God In a Grave
I Peter 3:18-22
I'm in a series of messages about the God of Easter. Last week we talked about the day God died. This morning we are going to talk about God in a grave. Easter Sunday morning, God is alive; the resurrection.
The Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross for the sins of the world. They took His body down and buried it in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. For three days and three nights He was there. On the third day, the resurrection day, the Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. If that is not true, if Jesus Christ did not come out of that grave, Christianity collapses.
If He is still in that grave, then nothing really matters. But if He is not in that grave, then nothing
BUT that matters. It all hinges on the resurrection.
Everything stands or falls on the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ. If Jesus is in the grave, then you and I don't have any hope. If Jesus Christ is not in that grave, then we have hope.
Next week we’ll look more specifically at the resurrection, but for this morning we must deal with the certainty that God is in the grave.
The question arises, what was Jesus doing during those three days He was in the grave? What was going on? In fact, there are a couple questions I would like to answer for you this morning.
The first one is “Where did He go?”, and the second question is “What did He do”?
Let me direct your attention to 1 Peter 3:18-22.
Text
In this rather remarkable passage of Scripture and in a rather interesting way, those verses answer these questions. They take us to three basic places.
First of all they take us to
I. The TREE.
Look at verse 18.
Those statements take us to the tree. I'm referring, of course, by tree to the cross of our Lord Jesus. Sometimes it is called the tree.
It is referenced in that way in I Peter 2:24 where we read, "Who Himself (the Lord Jesus) bore our sins in his own body on the tree."
Obviously, it’s talking about the cross. It is interesting, isn’t it, that back in the Garden of Eden man fell, and as we saw two weeks ago, it was in a Garden that Jesus settled the issues that would lead to the cross.
In like manner, it was at the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” that Adam ruined the human race. It was on the tree ”the cross” where our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed the human race.
So these verses tell us something about what Jesus was doing on that cross and it tells us about
the uniqueness of the cross.
We are told that on that cross Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust.
He suffered on that cross. All that He saw in the cup in the garden that caused Him to recoil away from it, he has now endured. All the physical, emotional and spiritual suffering has been encountered.
On that day the Lord Jesus Christ was made a sacrifice for sins. He was suffering for our sins on that cross. His body was like a giant altar and all the sins of the world were loaded down on that body that day.
Jesus suffered physically in His body. Jesus also suffered spiritually in His soul. In that moment when
He was dying on the cross for our sins, he knew what it was to suffer soulishly.
The word, death, really means separation. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God. When Jesus died on that cross he suffered in His body, but He also suffered in His soul.
He knew what it was to be deserted by God. That's why when Jesus prayed on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" In that moment when Jesus Christ was made sin for you and for me, the Lord God poured out His holy wrath upon sin and Jesus Christ suffered in His soul.
He was abandoned, forsaken, of God. His soul became a reservoir and all of the putrid, polluted fountains of human sin poured into the heart of the Lord Jesus. He suffered for our sins that day on the cross.
And all of that experience is compacted into that little verse where we are told “He suffered for our sins the just for the unjust”.
The “just”, that's Jesus. The “unjust”, that's you and me. Jesus Christ was without sin. He was the just one. You had I have sinned. All have sinned. We are the unjust ones. That means that the dilemma was solved.
How can we who are sinful ones come into the presence of the sinless one?
God solved that problem at the cross of Calvary when Jesus suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust.
But there is a critical word in the verse that shouldn’t be overlooked. The Bible says He did it once. Literally it means He did it once for all. It will never again be repeated.
The contrast here is to the Old Testament prienst in the temple. The priest would have to go in and make a sacrifice. They would have to go back later and make another sacrifice. In the Old Testament
Tabernacle the priest would go in there and it constantly had to be repeated.
But when the Lord Jesus Christ died on that cross and He cried that word of victory, "It is finished!" it means that He suffered once for all on the cross. There will never again have to be a sacrifice made for your sins and for my sins.
And all that happened on the tree.
The uniqueness of the cross.
Not only the uniqueness, but also he talks about
the effectiveness of the cross.
It says in verse 18, "That he might bring us to God."
It is the cross that has given us an effective way to God. All of us want to know God. All of us want to meet the Lord one of the days and meet Him in peace. This verse of Scripture says that by the cross He made it possible for us to come to God. He brings us to God.
There is an interesting reference in this phrase, because it refers to someone who had an official job. It was his job to introduce people to the king. He brought them and gave them an audience with the king.
Listen: If you are going to meet God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, you must have someone who can introduce you and get you into His presence. You don’t just go waltzing in to the presence of God. The Bible would have us to understand that you and I have to be introduced into the presence of God.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our introducer. John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes unto the father but by me."
