1 Peter 3:18, commentary and pictures

The innocent and holy Son of God suffered once for sins to bring guilty sinners to God, a single sacrifice that need not be repeated, truly dying in human flesh and rising to life again. Standing in the sinner's place as Substitute and Sin Bearer, He bore the guilt, condemnation and penalty of the broken law and gave His blood as the ransom to redeem sinners from perishing and break the power of Satan. His death vindicated the honor and justice of God's law rather than abolishing it, for the law condemns but cannot pardon, and only so holy a sacrifice could satisfy justice and bring in everlasting righteousness. Sinners cannot atone for themselves, but by repentance and faith looking to Jesus on the cross their guilt is put away, and they are pardoned, justified, clothed in His righteousness and made children and heirs of God. His patient suffering for well-doing patterns the believer's life, calling followers to endure wrong without fear, deny self, show meekness and love at home and abroad, and labor to save the perishing.

Words and Historical Setting

Christ suffered once for sins, a single atoning sacrifice that need not be repeated. That once-for-all death ended the need for Israel's sacrificial ceremonies, because type met antitype when the Son of God was sacrificed on the cross of Calvary. Through that death eternal life is given.

The Just denotes Christ as innocent, holy, sinless, righteous, virtuous, and without blemish, whose innocence was beyond challenge. The unjust are guilty, rebellious sinners who were enemies of God and deserving of perishing. The just One died for unjust and guilty people, the sinless One suffering in the place of the guilty.

That He might bring us to God means reconciliation and access to God. By giving sinners His righteousness He joins them to God, brings them into sacred unity with Christ so that they are one with Him and completely identified with Him, gives peace with God and joy in God through the atonement, and makes them children of God, members of the royal family and of His body, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance and partakers of the divine nature and of His glory hereafter. Those brought to God are freed and blessed while Christ bears their condemnation and curse, receive life from the dead instead of shame, and are called to live purely, chastely, and holily.

Being put to death in the flesh means Christ truly suffered and died, and being quickened by the Spirit means He was made alive by the Spirit and rose to life. He broke the fetters of the tomb and rose from the dead, proclaiming before the heavenly universe, the fallen angels, and the human race that He is the resurrection and the life. His death followed by resurrection shows His followers the way from death to life. He now serves as their great High Priest and advocate, pleading their cause, forgiving their sins, and presenting their progress with grace.

The setting of the verse includes Christ in Noah's day speaking through a human messenger and preaching to people in bondage to sin. The chapter holds a message of great importance for ministers of the gospel and for ministers' wives. It calls them to search deep and make clean work for eternity, to let the convicting, converting power of the gospel search their own hearts and their families so that no irreligious element remains in their homes, with special zeal to labor for unsanctified, unconverted companions.

Nature of Christ's Suffering

The sufferer is the eternal Son of God, equal with God, whose throne is from everlasting, who laid aside divinity and clothed himself with humanity. He turned from his royal throne and high command and left the realms of glory for this dark and lonely world, coming as a babe in Bethlehem to be an offering for sin. He became poor that through his poverty sinners might be made rich, humbling himself as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief to share in all human temptation. He came with the hoarded love of eternity, the whole ocean of divine love flowing from its center, with every power in the heavenly universe working to carry forward redemption.

His suffering included rejection and being despised, cruel mocking and jest and merriment, reviling and hatred, insult, shame and reproach. He bore scourging and wore the plaited crown of thorns, and endured a shameful death on the cross of Calvary. In the garden he bore the burden of the sins of the whole world while sweating great drops of blood.

Beyond physical anguish he carried the weight of the sins of the whole world as substitute, bearing the punishment due to the guilty though himself guiltless. That burden was far greater than his physical anguish on the cross, for in Gethsemane he suffered agony and on Calvary horror in thick darkness beneath the wrath of an offended God against sin. In Gethsemane he faced the temptation to let guilty humanity bear the consequences of its own guilt while he remained innocent, and God dealt with him as Judge toward the sin bearer rather than as Father.

He suffered voluntarily, innocently and patiently without guilt, from his youth to the close of his life enduring wrongfully yet patiently. When reviled he threatened not, when falsely accused he opened not his mouth, bearing all without a murmur. Though with one word he could have summoned legions of angels to his aid, he submitted to the Father's will alone, chose to drink the cup, faced the ordeal alone and was victorious, and while dying prayed for his murderers, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. His death was an infinite, immeasurable sacrifice unlike all other deaths, a precious gift greater than any other gift ever bestowed, paying a ransom fallen humanity could not obtain or provide. It was the immeasurable cost of Adam's sin, displaying God's love and goodness in their fullest light before the heavenly universe and the fallen and unfallen worlds, and laying every soul under the most solemn obligation of gratitude, full and complete.

