And we're back to
"Books of the Book."
00:00:01.40\00:00:02.77
We're studying
Chapter 3 of the book 1 Peter.
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Dr. Shepherd, you were
commenting on verse 18,
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I don't think you
were quite finished there.
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All right, so we have
verse 18, and we see that,
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we have this whole
experience of Christ
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that is described there.
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Placing this whole thing in
the context of the whole book
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is rather interesting
that there is quite a parallel
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between this passage
in 3:18-22 and the passage
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we already studied in 2:21-25.
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The parallels go like this,
here's some of the parallels.
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Christ suffered and we suffer.
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Remember, he was talking about
the servant's suffering there.
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Christ is the example in both
places, there and over here.
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Christ has a vicarious
action that's mentioned,
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He takes our
place, He died for us.
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Christ's suffering saves us,
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and both of these
passages describe that.
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So it's rather interesting
that he has similar context
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where in chapter
2, we had the servants
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and they were
going through suffering,
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they was supposed to
follow the example of Jesus.
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And in chapter 3, we
already said, verses 3: 13-17
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talk about the Christian giving
a proper witness to the world,
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living faithfully
and suffering for it
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and then he supports it.
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So he, kind of,
thinks his thoughts again
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but he expands
them into other areas
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that he hasn't talk about.
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So in verse 18, we found that,
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he gives the--almost the
typical gospel presentation.
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Christ suffered, He
died, He was buried,
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He arose again, you know,
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and so He suffered in the flesh
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and then He was made alive
in the spirit or by the spirit.
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Okay, and that bring us
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then to next
part, the next idea.
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Now verse 19 seems to be
one of those difficult passages
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to understand and this is
one of those problematic verses
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in the Bible where we
don't really know what it means.
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Perhaps you can
comment on this verse
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because it seems
like Jesus went somewhere,
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He did something, He preached.
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So what did He preach?
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To whom did He
preach, and what is He doing,
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where did He go?
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Okay, so there's a
lot of questions there.
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Where did He go?
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When did He go?
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To whom did He preach?
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And what did He preach?
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Let me just comment about
problem texts in the Bible.
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I've asked
students on tests sometimes.
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How many problem texts
are there in the Bible?
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You know what the answer is?
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What is that? Zero.
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There are no
problem texts in the Bible,
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because the text
is not the problem.
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We don't want to call the
revelation of God a problem.
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And when we get
that kind of mentality
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that there's a problem,
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actually it limits us to
see other truths that is.
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The text is not the problem,
our understanding of the text
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can be a problem
but not the text itself.
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So we got to, kind of,
follow or try and follow
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Peter's discussion here.
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Okay, so just like
you said, in verse 19,
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it talks about
him going some place.
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Now one of the things
that question is, who went?
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Because in-- if
you read your version,
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at the end of verse 18,
it says, "He was made alive,
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by the spirit," and
then how does verse 19 start?
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"By whom also He went
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and preached to
the spirits in prison."
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Now, my version has
a capital 'H' on He,
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I don't know if that
makes a difference or not.
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Yes, yes, well, who's
doing the preaching there?
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According to the
version that you have,
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it's probably the Holy Spirit.
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You know, by which
He went and preached
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to the spirits in prison.
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Now we got talk about
these spirits in prison
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and who they are.
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But first we want to talk about
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who in the world
is preaching, okay?
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If we take verse
18, the end of verse 18,
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we say that He was
made-- He died in the flesh
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and He was made alive in
the spirit or by the spirit.
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The problem was seeing
that it's the Holy Spirit
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is you have this flesh
and spirit, kind of idea.
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And if it is the Holy Spirit,
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it kind of seems
to break a little bit
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because the first part
we're talking about Jesus.
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He was made alive in the
flesh and then He's made,
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I mean, He was put
to death in the flesh
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and then He was
made alive in the spirit.
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That seems to be
a nice parallelism.
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If you said He was
put to death din the flesh
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but He was made
alive by the spirit,
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it seems to break that
parallelism up a little bit.
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So it's probably better to
take the end of verse 18 to say,
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He was put to death in the flesh
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but He was made
alive in the spirit,
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that's in the spiritual realm.
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In which, that means
in the spiritual realm,
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in which He that means
Christ went and proclaimed,
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or does yours say preached?
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Preached. Yeah.
Sure does. Yeah. Okay.
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Now this does not--
this does not use the verb
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"to bring good news."
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Evangelizo, that we use
the word evangelism comes from.
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This is not to evangelize,
but it is to proclaim.
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Now sometimes that terminology
could be used to talk about
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proclaiming the
gospel message, okay.
