Remember there is a ministry of suffering. O man, how far off hast thou wandered! B. Meyer, B. A.The main idea is of course a comparison between the experiences of our Lord and those of His suffering followers. Christ's cause is safe. But the expression, "the just," intimates not only the perfect purity of His nature, but also the perfect purity of His life. They had drawn to Him who was able to reveal God to them. Thus it shows us the kneeling suppliant at his lord's feet crying, "Have patience with me and I will pay thee all." It bids us not to rest in forms; not to multiply services as services, not to rest in sacraments as sacraments, but to look through all to One who is not here, but ascended; and to be sought therefore as one deeply sympathising with human infirmity, but exercising that sympathy not in weak indulgence but in transforming strength. "Once for all": — "never again," as Bengel has it, "to suffer hereafter" (Hebrews 4:28). The gospel way of pardon is by substitution — by One taking the place of another, by the Just taking the place of the unjust — the Good taking the place of the evil — the just Jesus, the good Jesus, taking the place of the unjust and the evil. They regard it as a thing to be turned to when one comes near to die — as a sort of desperate remedy to be taken when one can do no better. As Noah remained safe, shut up within the ark, while it received the surges of the deluge; so we, in Christ our refuge, are unhurt, while He meets and exhausts in our stead the justice due to sin. "Put to death." It was the nature of Christ to suffer for sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ is willing to be your substitute now and here, and in God's name and on the authority of His own Word I offer Jesus Christ to be your substitute. Men may quarrel with the suffering while they hug the sin, but the connection is there. In the first place, we see by the parallel drawn between THE FAITH OF A CHRISTIAN AND THE PRESERVATION OF NOAH IN THE DELUGE, that we must look for a deluge answering to that which then came upon the world. It is very shortly told. While the lifeless body was hanging for its last hour on the tree, He, the living spirit, was using the new liberty in a special office and mission — He was on a journey — He was making Paradise itself a scene of activity — "in the spirit," St. Peter says, "He went and preached to the spirits in prison." He hath "once suffered." These spirits in prison are they who, when they were in the flesh, in the midst of a universal apostasy saw not the signs nor felt the shadow of the coming judgment, nor heeded the voice of the righteous preacher, and therefore perished in their sins and in the flood. Does not it also signify intense love? What was the doctrine of atonement under the law? That the final misery of those who have heard the gospel must be contrary both to the disposition and agency of Christ.(D. And He carries with Him there the same tender love towards the meanest of His faithful servants which He ever vouchsafed to exercise here. The providential dispensations and religious rites in which the principles were embodied, accorded with the infant state of the world and the Church. )Christ's sufferings for usH. He reminds us that the Saviour Himself, remaining below, must have been confined by earth's conditions. Here is One willing to take your place. Satan tempted Him; His friends forsook Him; God hid His face from Him.2. Are we to rise as He did? “The grace of life” is not eternal life, but the best of this life. R. It is used to signify the mutual return of question and answer, which implies compact. )Baptism doth now save usThe two baptismsW. Immortal.II. Nor is the whole Scripture less clear and strong as to the practical value of this virtue in the Christian standard of character. A place of restraint.3. Sin becomes exceedingly sinful when judged by such a test as this. Is not this something like the case of the sinner and his Saviour Christ?III. On the contrary, religion is a walk of fellowship with God; a thing for the daily round of duty; a life of obedience flowing from love and gratitude for redemption; a life unselfish, Christ-like, God-glorifying. Anti-typical to which, the apostle says, "Baptism doth now save us." As women they lack some of your advantages. McMordie, M. It, too, is like Noah's. This certainty of angelical aid, so far as we are on Christ's side, we have by His exaltation into heaven, and the subjection to Him of angels, authorities, and powers. His life was as pure as His nature. WE HAVE A REFERENCE TO THE OBJECT OF CHRIST'S ACCOMPLISHING THIS OBJECT — "To bring us to God." This is the starting point. And the thought of our Lord gone up into heaven, and sitting on the right hand of God, is a thought of great power to set us right in our feelings towards both sorts of angelic beings. The third fact is, His dominion: "Angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him." His was just one of those impressible, impetuous temperaments, with great faults and great virtues, which