1 Pet 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

The biggest lie that Satan tells people is that they are alone in life – that there is no God, and if there is one He doesn't care about them. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is the witness of the whole Bible – that God IS there and He is active! One of Francis Schaeffer's early books was called, “The God who is There” and it was all about knowing that this is true. The Bible never explains it; it takes it for granted that God is there and He moves and does things and communicates with people. Take God's movements and activities and words out of the Bible and you will have nothing left; it is that simple!

Yet again our verse above starts with a ‘For', a connecting word. Peter has just quoted from Psalm 34 and the prior verses give guidance for living a good life and it then concludes with a word of motivation which could have started with the word ‘because'. In its shortest form this could be put, “Do those things to live a good life because God is watching and He responds to what He sees!”

Now the actions of God in this verse are not what you might expect. They are responses to the righteous and those who do evil; two groups of people who evoke two different responses from the Lord.

First the Lord is watching and listening to the righteous: “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer.” The Lord sees the righteous and He listens when they pray, i.e. He is attentive to them and the implication is He is doing this in order to bless them. The Lord is positive about those who are righteous. That may sound an obvious thing to say but it is true. That is the motivation, in Peter's mind, for us doing good and seeking to be righteous, because the Lord responds well to such people and blesses them.

The other side of the coin is slightly strange at first sight: “the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” This rather suggests that He turns His face away from such people and leaves them to their own devices. Now why should such a thing be? It is, I suggest, because Scripture testifies again and again that the wrong things that people do come back on them. It is like a form of judgment but it doesn't need God to take action for He's already allowed for it in the way He's designed the world. We often think that God has to act against evil people but the Bible testifies that they will get what it coming to them simply through the way that the world works.

For example, “A man reaps what he sows.” (Gal 6:7), i.e. what he sows, his bad actions, will eventually develop and grow into something that will come back on him. It's a simple law. Of course there are also Paul's famous words in Romans: “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.” (Rom 1:24) and “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.” (Rom 1:26) and “since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” (Rom 1:28) In each case God just stood back and did not try to restrain them but allowed them free rein to get deeper and deeper into sin which was destroying them. His judgment is already built into the way things work. Unrestrained sin brings destruction. You see this especially clearly in respect of sex and of taking drugs. Unrestrained expression brings destruction – literally!

It is possible that the latter part of this verse can mean that God does act, for “the face of the Lord” being against someone can also mean He does act against them. It can be taken both ways, and there are times when the Lord stands back and lets evil destroy itself and there are times when the Lord steps in and brings action that prematurely destroys it or even brings someone to their senses. There are examples of both in Scripture. The Lord is not bound by a situation but exercises His knowledge and wisdom to decide the best course of action to be taken in the light of the sort of people involved.

This concept, of alternative responses from the Lord, is seen throughout the Bible. For example, “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” (Isa 1:19,20) There was a clear warning to Israel : obey and be blessed, disobey and be destroyed. Sometimes it is a simple word of encouragement through the promise of blessing for obedience: “Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.” (Lev 25:18,19) At other times alternatives are given: “All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God…. However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.” (Deut 28:2,15) Promises of blessing and warnings against destruction abound in the Bible. God's desire is to bless us but if we refuse to heed His guidance, then the alternative is there and no one should complain about it. We choose the path we take and what goes with it: “wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction , and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life.” (Mt 7:13,14) Choose rightly.

1 Pet 3:13-15    Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.

The ways of life are very obvious when you think about it. For example, if you want a life of trouble and difficulty all you have to do is be nasty to people, cheat on them, lie to them, deceive them, be spiteful to them, steal from them, do your work badly; fail to pay your debts, borrow but never give back and so on. If you are a student you skip classes, never hand work in and be casual about your learning. If you are married you be unfaithful to your partner and be unpleasant to your kids. Now all that is so obvious that you might wonder why any of us do any of these things. Surely we want a good life, a life without stress? So why do people act like this? Because of the stupidity of sin!

Peter is painting a very different picture. He is putting up some pointers to help us live the good life and has just used the Old Testament to act as a guide. He assumes we want a life that is peaceful and free from upset. OK, he says, “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?” i.e. do good and that will stop most people from being nasty to you. People don't feel threatened generally by goodness so they won't attack you. If you constantly do good, you are not going to attract hostility and upset.