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But we should
notice what verse 19
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does not say, okay?
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Verse 19, does not say
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that He was dead
when He preached.
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Verse 19, does not say that
He went down to preach. Right.
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And verse 19, does not say,
what He proclaimed or preached.
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Okay? So it's
important to know as much
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what the text does
not say, as to know
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what it does say, right?
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There are three basic
options for this passage
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that scholars have
come up with. Okay?
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To refer to what in the
world is it talking about
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and what is
involved and what Christ did.
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Well, one of the positions,
I'll call the three positions,
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the hell
position, the flood position
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and the ascension position.
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Okay. Hell, flood and
the ascension. All right.
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The hell position is
a traditional position,
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held by our
domination but by some others.
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That Christ when He
died, as a spirit, He didn't,
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you know, sleep in the
grave as the Bible teaches
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but He went to
the spiritual world
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and there He preached
salvation to dead souls,
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so that they could have a
second chance at salvation.
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And He's so strong that
He even preached in hell,
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that's the hell position.
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The flood position picks
up on a later part of this.
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In verse 20 it says
that "He went and proclaimed
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to the spirits in heaven--
in prison because they formerly
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did not obey when God's patience
waited in the days of Noah,
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while the Ark was being
prepared in which a few,
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that is eight persons were
brought safely through water."
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All right. So these people,
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this time of
preaching to the spirits
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was at the time of the flood.
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And this position
takes that the Holy Spirit
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or the pre-incarnate
Jesus went and proclaimed
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to these spirits in prison
whoever they are and proclaimed,
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preached to
them, maybe the gospel,
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He was preaching
through Noah to the people,
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the antediluvian people
at that time. All right.
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Why Peter would go
to that and talk about
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that seems a little
hard to piece together,
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you know, exactly why
bring in the flood and Noah
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and then who are
these spirits in prison?
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And you know,
what's going on with them.
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So there are a lot of
questions that people ask.
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The third position is
the ascension position.
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That is when Christ
makes this proclamation,
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He is going to spirit in prison,
these are like evil angels
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or spiritual forces of
the dark side of this world
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of the great
controversy and He's proclaiming
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not while He's dead but after
He's been raised to life, okay.
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That He goes and
proclaims to them victory,
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because He has won victory
over sin and they have lost.
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This is kind of the
picture "Christus Victor,"
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He is ascending
and He is, you know,
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declaring His victory
over the evil forces. Okay.
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Those are the three positions.
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Now we could take a
long time to talk about
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which one of these
makes the most sense,
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you know, and go back
and forth some of them
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but there is a valuable parallel
in the book of 1 Timothy 3:16,
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that helps
gives us some pointers
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and we got to kind
of wrap this up quickly.
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But we'll point out what seems
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to be the best
position for this passage.
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1 Peter 3:16, it's
kind of like a little hymn
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that the Apostle Paul
refers to 1 Peter 3:16,
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you want you to
read that for us?
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"And without controversy great
is the mystery of godliness.
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God was manifested in the
flesh, justified in the spirit,
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seen by angles,
preached among the Gentiles,
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believed on in the
world, received up in glory."
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All right. This
was maybe a little hymn
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that they used to sing.
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He's talking about Jesus.
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He was manifested in the
flesh, vindicated in the spirit.
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Notice the same terminology,
in the flesh, in the spirit.
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Seen by angels,
notice, seen by angels.
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Proclaimed among the nations,
that's our evangelistic work.
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Believed on in the world,
00:10:01.25\00:10:02.62
taken up in glory,
there's His ascension.
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The same kind of
pattern that you have,
00:10:04.59\00:10:07.42
He is manifested in the
flesh, vindicated in the spirit,
00:10:07.45\00:10:10.87
seen by angels,
take up in glory,
00:10:10.90\00:10:13.53
which points to the idea that
what's happening in verse 18-19,
00:10:13.56\00:10:18.89
is actually the ascension
of Jesus Christ in glory.
00:10:18.92\00:10:23.70
Who are these
evil spirits in prison?
00:10:23.73\00:10:26.59
These are evil
angels who disobeyed God
00:10:26.62\00:10:29.45
and who were cast out heaven.
00:10:29.48\00:10:31.68
They have been
fighting God and His truth
00:10:31.71\00:10:33.88
ever since that time.
00:10:33.91\00:10:35.80
And at Christ's resurrection,
they were totally defeated
00:10:35.83\00:10:42.15
and they faced off against
a force that was much greater
00:10:42.18\00:10:45.52
than they could stand.
