1 Pet 3.13-22
persecution & witness
(1 Peter 3.8-22)
Jason Procopio
Last week we began looking at the end of 1 Peter 3, in which Peter turns to the subject of being persecuted for your faith. For the Christians to whom Peter was writing, that persecution took the form of actual violence, or the plundering of their possessions. For Christians in France today, that kind of violence committed against us for our faith, because we’re Christians, rarely happens; we more often face people making fun of us, or being socially outcast, or being rejected by our families.
In the end, the form the persecution takes doesn’t matter. We as God’s people are called to react to persecution in a specific way, as a visible testimony of the gospel’s power to transform us.
Now, I had initially intended to preach on 1 Peter 3.8-22 as one sermon, in our regular church meeting place—then we learned about the confinement very quickly before it fell, and I just didn’t have time to prepare that sermon (because this is a difficult text). So last week’s sermon was super short, because it was, essentially, the first third of the sermon I had planned to preach. So today we’re picking right up and continuing on with the same text.
But quickly, let’s review what we saw last week, in 1 Peter 3.8-12.
Suffer…for a blessing (v. 8-12)
Peter told us that as Christians, we are called to react to persecution in a certain way, and he gave us our first motivation for doing so. He said that when evil is committed against us, when insults are thrown at us, we do not repay evil for evil or insult for insult, but on the contrary, we bless, because a) to this we have been called, who has commanded us to bless others that we might be blessed: that we might love life and see good days and grow in intimacy with our Father.
And this will only be possible if we, as a people, as a church, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, tender hearts, and humble minds—if we, as a people, have hearts and minds like our Savior’s.
So that was our first motivation for blessing our enemies instead of seeking justice for ourselves at all cost and giving back to them what they gave to us.
He gets to the second motivation in v. 13-17, and it calls back to what he’s been telling us for two chapters now: we bless our persecutors as a visible testimony of the gospel.
Suffer…as a Witness (v. 13-17)
13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
Now he starts with this kind of strange question—“Who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?” It’s a rhetorical question. For the majority of human beings, this isn’t the norm: in most societies, even in Peter’s time, people are rewarded for doing good and punished for doing wrong. This is what he was saying back in chapter 2, when he talked about why we should submit to human government—because a government which is globally just are given by God to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good (2.13-14).
But as we know very well, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes people who do good are punished anyway—either by unjust governments (like the Roman Empire persecuting the Christians) or by individuals (like the apostle Paul before he became a Christians). So Peter says, this kind of persecution isn’t the norm—but (v. 14) even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed.
So he’s reiterating what he said just before (in the text we saw last week). When we suffer for our faith…when we are ridiculed for our faith…we need to remember that there is blessing in that suffering. We saw what some of that blessing looks like in v. 10-12—loving life and seeing good days (not devoid of suffering, but in the midst of suffering); knowing that the Lord’s eyes are on us, and that he hears our prayers…
And then he goes on at the end of v. 14 when he says, Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, 15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy… These two definitely do go together. When he tells us to honor Christ the Lord as holy, he’s calling back to similar commands elsewhere in the Bible—when we honor the Lord as holy, we recognize his good and gracious authority over this world, and we submit to that authority. When we honor the Lord as holy, we recognize that he is in control of this situation—not our persecutors. So we don’t need to be afraid; we don’t need to be troubled, because God takes these situations, painful as they are, and he uses them for our good and his glory.
And then Peter really gets to the heart of this motivation. He says (v. 15): but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you…
When we know that our Christ is holy, and he is Lord of his creation, and he is in absolute control over this and every situation, we’re not afraid, and we’re not troubled—on the contrary, we are filled with courage.
Think about the apostles when they were regularly brought before the Sanhedrin in the book of Acts. Think about Stephen, about to become the first Christian martyr. They weren’t immune to their persecution; they weren’t unfeeling. But they knew God was in control, that he was going to use this for the advancement of the gospel—and that was what all of them wanted more than anything else. So they were filled with courage, and they used their persecution as an opportunity to share the gospel.
Think about this for a minute. Think about a time when you were ridiculed, or cast aside, or rejected by someone, for your faith in Christ. It always hurts—and the closer you are to the person, the more it hurts. But what would have changed in the way it felt, if we knew it wasn’t personal? If we could see clearly enough to not take it personally? God is Lord over his creation, and he is sovereign over our lives. So if he is allowing this, it means that it’s happening for a good reason.