If you are going to get into God's presence you have to go through the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who brings you to God. He introduces you.
Preachers talk a lot about D. L. Moody. He was a great evangelist in America and also England. He was conducting a crusade and as he was preparing that evening to go into the building, as he walked toward the entrance he saw a little boy standing there crying.
D. L. Moody loved children. He looked down at the little boy and said, "Son, why are you crying?" The little boy said, "I want to go in to hear Moody preach, but they won't let me in without a ticket."
Mr. Moody said, "Son, do you see these coat tails (in those days they wore long coats with tails on them).
Son, you just grab hold of these coattails and hold on tight and just go wherever I go."
They opened those doors and Moody went walking in and the little boy went walking in holding on to his coattails. The ushers looked at Moody and they looked at the little boy and they smiled and said, "Come on in, son." He got in on the coattails of Moody.
That is exactly how I expect to get into heaven. It's not because I deserve to go. It's not because I have done anything to merit my getting into heaven. When I get to the gates of glory and somebody says, "Tolbert, what right do you have to get into heaven?" I'm going to say, "I'm going in on the coattails of Jesus."
That is exactly what this verse is teaching us. He takes us to the tree and we see there that Jesus suffered and died for our sins, the just for the unjust so that He might bring us to God.
That's the cross. He takes us to the tree. Then these
verses take us to
II. The TOMB.
Notice the last part of verse 18. "Being put to death
in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit."
When Jesus died He experienced a physical death. He died in His physical body. He was really dead. Someone pulled the nails out of His body and they took his physical body down from that cross and surely washed the body and then they rolled that body of our Lord into linen filled spices. Then they took that body of Jesus to Joseph's tomb where nobody's body had ever been laid.
They put His physical body in that tomb and the stone was rolled over and the Bible says He was put to death in the body.
The rest of that statement says, "But he was made alive by the Spirit." That is saying that Jesus Christ, though He was dead in His physical body, He was very much alive in His spirit. He was in conscious existence after His physical death.
That is really true of everyone who dies. When you die, you may die physically. Your body is dead. But you will be in conscious existence somewhere. You are going to be living somewhere forever and
forever and forever.
If you have received Jesus as personal Savior, when you die you will be in conscious existence spiritually in the presence of God. Paul would write to us and say, "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."
On the other nad, if you have denied Christ, and never accepted His gift of salvation, you will be in conscious existence in the presence of Satan in Hell.
Jesus told about the man who was died and was buried and it says, "in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment." His body was dead and buried, but he was in conscience existence in torment, in hell.
And here we are told that what will eventually happen to everyone of us, happened to Jesus. Though the Lord Jesus Christ was dead physically for three days and for three nights, during that time he was alive with reference to His spirit.
That brings us to the two questions. Where was Jesus? Where did Jesus go? What did Jesus do when He got there? What happened during the time God was in the grave?
Look at verse 19
That answers the question of where Jesus went. It says that Jesus went to the spirits in prison.
When you study the Bible and put it all together, it seems that before the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ, in the realm of the dead there were two locations.
There was a realm for the wicked dead known as Hades. Sometimes in the King James Bible it is translated hell, but many times the word, hell, in your Bible is the word, Hades.
There's another word translated hell sometimes and it is Gehenna. That is a reference to the Lake of Fire.
But Hades seems to have been the realm of the wicked dead where before the resurrection those who died went. It also seems to indicate that there was a prison house in that realm of the wicked dead that is identified scripturally in the Greek as Tartarus. We read about it in 2 Peter 2:4. There it tells us who these spirits in prison were.
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned. . ."
We know that the Bible says that there are good angels and there are bad angels. We know that the bad angels were the angels that sinned. The Bible teaches the existence of demons. There are demons that are bad angels that are on the earth. But here we have another classification of bad angels, demons.
It says they were cast down to hell. And their holding place is the word, TARTARUS. It is a reference to a prison house. It is a reference to the abode of these wicked demon spirits. It says they were cast down to hell, to Tartarus.
When we speak of Tartarus, we are now referencing the very depths of Hell. This is the very abyss of all that Hell means. And to this spirit prison, these fallen angels were delivered into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, awaiting the time they will be cast into the Lake of Fire.
And it is there, we are told in 1 Peter 3:19, that Jesus went and ”preached unto the spirits in prison."
The word, went, there means he took a journey. The same word is used down in verse 22 where it says he is gone into heaven. Jesus Christ, in His ascension took a journey to heaven. But before He took His journey upward, the Bible says He took a journey downward. The Lord Jesus Christ went into the realm of the dead. He went into Hades, the abode of the wicked dead.