But Peter is a realist and he knows that in the world in which we live, although it is generally like that, there will be people so given over to the enemy that they will come against you: “But even if you should suffer for what is right.” This suffering means persecution and opposition from others; that is clear by what follows. Yes, as good as you may be there will be those along life's way who will oppose you, just like they did Jesus for his goodness. But look what he goes on to say: “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.” How will you be blessed for suffering persecution?

He doesn't say but perhaps he has in mind his master's teaching: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Mt 5:10,11) Yes, Jesus taught that you were blessed in such circumstances because it showed that you were a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and as such heaven will reward you. That reward may be a sense of peace that passes understanding or it may be a sense of the Father's approval or it may be His blessing that brings further goodness into your life.

But then he seeks to reassure us: “ "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." This would appear to be a quote from Isaiah: “do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear.” (Isa 8:12 ,13) i.e. do not fear the plotting and scheming of people. The only one to ‘fear' is God because He is all-seeing and all-mighty. We live, as children of God, under the watchful eye of our Father and He will provide for us and protect us: “I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip-- he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD watches over you-- the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all harm-- he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (Psa 121) That IS the truth. We would do well to memorise that psalm for it reminds us of the truth.

Then Peter takes the Old Testament teaching and brings it up to date: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” The Old Testament was ‘fear the Lord'. The New Testament was ‘Jesus is Lord'. They are the same things expressed at different times with different levels of revelation. Today our submitting to God is expressed through our submission to His Son, our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ. So today, when we are facing opposition and wondering how we will cope, remember that Jesus is Lord and is seated at his Father's right hand ruling in heaven over all things.(see Eph 1:22, 1 Pet 3:22, Rom 8:34, 1 Cor 15:25, Psa 110:1). Faith means we respond to these truths and the outworking of it will be peace. We will live in peace and live out peace. Yes, sometimes there will be opposition but Christ will be there and his grace will be sufficient as he works out all things for our good. Rejoice in this and be at peace in this!

1 Pet 3:15   Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

Sometimes there are Christians who are very diffident about sharing their faith. “I'm not sure what to say,” is a common reason given, or “I don't know how to open up a conversation about Christ.” Well, yes, there are those who are gifted at opening up conversations and they are the envy of the rest of us, but the truth is that they are probably the ones who are gifted as evangelists, a specific calling. Most of us are simply called to be witnesses. Jesus said to his apostles, “On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.” (Mt 10:18) and then later on, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem , and in all Judea and Samaria , and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) A witness is simply someone who recounts what they have seen or what has happened to them.

But that still doesn't help the person who struggles to know how to open up a conversation about their Lord. It is at this point that Peter helps us. He comes at it from the opposite direction: “Always be prepared to give an answer.” An answer is a response to another. They initiate the conversation: “to everyone who asks you…” For some reason, Peter supposes that people are going to ask you about your faith: “who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Now that implies something very specific. It supposes that they know you are a believer. This is the next point at which many of us struggle. We live as a minority (if you live in Britain at least – not so much in the States) and we have allowed the enemy to marginalise us, to push us to the side where in many people's thinking we are of little importance.

That is simply because people don't realise who or what we are. My daughter runs a Mums and Toddlers group. One day one of the Mums asked who it was who ran the group. She was told the church. “What's a church?” she asked. (Yes, this is true in modern day Britain .) Come along on a Sunday morning and see, she was invited, so she came. As she stood in the worship she found herself crying for apparently no reason. She kept on coming and kept on crying. God was at work. She heard ‘the reason for the hope' that we have and she came to the Lord. Her partner wondered what was going on in her but was scared about the thought of church which he knew nothing about. But when he came to pick her up at the end of each Sunday morning, he was invited in for coffee and was overwhelmed by the love he received and started asking questions. He too came to the Lord. Both of them asked questions in response to what they saw. One saw an organisation putting on a local service for Mums, the other the love of Christ.

If we are living the life of Christ, people will ask questions. Yes, they do need to know who we are and at some point we are going to have to let it be known that we are Christians and that we ‘go to church' (Yes, I know we are the church, but that's how the world sees it!). If our Sunday morning meeting is more than a dull liturgy where familiarity has now invoked contempt, then questioners will encounter God.

Another man, now in our congregation, was a devout sceptic and had been so for many years. He was utterly hardened against the truth. Yet one Sunday he found himself asking his Christian wife if he might come along that morning to her church. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to come. He came for about five or six weeks, I think it was, and then one morning in the middle of worship, one of our girls shared a general prophetic word that apparently went straight to the heart of this hard man. He went to the back where some leaders were praying for people and buttonholed one of them and came straight way to the Lord. God had provoked questions within him and now he was given answers which satisfied him. He was gloriously born again.