Knowing, and believing, that Christ is in control will cause us to react in a certain way. It will cause us to not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but to bless instead. And it will cause us to see our persecution not as merely painful, but as an opportunity to explain to others why we’re blessing instead of retaliating. Why no matter how cruel they are to us, we desire that they might know Christ and love him as we do and be as happy in him as we are. Because no matter how violently they reject us, we rejected Christ worse—not just in words, but from the very core of our being. Because no matter how much they deserve punishment for their persecution, the real affront isn’t rejecting us, but rejecting Christ—and we are all guilty of that.
And yet, Christ didn’t give us what we deserve. He didn’t repay evil for evil. He took that evil on himself, took our punishment on himself, and gave us his perfect life in exchange. We see our persecution as an opportunity to share the gospel, because we all deserve punishment in return for our sins, and Christ didn’t give it to us. So we won’t retaliate either—but rather, we’ll talk about him.
…But some people don’t do this very well. Some people share the gospel like they’re furious, like they just can’t believe the people they’re talking to can’t see Christ for who he is, and they’re trying to beat them to death with the “good news”. This is usually coming from a good place—most of them mean well—but how convincing do they really expect it to be? Would you be drawn to someone who was yelling at you for being so stupid as to reject Christ? Of course not.
So Peter tells us not just what to do, but how to do it. He tells us to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
Brothers and sisters, nothing empties persecution of its power more than responding with love. It empties the power of persecution’s impact—when we respond with gentleness and respect, we feel that gentleness and respect towards them. And though it doesn’t entirely erase the pain, it definitely takes away its sting.
This is always the case when we know we have responded well to someone who didn’t act well. The “good conscience” he’s referring to is simply the fact of knowing we did what we were supposed to do—that we didn’t repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but sought to bless them instead. When we know we have done right, and we have treated someone who deserved retaliation with gentleness and respect, our hearts are calmed, because (once again) obedience to God’s commands makes us happy. Responding with love empties persecution of its impact.
And it empties the power of persecution’s pertinence. People persecute Christians (or those of any faith, for that matter) to send a message—either to themselves, or to the people they’re persecuting, or the people watching. They’re trying to show that they are right to be persecuting us.
But when we respond to persecution with gentleness and respect, with a clean conscience, it reduces their slander to nothing. They may still persecute us, but their persecution loses all of its pertinence—whether they see it or not. So all they have left is their anger, and the clear evidence that for all their talk of being right, it is those they are persecuting who are righteous.
This is why Peter made the link between our suffering and the witness of the gospel. He says in v. 17: 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.
As hard as it is to see, there is value in unjust suffering. Unjust suffering patiently endured is incredibly unusual. That’s not how normal people react to unjust suffering. And because it is so unusual, it speaks volumes for the gospel. When people want to know why or how we respond the way we do, there is only one possible answer: Christ.
Of course we never want to suffer unjustly; we don’t look for opportunities to let people persecute us. But if it should happen, we should take it as a blessing, because our reaction to unjust suffering is a witness—not just to those persecuting, or those watching, but to us as well. I guarantee you, if you react to ridicule with gentleness and respect, you will leave that encounted amazed at what God was able to do in your own heart at that moment. Particularly if you’re a hothead and tend to react in anger. You’ll leave that encounter knowing full well, That wasn’t me. That was God, working IN me. And there is no greater encouragement than seeing God working in us.
Persecution gives us an opportunity to bear witness of the good news—both to those who are persecuting us, and to ourselves.
Suffer…because Christ proclaims the gospel in suffering (v. 18-22).
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, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Now like I said before, these last few verses are incredibly difficult—among the most difficult in the entire Bible. And there’s too much here to see right now. So next week, instead of continuing on to chapter 4, we’re going to take a mini-break and do a deep dive into baptism, which is the subject of verses 21-22. But before we get into that, we need to see why Peter places this text here.
Peter makes his transition from v. 17, in which he said, For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil, and he makes his transition by reminding us that this is what Christ himself did—v. 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… In other words, when we suffer for doing good, we get to share in Christ’s own experience. We get to understand a bit more of what it was like for him.
But that’s not all. Remember, he’s talking about the visible testimony of the church in suffering; and in v. 15 he told us that as we are persecuted, we have to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us—we have to be ready to jump on the opportunity to share the gospel that our suffering gives us.