We are also told in Ephesians 4 that the Lord Jesus Christ went into paradise, which, before the resurrection, was the abode of the saved dead, the Old Testament saints, and “led captivity captive”.
He took every Old Testament saint of God who died looking for a city, every faithful man and woman and boy and girl who placed their faith in the word of God and led them in triumphant victory into the very presence and comfort of God. He emptied paradise and took them to heaven.
So, He went into Hades, the realm of the wicked dead. He went into paradise, the realm of the saved dead.
I can almost imagine when Jesus went down on that journey into the realm of the dead. I can almost imagine during those three days, as Jesus went walking through Hades and I can see those demon spirits in prison as they cower before the Lord Jesus Christ.
They say, "It's Him." Oh, how they hate the Lord Jesus Christ as they see Him come walking through the pits of Hades.
I imagine sometime, as Jesus walked through there, in addition to that prison and those demon spirits, I imagine that the thief on the cross was there. No, no, not the thief that was saved. There was another thief on that cross. You remember what he did, don't you? He mocked and scorned and blasphemed the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross, save yourself and us."
Can you imagine the look of terror on his face as he sees the very one who just a few hours ago he had died alongside. Can you imagine as he sees this one come walking through? The thief says, "That's Him. That's Him."
I can almost imagine as the Lord Jesus Christ went walking down through paradise, the abode of the righteous dead, before the resurrection of our Lord.
All of the Old Testament saints see the Lord Jesus Christ coming and the cheer goes up, "It's Him! It's Him!" The thief who died on the cross, repenting of his sins say, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus said to him, "Today, you'll be with me in paradise." I can almost imagine that thief saying, "It's Him, praise God, it's real. It's true.
Everything He said on that cross is true."
One of the days we as the saved of God are going to close our eyes in death. We'll open our eyes in glory and we'll see the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll hear Him say, "Welcome home, my child." Surely we'll shout, "It's Him! It's Him! It's true, it's real. Everything He said has come to pass."
Where did He go? He went down and preached unto the spirits in prison. He PREACHED unto the spirits in prison. I don't mean He was giving them a second chance to be saved. Is there somebody here that says, "I've never accepted Jesus as my Savior, but I'm going to take my chance. If I have another chance after death, I'll surely get saved after I die."
There are two different words for preach translated in our New Testament. One of the words is to preach the gospel. It's our word evangelize. We get the word evangelism from it. Evangel means the gospel, the good news. That's what I'm doing today. Every time I preach the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the gospel. I am announcing. I am proclaiming the good news. People can be saved as I preach this good news.
But let me remove any false hope you may have. When you reject the Lord Jesus Christ in this world, you are not going to have a second opportunity to be saved in the second world. This world provides the only opportunity you’ll ever have to be born again.
Well if He wasn’t preaching in that sense, then what does the word mean?
The other word for preaching carries the idea of making an announcement. Jesus Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison. He made an announcement. What kind of announcement was it? I can almost imagine as the Lord Jesus Christ went walking down through the corridors of Hades and He goes down there to Tartarus, the prison house in Hades.
He makes an announcement. In fact, I think Jesus really makes an announcement in three different worlds.
In Philippians 2:10 the Bible says, "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue should confess of things in heaven, things in the earth, and things under the earth." that's the only three places conscious existence can be.
When Jesus Christ said on that cross, "It is finished," He made an announcement in this earth. "It is finished in this earth."
And when Jesus Christ went back to heaven leading those Old Testament saints home to glory, I believe He made an announcement in heaven, "It is finished. I've done the work I left heaven to do."
But he also makes an announcement under the earth. He goes down into the realm of the dead and announces, "it is finished, and sin, death and hell have been dealt with on the cross." He makes that announcement in the realm of the dead.
I can almost see those demons in that prison house. I can almost hear those demons, with hot tears and screaming voices, say, "But Jesus, you're dead. Jesus, your body is still in that grave, that dark, dank doomed grave. You are still there."
Jesus says, "Hang around. Three days from now I'm coming out of here." And the demons will be forced to fall on their knees and say, "Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord."
And I’m here to make an announcement. Mingled into my evangelism is the announcement that even though we are talking about God in a Grave, up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph o’er His foes, He arose a victor from the dark domain and He lives forever with His saints to reign!
Listen: These verses may take us to the tree, and they may pass us by the tomb, but ultimately, they take us to the
III. The THRONE.
verse 22
That’s talking about His ascension. He has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject unto him." That's the reference to the exaltation He received when He went to heaven.