lay a heavy tax upon the patience of friends, and yet inspire, beneath all that, a lively interest. Redemptive mercy is not for a favourite few: — it is for the unjust. To sit at the right hand of God is the highest conceivable glory. Let not the wicked be emboldened by numbers. This is no past matter. THE OPPOSITE CHARACTERS OF CHRIST, AND OF THOSE FOR WHOM HE SUFFERED, ARE LAID DOWN.V. The wife sees the ring on her finger, and she says, "I am married; I am no longer my own. A place of restraint.3. The due consideration of Christ's sufferings doth much temper all the sufferings of Christians, especially such as are directly for Christ. Satan tempted Him; His friends forsook Him; God hid His face from Him.2. The text does not say that the flesh of our Lord was put to death nor that His spirit was quickened. He seems to say, "Upwards, My brethren, upwards from off this earth; away from this world to the glory land. And then, if we could look far into the heart of God, might it not: appear that He has — considering their light, their calling, their privileges, and promises — quite as much occasion to let His patience have her perfect work in the inconstancies of Christians as in the crimes of unbelievers? They are ever borne on His thoughts, and not the least of their cares or wants is forgotten by Him. There are some who have thought that the substance of our Lord's preaching in Hades was of two kinds — that to some He preached salvation, to others perdition; that to the irreclaimably lost He preached a concio damnatoria. The patience of God, the gentleness of God, the forgiveness of God, the sufferings of God for us — these will stand out in such illustrious light in that day that every one wilt be filled with joy, and gratitude, and triumph, and new pleasure in the consciousness that it was of God that he was saved, and not of himself.(H. (4) That God's unsatisfied justice was once the great bar betwixt Him and man. The brief but expressive answer was, "I have taken Him to be my substitute!" The brief but expressive answer was, "I have taken Him to be my substitute!" A. And when that was once done, there was no defeat. Let not disobedient men doubt the certainty of future punishments.2. He reminds us that the Saviour Himself, remaining below, must have been confined by earth's conditions. But then we know that our Lord, as man, is gone into a greater nearness to God than ever; "He is gone into heaven," where is the throne of the great King. O how blessed an encouragement is this, in all our difficulties and under all our troubles. Chains of iron confined the miserable culprit.4. Thinking this over, let us reflect that nothing could stop His going there. For men are apt to imagine of our blessed Lord as withdrawn from His Church; and the participation of spiritual gifts and spiritual life to be derived from a long succession of secondary instruments, and ordinances of grace; whereas it is by direct contact of every believing soul with Himself in glory, that all spiritual grace and gifts are derived, and means and ordinances are but helps to lifting the soul by faith into realisation of His person and office, and into communion with Him. Fixing, perhaps, on the first man by lot, he is marked out for death, and every tenth man thereafter, counting from him. As long as you think merely of Noah being saved from death by drowning, you miss the grand design of God in bringing the flood upon the earth. To answer these questions, we must have recourse to the doctrine of the substitution and atonement of Christ, and then to such questions it is easy to give an answer.3. )The just for the unjustThe just suffering for the unjustW. Might. He died for me. Does it not mean, first, unrivalled honour? Have we not a reason for this, and at the same time a deeper look into his warm heart, when we turn to his personal character and history? But then we know that our Lord, as man, is gone into a greater nearness to God than ever; "He is gone into heaven," where is the throne of the great King. It casts in a beam of light on the dark mystery of our sufferings by telling us that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, bidding us rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Therefore the apostle, having represented the former at large, ends in this, as the top of all (Hebrews 12:1, 2).1. The millions disbelieved. From their beginnings in the East, as an eastern shepherd leads out his flocks, the Everlasting Father has brought His tribes out of their native sheepcotes and stationed them here and there over the globe. He adds, "Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh"; external washing cannot save anyone; but it is the "inquiring after God of a good conscience," it is the seeking God with the heart and with the soul — it is this which is the essence of the baptismal profession. They have tempted and betrayed each other; cheated, fought, enslaved, murdered each other. J. Brock, B. A.I. )Our ascended LordC. He sees the tyrants, the traitors, the hardened profligates, living