But perhaps your church experience isn't like that and so you'll have to do it on your own. In conversation you quietly drop that you had been in church that weekend, or you simply exude the love and patience and perseverance of Christ that Peter has been talking about in his letter so that indeed you “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds,” (Mt 5:16) and they question you why you are like that.

Now Peter takes the pressure right off in the closing words of this verse: “But do this with gentleness and respect.” You don't have to attack people – in fact you mustn't. Many young Christians (and older ones too) feel defensive about their faith and so become harsh and hard in their presentation. Don't be! Remember it is God who convicts and converts! All you can do is love and testify. The blind man in John 9 is a lovely example of this: “they said. "We know this man is a sinner." He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” (Jn 9:24 ,25) i.e. I don't have all the answers but all I do know is that Jesus changed me.

So in your preparation to be a witness, yes, you can think about what life used to be like and how it has changed when you came to Christ and you can think how you would briefly explain in non-spooky terms what happened. For me it would be, “My life was pointless and was out of control and one night I was challenged with the truth about Jesus Christ, that he loved me and died to take the punishment for the wrongs of my life, and so I prayed and asked his forgiveness and for him to take over and lead my life, and all I can say is that I was utterly changed and it's been great.” Simple isn't it.

1 Pet 3:16,17 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Conscience is a strange thing. It is that capacity that we humans have to feel guilty, to have this nagging in the back of our mind that something we have done or are about to do is wrong. It is all about right and wrong. The apostle Paul once said, “I speak the truth in Christ--I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit,” (Rom 9:10) which is interesting because it implies that for the Christian, the Holy Spirit is an additional aid to our conscience and He also works in the same way to check us. Elsewhere Paul declared, “I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man,” (Acts 24:16) which suggests that our points of failure can be in respect of the Lord and of people. The non-Christian tends to be aware of conscience in respect of other people but not in respect of God. The Christian's first port of call in respect of conscience is God.

Paul's whole discussion in 1 Corinthians, about eating meat sacrificed to idols, indicates that different people can have different levels of conscience awareness. For some eating meat given to idols wasn't a problem, but to others it was something that really worried them, so not all issues are as clear cut as we might like.

“Keeping a clear conscience” thus means, ensure that there is nothing nagging in the back of your mind that you have done or are doing something wrong. Conscience is like a moral barometer within us that gives us an early warning that we are going off track.

In the context of what Peter has been saying, he now says use your conscience to check out your life in the face of the opposition you may be receiving. He's spoken of suffering and opposition already in this letter and now he's just putting a check on us in respect of our behaviour. When he says, “ so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander,” he is assuming that we have checked our consciences and have found that what we have done has been good and right, yet he acknowledges that we can still get opposition even when we do what is right and good. It doesn't matter, he says, if they speak badly against you, as long as you have checked to make sure that in your own conscience you are sure you have done what is right. Eventually they will be ashamed of what they have said about you; leave it up to God to convict them!

But it is important that you are absolutely sure that you have given them no grounds for saying bad things about you. Sadly that is not always so; Christians do sometimes lay themselves open to criticism because they were casual and careless about their speech or behaviour. We probably all do it at some time – say something about a person or situation, that is not well thought out and so which opens us to criticism. Of course if we are doing things that are morally questionable, then of course we open ourselves to the charge of hypocrisy. Thus this call to check our consciences is a very needy one. Similarly if we respond to opposition using the same weapons of harsh criticism and abuse, that the world uses, then again we are opening ourselves to criticism and further opposition. That surely must be what Peter has in the back of his mind here because he has been counseling us in this letter to respond well to opposition and so if we respond in an un-Christ-like manner we will have put ourselves into the wrong.

There is an interesting point here that needs facing: your conscience can be silent if you are ignorant of God's will for you. That is why teaching is such an important part of a Christian's life. That is why Peter is writing this letter. Until we have thought through these things and thought about the way Christ handled opposition, we may not realise that our hostile retaliation to others is not what God desires of us and our conscience may be silent when we are. There may be a disquiet from the Holy Spirit but we may not recognise that. Thus conscience can be enlightened and brought alive by Christian teaching, by the teaching of the New Testament. Is that why sometimes Christians seem to be so little different from other people, because they have not learnt what God's will for them now is and so their consciences have not been brought into play?

