Jesus’ Victory Through Suffering

Preached by Pastor Chad Rickenbaker on September 13, 2026 [watch online] |  1 Peter 3:18–22

1 Peter — “Jesus’ Victory Through Suffering”

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.—1 Peter 3:18–22 (NKJV)

For the last few months we’ve been working our way verse by verse through the book of 1 Peter, and the thing to keep in front of you the whole way through is who Peter is writing to. He is writing to suffering Christians — people who were suffering specifically because of their faith in Christ, because of their witness and testimony as believers in the Lord Jesus.

Last Sunday we saw several of the encouragements Peter offered them. He reminded them that no one can ultimately harm them. Men may be able to harm us physically, and we may even lose our lives for our testimony, but no one can ultimately harm us. This life is not all there is. If we are safe in His care, then we are safe. He reminded them that when we suffer for doing good, for doing the will of God, we are blessed. He told them to sanctify the Lord Jesus in their hearts — to put Him on the throne, to treasure Him above their own comfort, because it is awfully tempting in this life to prioritize comfort over Christ. And he told them to be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in them, because people were going to notice that these believers didn’t react to hardship the way everybody else reacts.

Then he closed that section with verse 17:

For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.—1 Peter 3:17

And the moment he says that, he turns to the example of Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate example of what it looks like to suffer for doing right, to suffer for doing the will of God. So as we look at His example in these verses, there are four encouragements here I want you to see.

Jesus Died for Our Sins

Look at verse 18: “For Christ also suffered.” That little word also is doing a lot of work. Peter is writing to people who are suffering, and he says: listen, you are enduring hardship, you may face persecution because of your faith — and Jesus also suffered. You can look at His suffering and find encouragement in it.

When Peter says Jesus suffered, he means Jesus suffered in death. And notice what he says about it: Christ suffered “once for sins.” The death of Jesus was final and complete. It was once. It is done. There is no other sacrifice to be added to it. What was necessary to pay the debt of our sin has been paid in full. There is nothing you and I can do to add to what Jesus has already done.

And it wasn’t for His sins. Notice the next phrase — “the just for the unjust.” The just one is Jesus, and to be just means He was sinless. So when He died once for sins, He died for ours. That word for is important, too, because it means He died as our substitute, in our place, paying the penalty and the punishment that belonged to us.

Then Peter tells us why: “that He might bring us to God.” Think about what stands behind that phrase. It assumes a distance. God is here, we are here, and between us is our sin. Sin is a barrier. Jesus died to take that sin out of the way so that He could bring us to God. Apart from His work on the cross we are separated from God, and there is nothing we can do to bridge that divide — but Jesus did it for us. The Bible word for it is reconciliation. When two people are estranged over a conflict, they need to be brought back together. Jesus is the one who brings us back to God by removing the cause of the division.

Hold your place in 1 Peter and look at what Paul says about the very same thing:

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.—2 Corinthians 5:18–21

There it is — God reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ. Not imputing their trespasses to them, which means not leaving our sin on us, but taking it from us in His death. But look at what else is in that passage. Now that the work of reconciliation is finished, God has given us the word of reconciliation. He pleads through us. We are ambassadors, witnesses to our friends and neighbors and the people who don’t know Him, so that God might bring them to Himself as well.

So being brought back to God includes being sent out as witnesses. And the willingness of Jesus to suffer for our sake is a powerful encouragement for us to be willing to suffer for being witnesses — because it is through our testimony and our presentation of the gospel that others may be saved.

Jesus Calls People to Repentance

Look at verses 19 and 20. And before we dive in, let me be honest with you about how difficult this text is. Here is what Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, said about these verses:

“A wonderful text is this, a more obscure passage than any other in the New Testament, so that I do not know for a certainty just what Peter means. I cannot understand and I cannot explain it. And there has been no one who has explained it.”

