Post by Lee on Jun 14, 2014 14:53:47 GMT
1Pe 4:6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
These disobedient “spirits” were not preached to while they were “in prison,” but before they got into prison. “The gospel was preached also to them that are dead”; not when they were dead, but before they died (1 Pet. 4:6). The prison is the grave (Isa. 24:22; Zech. 9:11–12, &c.). Hezekiah was an obedient spirit unto whom the glad tidings of an added “lease of life” was proclaimed when he was in fear of the prison (See Isa. 38.). Jonah went down into the abyss, but was resurrected by God from his watery grave (Jonah 2.), and became the great “sign” of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This was a bodily deliverance from prison such as none of the antediluvians experienced. But the Lord Jesus was liberated from the prison of the grave just as really and tangibly as was Jonah, although he had actually suffered death.
The clergy are wrong both as to time and place and circumstances in their interpretation of Peter’s comparison. The time of the preaching was about B.C. 2,300 and not A.D. 33, the place was probably somewhere in the Euphrates Valley, and not Jerusalem; and the preacher was “the Spirit of Christ in Noah” and not Christ disembodied.
Christ is the ark of Salvation in whom the Lord “shuts in” obedient believers of the gospel of the kingdom by baptism. Baptism is a symbolic death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6.), and in this the “true likeness” goes beyond the literal elements of Noah’s deliverance in the Ark. Jesus had been baptized and then had literally died and risen again (“He came by water and blood”). The apostles had been baptized and so had been symbolically planted with Christ in the likeness of his death in the hope of resurrection. And here they were with their brethren facing persecution and literal death in Christ’s service in hope of resurrection. Noah was a pattern for them as well as a type of Christ. Many of their brethren had died for the faith, and Peter, by the express revelation of Jesus Christ, looked forward to his “decease” (exodus), or the putting off of his tabernacle (2 Pet. 1:15; Jno. 21:18–19). What more natural than that he should refer to “Noah, a preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5), and to the righteous dead that had gone before? “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit” (1 Pet. 4:6). Here “judged” is antithetical to “live,” and the expression, “judged according to men in the flesh,” implies condemnation to death in “the fiery trial,” in “partaking of Christ’s sufferings” (verse 13), who was “put to death in the flesh” by wicked men, but was “quickened by the spirit” in resurrection. The apostle’s allusions to Noah and to Christ are beautiful and highly intelligible, “a true likeness” indeed, as he says; but quite unintelligible to the corrupters of God’s way, whether of the first or the twentieth centuries.
Some have thought “the prison” of 1 Pet. 3:19 was the ark, because the scriptures speak of the dead in Christ as his prisoners of hope. But this cannot be because the “spirits” of Peter’s allusion were “disobedient” and outside the ark. The ambiguity arises from the fact that the preaching of Noah’s day affected both the righteous remnant and the wicked, and that Noah is now, with many others, “a prisoner of hope,” being “dead in Christ.” But the intention of Peter’s allusion is obvious, viz., to draw a comparison in the evil days in which he lived, for the consolation and encouragement of the righteous remnant that was “keeping the truth” in peril of their lives.
. Vol. 44: The Christadelphian: Volume 44. 2001 (electronic ed.) (453–454). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.
These disobedient “spirits” were not preached to while they were “in prison,” but before they got into prison. “The gospel was preached also to them that are dead”; not when they were dead, but before they died (1 Pet. 4:6). The prison is the grave (Isa. 24:22; Zech. 9:11–12, &c.). Hezekiah was an obedient spirit unto whom the glad tidings of an added “lease of life” was proclaimed when he was in fear of the prison (See Isa. 38.). Jonah went down into the abyss, but was resurrected by God from his watery grave (Jonah 2.), and became the great “sign” of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This was a bodily deliverance from prison such as none of the antediluvians experienced. But the Lord Jesus was liberated from the prison of the grave just as really and tangibly as was Jonah, although he had actually suffered death.
The clergy are wrong both as to time and place and circumstances in their interpretation of Peter’s comparison. The time of the preaching was about B.C. 2,300 and not A.D. 33, the place was probably somewhere in the Euphrates Valley, and not Jerusalem; and the preacher was “the Spirit of Christ in Noah” and not Christ disembodied.
Christ is the ark of Salvation in whom the Lord “shuts in” obedient believers of the gospel of the kingdom by baptism. Baptism is a symbolic death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6.), and in this the “true likeness” goes beyond the literal elements of Noah’s deliverance in the Ark. Jesus had been baptized and then had literally died and risen again (“He came by water and blood”). The apostles had been baptized and so had been symbolically planted with Christ in the likeness of his death in the hope of resurrection. And here they were with their brethren facing persecution and literal death in Christ’s service in hope of resurrection. Noah was a pattern for them as well as a type of Christ. Many of their brethren had died for the faith, and Peter, by the express revelation of Jesus Christ, looked forward to his “decease” (exodus), or the putting off of his tabernacle (2 Pet. 1:15; Jno. 21:18–19). What more natural than that he should refer to “Noah, a preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5), and to the righteous dead that had gone before? “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit” (1 Pet. 4:6). Here “judged” is antithetical to “live,” and the expression, “judged according to men in the flesh,” implies condemnation to death in “the fiery trial,” in “partaking of Christ’s sufferings” (verse 13), who was “put to death in the flesh” by wicked men, but was “quickened by the spirit” in resurrection. The apostle’s allusions to Noah and to Christ are beautiful and highly intelligible, “a true likeness” indeed, as he says; but quite unintelligible to the corrupters of God’s way, whether of the first or the twentieth centuries.
Some have thought “the prison” of 1 Pet. 3:19 was the ark, because the scriptures speak of the dead in Christ as his prisoners of hope. But this cannot be because the “spirits” of Peter’s allusion were “disobedient” and outside the ark. The ambiguity arises from the fact that the preaching of Noah’s day affected both the righteous remnant and the wicked, and that Noah is now, with many others, “a prisoner of hope,” being “dead in Christ.” But the intention of Peter’s allusion is obvious, viz., to draw a comparison in the evil days in which he lived, for the consolation and encouragement of the righteous remnant that was “keeping the truth” in peril of their lives.
. Vol. 44: The Christadelphian: Volume 44. 2001 (electronic ed.) (453–454). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.