Submitting to God's will and plans for your life is now a crucial element of your life as a Christian and indeed some times it does seem that God allows us to go through times of persecution and opposition to purify and strengthen us, and so His will in such times is that we get His grace to cope with it. Thus Peter says, “ It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” There is no blessing or no glory in suffering if you have brought it upon yourself, but if the suffering comes when you are only doing good and right, then that is an opportunity for the Lord to be glorified through your life and for you to receive a new and deeper experience of the Lord's love and grace as you cope with it.

The Lord will be glorified when you receive His love and grace and cope in a Christ-like manner: “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” All the heavenly onlookers will see (the rest of the world may not!) and they will realise you are what you are by the love and grace of God and He will be glorified. Hallelujah! So let's heed Peter's teaching and let's let his words stimulate our consciences to lead us on to better things.

1 Pet 3:18  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

There are a limited number of verses in the New Testament that stand out as encapsulating the Gospel. Obviously John 3:16 is probably the best known one: “ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Next to that, our verse above should perhaps be a close contender. There are three parts to this verse and each part heralds an amazing truth which, put together, comprises what we call the Gospel.

It's starting point is outstanding but tragically we perhaps take so much of what it says for granted because maybe these truths are too familiar to us. It speaks about Christ, the Messiah, the Sent One and Anointed One, the one sent with a task from God, the Son of God who left heaven and came and lived in a human body called Jesus. This Christ came and died. But everybody dies! Yes, but this person died on purpose for a purpose. His death, it is claimed, had an eternal significance; it wasn't an accident but a carefully planned and orchestrated strategy of God. This death had to do with dealing with sins!

How we take sins for granted! Sin has so permeated the world that we take it for granted, just like the air we breathe, and so we take sins for granted. It is sins that create the interest in TV ‘soaps' or mystery dramas. Without sins we wouldn't have these things. Without sins families would be happy and content and faithful, businesses would be honest and integrity the name of the game, and life would be free from threat and fear and untruth. And what we don't see so often is that sin always has its consequences. That, at least, is seen graphically in the TV soaps. We also fail to remember that every sin will be answerable to God and punishment awarded. If we punish criminals in courts, why should we think that the mass of sins that we accumulate throughout our lives – all the things we thought wrong, said wrong or did wrong, things we shouldn't have done and things we should have done but didn't – all these thing incur a penalty or punishment, but we try to forget that.

But then this verse tells us that Christ died for sins which is another way of saying, he was and is the eternal Son of God who could die in the place of each one of us, and take the punishment for any and every sin we will commit in our lives while on this planet. His death was the absolute punishment that would cover every sin. It happened once in time-space history some two thousand years ago. It doesn't need to happen again and we can't add anything to what he achieved. THAT, heaven declares, is the truth, and all we are called to do is believe it.

But then there is the second phrase, “the righteous for the unrighteous.” Just in case you hadn't taken in the wonder of what Christ did as I just explained, we are reminded that he was righteous and we are unrighteous. Note the two things. Jesus was the only man in history who did not sin: “just as we are--yet was without sin.” (Heb 4:15). He was exactly as the Old Testament offerings required – a sacrifice without blemish. He was righteous in a negative way in that he never sinned but he was also righteous in a positive way in that he did exactly what was required of God's will. He was an obedient Son fulfilling the Father's will, fulfilling the plan formulated before the foundation of the world.

But we are unrighteous. Sometimes, on a good day when the sun is shining and everything seems to be going well, we think we just might be righteous, but we kid ourselves. Lurking there, just waiting for the opportunity to express itself is this thing called Sin, that tendency to be self-centred, godless and unrighteous. Wrong thoughts predominate, wrong words so easily come to our lips, and wrong actions so quickly follow. Every time we criticise, gossip or judge, we have fallen into the murky depths. We are unrighteous, but then The Righteous One comes and declares us righteous in God's sight when we surrendered to him, sought his forgiveness and his sovereign leading. Suddenly, but only then, he declares us righteous – at least in God's sight. (We have yet to work it out in our practical lives).

Which brings us to the last phrase: “to bring you to God.” Again, because it is so familiar we take it for granted, this sense that we are alone in the universe and if there is a God He is a million miles away. Indeed deep down we are glad of that because deep down we know we are guilty and we fear the thought that we will be answerable to God. We were separated from God by our sins and our guilt and something had to happen – something beyond us, because we were incapable of changing – and it was Christ coming to die in our place as an expression of the Father's love. There came a time when the Holy Spirit convicted us of the truth about our lives and like a drowning man or woman we grasped for the wonder of what was being presented to us – there IS a way for you to be forgiven, there is a way for you to be reconciled to God. Jesus has done it on the Cross and now all it requires is for you to believe it. THAT is the Gospel! Isn't it wonderful!