Can you imagine how it was when Jesus went back to heaven? Can you imagine as the gates of glory open up and the king of glory, the Lord of host goes marching through?
Can you imagine how heaven rejoiced in the victory that Jesus Christ had achieved on the tree and in the tomb? He is now back in heaven. He is now receiving His exaltation.
But notice verses 20 and 21
There it talks about the salvation He achieved at the cross. The whole point of it, the reason He died on that old tree, and the reason He spent those three days and three nights in that tomb, was to make it possible for you and for me to be saved.
He gives two beautiful pictures of salvation. In verse 20 He uses the picture of the flood and takes us back to Noah and the ark. He says that Noah and the ark is a picture of salvation.
Look at verse 21.
He is saying that the ark was a a picture. The ark was an illustration of salivation. You know the story. Noah got that ark ready. His family got in and then the flood came and the floodwaters covered the earth.
But the floodwaters carried the ark above it.
Many will point to this verse to try and prove the necessity of baptism for salvation. They show their lack of understanding of the Bible.
If the emphasis is on the water, then Noah and his family had to be saved by the flood. They weren’t saved by the flood; they were saved from the flood.
The picture is not about the water. It is on how to be saved from the water.
It was the ark which did the saving. When God told Noah to build the ark he told Noah, "I want you to put pitch on the inside and the outside of those walls" it was a tar that made it water tight.
Once inside that ark, not a drop of water could touch a person in that ark. They were sealed in. In fact, the word, tar or pitch, is the same word for atonement in the Old Testament.
When Jesus Christ died on that cross of Calvary, the Bible teaches that He not only secured our salvation in terms of obtaining it, but He secures our salvation in terms that you can't lose it. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He went through the waters of judgment so that the judgment of God's wrath against sin might never get to you and to me. It is not the water that saves. It is the ark that saves.
They were saved IN the ark THROUGH the water.
The ark is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you in the ark? You better be sure and get in the ark.
There's a second picture here.
verse 22
He gives another illustration.
He is not saying here that the water of baptism saves you, he is saying that baptism is a picture of the reality that saves us. He ties it into the last part of verse 21, "by the resurrection of Jesus." It is not the baptism and it is not the water that saves us. Baptism is a picture of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ who saves us. We are saved because of what Christ did for us. That's salvation. Baptism is a picture of that salvation.
It's not the putting away of the filth and the flesh.
Now, I think the mode of baptism is important. The word, baptize, means to immerse in water. If it is a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of
Jesus, it is important what mode we use. When a person is immersed they are lowered into the water, they come up out of the water. That's a picture of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. it is also a picture of what happened to you when you accepted Jesus.
It is a picture of your death to an old way of life, your resurrection to a new way of life. it is not that the mode saves you, but it is importantly to accurately picture the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lisa and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary a few days ago. She is more beautiful now than she was then. I carry a picture of here in my wallet, and anytime someone wants to see it, I can whip it out and tell them how beautiful my wife is.
Let me show it to you:
You say, “That’s not Lisa”. Well, no, but any old picture will do. It doesn’t matter. It’s a woman (at least I think it is), and I’m married to a woman. So I just carry this picture.
In like manner, for someone to say that the picture that God gave to present to us His plan of salvation doesn’t matter will always distort the truth of the gospel.
When you are baptized you want something to accurately picture the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you been baptized? Not that the water saves you. Baptism is an outward testimony to an inward experience.
Though it is not baptism that saves you, notice what baptism does do for you.
verse 21
it is not that the baptism saves you. It is not that there is any salvation powers in the water in the pool. But it is saying that when you receive Jesus
Christ as your personal Savior, when you are baptized you are obedient to the Lord and you get a clear conscience before God concerning the matter of your baptism.
I was studying this recently and the people in the New Testament who were baptized. Here's what you will find. When people received Christ in the New
Testament, they are immediately baptized. There is no hesitation. You don't find anywhere in here where they had to beg them. You don't find anywhere in here where they had to cajole them. You don't find anything here where they tried to trick them into the baptistery. When they received Christ, it was automatic. They were baptized.
I have said that baptism does not save you. But listen to me carefully. If you say that you love the Lord Jesus but you don't love the Lord Jesus enough to follow Him as He has commanded in baptism and picture what He has done for you, I wonder do you really love the Lord Jesus enough to have had a salvation experience? It is the answer of a good conscience before God.
Maybe there is someone here today who is troubled. You do believe you received Jesus as your Savior. As best you know how you have accepted Him into your heart and life, but every time baptism comes up you are troubled by it. it may be that what you need today is to follow the Lord in believer's baptism in order to have a good conscience toward God.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