00:10:45.55\00:10:47.27
Now if you read in
that kind of light--
00:10:47.30\00:10:50.07
let's read the text again
and we'll sort of see it all.
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I'll sort of fill
in here a little bit,
00:10:52.56\00:10:54.03
the interpretation--
Okay, so we're reading verse--
00:10:54.06\00:10:55.85
We're starting at verse 18,
00:10:55.88\00:10:57.27
"For Christ also
suffered once for sins,
00:10:57.30\00:10:59.86
the righteous for the
unrighteous that he might
00:10:59.89\00:11:01.86
bring us to God, being
put to death in the flesh
00:11:01.89\00:11:04.36
at the cross and made alive in
the spirit at his resurrection,
00:11:04.39\00:11:09.51
in which spiritual
realm, He went and proclaimed
00:11:09.54\00:11:12.66
to the spirits, the
evil forces in prison
00:11:12.69\00:11:15.79
because they
formerly did not obey
00:11:15.82\00:11:18.21
when God's patience
waited in the days of Noah,
00:11:18.24\00:11:20.95
while Ark was being
prepared, in which of few
00:11:20.98\00:11:24.04
that is eight
persons were brought safely
00:11:24.07\00:11:25.99
through the water" and
he's digressing a little bit
00:11:26.02\00:11:27.88
but for a good
reason, he says, verse 21,
00:11:27.91\00:11:30.74
baptism which corresponds
to this now saves you,
00:11:30.77\00:11:34.38
"not as a removal
of a dirt from the body
00:11:34.41\00:11:36.32
but as the appeal to
God for a good conscience,
00:11:36.35\00:11:38.68
through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
00:11:38.71\00:11:40.22
Coming back to the resurrection,
00:11:40.25\00:11:41.79
baptism links you to
the resurrection of Jesus.
00:11:41.82\00:11:44.25
Who has gone into heaven
and is at the right hand of God
00:11:44.28\00:11:47.40
with angels and
authorities, powers having
00:11:47.43\00:11:49.62
been subjected
to him. All right.
00:11:49.65\00:11:51.38
So how does this
fit with verse 13-17,
00:11:51.41\00:11:56.18
see that's question.
00:11:56.21\00:11:57.74
But verse 13-17
was about the Christian
00:11:57.77\00:12:00.74
suffering for
sharing their faith.
00:12:00.77\00:12:03.45
And being
persecuted by the wicked
00:12:03.48\00:12:06.27
because they were Christians.
00:12:06.30\00:12:09.14
He says, "Well, that's exactly
00:12:09.17\00:12:10.83
what happened to
Jesus, isn't it?"
00:12:10.86\00:12:13.00
That's exactly
what happened to him.
00:12:13.03\00:12:14.40
He suffered and died and
went through hell for you.
00:12:14.43\00:12:17.96
He went through
all this trouble.
00:12:17.99\00:12:19.39
But God raised
him from the dead.
00:12:19.42\00:12:21.73
And that victory of Jesus Christ
when He rose from the dead
00:12:21.76\00:12:25.55
is the same victory
the Christian will have,
00:12:25.58\00:12:28.54
if he is faithful she is
faithful to the Lord Jesus.
00:12:28.57\00:12:32.07
So you see, this position makes
00:12:32.10\00:12:35.79
verses 18 to 22 really fit
00:12:35.82\00:12:38.81
as a support
for verses 13 to 17,
00:12:38.84\00:12:41.71
where some of the
other ones don't seem to fit
00:12:41.74\00:12:44.19
so well at all, this one shows
you that as Christ suffered,
00:12:44.22\00:12:48.03
as He was vindicated
and rose from the dead,
00:12:48.06\00:12:50.85
that's exactly what's
going to happen to us.
00:12:50.88\00:12:53.46
If we will be
faithful to Christ,
00:12:53.49\00:12:55.46
and we also will
have that same experience.
00:12:55.49\00:12:58.61
Dr. Shepherd, I feel like
00:12:58.64\00:13:00.01
I've been in a classroom setting
00:13:00.04\00:13:01.74
with you at the
Theological Seminary
00:13:01.77\00:13:03.40
at Andrews University
and we want to thank you
00:13:03.43\00:13:05.04
for joining us in this
very interesting Bible Study.
00:13:05.07\00:13:08.50
And we want to also
continue encouraging our viewers
00:13:08.53\00:13:11.62
and listening
audience to join us
00:13:11.65\00:13:13.72
in this series of
"Books of the Book."
00:13:13.75\00:13:15.61
We are studying 1 and 2 Peter
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and there are
still much more to learn.
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So be with us.
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See you next time
and God bless you.
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