Just should you be reading these things for the first time and it is the first time you've heard these things, it can't remain just passive knowledge. It is true and it requires a response from you, a response that acknowledges your Sin and your sins and your need of God's help, a response that declares belief in all that Jesus has done for us on the Cross, a submission to him and a request for forgiveness, acceptance and help from God Himself on the basis of these truths. May it be so!

1 Pet 3:18-20 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

The Bible is amazing. One minute you can be in the clearest of verses and the next you are left wondering whatever the next verse is about. So it is here. In the previous meditation we considered the simplicity and straight forwardness of the first part of verse 18 but in verses 19 and 20 we move into an unclear area where we are going to have to resort to speculation, and accept that different commentators through the centuries have concluded or suggested different things about these words. Let's examine it piece by piece.

“ He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.” Peter has just been speaking about Jesus dying for us, in the first part of verse 18. Now he speaks in more detail about his death and resurrection. Yes, he was put to death and his human body clearly died on the Cross. That was obvious. But then he was made alive. How? Scripture itself is not absolutely clear on this. Peter on the day of Pentecost declared, “God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him,” (Acts 2:24) the implication being that it was the Father who raised the dead Son, yet the back half of that verse suggests there is something more.

Yet Jesus himself had said, “I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again,” (Jn 10:17 ,18) suggesting that Jesus himself had the authority to raise up his mortal body again. Peter, in today's verses, suggests that his body was raised by the power of the Spirit – that it was the Holy Spirit who raised up the human body again. The apostle Paul appears to confirm this in his writings: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Rom 8:11 )

So at the end of that we are left talking about the Holy Spirit, so it is he who is being referred to when Peter continues, “through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison.” The body remained in the tomb over those three days and you would have seen it lying there stationary if you had been inside the tomb during that time, but the spirit of Jesus – who is also the Holy Spirit, left the body and went on another task – to go and speak to other ‘spirits in prison' . It is this phrase that leaves us all wondering, for Peter did not explain it beyond saying, “who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.” Those he preached to were apparently the spirits of those who had disobeyed God and died at the time of the Flood.

Now, first of all, I have to confess that my own understanding of this was that this is a reference to those who are in hell. They are clearly not in heaven and I do not believe there is any other indication of a half-way house called purgatory and so hell is the only alternative left. It would make sense that Jesus went down into hell because it would be an indication that he took the full punishment of Sin which wasn't only death but also hell. It was a sign of the completeness of his taking our punishment. However, I realise that that still leaves questions and it isn't something that appears elsewhere in Scripture.

So why did Jesus go to this particular group of spirit beings? Think about what happened at the Flood. Noah and his family was the only survivors (certainly in that part of the world – the Middle East – although there are signs of a catastrophic flood all over the world) and it is not clear how much Noah explained in his preaching why the people needed to repent and turn from their wicked ways. Could it be that here we have a unique illustration of how God, in the form of His Son, in the Spirit, went down to those in hell and justified (for the sake of justice) why they were there? Is this God wrapping up the lose ends ensuring that in eternity there is no question possible about the justice meted out by the Godhead? Is this God confirming to all the onlooking heavenly watchers (see Eph 3:10) that even if they heard the truth from the Son of God himself, these individuals would have remained unrepentant?

One of the things I am convinced about, after years of reading the Bible in detail, is that when we see God face to face and if we are allowed to see as He does – in completeness – we will never find a reason to criticise anything that God has said or done throughout existence. There will never be a person in hell who is there unfairly! Indeed there will never be a person in heaven who is not there by the grace of God, but at least they are there because at some point in time-space history they made a decision to face the truth and call on God for mercy, which they then received, together with an abundance of grace that flowed forth to us through the wonderful work of Jesus on the Cross. The best I can do with these verses is suggest that here we have a brief unique glimpse of the justification of God, something that went on behind the scenes, so that the guilty could never claim innocence. That is a sobering thought!

1 Pet 3:20-21 God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God.

Baptism, I have observed over the years, is often a contentious thing in parts of the church. Some want to sprinkle as a symbolic gesture, others use deeper water. Some sprinkle children as a symbol; others wait until the adult is a believer. Peter says some interesting things about it.