Substitution and Reconciliation

The Just stood in the place of the unjust as Substitute and Surety and Sin-bearer, interposing Himself to bear what sinners deserved. He took human guilt and defiled garments upon Himself, taking human nature and sharing human temptation, and bore the bolts of the Father's wrath, the curse, condemnation and penalty of the broken law, with none of the vials of wrath reserved. God dealt with Him as Judge toward the Sin-bearer, while the guilty who are deserving of punishment go free through faith in His merits, freed and blessed in the exchange by which Christ bears their condemnation and curse. His burden of the sins of the whole world was far greater than His physical anguish on the cross, for in Gethsemane He suffered agony and on Calvary horror in thick darkness beneath the wrath of an offended God, where He faced the temptation to let guilty humanity bear its own consequences while He remained innocent. That suffering demonstrates God's hatred of sin and thorough justice, proving God will punish unrepented and unforsaken sin to its fullest extent, so that only those healed of transgression by faith in His agony and blood and made pure even as He is pure will escape receiving the punishment He suffered.

By enduring the cross and giving Himself as an offering for sin He made salvation and justification available to all who believe, for salvation is God's gift received by faith and given by grace. By His precious blood given on the cross He redeems sinners to God, leaving the realms of glory and coming to the world to bear the burden of the sins of the whole world, paying the ransom they could not provide. The Father accepts His death to save a guilty rebellious race, saving fallen people who were enemies of God from perishing, death and misery and bringing them to God to make them partakers of His future glory. His sacrifice preserved the honor of God's law, since sin is transgression of that law, and His death followed by resurrection shows His followers the way from death to life. He now serves as their great High Priest and advocate, pleading their cause, forgiving their sins and presenting their progress with grace, and by giving them His righteousness He joins them to God, presenting them to the Father as innocent by imputing His own righteousness to them.

His suffering breaks the power of Satan and pays the price at infinite cost to redeem the human family from the power of the destroyer and restore them to God's image. His life was given as the ransom that delivers people from eternal death, and His death ended the warfare and sealed the doom of the devil, who has the power of death. Those who accept this salvation humble themselves before God as His children, as little children.

Those brought to God are not only forgiven upon repentance and confession of iniquity but become children of God, members of the royal family, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance. By beholding Christ sinners are changed into His image and brought into sacred unity with Him, made one with Him, completely identified with Him and sharers in all that He is, with peace with God, joy in God through the atonement, and joy in tribulation as partakers of His sufferings in this life and of His glory hereafter. The sinless One condemned in place of the guilty, bearing the curse so they may go free, brings life to the dead and glory to those who had only shame, and those who belong to Christ are members of His body and share in the divine nature. The Just in all His virtue and righteousness gave Himself and suffered the death penalty in behalf of the unjust, and through that death eternal life is given, for He left heaven, took human nature and died on the cross to give people moral power to overcome temptation and become partakers of His divine nature, making obedience to God's law possible through His righteousness imputed to them. He broke the fetters of the tomb and rose from the dead, proclaiming before the heavenly universe, the fallen angels and the human race that He is the resurrection and the life. This privilege calls them to live purely, chastely and holily, for salvation belongs to God while obedience is the believer's duty.

Law Prophecy and Types

Christ's death preserved and vindicated the honor, justice and holiness of God's law, dying as the just and innocent for the unjust and guilty so that sinners need not perish but might be brought to God. Sin is transgression of that holy law, and the gospel gives no more latitude to sin than the law does. The law condemns transgression but cannot pardon or cleanse it; Christ pays the penalty for sin, and sinners are justified through repentance and faith in his merits, not by the law. His life and death teach strictest obedience, and his sacrifice vindicates and exalts the law for the faithful of every age.

His death did not destroy or abolish the law but magnified and honored it, upholding its authority and calling for obedience to its precepts. If the law could have been abolished or changed, humanity's fallen condition could have been remedied and people saved without his death. If the law were abolished sin would be immortalized, there would be no transgression, and there would be no need of the gospel and no need of a Saviour. Being brought to God through Christ therefore involves being brought back to loyalty to His law, accepting the duty to obey it and being renewed in mind, while Christ who paid its penalty pleads for those who receive Him as Saviour.

