After His death in the flesh, Christ in the empowered Spirit went to the spirits, rebellious angels, in prison to proclaim God’s victory over their leader Satan. This prison refers to Tartarus, the deep and gloomy pits (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6), where the fallen angels are kept. The Lord’s going here indicates and proves that Christ, after dying in His flesh, was still active in this Spirit. Christ’s proclaiming to the spirits in prison was not to preach the good news but to proclaim the victory achieved by God, that is, that through Christ’s death on the cross God destroyed Satan and his power of darkness (Heb. 2:14; Col. 2:15).
Throughout the centuries great teachers of different schools have had varying interpretations concerning the spirits in prison. The most acceptable according to the Scriptures is as follows: the spirits here refer not to the disembodied spirits of dead human beings held in Hades but to the angels (angels are spirits—Heb. 1:14) who fell through disobedience at Noah’s time (1 Pet. 3:20) and are imprisoned in pits of gloom, awaiting the judgment of the great day (2 Pet. 2:4-5; Jude 6). After His death in the flesh, Christ in His living Spirit as His divinity went (probably to the abyss—Rom. 10:7) to these rebellious angels to proclaim, perhaps, God’s victory, accomplished through His incarnation in Christ and Christ’s death in the flesh, over Satan’s scheme to derange the divine plan.
First Peter 3:20-21 says, “In the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared; entering into which, a few, that is, eight souls, were brought safely through by water. Which water, as the antitype, also now saves you, that is, baptism, not a putting away of the filth of the flesh but the appeal of a good conscience unto God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” These verses tell us that through Christ’s resurrection we have been saved by the water of baptism.
In Romans 6:4-5 Paul says, “We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life. For if we have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death, indeed we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” A proper baptism causes spiritual growth within the baptized. This is because when we baptize people, we exercise our faith to apply Christ’s death and resurrection. Yet it is erroneous to teach baptismal regeneration. Strictly speaking, we are regenerated not by the water used in baptism, which in itself is ineffective, but by what it signifies—the living Christ with His death and resurrection, both of which are applied to us through the Spirit. Baptism is only a figure; its reality is Christ in resurrection as the life-giving Spirit, who applies to us all that Christ passed through in His crucifixion and resurrection, making these things real in our daily life. Baptism testifies that we have been baptized into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19) and have been organically united with Him through the resurrection of Christ, that is, by Christ in resurrection as the Spirit of life. In this sense, we have been saved through His resurrection by the water of baptism.
In 1 Peter 3:20 Peter says that in the ark prepared by Noah eight souls “were brought safely through by water.” The Greek word translated “brought” means “arrive safe into a place of security through difficulty or danger,” as Acts 27:44 (Darby). The Greek words rendered “by water” literally mean “through water.” Water was the medium through which the saving was accomplished.
In the Old Testament the waters of the flood at the time of Noah and the waters of the Red Sea both typify baptism. The ark saved Noah and his family from God’s judgment, from the punishment of God’s condemnation that came by the flood. But the water saved them and separated them from that corrupted age and brought them into a new age to begin a new life on a new earth.
In the book of Exodus the children of Israel passed through the Red Sea. The waters of the Red Sea were a judgment upon Pharaoh and his Egyptian army. But that same water separated the children of Israel from Egypt, which typifies the corrupted world. Just as Noah and his family were separated from their corrupted generation by the waters of the flood, so the children of Israel were separated from the corrupted world by the waters of the Red Sea. In the New Testament we also have water, the water of baptism. Baptism saves us from the world and separates us from it.
Christians today argue about the proper form of baptism but miss the true significance of baptism. To be baptized is to pass through the judging water to be separated from today’s evil generation. If we see the real significance of baptism, we will never go back to the world after we are baptized. The waters of baptism are the waters that judge the world. We might have loved the world in the past, but we have been saved from the world, not by the ritual, the rite, of baptism but by the reality of the resurrection of Christ.
The phrase which water, as the antitype in 1 Peter 3:21 refers to the water mentioned in verse 20, of which the water of baptism is the antitype. This indicates that Noah and his family’s passing through the flood within the ark was a type of our passing through baptism. The water of the flood delivered them out of the old manner of life into a new environment; in like manner the water of baptism delivers us out of the inherited vain manner of life into a manner of life of resurrection in Christ. Christ redeemed us for this (1:18-19). Christ’s redemption was accomplished by Christ’s death and was accepted and applied to us, in baptism, by the Spirit through Christ’s resurrection. Now our daily walk should be in the Spirit of the resurrected Christ; it should be a walk in which we live Christ in resurrection through the life power of His Spirit (Rom. 6:4-5). This is a new and excellent manner of life that glorifies God (1 Pet. 2:12).
The ark of Noah typifies Christ in resurrection passing through death. When Christ was living on earth, He had not yet died on the cross and therefore had not yet been resurrected. Nevertheless, in John 11:25 He said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” This reveals clearly that Christ, even before His death and resurrection, was both life and resurrection. He was always the Christ of resurrection. The ark of Noah, therefore, signifies this Christ of resurrection passing through death.
If the ark of Noah did not represent the Christ of resurrection, how could the ark pass through the water and come out safely? The ark’s passing through the water and coming out of the water signifies Christ’s resurrection, since the ark itself is a type of Christ. How is it possible for Christ, and Christ alone, to enter into death and come out of it? Christ could come forth out of death in resurrection because He is resurrection and is of resurrection. Because Christ is the unique One of resurrection, He had the strength to pass through death. According to Acts 2:24, death could not hold Christ, but when any other person enters into the realm of death, he is held there. It is not possible for anyone else to come out of it. Christ not only entered into death and passed through it; He even deliberately stayed in the realm of death for three days. When those three days were over, He walked out of death. Because Christ is resurrection, He could simply walk out of death. This is signified by the ark of Noah, which entered into, stayed in, passed through, and came out of the death waters. This is a type of Christ in resurrection.
In His resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) to come into us (John 20:22) and to impart His resurrection life to us. Now this resurrection life with the life-giving Spirit makes every aspect of Christ’s death real and effective to us in our experience.
First Peter 3:21 ends with the phrase through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This indicates that baptism is through the resurrection of Christ, that is, by Christ in resurrection as the Spirit of life. Without the Spirit of Christ as the reality, baptism by water is only an empty and dead ritual. We appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrected Christ as the reality of baptism.
Apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we could not have resurrection life, and we could not have the life-giving Spirit within us. Through faith and baptism we have an organic union with the Triune God. It is through the resurrection of Christ that we are brought into the Triune God to have an organic union with Him. Now in the Triune God and with the Triune God, we enjoy the divine life and the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, after we have been baptized, we have the divine life and the life-giving Spirit to make the figure of baptism real and living to us in our experience.
Verse 21 emphasizes baptism in relation to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reality of baptism can be realized only by the divine life and the life-giving Spirit. Our basis for saying this is Peter’s word “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” It was in His resurrection that Christ released the divine life so that it could be imparted into our spirit. It was also in resurrection that Christ became the life-giving Spirit to come into our spirit, dwell in our spirit, and exercise all the riches of His divine life. It is through the resurrection of Christ that we genuinely experience with assurance the reality of what is figured in baptism.