He starts by referring to Noah as we have seen in the previous meditation. Note in passing, for the doubters among us, that in the apostle Peter's eyes, Noah is an historical figure and the Flood a real event in history. Some of us are not so sure, but Peter is. In this he was following in the steps of his master. Jesus said, “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.” (Lk 17:26,27) Clearly the all-knowing Son of God is referring to an historical event.

When John the Baptist baptized people in the Jordan he said, “I baptize you with water for repentance,” (Mt 3:11 ) indicating that baptism was a form of cleansing from the sin from which they turned away. The apostle Paul spoke of us “having been buried with him in baptism,” ( Col 2:12 – also Rom 6:4) indicating the baptism is a picture of us dying to our old life and being buried, and then raised to new life.

Peter now comes with a bigger picture, an all-embracing picture. He refers to Noah building the ark, many dying in the flood with only Noah and his family being saved. Thus, he says, “this water symbolises baptism.” i.e. the Flood waters destroyed the world but the ark saved the faithful. The water symbolises the judgment of God which we all face but (implied) the ark symbolises Jesus who saves us from the judgment.

But then he says something that seems even more contentious: “this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also.” Baptism, he says, saves us. How can that be? Didn't the apostle Paul teach that salvation comes by faith alone? Yes certainly, but perhaps Peter has the ongoing work of salvation in his mind. Remember the illustration that we have used more than once in these meditations – saved from the sinking ship, saved as we go across the sea and saved once we land. We have been saved and we are being saved. It is also an ongoing thing – our living out our lives ‘in Christ' until the day when we are called home and we die on this earth and go to heaven, our eternal destination. So why do I suggest that Peter is speaking of our salvation in an ongoing sense? Well, see what follows.

“not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God.” The point of this picture – being saved through the Flood – is that it is not about cleansing or washing away dirt, but it about how we can now feel about ourselves and God. It is in fact about us being saved from our sins (being washed clean) and from the judgment of God, and it is all because we have an ark – Jesus, who died to save us from that judgment, as we have seen already a number of times in these meditations. Baptism is thus to be an outward act (and there aren't many of them) that we do that contribute to our salvation, the onward walk with God.

How does it contribute to our salvation? It does it by being a continual reminder to us that we came to a crisis point in our life when we surrendered to God and jumped ship, from the ship of destruction, and are now being carried in Christ to our eternal destination. Christ is God's provision for us and as we look back we are reminded that there was a time when we changed from a sinking ship to a saving lifeboat and it was all his work. All we had to do was jump into his provision and that was enough. Jesus, the ark, had done everything possible to be done and he qualifies as our ark, our means of salvation, our ongoing salvation.

We are what we are because we are being carried to shore by him and thus our conscience can be clear before God. No longer am I under fear of judgment. Now I am being carried to my eternal destiny by God's provision, God's ark, His own Son, Jesus Christ. My being baptized was a visual affirmation of all of this and it is something that I can look back on and know is a real expression of what has happened. It confirms and affirms my salvation and it strengthens my faith and reassures my conscience. There is nothing more I can do except let him take me through the choppy waters of the life in this world until we eventually reach the destination he has in store for me. Hallelujah!

1 Pet 3:21,22 It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand--with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him

I have to acknowledge here the danger of examining verses all alone for meditation purposes, because whatever else we do in meditation, we need to see the meaning of the verse as the writer originally intended it, and it is probable that the verse will be part of a larger or longer flow of thinking. Thus when we come to these verses above, the ‘It' that they start with refers to baptism that Peter has just been thinking about.

So how does baptism save you “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” ? We dealt with the ‘save' bit in the previous meditation, suggesting it referred to the ongoing process of salvation in the remainder of our lives on this earth, and specifically how it helped our consciences, or our sense of being at peace before God because of what Jesus has done.

Ah! Now we can see how this fits. If Peter is saying that our conscience, or our thinking and feeling in respect of our position before God, is determined by our knowledge of what Jesus has done for us on the Cross, it should not only include his death but also his resurrection and his ascension, and that is what Peter goes on to refer to. Why is the resurrection so important? Well, suppose Jesus had simply died and that was it, all his disciples and subsequent followers might be left wondering about the whole thing. Was he really who he said he was? Admittedly he had performed wonderful miracles but was that all he was, a great miracle worker? How about his various claims to be dying to take our sins? How can we know the truth of those claims? We know they are true, because of the resurrection.

