1 Peter Iii. 18.

justice? ver. 14. — ha iifiag ffpotrayayfo that He might bring us) that He Himself, when He departed to the Father, might justify us, who had been alienated from God, and might bring us to heaven (ver. 22) together with Himself, by the same steps of humiliation and exaltation which He Himself passed through. From this word as far as ch. iv. 6, Peter closely connects together the path or pro- gress of Christ and the faithful (by which path he himself also was following his Lord, according to His prediction, John xiii. 36), intertwining therewith the unbelief and punishment of the many. — rS> ©g£, to God) who willed it. More is signified by the Dative than if he had used a Preposition \prpbg Qe'ov], unto God. — Gavarukig, being slain by death) as though He now had no existence. Peter shows us how our tffotrayw/fr, access to God , was effected. — capxi, in the flesh) The flesh and the spirit do not properly denote the human and divine nature of Christ : comp. ch. iv. 6 ; but either of them, so far as it is the principle and fixed condition of life, and of the working which is in conformity with it, whether it be among mortals, of however righteous a character it may be ; or with God, even that which is in glory : Rom. i. 4, note. To the former state the soul in the body is more adapted ; to the latter, the soul either out of the body, or when united with the glorified and spiritual body : 1 Cor. xv. 44. — fyoKoirifoig, quickened) This process of quick- ening ought to be explained as antithetical to that of being put to death. As to the rest, Christ having life in Himself, and being Himself the life, neither ceased, nor a second time began, to live in spirit : but no sooner had He by the process of death been released from the infirmity which encompassed Him in the flesh,- than im- mediately (as illustrious divines acknowledge) the energy of His imperishable life began to exert itself in new and most prompt modes of action. Wisely therefore does Hauber refer the burial of our Redeemer in some way to His exaltation, in the Contempla- tions about the Burial of Jesus Christ , p. 8. Comp, the dissertation of j Essenius, p. 10. This quickening, and in connection with it His going and preaching to the spirits, was of necessity quickly fol- lowed by the raising of His body from the dead, and His resurrection from the tomb, ver. 21. Christ liveth unto God, Rom. vi. 10. Comp, the phrase according to God , ch. iv. 6. The discourse of our Lord, J olin vi., which Peter had received in a becoming manner, ver. 68, had been fixed in the heart of Peter ; and with that por- tion, and especially ver. 51, 53, 62, 63, may be compared that which Peter writes, ch. i. 2, 19, iii. 18, 22, iv. 1.