Christ’s Sufferings, Death and Descent into Sheol
Peter is writing to disciples who are going through the mill.
The Triumph of Our Saviour LORD'S DAY 16
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell.
40. Q. Why was it necessary for Christ to humble himself even unto death?
A. Because of the justice and truth of God satisfaction for our sins could be made in no other way than by the death of the Son of God.
Albert Mohler wrote "Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ hit the box office with a bang in 2004. At that time the movie generated a great deal of controversy. Disagreement also abounded about the propriety of portraying Jesus through the medium of cinematography. All this controversy piqued the interest of prospective viewers, and as a result, the film performed well at the box office. In fact, it went on to become one of the most discussed cultural products of the era."
My dad rang me after watching it. I had determined not to watch it as I was concerned that cinematically, it could never portray the theological implications of the event of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. But my dad saw it -a non-Christian. And he rang me.
He was confronted. Not by the graphic portrayal of the violence, but by the words that appeared on the screen before the movie commenced. The words of Isaiah transfixed my dad.
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
And I will never forget the words of the man Lorelle and I had prayed over for 60 years: "I wept when I saw those words..I saw it for the first time. He didn't die just for the world's sins, He died for my sins! Is it true?" I replied "Yes it is true." He answered, "Then that is the greatest news of all time!"
Mohler continues "Most people do not understand the gravity of this historical event. Even the people who put Jesus to death failed to grasp the significance of what they did because "if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). For those whose eyes the Spirit of God has not opened, the death of Jesus amounts to nothing less than a brute fact of history. For those, however, who have placed their faith in Christ and experienced the power of the resurrection, the death of Jesus stands as a paradox—at the same time the most tragic and the most glorious truth imaginable. For a Christian believer, Jesus came as the Servant who suffered and died in our place for our sins. The Apostles' Creed enshrines this truth in its affirmation that Jesus "suffered under Pontius Pilate.""
As my dad said, "It's true? Then that is the best news ever!"
Over these next two weeks we will rejoice together in 4 things.
We will rejoice in the Triumph of His CRUCIFIXION
We will rejoice in the Triumph of His PROCLAMATION (19,20)
Then next week
We will rejoice in the Triumph of His RESURRECTION (19,20)
We will rejoice in the Triumph of His ASCENSION (19,20)
1. The Triumph of His CRUCIFIXION (18)
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
The Sufferings For Christ also suffered once for sins
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous,
The creed affirms much more than mere historicity in affirming the suffering of Jesus under Pilate. It tells us that His suffering at the cross was the main reason for His becoming incarnate as a man. God the Son had to become a man so that He would suffer and die.
There Was His Bodily Suffering
We sometimes fail to consider the physical sufferings of Jesus. Though there are the two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ— His humanity and His divinity it is the God-man who experienced suffering in His body.
Jesus experienced suffering physically in His life:
Jesus experienced hunger. (Mark 11:12) Jesus experienced thirst. (John 4:7)
Jesus felt weariness. (John 4:6) Jesus needed to sleep. (Mark 4:38), He experienced grief and frustration.
The sufferings described in Jesus' trial, flogging, and crucifixion are no less real. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, experienced the fullness of pain that would have accompanied his torture and execution. The Roman methods of flogging would dispense maximum pain to the victim while keeping them from death or shock. It was meant to be painful! Jesus, the Son of God, fully man, experienced every bit of pain through the suffering of his torture and crucifixion.
Mohler writes "That Jesus experienced suffering as fully human only magnifies the glory of his intentionality and obedience to suffer and fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. The Son of God willingly placed himself into the intense, horrific, and excruciating pain of Roman torture and crucifixion. This he did for his people. His sufferings demonstrate the infinite love of God in Christ for his people in our place. He endured the pain, contempt, reviling, and his very flesh ripped from his body out of divine love for a rebellious, sinful people."
The Substitute the righteous for the unrighteous,
The second aspect of the Lord's sufferings Peter feels we should rejoice in is that He suffered as a substitute. He was made a curse and placed under the wrath of God in our place. This He did in order to accomplish redemption, propitiation, and the forgiveness of sin. He endured the wrath of God the righteous for the unrighteous.