The apostle Paul declared about Jesus that he, “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom 1:4), i.e. by the power that raised him from the dead he was shown to be the Son of God he had said he was. Earlier in this letter Peter had said that he had given us “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Pet 1:3). Yes, we now have a hope for the future (a strong assurance) because Jesus rose from the dead and proved who he was and proved that there more after death. So the fact of the resurrection adds to our knowledge and that in turn strengthens our conscience or our conviction about the Gospel and about our standing before God.

But there is more because that wasn't the end of the story because the apostles were not only witnesses to Jesus' resurrection, but also to his ascension: “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” (Acts 1:9). “While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.” (Lk 24:51) “After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God.” (Mk 16:19) Now these are the three historical accounts of Jesus ascension but the New Testament has many other further references: “his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” (Eph 1:19,20 see also Acts 5:31, Rom 8:34, Col. 3:1, Heb 1:3, 8:1, 10:12, 12:2 etc.)

What all these verses tell us is that Jesus is seated at the Father's right hand and there he is reigning. Indeed the apostle Paul tells us that “ he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” (1 Cor 15:25 ) Now Peter has told us in today's verse that Jesus today is next to the Father “ with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” Thus today he is already over all spiritual authorities and therefore they only have the freedom to act that he gives it to them. These powers therefore do not constitute Jesus ‘enemies' because they are already subject to him.

A careful study of Scripture indicates that God uses Satan and the demonic powers. He has absolute control over them and they operate only by concession according to how it fits in with His purposes. The only parts of creation that are not under His total call are human beings for he has given us free will and He allows us that freedom so that we may make a free choice to follow Him or not. There will come a time when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” (Phil 2:10,11) but until that time that is not so.

Today our confidence and our assurance is not only in the facts of Jesus death for our sins, but is also in the fact of his resurrection confirming and validating his prior claims to be the son of God and the one who died for our sins, AND also the fact that Jesus is ruling at the Father's right hand with all spiritual authorities under his control. There is so much more one could say about this, but we'll leave it for now with that. That should be sufficient to encourage and reassure us and provide much fuel for us to worship Him.

1 Pet 4:1,2 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.

Here we have another of those ‘link' words, “Therefore”, i.e. as a result of what we have just said, this is how it should be worked out. This takes us back to the previous argument: “It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (3:17,18) That in turn flowed out of his argument for us to behave righteously when we are suffering under unjust mistreatment. Christ suffered, doing God's will, so that through it we might be brought to God. Having referred to Christ in this context, after a brief aside in verses 19 to 22, he now picks up Christ's example to guide us in the way we should live.

Twice in these two verses he refers to suffering in the body meaning first Christ's death on the Cross, and then our death to self. The Cross was the ultimate submission to the will of God. It is clear from Christ's anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, that it was something that, humanly speaking at least, he wanted to shy away from: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Lk 22:42) The writer to the Hebrews explains that it was only as he looked to the future that Christ could cope with the Cross: “for the joy set before him endured the cross.” (Heb 12:2). Peter applies the picture of the Cross to our lives in the same way Paul did: “we have been united with him like this in his death…. our old self was crucified with him…. that we should no longer be slaves to sin…. count yourselves dead to sin …. do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” (Rom 6:5,6,11,12)

So, says Peter, arm yourself with this same thought that, as Christ died to the world in his death, so we have died to sin, in our dying to self and coming to him in surrender. When you “arm yourself” it is like you pick up a weapon. We are to arm ourselves with this same thought or this same attitude. Today in street language we talk about someone having ‘attitude' and we mean they have a belligerent outlook on life. We too are to have a belligerent, negative attitude towards sin; we are to be hostile towards it. It is not something that should appear in our lives any more because when we came to Christ we died to that sort of life, as we came in abject surrender to God, sorry for our sins that we wanted to be rid of. So, the new life is to be one without these things in it because we are to consider that, in the same way that Christ died on the Cross, we died to the old sinful life when we came to Christ.

Having made this declaration, Peter then gives us an overall summary: “As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.” The result or outworking of this, says Peter, is that we don't live our lives like we used to, with ‘human desire' being the motivating or energizing force in our lives. No, that's not how we will live out the rest of our lives. No, instead, from now on we will make the will of God THE most important thing in our lives.

Jesus said it slightly differently: “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.” (Mt 6:33 ), i.e. put the rule of God, or the will of God that leads to receiving and living out His righteousness, as the first priority in your life. A little earlier he had made that the focus of prayer: “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mt 6:9) The apostle Paul's challenge was, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.” (Eph 5:17). Sometimes he would preface his teaching with the focus that it was God's will, for example, “ It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body.” (1 Thess 4:3,4) and sometimes he would wrap up a teaching with the reminder, for example, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances , for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess 5:16-18).

