, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). Do you believe this?

and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;

With this belief and outlook firmly in mind, we should be prepared to “give a defense.” While we commonly cite this verse to justify what we call “apologetics,” an academic, intellectual, logical, and even philosophical explanation for the legitimacy of the Christian faith, that is not necessarily what Peter has in mind. Though this is not an entirely unrelated application, it is secondary at best.

Peter envisions here what happens when believers follow Christ through times of intense and public suffering. As the world – even the very people who are causing or inflicting our pain – watch us suffer, they may wonder why we are willing to keep on following Christ. In those moments, we should be ready to explain our reason – which is that Christ himself suffered for us and that he has called us to follow him through suffering.

“The hope that is in you” encourages us to include in our explanations of why we’re willing to suffer that we believe we’ll receive God’s blessing and salvation in the end through Christ. This is what we live for, and we should be ready to explain so when asked. Though not always, “a defense” specifically refers to instances when a believer would be placed on trial for a faith-based reason, such as refusing to worship Caesar as God.

“With meekness and fear” means that when we do have opportunity to explain our reasons for being glad to suffer, we should do so with a gentle, humble, and respectful attitude, not a bitter or mean-spirited one. When believers who speak up for Christ do so in a caustic, harsh way, they undermine their testimony for Christ for Christ himself was gentle and lowly in his manner and speech.

having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed.

According to this, when we explain the reason for our willingness to suffer for Christ and we do so in a gentle and respectful manner, we maintain a “good conscience,” which means we don’t do anything wrong. If we blend a mean and hurtful spirit into our defense of our faith, we add sin to our testimony which is confusing and counterproductive.

What’s more, when we explain our motivations this way, nonbelievers who are mistreating us may themselves feel guilty. They may become more aware of their hypocrisy and be encouraged to themselves to follow Christ.

For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Again, Peter reminds us of the obvious – that if you’re going to get in trouble with the law or society in general, it’s better to get in trouble for doing the right thing the right way, not for doing the wrong thing and or doing the right thing with a bad attitude and approach.

Christ’s suffering was not just good – it was triumphant.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,

Having encouraged believers to prepare our hearts well for future suffering, he reminds us of our ultimate example – Christ. But here, unlike in 1 Pet 2:24, he does not emphasize Christ as our example of suffering to follow. This time he emphasizes the effectiveness and triumphant outcome of Christ’s suffering.

Christ suffered “once,” a word that means something like “once for all,” as in “once for all people,” or “once for all time,” or “once for all sin.” The idea is one of completion and totality, as in something done only once. Christ’s suffering and death was so effective that it must never be repeated again. Christ’s suffering and death was both full and final.

It was so effective that not only must it never be repeated again, it must not be added to or aided by any of our suffering, either. We cannot enhance, help, or improve upon Christ’s suffering.

Also, his suffering was “for sins,” which means he suffered because of sin – but whose sin? Did he suffer for his own wrongdoing? No. He was perfectly “just” and suffered “for the unjust,” which is us. So, you see, if Christ had been willing only to suffer for his own wrongdoing, we could not have been saved. Yet it was through unjust suffering that our salvation was made possible.

In a similar way, your own suffering for Christ does not add anything to Christ’s suffering. His suffering was completely and totally effective. So, what does your suffering accomplish when you suffer gladly and humbly but unjustly? Not only will you gain blessing in God’s eternal kingdom, but you will provide an opportunity for nonbelievers as you once were to come to faith in Christ.

As Christ’s unjust suffering for us “brought us to God,” so your suffering on Christ’s behalf can bring others to Christ. This is a real and present benefit and outcome of our suffering!

being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,

Here, Peter explains the two states of Christ’s incarnate existence. And since both “in” and “by” are not words in the Greek manuscripts but are provided by translators, and since both reflect a parallel, similar grammatical idea in the way they were originally written, it seems best to translate both as “in.” It also seems best to translate “Spirit” as “spirit,” referring to Christ’s resurrected, glorified body which had a new and special spiritual nature. With this in mind:

• “In the flesh” refers to his existence as a human being before he died, just as we are, with a material body which will eventually die and decay.
• “In the spirit” then refers to his existence as a human being after he died, just as we will be, with a resurrected, glorified body.

This new, resurrected body would be unable to die again and was – in fact – the result of his suffering and death, for without his death as the sacrificial offering for our sins, he would not have been able to raise again from the grave with a glorified body afterwards.

by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 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.

Sometime after his resurrection, Christ “went and preached to the spirits in prison.” Based on Peter’s description of this event here, some suggest that Christ did this – whatever it was – during the three days between his death and resurrection, but Peter seems place it sometime after his resurrection as something Christ did in his resurrected body.

From the order and sequence that Peter gives, it seems best to understand Christ as doing this sometime after his resurrection either (a) in a moment or period of time in which he was not with his disciples prior to his ascension or (b) sometime after he ascended to heaven to await his second coming.

Then there’s the question of what he did, regardless of when it happened. To answer this question thoroughly would require some lengthy time and tedious analysis of various Scripture passages and even some historical documentation and rabbinic commentary – study which I have personally invested some time into both over the course of my theological and pastoral studies as well as this past week.

However, for our purposes today, let me summarize what seems to be the best explanation. Peter is referring to an extraordinary event which happened in Gen 6:1-8 in which some rebellious angels (we can call them demons) married human women, probably by possessing rebellious men. The result was a certain kind of especially powerful and rebellious people who increased wickedness in the world greatly. This outcome was what caused God to judge and purge the Earth through a worldwide flood.

From what Peter says in another letter, 2 Pet 2:4-5, God confined the rebellious angels who had done this to a faraway prison of some sort so that they would be unable to influence the world again until the time of final judgment.

God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly.”