Paul wrote, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (Gal. 3:13). Not only did Christ suffer bodily, he suffered as a curse. All God's people had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). Everyone lived under the curse of the law, for none had kept the law. Jesus, however, became the curse. He took on himself the wrath of God against sin.
Mohler: "In becoming the curse Jesus experienced the fullness of God's wrath and judgment for the sin of mankind. God poured on Christ the eternal punishment due for each and every sin committed by his people. Jesus endured it all, suffered it all, took it all upon himself. For the several hours he hung on the cross, Jesus suffered the eternal punishment" being he substitute for each and every one of us sinners, thus satisfying God's wrath for each and every one of us. "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" (Rom. 5:9). Paul proclaimed the splendid riches and accomplishment of Christ's sufferings on the cross. By his blood, he satisfied the wrath of God.
The Settlement once for sins,
The third aspect of the Lord's sufferings Peter feels we should rejoice in is that He suffered as a complete settlement for our sins.
As we gather around the Lord's table, we put no confidence in anything we do here, or any preparations we have done to get ready for the Lord's table. We come as sinners totally relying on the settlement made for our sins by the Saviour.
John 19:30—"It is finished,' and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."
He only had to do it once. For all mankind. Because He is God the Son, His atoning death was fully sufficient to cover your sins and my sins. No matter how bad you may be, His atoning death is sufficient to cover all your sins, past, present and future. His atoning sacrifice is complete. It is finished. There is nothing more that has to be done, could be done or will be done to secure your salvation. His death is enough for us. He is the complete substitute for your sins and my sins. Now, don't miss the implications of this in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus for us: The implication is that while He was hanging on that cross in that time, He was bearing ALL your sin, and All the wrath your sin deserved! He as God the Son, eternal God in a mortal body, eternally holy made sin for us, (2:24 our sins He Himself bore in His body on the (wood), the tree on the cross). He is referring to cursed is he who is hung upon a tree, and then he says "by His stripes we are healed" quoting directly from Isaiah 53!
Only He could settle our sins once for all by dying on the cross! Only He being perfect God and Man could in the time He spent suffering on the cross, take all the wrath you deserved in one go at make a complete settlement for all your sins!
The Salvation that he might bring us to God,
The fourth aspect of the Lord's sufferings Peter feels we should rejoice in is that He suffered with the one purpose "that he might bring us to God,"
Through his suffering he accomplished salvation. This is what salvation is. It is the restoring of us who were alienated from God back into a new fellowship with God "that he might bring us to God."
He wants you to rejoice in a new restored relationship. Listen to how Paul describes it in Romans 5. 11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. NASB
NLT 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Paul called the experience of receiving God's grace through faith and the resulting peace an "introduction." The Greek word is prosagōgē [4318], which is variously rendered "access" or "introduction" Jesus Christ has ushered us into a completely new territory called "grace,"
Swindoll notes "But that's not all. As if peace with God—freedom from His wrath—were not enough, there's more. Much more. The death of God's Son on behalf of humankind is only part of the story. He not only died, He rose again! His death stripped away the condemnation of death; His resurrection gives us abundant, eternal life. Take note of the verb tenses again. "Were reconciled" is in the past tense. The work of reconciliation is complete. The gaping chasm that stood between God and us has been permanently bridged. The death of Christ became the means of our prosagōgē—our access, our introduction (remember 5:2?)—to living in harmony with God. And "having been reconciled" (past perfect tense), we "shall be saved" (future tense). Paul's use of the term "saved" includes far more than preservation from the torments of hell. It means preservation from all things that are opposed to God, including any future sin that threatens to keep us from enjoying our new life in the territory called "grace." And this assurance, Paul declared, allows us access to the third level of joy: "we also exult in God" (5:11).
You have a lot to rejoice in when we come to the communion table. We rejoice in His sufferings! We rejoice in His settlement of the debt we owed for our sins! We rejoice in His Salvation! We are reconnected forever to God by His Son! We rejoice as we gather around the Lord's table in our Saviour!