So if you came expecting a country boy from Clarendon County to stand up here and explain what Martin Luther couldn’t, you may be waiting a while. One commentary notes that more than forty variations of interpretation of these two verses can be catalogued since the apostolic era. I told our staff that I was tempted to do the Lifeway leap and just jump right over this text. I won’t do that — but I want you to know that what I’m about to give you is one view among many, and I don’t think we can be dogmatic here.

When people come to this passage they’re trying to answer three questions: Where did Jesus go? To whom did He speak? And what did He say?

Let’s break it down. Verse 19 begins, “by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” By whom? Go back to the end of verse 18 — by the Spirit. Jesus died in the flesh but was made alive by the Spirit. So by that same Spirit, He went and preached to the spirits in prison.

But we need context, and verse 20 gives it: “when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.” There’s our context. The days before the flood, while Noah is building.

Now, some say those spirits are fallen angels. The interpretation I’m following is that Peter is talking about the people who were alive in Noah’s day. He uses the word spirit to mean their souls. By the time Peter writes, those people are long dead — they died in the flood — and their spirits are in prison, held over for the judgment to come. What Peter is describing is that Jesus, by the Spirit, went and spoke through Noah, proclaiming a call to repentance.

If you’re right there, turn over to 2 Peter:

and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly—2 Peter 2:5

A preacher of righteousness. Peter describes Noah not just as an ark builder but as a preacher. For 120 years he worked on that ark, and all the while he was a messenger of God calling people to repent. That’s what Peter means when he says the Divine longsuffering waited — God showed extraordinary patience, giving those people 120 years to repent before judgment came.

Now, Noah did not have a receptive audience. When the flood finally came, eight people entered the ark, and they were all family. But I’ll say this for Noah: I’m thankful he was faithful, not only in building but in witnessing. And I’m thankful that over those 120 years he lived in such a way that if nobody else believed his testimony, at least his family did. They believed him enough to get on the boat. Had he not lived a life of righteousness in front of them, they might have said, “After the kind of person we’ve watched you be, there’s no way we believe you.” Extra-biblical literature describes the mockery Noah would have endured from his contemporaries.

So what’s the connection? Peter is writing to Christians who are being mocked and ridiculed and threatened — the same kind of context in which Noah was being faithful. Wayne Grudem, in his commentary on 1 Peter, gives us five points of connection:

First, Noah and his family were a minority surrounded by a hostile culture. So were Peter’s readers. So are we. Which means we cannot wait to live faithfully for Christ until the culture swings back around to an acceptance of Christianity — because it wasn’t true in Noah’s day, it wasn’t true in Peter’s day, and it isn’t true now.

Second, Noah was righteous in the midst of a wicked world. Peter asked the very same thing of his readers:

Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.—1 Peter 2:11–12

Third, Noah witnessed boldly to those around him. And Peter called his readers to do the same, in every hard situation he could think of. Living under an oppressive government? Do what’s right anyway (1 Peter 2:13–15). A servant with an unbelieving master who treats you cruelly? Do what’s right, so he sees your conduct and may come to know the Lord (2:18). Married to an unbelieving spouse? Do what’s right, so they may see the testimony of your life (3:1–2).

Fourth, Noah realized that judgment was soon to come upon the world. It would be so much easier to stay quiet about our faith. But Noah knew judgment was coming, and Peter reminds his readers of the same thing just a few verses later:

They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.—1 Peter 4:5

But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.—1 Peter 4:7

That adds a sense of urgency to our faithfulness.

Fifth, in the unseen spiritual realm, Christ preached through Noah to the unbelievers around him. The Lord Jesus was working by the Spirit through Noah to proclaim a call to repentance. And so it was with Peter’s original audience — they were to be witnesses to Jesus as people indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now listen carefully, church: is that not also true of us? As disciples of the Lord Jesus we too are indwelt and empowered by the Spirit. We have His presence, His person, and His power. We don’t do this on our own.