And he gives another example of what that looks like in the person of Noah.
Even if you don’t know that much about the Bible, you’ve almost definitely heard the story of Noah. His story is found at the beginning of Genesis, in Genesis 6-9. The earth had become incredibly corrupt and wicked, but Noah (we read in Genesis 6.8) found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So the Lord told Noah to build an ark—a huge boat—and to put into the art two of every animal on the earth, male and female, as well as Noah and his family. Then God sent a huge flood that covered the whole earth and wiped out every living thing except for Noah and his family, as punishment for the wickedness humanity had let themselves fall into.
Now Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, adds something to the story that we don’t see in Genesis. And Peter words this addition very strangely. He says that in the spirit (v. 19), Christ went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared…
This is a profoundly strange thing to say—so strange that several different interpretations have been offered as to what he means.
There are two main interpretations I find fairly convincing, though I lean more toward one than the other.
The first is that after Christ died on the cross, he went to the place of the dead and proclaimed his victory over sin to the demons and to unbelievers who had died—proving once and for all that he was the Messiah, the Savior whom God had promised.
We talked about this last year when we did our workshop on the Apostles’ Creed, which affirms that Christ descended to the dead. So I do believe this happened (we even have a hint of it in v. 22). But in the context of this text, it seems odd that Peter would bring it up: it has nothing to do with anything else he’s been talking about.
The second interpretation is that Christ was witnessing through Noah to those who persecuted him and rejected God—and who are now “spirits in prison” (that is, these unbelievers died in the flood, and are now in hell). This is the interpretation for which Wayne Grudem advocates in his commentary, and I think it’s probably what Peter was getting at here.
I think Peter, under the inspiration of the Spirit, brings up Noah because of the similarities between his situation and that of Peter’s readers.
Noah and his family were surrounded by hostile unbelievers; so are the Christians of Peter’s time.
Noah realized judgment was coming, through the flood. Peter’s readers, as well, knew judgment was coming, at the return of Christ.
Noah witnessed to those around him, as Peter calls his readers to do.
So if you’ve been following so far, you can see the correlations between Noah’s situation and that of Peter’s readers—and by extension, between Noah and Christians living today. But there are other correlations we should be aware of that will blow our minds if we take it seriously.
Christ (in a spiritual sense) preached through Noah, patiently encouraging their repentance before bringing judgment.
When we share our faith in persecution, boldly but lovingly and respectfully giving a defense for the hope that is in us, Christ preaches through us just as he did through Noah.
Because of his perseverance, Noah was saved, along with his family.
And if we persevere in faithfulness despite our suffering, our salvation is assured as well.
Now it’s incredibly easy to get discouraged in situations like this, as anyone who has been through similar situations can attest. You can be mocked, rejected, derided by others, and take advantage of that opportunity to share the gospel…and those listening keep laughing. Far from changing their minds, our witness may seem to give them even more ammunition to throw back at us.
But the same thing happened to Noah. No one was convinced. No one changed their minds. No one decided to come with him into the ark. That’s not the point.
The point is faithfulness, which produces a good conscience. We have a good conscience when we witness in our suffering, as he said in v. 16, and our good conscience holds us firm in God (as we see in baptism, v. 21). When we react to persecution, to unjust suffering, in this way, we know we have done the right thing. We have visible proof that everything our persecutors say about us is dead wrong. Their slander is emptied of its power and its pertinence.
But occasionally, the witness of the persecuted does bring about change in those who see it. This was certainly the case for Jesus Christ, who suffered to bring us to God. Do you remember the centurion who was on the hill with him as he hung on the cross, watching the whole scene? What did he say after Christ died? Mark 15.39:
And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
Christ gave a visible testimony of God’s grace in his suffering and death, and the centurion who saw it was convinced.
God calls us to faithfulness, brothers and sisters. To have tender hearts and humble minds. To not seek vengeance against our persecutors, but to gently and respectfully defend our faith before them. And there is no guarantee that reacting this way will change anyone’s mind. But we will know we have obeyed our Lord, and knowing this will make us happy, and cause us to grow in intimacy with our Father. We will have a good conscience, and the assurance of our salvation.
And who knows? God may just use the visible witness of our faithfulness in suffering to bring others to him.