2 Peter 2:4-5

This does not mean that all rebellious angels have been banished from the world, but those who are still active fear being banished as those once were (Luke 8:31)

They begged Him [Christ] that He would not command them to go out into the abyss.

Luke 8:31

So, what is Peter’s purpose in bring all of this up? That even those powerful, angelic being who once attempted on a grand scale to prevent the coming of God’s Savior for our sins have both seen the resurrected Christ and heard about his triumph over sin.

Even so, not all people rebelled against God and were judged by the Flood. As we know, Noah, his wife, and their three sons and daughters-in-law believed in the Lord and they were – as Peter explained – saved from that worldwide judgment “through water.” Just as the water destroyed the ungodly inhabitants of the world who mocked the faith of God’s people, so that same water separated God’s people from them and lifted them to safety.

There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism

With this illustration in mind, Peter draws a connection to a practice of ours as followers of Christ today – the practice of water baptism. Peter clarifies, that he is not teaching that baptism somehow removes the filth of sin from our lives. Christ does this fully and finally himself as Peter has already explained. So, how does baptism “save” us?

Peter says baptism saves us another way, giving us “the answer of a good conscience toward God.” A commentator explains: water baptism is not a ‘ticket to heaven’ that exempts them from subsequent issues of morality. Rather (ἀλλά), Christian baptism is a pledge to God of a good conscience—a pledge to live rightly ever after” (Karen Jobes).

Consider Noah and his family. Did God forgive their sins because they survived the flood? No. In the same way, God does not forgive our sins because we are baptized. How did the flood save Noah and his family? It separated them in a public way from the rebellious people of the world and placed them in a position to serve God well.

Similarly, though we believe on Christ and receive salvation from sin before and apart from baptism, the act of baptism by immersion should follow our faith as that step of faith and obedience which publicly identifies us as a follower of Christ. It pictures Christ’s death in the flesh and his resurrection in a new and glorified body and therefore pictures our death and resurrection with and in him.

So, baptism provides a powerful, visual object lesson of the salvation Christ provides and sets us apart as people who committed to following Christ no matter what suffering may come our way because we’ve been delivered from our ties to this sinful, rebellious world.

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.

With these words, Peter reminds us that not only did Christ rise from the grave with an eternal, glorified body, but his triumph was so complete that he rose and ascended to the throne of heaven to where are powerful beings, whether angelic and spiritual or human, must answer and submit and by whom all will be judged. Though you may suffer for following Christ, you are on the right side of history and the grave,

The future is as bright as the promises of God.

As we internalize these thoughts from 1 Pet 3:13-22 about the triumph of Christ’s suffering and ours and as we look forward to a new year of following Christ, I would like to draw our attention to a man named Adoniram Judson. This was a man who knew what it meant to follow Christ through suffering so that others might come to God.

Judson was raised in a Christian pastor’s home and was so intelligent that he would read chapters from his father’s Bible as a 3-yr. old boy. As a teenager in college, though, he was influenced to choose a life of immorality and rebellion by a friend named Jacob Eames who was either an agnostic or atheist.

One evening, as he traveled he spent the night at an inn and was given a room adjacent to the room of a sick and dying man. Throughout the night, Judson heard the moaning and helpless cries of this dying man and found it difficult to sleep.

Before he departed the next morning, he asked the innkeeper how the sick man had fared since the room was not quiet and still. The innkeeper told him that the man had died and said that his name was Jacob Eames, the friend who had lured Judson into a life of sin. From that experience, Judson soon placed his faith in Christ in a real and personal way and abandoned his life of sinful rebellion. He soon enrolled in seminary and prepared himself for gospel ministry.

Only days after their wedding, Adoniram and his new wife, Ann, set sail for India as Christian missionaries. During their 4-mo. voyage, they engaged in an intensive Bible study together and became persuaded that they needed to be baptized by immersion. So, they departed from the U.S. as Congregationalists and arrived in India as Baptists.

Once in India, the British East India Company required them to leave the country, so they settled in Burma (Myanmar) instead, a nation known for hostility and savagery. From the outset of their journey to Burma and throughout Judson’s mission work there, they suffered greatly.

• They endured a 3-wk. monsoon to get there, during which Ann became very sick and gave birth to a baby who died at sea.
• In a period of 14 yrs. in Burma, Judson buried not just one but two wives, seven of thirteen children, and multiple colleagues.
• He himself spent many years imprisoned in deplorable, squalid conditions in stocks and at one point was made to walk in chains over burning desert sands until his back bled and feet were full of blisters.
• While he was in prison, one of his wives was forced to beg for nursing mothers to help nurse her child since she herself was too ill and malnourished to do so.
• Persecution, 108-degree temps, cholera, dysentery, unsanitary conditions, malaria, and more marked their lives.

Despite all this hardship and suffering, many souls were brought to God and Judson – through Christ – was triumphant. Though no one believed on Christ until six years into his time there, by the time he died in 1850 at 61 yrs. of age, 63 churches had been planted and 7,000 Burmese people had believed on Christ and followed him through baptism. In addition, he had also translated the entire Bible into Burmese while also writing an English-Burmese dictionary which was used for many decades after.

It is recorded that as Judson was one day lying in a filthy prison cell with 32 lbs. of chains clasped to his ankles and his feet bound to a bamboo pole, a fellow prisoner mocked him saying, “Dr. Judson, what do you think now about the prospect of reaching these heathen people for Christ?” To this Judson quickly and sincerely replied, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”

As we look ahead to a new year, let us be prepared in our hearts to follow Christ at any cost and to make it our goal to bring people to God through Christ.

We have nothing to fear even though the future may bring more suffering our way because thanks to Christ, we triumph with him through suffering.

The future is as bright as the promises of God.

Adoniram Judson