(Communion)
1 Corinthians 11: 23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Peter is writing to disciples who are going through the mill. He has four eternal truths that you can rejoice in that will help you endure the worst sufferings.
Peter reminds us that in Jesus Christ we have a triumphant Savior. No matter what our circumstances may involve, we can have confidence in the Lord. Well, these Christians that Peter wrote to had been experiencing persecution for their faith. They knew what it meant to suffer for the gospel's sake. Their pain was very real.
We suffer in ways for which there are no easy answers. Our evangelical Christian friends in the Ukraine are being slaughtered. As I type this we have been made aware that Russian dropped a bomb on a place sheltering a thousand women and children. They deliberately shelled a women's shelter as well. There is a possibility of China joining in this war and the envelopment of the NATO countries into WW3. There is the tragedy of losses in the floods. There is the tragedy of the Covid pandemic (65 million dead worldwide). Or your trials could be closer to home: a marriage falling apart, abuse in the home. The loss of a baby. Cancer. Natural disasters. Random killings. When life is unfair, and you suffer because of it, how will you respond?
Whenever we suffer, there are at least four possibilities as to why:
• Suffering as the result of poor choices! • Suffering as the result of spiritual attack!
• Suffering as the result of a fallen world! • Suffering as the result of doing good!
The truths of this passage remind us that whatever happens the Lord Jesus Christ still reigns over all. The knowledge of His victory carries us forward in spite of some of the most difficult trials we can ever face. It reminds us of the triumph of Christ's Sufferings, the triumph of Christ's Proclamation, the triumph of His resurrection and ascension.
44. Q. Why is there added: He descended into hell?
A. In my greatest sorrows and temptations I may be assured and comforted that my Lord Jesus Christ, by his unspeakable anguish, pain, terror, and agony, which he endured throughout all his sufferings but especially on the cross, has delivered me from the anguish and torment of hell.
2. The Triumph of His PROCLAMATION (19,20)
This is a very difficult passage and may possibly be drawn from an early creed or hymn. When Jesus suffered unjustly, God vindicated him, and he will vindicate us, too.
By "spirits in prison" who were disobedient at the time of the flood, 1 Peter most probably means the "sons of God" from Genesis 6:1-4, the angels who were attracted to the beauty of human women. One can be fairly confident of this—first, because "spirits" normally refers to supernatural beings, not to dead persons (the terms for that in the New Testament are normally nekroi, dead ones, or psychoi, souls); and second, because "imprisoned divine beings" matches up with the fate of the fallen angels from Genesis 6, according to Jewish interpretive traditions found most fully in 1 Enoch 1-36, usually dated in the third to second century BC; and third, because this background explains the otherwise puzzling move by Peter here to the flood narrative. First Enoch recounts the Genesis 6 story of the angels taking women as wives and begetting a race of giants. But 1 Enoch continues: the giants oppress the people of the earth, teaching them all sorts of wicked things, and themselves give rise to the demons who infest the earth (1 En. 15:8-9). (Vinson, 1 Peter, Smyth and Helwys) Jude 14-15 quoted 1 Enoch was and valued by at least some first-century, Jude 6 also names these fallen angels as currently imprisoned by God, awaiting judgment. Second Peter 2:4, tells us the fallen angels, correcting 1 Enoch 18 (which says they were imprisoned in a pit inside one of the mountains at the edge of the earth), Jubilees 5:6, Jude 6, and 2 Peter 2:4 put the prison in the depths of the earth. First Enoch 21:6–10 says that fallen angels "transgressed the commandment of the Lord" and so were bound to prison.
"Prison" probably does not refer to hell, since the New Testament uses many other terms for the location of dead, unredeemed humans. We notice that no location for Peter's prison is given. It seems wise (if not certain) to take prison as a metaphor for God's control over evil spirits.
So what happened here?
