Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Quincy, IL
Rev. Larry D. Troxel
The Sixth Sunday after Easter
Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 8:00 and 10:15 a.m.
“Christ, Noah, and Baptism”
(1 Peter 3:18–22)
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
For many centuries, using the words of the Apostles’ Creed, Christians have confessed
the faith by which we are saved. That creed is a clear, simple statement of what Holy Scripture
teaches. The words are easy to understand. We can use that creed as a very effective evangelism
tool. It serves as a standard by which we are able to discern God’s truth from all the false
teaching that goes on in our world.
There is just one statement in that creed that causes even devout Christians to scratch their heads
and ask about its meaning. That one statement also occurs in the much longer Athanasian Creed. It is
the statement which says, “He descended into hell.” This statement has caused even some
learned theologians problems. In the 1930's the Methodist Church eliminated that statement from their
use of the Apostles’ Creed because they weren’t sure what it meant.
Today we come face-to-face with the Scriptural basis for that statement of Christian truth. We meet
that great truth as the Apostle Peter describes the remarkable relationship between Christ, Noah,
and Holy Baptism. It has great meaning for us because through these verses of Holy Scripture God
gives us great assurance about the complete forgiveness of all our sins and of life eternal. This
assurance gives us great security when everything else in life seems so uncertain.
Peter starts us with the great yet simple facts of our redemption: “Christ also suffered once
for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.” Peter was writing
to Christians who were beginning to experience the persecutions being meted out by the Roman government
against Christians. Throughout his first letter, Peter remains focused on the fact that his readers are
experiencing significant suffering because of their trust in Christ Jesus. So Peter begins by reminding
his readers and us that “Christ also suffered.” Jesus even warned His followers, including
us, that we can expect similar treatment. He said, “I chose you out of the
world, therefore the world hates you.”1
Christ suffered in our place, as our Substitute, under the demands of divine justice. Peter wrote about
this in forensic, juridical terms: “the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones.” This is the
most wonderful Gospel! God does not demand that we clean up our acts before He will have anything to do
with us. He comes to us in grace, even though we are thoroughly corrupted by sin. We have no goodness of
our own by which we might deserve God’s notice or kindness. With the psalmist we confess,
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”2
Yet God in His grace gave His one and only Son to redeem us. “For our sake He made Him to be sin
who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”3
Jesus is the Righteous One who took on Himself our sin, our guilt, our punishment. And because Jesus
did so, God has declared us to be righteous in His sight. By the preaching of this Good News, and by its
application to us in Holy Baptism, Christ Jesus has done just what Peter wrote. He has brought us to God,
by grace, in saving faith, so that now God declares us to be holy in His sight and members of His eternal
family.
Notice also that Peter emphasizes that Jesus did this “once for all.” His suffering and death
one time in history has been sufficient to redeem all people of all times and places. No more sacrifice
for sin is needed because Jesus suffered and died once for all.
Next Peter describes what the followers of Jesus witnessed with their own eyes. “He was put to death
in reference to His body.” Yes, Jesus truly did die. On the cross He cried out,
“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!”4
And having said that, Jesus died. His soul was in heaven with His heavenly Father. His dead body was wrapped
for burial and placed in a tomb. Divine justice had demanded, “The soul who sins shall die.”5
Jesus took our place under the demands of divine justice. He died for us and for all.6
What happened next is something that no eye on earth witnessed. For that reason we are so thankful to God
the Holy Spirit for leading Peter to tell us “the rest of the story.” Peter wrote:
“He was put to death in reference to His body and made alive in the spirit.” Before the angel
opened Jesus’ tomb at dawn on Easter Sunday to reveal Jesus’ resurrection to the world, God
the Father restored Jesus’ soul to His body, making Him alive and glorified. And in that living,
glorified body Jesus began the great proclamation of His victory over all God’s enemies.
“He went and made a public proclamation to the spirits in prison.” Christ Jesus, our victorious,
risen Savior, is the only Person who ever has entered hell, body and soul, and left again, without any
suffering. “He descended into hell” to proclaim publicly His victory over Satan and all of
Satan’s forces. His made His proclamation to all who had died without a saving faith relationship
with Him. Among those damned unbelievers were the people who “formerly did not obey, when God's
patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.”
Those who drowned in unbelief during the Flood of Noah’s day are very typical of all unbelievers.
When you read the Scriptural account of the Flood, you will see many similarities between those unbelievers
and the people who populate the earth today. Still today there are those believers who choose to marry
unbelievers. And while there are instances that such a mixed marriage does result in the unbelieving
spouse eventually becoming a believer, all too often the unbelieving spouse leads the believer away
from Christ. For that reason Holy Scripture warns those who are planning marriage: “Do not be
unequally yoked with unbelievers.”7
Sadly, what was true of human beings in the time of Noah remains true of human beings today.
“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”8 It is the presence
of Christians in this fallen world that keeps things from becoming even worse. Jesus described us as
salt and light,9 the things which preserve human society from becoming
altogether rotten. By the grace of God, He uses us to preserve this world.
Peter next does a remarkable comparison. He said that the water which drowned the unbelieving population
of the world in the Flood of Noah’s day also was the water which floated the ark and kept Noah and
his family, “eight persons,” alive and safe. The water of that Flood, Peter wrote, corresponds
to Holy Baptism, which saves us.
Just as the grace of God was at work on behalf of Noah and his family, using the water of the Flood to
float their boat, so the grace of God is at work in us and for us in Holy Baptism. Through the application
of that water along with a very specific Word of God,10 God the Holy Spirit
conveys to the person being baptized all that God has promised in His Word, namely, forgiveness of all
sin, life, and salvation.
The amount of water that is used in Holy Baptism and how it is applied does not matter. For Peter said
that the purpose is not the removal of dirt from the body but rather God conveying to the person being
baptized the covenant promise of a clear, or good, conscience before God. It is this covenant promise
that God makes in Holy Baptism that links the person being baptized to the resurrection of Christ Jesus
from the dead and all the blessed results of Jesus’ resurrection.
I always am amazed and almost overwhelmed by the magnificently concentrated Gospel that Peter packs into
these few verses. Just the realization of the great connection that there is between Christ Jesus and
Noah and all that God conveys to us in Holy Baptism is overwhelming. But that is just the way the grace
of God is. It far exceeds our ability to comprehend, understand, and fully grasp.
So we join with those Christians who down through the centuries have used all of the Apostles’ Creed
to confess in summary fashion what we believe about the grace of God for us. And as we continue to confess
our faith, we join in the praise of the saints in heaven and the angelic host who continually praise God
for the great salvation that is ours in Christ Jesus. Amen.