Jesus Saves Us When We Ask for Forgiveness

Look at verse 21: “There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

If verses 19 and 20 were difficult, verse 21 is only slightly less difficult. Dial in with me here, because Peter is saying something about the nature of baptism that we need to get right. If we don’t, we could easily walk away thinking we’re somehow saved through baptism — when we know we are saved by grace through faith. So what is the relationship between baptism and salvation? Because Peter clearly thinks there is one, and a close one.

To me, the key is that phrase at the end. I’m preaching from the New King James, and it reads “the answer of a good conscience toward God.” I don’t like that translation. I think the NKJV is a great translation, but here I think there’s a better word — other translations, like the ESV, have “appeal.” I think appeal is the more fitting word, because the idea is that those who appeal to God for a clear conscience, who come before Him and ask that He would cleanse their conscience — that is, cleanse their heart — receive the forgiveness of their sins.

We’re not saved by having our outward dirt washed off. Our problem with God is not dirt under our fingernails or a dirt ring around the back of a little boy’s neck. Our problem is a sin stain on the heart. So the baptism Peter says saves is the baptism that coincides with an appeal to God for a good conscience — the appeal for the forgiveness of our sins.

And look at the basis of it: “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The forgiveness comes when we appeal to God, and the ground of that forgiveness is Jesus’ death and resurrection. The resurrection is God’s own demonstration that He has accepted the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf. We know God accepted it, because He raised Him from the dead.

So what does any of that have to do with Noah and the flood? The waters of the flood were the expression and the means of God’s judgment on sin. And the first part of baptism, as we practice it, is a picture of our death to sin. The people of Noah’s day died in the waters of judgment. When a believer who has made that appeal is lowered into the water, it is a visible symbol of going down into death — because the wages of sin is what, church?

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.—Romans 6:23

Hold your place in 1 Peter and turn to Romans 6. This is one of the greatest explanations of the meaning of baptism anywhere in Scripture:

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.—Romans 6:4

Do you see the picture? Some commentators say Paul is describing spiritual baptism here rather than water baptism, but I agree with those who say Paul would never have thought to separate the two — and I think you see the same thing in Peter.

On any Sunday when we baptize here, we ask the person: have you believed and trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Why do we ask that? In part because of 1 Peter 3 — because they have made their appeal, they have asked God for a clean conscience and for forgiveness, and this baptism is the outward picture of that inner spiritual reality.

Different pastors say different things at a baptism, and I don’t know that one is right and another wrong. But when you see me officiate one, when someone is lowered into the water you’ll often hear me say, dead to sin — because that is what it represents. And thankfully, that isn’t where the symbol ends. To the best of my knowledge, everyone who has gone into the waters of our baptistry has come back up. We haven’t left anybody up there yet. So when I bring them up, I’ll typically say, raised to new life in Christ Jesus — because that’s exactly what Paul is describing.

Baptism now saves you — not the outward physical ceremony, of course, but the inward spiritual reality that water baptism represents. What it represents is so important that Jesus submitted Himself to the baptism of John, not because He had sins to be forgiven, but as an example to us. And then He commanded it:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.—Matthew 28:19–20

The apostles understood how closely the appeal and the sign belong together. When Peter preached at Pentecost and the crowd came under conviction and cried out, “What do we do?” —

Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”—Acts 2:38

They weren’t being baptized in order to be saved. But look how tightly Peter binds the appeal to God for cleansing together with the outward testimony of it.

And here’s the encouragement in it for us as witnesses: when we offer people the gospel, we know that if they will appeal to God for forgiveness, He will grant it.

Jesus Is Exalted Above Every Power

Look down at verse 22. Speaking of Jesus, Peter says He “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.”