Similarly other writers focused on God's will: “May …. God….equip you with everything good for doing his will .” (Heb 13:20,21) Of course, possibly the most well known reference to God's will comes again from the apostle Paul. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom 12:2) Even as Peter has been saying in today's verses, get a change of mind in line with Christ and you will know the will of God.

To summarize: for the Christian today, the will of God, the plan and purpose of God for our lives, is to be the all-important thing we focus on. Our lives should be given over to discovering this will of God and living it out. May it be so!

1 Pet 4:3,4 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.

“There's nothing like a cured smoker,” they say, “for going on at smokers.” Now oddly, in these verses it is exactly the opposite. It would be the smokers going on at those who have given it up! Throughout this letter Peter has been encouraging the Christians he's writing to, to hold fast to the faith – especially in the face of persecution – and to live righteous lives. Again these verses start with a link word, ‘for'. He's just said that we should consider ourselves “done with sin” (v.1) and “ not live the rest of his (our) earthly life for evil human desires.” (v.2).

When he says, “For you have…” it's like he might say, “After all, you have spent enough time in the past wasting away your life in bad ways…” That is the thrust here. All of the things he lists are things linked to the senses and unrestrained use of the senses, a wrong use of them. This is not how you should live is the underlying sense of these things. When he uses the words, “you have spent enough time in the past,” it is like he is gently chiding or reproaching them for having lived like that, in ways that they should now know are unrighteous and ungodly. As we said above, there is this sense that he's saying, “you frittered away your life and wasted your life living like that, so you should never even think for a minute of drifting back to that sort of lifestyle. This is yet just another reason for staying away from that sort of life – you've been there, done it, known it does you no good, and just wastes or fritters life away. Don't think of going back there!

This same sort of thinking is in Peter's mind in his second letter when he warns about people who would lead his readers back to that old lifestyle: “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.” (2 Pet 2:21 ,22) This is the sense that is behind our verses today. But in this present letter he's been dealing with a variety of ways that we receive opposition and even persecution, and so he finishes with a recognition of how the world that they have rejected now responds to them.

They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. The world doesn't understand why it is that you have rejected that lifestyle that they are still wallowing in. They have never realised their plight or if they have they have pushed the thought away. No, they have decided that they will make indulging the senses in a life of unrestraint, their life and they cover up their inner emptiness by so doing. On the outward side they appear to be having such fun – although to see them next morning is another story which is mostly not told! No, they make like they are having such a wonderful time while all the while they are covering up an inner emptiness. They feel insecure and alone and seek to cover it up by a wild lifestyle. They try to convince the rest of the world that they are having such a time in their freedom. Of course for many this so called freedom is in fact slavery, for they cannot get out of it and dare not get out of it.

So from their life of excesses they look upon their ‘puritanical' friends who have turned their back on it, and think them strange. Why are these Christians such killjoys, is what they think; how weird they are! In their blindness they cannot see the love, the joy and the freedom that their Christian friends are experiencing, the goodness of life that they are enjoying without any artificial stimulants. No, the more you look at the two contrasting lifestyles and the more you honestly face the outworking of both of them, the more obvious the folly of the old lifestyle becomes. But of course those trapped by it cannot see it!

But it goes further, because not only do they think it strange that you have given up that lifestyle, deep down they feel you show them up and you play on their conscience and make them feel even worse than they did before, and so have to work even harder to convince themselves and everyone else what a good life they have. And so, deep down they feel resentful about what we have done and so out of defense they attack us with words, they heap abuse on us as Peter says. They denigrate and seek to demean us in this effort to cover up their guilt.

Oh yes, if you have never understood this before, please understand it now. These are the dynamics of what is going on here. Realise these things and you will realise that you never want to go back there. Now there is a danger we need to face before we finish. It is the danger of inadvertently crossing the line. Oh, says our modern Christian, I would never be into "debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing.” Very well, but be honest. If you are a party person, how often are you on the verge of this? Really, how near this lifestyle are you? A man was once walking along a road alongside a field fenced by an electric fence. Inside this large field was a cow inching under the bottom strand of the fence to get the grass just out of reach while not being electrocuted. When there is a whole field of enjoyable grass, why live right on the edge? If we are doing this, we need to examine our inner self and see that we are not letting Christ minister to all our inner needs so we don't need to boost them artificially. It is a valid concern, I believe, in modern Christianity. Please think on it.