out their many days, and some of them dying natural deaths in their beds, the Alvas and Torquemadas, small and great, of every age — His judgment seat not moved forward one hair's breadth to meet them this side the grave. Christ's sufferings.1. Our doctrine is not sentiment, and view, and opinion, but fact.2. The man who taught to his fellow men the uses of destructive fire was the hero of ancient mythology; the men who have bridled the lightnings, and chained the forces of air and water, are the great names of modern civilisation. I. In a sense, God is saying to all believing husbands, you may be put in the doghouse for a season, for not treating your wife biblically. )The longsuffering of God waitedThe patience of GodBp. That is, no new work was done by Him after His resurrection which brought about His ascension. Will you have Him? When tempted to relax or disobey, you will answer your tempter, "I have placed myself in the hands of Christ; I am not my own. The apostle tells us, "But the answer of a good conscience toward God." And I can find this only in the glorified form of my Lord, now in heaven at God's right hand, holding together this world, creating, blessing, vivifying, governing all things. THAT THERE ARE HUMAN SPIRITS ACTUALLY IN THE PRISON OF HELL.1. In this bold action the first element of strength is, that all suffering is traced to one source. "Who is gone into heaven." And now in verse 7, after instructing wives how to live even under a husband who is unsaved, Peter now instructs Christian husbands how to treat their wives. Nor is this the chief exercise of His patience. To attract the hearts of His disciples.II. To listen to the podcast scroll to the bottom of this page. Dobbin, M. A.I. To us it is a merciful provision which leaves us in ignorance of future ills. Each prisoner constructs his own prison. Not that all to whom He preached were alike susceptible of the message of glad tidings; because the multitude of the antediluvian unbelievers had indeed died in their sins, but still had so died in a very unequal measure of sin. )Christ's sufferingsAbp. His justice must be vindicated. A prison is a scene of bondage. If such glorious creatures be subject to Christ, then —(1) How great a one is He, and how glorious is His kingdom. There are some in whom the process or change we call "repentance" is not very marked or great. Let us not try to put out of our minds the notion of the bad angels being around us, until we have turned in serious prayer to Him who for our sake holds them in chains. They begin thus — "Who is gone into heaven." FOR THE GOOD ANGELS.1. The catalogue of its shapes and degrees is well-nigh inexhaustible, yet it does not exhaust His patience. But the great end of His suffering for sins, the just for the unjust, was to bring us unto God.Application;1. As Noah remained safe, shut up within the ark, while it received the surges of the deluge; so we, in Christ our refuge, are unhurt, while He meets and exhausts in our stead the justice due to sin. He is a King and Judge, as well as a Father. )Spirits in prisonD. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence–the grass is greener where you water it. Become a student of your wife. But when this great Master approaches this very fact of suffering, as the one which He will use in His work, we have reason to expect a word of authority from Him on this most distressing feature of it. )Angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto HimAll angels subject to ChristJohn Rogers.Both good and bad; the good willingly, the others against their will.I. Through Him, not as an unconscious medium, but as the living and conscious offerer, all prayer is made. THAT THERE ARE HUMAN SPIRITS WHO HAVE BEEN IN THE PRISON OF HELL FOR CENTURIES, TO WHOM THE GOSPEL WAS ONCE PREACHED. This His glorious state of final perfection of humanity is not His alone. Here is the death of His human nature; — "the flesh." As that is known, it ought to determine whether it is a work in which we wish to join. There are two more points of comparison on which I must dwell. In the first place, it is not "the putting away of the filth of the flesh." And so I would that you should be ever conscious of the dignity and honour of the relation that you sustain to Christ. We could smile at death, and at him who hath its power, if we were free from sin.2. It is the Christian application of "God is spirit." The salvation which God works for His own, both in its whole and in its several parts, is a twofold operation. It is as though the dropping of the one gave new energy to the other. This is a proof of His amazing love. If you come to Him you can only get to know the fulness of His gracious power by being buffeted with conviction and repentance, and by having self, especially self-righteousness, crucified and slain.5. From this interpretation of the text an inference may be drawn. It seems as if Christ would say, "I appreciate how great a weight of conduct I have put upon you; I would help you bear it. Of course the question starts, How