His life and death call sinners to repentance from sin back to obedience to God's commandments, making obedience possible through his imputed righteousness. He left heaven, took human nature, and died on the cross to give moral power to overcome temptation and to make men partakers of his divine nature. Through his death as Substitute and Surety he paid the penalty for transgression, pardoned and accepted believers, justified them and clothed them in his righteousness so that through faith they may keep God's commandments and live. His suffering was necessary to satisfy God's justice and the holiness of His law, and no sacrifice less holy than the Only Begotten Son could cleanse those who accept Him as their Atonement and become obedient to heaven's law.

He is God's remedy for sin, the guiltless bearer of the sins of the guilty to whom the ritual system pointed forward as its antitype. The prophets testified of him, and he fulfilled what he had instructed prophets and seers to predict, fulfilling the counsels of heaven and verifying his own word. The sacrificial ceremonies of Israel need no longer be observed because type met antitype when the Son of God was sacrificed on the cross once for all, the Just in all virtue and righteousness suffering the death penalty in behalf of the unjust that eternal life might be given. As the world's Redeemer come as a babe in Bethlehem to be an offering for sin, he pledged himself to accomplish the full salvation of every son and daughter of Adam with a sacrifice ample and wholly consistent with the justice and honor of God's holy law, laying every soul under solemn obligation of gratitude so that whoever refuses the heavenly gift has only himself to blame.

He came to reinstate fallen man, to vindicate the holiness of the divine law and the glory of God by keeping all of God's commandments. He came to make an end of transgression and to bring in everlasting righteousness and life for fallen man through his own merits, that lifted-up people might not perish but have everlasting life. Only his merits bring everlasting righteousness, clothing the obedient in his righteousness and restoring them to God's favor.

Faith and Spirit's Work

Sinners cannot make atonement for themselves, for the just One suffered once for the sins of the unjust to bring them to God, and that sacrifice is the atonement they receive by faith. Entry into the kingdom does not come by accumulated deeds of legal obedience but by faith in the blood and righteousness of the One who died for sinners, which breaks self-reliance, kindles love, and bears fruit in grateful, generous devotion. Those who are condemned by the broken law cannot save themselves and have nothing with which to repay the debt, yet a blood-bought pardon is freely offered to every soul through the One who came in human form and gave Himself for human sin. The law condemns transgression but cannot pardon or cleanse it, so sinners are justified through repentance and faith in His merits rather than by the law, while His death vindicates and exalts the law and its saving benefit reaches the faithful of every age.

The atonement is accepted by faith as sinners look to Jesus on the cross, and His suffering and death placed redemption within reach while His humiliation was for humanity's exaltation to eternal honors and immortal joys. Though guiltless He bore the punishment due to the guilty as their substitute, carrying the weight of the world's sins and suffering deeply because of human transgression. By beholding Him sinners are changed into His image, and when they repent and confess iniquity they are not only forgiven but become children of God, members of the royal family, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance. Through repentance and faith sinners are rid of sin and look to the Lord their righteousness, receiving the righteousness of Christ when they come to God in faith.

His suffering made atonement for the guilt of the whole world, expiating sin, putting it away, and casting it into the depths of the sea. Through faith in His merits the guilty go free, and He presents them to the Father as innocent by imputing His own righteousness to them. As substitute and surety He bore the curse and condemnation deserved by others, taking their defiled garments so they could be clothed in His righteousness. Having suffered and died for unjust people while they were enemies of God to bring them to God, and having risen to show the way from death to life, He now serves as great High Priest and advocate, pleading their cause, forgiving sins, presenting their progress with grace, and by giving His righteousness joining them to God. Salvation and the righteousness that justifies unto eternal life come from God by grace through faith, bringing life to the dead and glory to those who had only shame, so that those who belong to Christ as members of His body and partakers of the divine nature are called to live purely, chastely, and holily.

What the Redeemer accomplished is made effective in each person by the constant, active work of the Holy Spirit given as a regenerating agent to regenerate them. The Spirit must continually work to regenerate people and make real in their lives what Christ accomplished as Redeemer so that humanity might not perish. That same Spirit works to elevate and ennoble the unjust and sinful, stamping the divine image upon them and developing an ever-advancing spiritual life and likeness to Christ's character.