Jesus came, lived, died, was raised, and ascended back into heaven, and He is now at the right hand of the Father — a place of authority and power. Every earthly power and authority has been put in subjection to Him. He is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Here’s the point of connection for us. He obeyed the will of the Father. He answered the Father’s call and humbled Himself, even to the point of death:

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.—Philippians 2:8–11

We are not Jesus. But Peter’s message is this: if you suffer for doing good, God will bless you. You see it in the life of Jesus. Peter has told them why to be patient in suffering, why to endure it, why to keep doing what God called them to do regardless of the response — no one can ultimately harm you, and if you suffer for doing good, God sees it. And then he holds up Jesus, who suffered the just for the unjust, and asks them to notice what God did: He exalted Him to His right hand and gave Him supreme authority over every other authority and power.

Jesus trusted the Father to restore Him to the glory He had with the Father before the world began, and He was obedient:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.—Hebrews 12:1–2

What was the joy? I think it involves the joy of knowing what His death would accomplish, and the joy of knowing He would be restored to the glory He had with the Father before the world began. That’s how He endured. And for you and me, part of enduring whatever we suffer for being faithful witnesses is looking forward in faith to the reward that comes when Jesus calls us home or returns.

Our problem is that we aren’t very good at waiting. We need endurance. Patience in the Bible is the ability to bear up under a weight, to sustain it for a period of time — and the period of time is now.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.—2 Corinthians 4:16–18

Out in the culture at large, it is not a popular thing to live according to God’s Word and to be a faithful disciple. But whatever we may suffer for it is light and brief compared to eternity, and light in relation to the glory that will be revealed in us. So in the meantime, we bear up under it, with our eyes fixed not on what is seen but on what is unseen.

Four Encouragements, One Example

When you and I suffer, when we endure hardship or adversity, the example we need is Jesus.

He suffered and died for our sins. And suffering so that other people can come to God — that’s worth it, don’t you think? If we have to suffer a little, and ultimately no harm can come to us, then we ought to be willing to suffer whatever it takes for people to be reconciled to God, because that is of eternal significance.

He called people to repentance. Just as He spoke through Noah — repent, get right, judgment is coming — He has now entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation, as though He were appealing through us for people to be made right with Him. It’s our ministry now.

He saves us when we ask for forgiveness. That is the hope of our witness. I would hate to tell someone that Jesus forgives and then have Him not forgive. If I tell people that whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus can be saved, and then they call and they can be saved — that encourages me.

And God exalted Him. We too will be blessed if we suffer for doing His will.

I appreciate that Jesus made this clear. He didn’t do a bait and switch. He never said, “Come to Me and you’ll be healthy, wealthy, and wise.” He said something more like this:

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”—Luke 9:23

It’s so much easier to obey when obedience is easy and popular and everybody around you approves of it. It gets harder when they look down on it. Which is exactly why Jesus said:

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.—Matthew 7:13–14

So how do you stay on that path? Set your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. Keep your eyes on Him. And as Peter said, sanctify Him as Lord in your heart.

Much of what we’ve been reading in this letter is a call to stand out — a call to be willing to stand apart, a call to treasure Jesus as Lord above our own comfort. Why? Because Peter’s readers were pilgrims and sojourners. This world was not their home, and it isn’t ours either. We are passing through. And we’re living every day around people who will one day stand before God. There is no other institution, no other agency or organization that has been given this assignment. God has given it to us, His church — to be witnesses and to tell people about the hope available to them through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

So may we pray what the early church prayed when they were threatened:

“Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.—Acts 4:29–31

May that be true here. May it be true in our lives.

Scripture references in this message: 1 Peter 3:17; 1 Peter 3:18–22; 2 Corinthians 5:18–21; 2 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:11–12; 1 Peter 2:13–15; 1 Peter 2:18; 1 Peter 3:1–2; 1 Peter 4:5; 1 Peter 4:7; Romans 6:23; Romans 6:4; Matthew 28:19–20; Acts 2:38; Philippians 2:8–11; Hebrews 12:1–2; 2 Corinthians 4:16–18; Luke 9:23; Matthew 7:13–14; Acts 4:29–31. (NKJV)

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.