does baptism save us; in what way is it helpful to us in our Christian life and career? )Christ in the flesh and in the spiritA. The form of the expression resembles that in our Creeds. H. Spurgeon.I. The multitudes of those who disbelieved, in Noah's days, perished, and the few that believed were saved. Did He, in whom death could work no moral change, speak in His disembodied spirit to disembodied spirits, as He spake in the flesh to men in the flesh? We have the kind of our Lord's sufferings: "Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." In form the manifestation was childish; but even in form all that was childish has been done away, and the self same truths are set forth in the ordinances of a more glorious ministration.II. The mystery of life's power would be made theirs. It is by being in Christ that we may get our sins purged away, and yet be ourselves saved. Vast territories, with fertile soils and blooming vegetation, with the wealth of navies and harvests in their bosom, were waiting to receive them: and some are waiting still. To the class of incorrigible sinners the preaching of Christ in Hades would, we may believe, be in vain. Yes, St. Paul has something very like it in his discourse on the communion — where he says that, for dishonouring this holy sacrament, many of the Corinthians not only "are weak and sickly," but even "sleep" — have been, as he goes on to say, "judged of the Lord," not only with "divers diseases," but with "sundry kinds of death" — and goes on to explain to them that, when thus "judged," punished even with death itself, they are "chastened" lest they should be "condemned" — death itself, judicial death, may be but a "chastening" to save from that "condemnation" which yet (the same verse says) is for "the world." These spirits in prison are they who, when they were in the flesh, in the midst of a universal apostasy saw not the signs nor felt the shadow of the coming judgment, nor heeded the voice of the righteous preacher, and therefore perished in their sins and in the flood. The language intimates that Christ the just One, hath suffered for the sins of the unjust. Is not this something like the case of the sinner and his Saviour Christ?III. A prison is a scene of thoughtfulness. Why, then, if Christ had no sin in His nature, no sin in His life — why did He suffer? He who is very God and very man, one person in two natures, did suffer death — in which nature? It is built by the hand of God, it will float in safety over the deluge, and whoever is in it will be gloriously saved; but we must get within it. Such is the secret of all right-hearted service done for Christ, as well as of all holy living. If you look at the passage you will see that the apostle guards himself carefully. THE DESIGN HE ACCOMPLISHED. W. Beecher.We accept the life and the death of Christ as an atonement, as a substituted suffering, the just for the unjust; but we do not feel that He was a sufferer only when He was on earth, and that His suffering then was all the suffering that was needful to the salvation of the world. I want in my belief which is to sustain me, which is to renew me in holiness, something as present to me as the world and the flesh and the devil are present with me; not only a past fact, however gracious and glorious; but a present fact, which I may look upon as part of this moment in which I live and struggle onward. 10. FOR THE EVIL ANGELS.1. In others, as in the case of the prodigal, there is a time, sharp and distinct, when reflection arrests them in their course of sin and folly. The same fact can lead us to the most complete participation in that resurrection, to which our minds are always turned. We speak of a person with whom we take advice as "the man of our right hand." I am gone, and you must be gone, This is not your place of resting, but you must prepare yourselves for a time when it shall be said of each one of you, 'He is gone.'" This is an encouragement for the greatest sinner. )While the ark was a preparingSafety in the arkB. (Dean Vaughan. Christ was "in the world" before His incarnation. "Gone into heaven." It is not as a single event by itself that the resurrection stirs our hearts: it is because it is connected with the whole nature of our being, with the whole work of Christ's life, and with the mysteries of our existence, and of the world forever. He has waited till they would destroy themselves. It belongs not to Him any more than His death and resurrection belonged to Him, as man individual. WE HAVE A DISTINCT AND DIRECT STATEMENT OF CHRIST'S SUBSTITUTORY SACRIFICE.III. Through Him, not as an unconscious medium, but as the living and conscious offerer, all prayer is made. The multitudes of those who disbelieved, in Noah's days, perished, and the few that believed were saved. Let not the wicked be emboldened by numbers.4. We see spirit triumphing over flesh everywhere; not always, but on every side and in all departments, giving us the hope and key to this great fact. 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