Hades (Luke 16, Isa 14:9) .. …...hell (genenna) Jude 6
A Victorious Announcement
So, then, Peter states that Jesus "preached" (NIV) or "proclaimed" (ESV, NASB) something. The Greek verb is not euaggelizomai, "to preach the gospel or good news," but kērussō, "to make a proclamation." Like other words, kērussō has a range of meanings, and it can be used for evangelistic proclamations (e.g., Rom. 10:8–15; Gal. 2:2), but it typically means "to make an official announcement or public declaration," not "to evangelize" (e.g., Mark 1:45; Gal. 5:11; Rev. 5:2). So we need not think that Jesus evangelized the spirits in prison. He proclaimed His victory! Their realm is now under his dominion. Every knee will bow to him. Their doom is sealed, since Jesus' death and resurrection concludes and demonstrates his control over evil in all places and forever. Martin Luther supposedly said that if Jesus descended into hell, he spent three days thumbing his nose at the devil. There may be truth to the gibe. Jesus proclaimed that his death, resurrection, and exaltation sealed their defeat and doom.
So what does that mean for you and I when we experience sufferings? Sometimes the people involved in our sufferings are so clearly motivated by Satan that it is fairly obvious. Has Satan defeated the church in those times?
When we were in Newcastle I must say I felt the grip of Satan tightening on us in so many ways: there was the opposition from clergy who are now in prison or have been in prison for paedophilia. There was opposition from some from within the church who supported the evil works of those men. There was consistent opposition and threats from some denominationally who demanded I support these men who are now in prison! Lorelle and the family were fairly sure I would die of the stress I was experiencing!
Sometimes we think maybe Satan has got the upper hand over the church! Why you may have been demoralised by some recent revelations about some church leaders in Sydney.
How can this victorious announcement support us now in times of demoralisation?
Remember! Col 2:15. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Christ has triumphed over them already! These are the last whimpers of evil men before the Lord Jesus institutes His kingdom that reigns over all!
2 Corinthians 2: 14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
An Authoritative Announcement
Not only is it a victorious announcement that reminds Jesus shall reign in the future, it reminds us Jesus reigns now in spite of the evil that demonic people instigate.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
No matter how active Satan and his demons may seem to be, the proclamation of victory over satan and his demons that Jesus made reminds us that All authority in heaven and earth is His! No matter what they attempt to do, nothing can stop the gospel! Paul was in prison in Philippi for delivering a demon possessed girl, and those who profited from that, stuck him in gaol. He shared the gospel there and saw a wonderful work of God in the gaoler's life. A friend was lamenting how as we get older so many illnesses come upon us. I reminded him we get to meet new people: physio's, oncologists, nurses, surgeons, receptionists all so we can share the gospel with them. We get to go to new places: Westmead, Hawkesbury and Nepean hospitals!
Rom 14:9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
The whole of life is now no longer dominated by governments and wars and power mongers! They think they have power, but these only provide the backdrop to the gospel proclamation.
Even death and Hades itself are subject to the Lord of Glory!
Rev. 1:17 "Fear not, I am the first and the last,18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades."
Chuck Swindoll writes: The secret of rejoicing is having the right focus. My focus can no longer be myself or my circumstances. My focus must now be my Savior and His purposes. In every circumstance, I must deliberately ask, "What is God accomplishing in me and through me to carry out His plan for the world?"
Choosing the right focus leads to having the right attitude. Once I have shifted my focus away from myself and my pain to concentrate on God's plan to accomplish something good in me and through me, I no longer wander in doubt or wallow in self-pity.
The fruit of a right attitude is triumphant joy. I find growing within a joy that carries me above my circumstance. This is a joy that comes from sensing the presence of a reconciled God and perceiving His purpose.
Howard Hendricks once asked a pastor, "How you doin'?"
The guy replied, "Oh man, under these circumstances it is terrible."
Hendricks said, "So, what are you doing under there?"
Don't allow yourself live under the circumstances of your life. Learn to rise above them, not through your own power or ability, but by trusting in the goodness of God and His unbounded love for you. You have peace with God. So, rejoice!
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