His sacrifice reveals His love and draws people to Him, for being lifted up upon the cross He draws all unto Him. His loving concern extends to every person, including those guilty, helpless, and in danger of destruction through Satan's snares, for He cares for them as a shepherd cares for his sheep. God gave His Son to save humanity from death, displaying His love through the suffering of the Just for the unjust. The righteousness of Christ nourished by God's grace in the human heart is not created by human effort, yet through it a harvest of souls is brought to God.

Example for Daily Living

The just suffered once for the unjust to bring sinners to God, and that pattern grounds the call to suffer for well-doing rather than for evil-doing. As the blameless One bore guilt patiently from youth to death without asserting His rights, so believers are to bear injustice and humiliation from brethren without retaliation, watching unto prayer. Suffering for truth's sake is therefore no evidence of guilt, for even the Prince of Peace, though not guilty, endured the greatest possible humiliation as substitute punished in the sinner's place. Endured without fear, such suffering sanctifies God in the heart, keeps a good conscience, and makes believers ready to give a reason for their hope.

His sacrifice does not remove the need for self-denial and sacrifice, for His life remains the example and His followers must walk in His footsteps. Beholding the Son of God in agony on Calvary, who laid aside divinity, left royal throne and high command, was rejected and became poor that sinners might be made rich, teaches meekness and lowliness of mind. Though He could summon legions of angels He endured jest, reviling and hatred without murmur, threatened not when reviled, opened not His mouth when falsely accused, and prayed for His murderers, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. That uncomplaining victim, whose throne is from everlasting and whose kingdom shall have no end, gives reason to love Him and make Him first and last and best, to kneel in humble penitence at the foot of the cross, subdue pride and vanity, deny self, hide self in Jesus, and by looking constantly to Him whom sins have pierced gain strength to be like Him. His death belongs to the work of redeeming love by which God seeks to save the perishing, and human workers are entrusted to cooperate in that work.

By beholding Him sinners are changed into His image, and upon repentance and confession of iniquity they are not only forgiven but made children of God, members of the royal family, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to an immortal inheritance. His suffering breaks the power of Satan and brings man into sacred unity with Christ, complete identification with Him and sharing in all that He is, with peace with God, joy in God through the atonement, and joy in tribulation as partakers of His sufferings now and His glory hereafter. The sinless condemned in place of the guilty bears the curse that they may go free and brings life to the dead and glory to those who had only shame, with salvation and justifying righteousness coming by grace through faith. Those who belong to Christ are members of His body and sharers in the divine nature, which calls them to live purely, chastely and holily, for salvation belongs to God while obedience is the believer's duty. His death purchases healing for defects and maladies of the soul, supplying lack, molding and fashioning character, righting wrongs and repressing evils, so that even without deep conviction looking to Him on the cross breaks down every barrier. He undertakes to save all who trust Him, casts out none who come, seeks and saves the lost, restores to divine favor through goodness and mercy, receives even the prodigal with outstretched arms, and gives assurance of acceptance, peace and love that the sin-darkened soul can see when taught in simplest form. He died the just for the unjust that He might lead, work through and sanctify His people, and love for Him who first loved and gave Himself makes them eager and earnest to overcome everything that destroys unity. That profession must be examined by life, for those who claim Him must show His character in tenderness, courtesy and love, including in home life.

The life and sacrifice of the Innocent for the guilty should forever silence every murmur and complaint. Measured against His sinless suffering for the unjust, personal pain and hardship are seen as small. Suffering for Christ is to be counted a privilege, and in that suffering believers glory in the cross of Christ. Christ is honored by those who eagerly take hold of salvation and count it a privilege to suffer for Him.

The truth that the Just died for the unjust to bring us to God is to be remembered every moment by parents in dealing with children, shaping wisdom, patience, kindness and love when restraint and punishment of evil are required. The chapter holds a message of great importance calling to deep heart-searching and clean work for eternity, letting the convicting, converting power of the gospel search hearts and families so that no irreligious element remains in homes, with special zeal to labor for unsanctified, unconverted companions. His loving concern in giving His life to bring people back to God extends to every guilty, helpless person in danger of destruction through Satan's snares, as a shepherd cares for sheep. Through the Just dying for the unjust a harvest of souls is brought to God, with the righteousness of Christ nourished by God's grace in the heart and not created by human effort.