The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 173

rather to think of advamtage e<mferred as giving Christ indisputable authority as example. Do we suffer for well-doing? Christ, it is said, also suffered, by whose well- doing (th~ thought is) we are so mightily advantaged, But the apostle has a look beyond this; of which he gives a hint in the word "once." Christ suffered once; i.e. ~uffered, and then passed into a state in which he suffers no more. So we are to under- i:tand that we have this to comfort us (Christ being our Example), that our suffering is only once; it is what comes after suffering that is permanent. (2) His being put to dooth was followed by his being quwkened. "Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit." There is a resuming of the thought of suffering in connec- tion "l\;th its worst and last phase. Though the Righteous One, he was treated as a malefactor, and put to death (" killed n is Peter's word in Aclls iii. 16) ; he thus came within the scope of his own beatitude, "Blessed are they which o.re persecuted for ri~hteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." His suffering in the interest ol human well-being was followed, as has already been indicated, by his suffering no more. It is now declared that it was followed by his being quickened. It is further declared that it was followed by his resurrection and ascension; and before he leaves his theme, it is declared that it is yet to be followed by his coming to judgment. Thus no sooner did he suffer, than he came to be in the ascendant. The starting- point of his after-suffering career was his being quickened. His being put to death was in the flesh; i.e. on the side of his nature by which he was connected with earth and had a mortal existence. Bis being quickened is contrasted in being not in the flesh, but in the spirit; i.e. on the side of his nature by which he was above earth and had an immortal existence. At death there takes place a separation of soul and body. During tbe time Christ's body was in the grave his soul was in Hades. It was Peter who showed himself alive to this important fact in bis comments on the words of the sixteenth psalm, " 'l'hou "·ilt not leave my soul in hell," in his sermon on the day of Pentecost. 'l'he expression of the fact in the Apostles' Creed is that he" descended into Hades." By "Hades" is denoted the invisible world, with the special association of tl,e world of the dead. Between our death and the resurrection we are to be in an incomplete state in so far as soul and body are not to be united. Our Lord's identi- fication with us extended to his being for a determined time in this incomplete state. At our death (if we are in Christ) we believe that there is to be a quickening of us in spirit in connection with our being placed under higher conditions. So we would seem to be taught here, regarding our Lord, that the extinguishing of his life in the flesh was immediately followed by a quickening in that which could not die, and had a reparate existence. While his body was not yet quickened, there was a bursting forth of glorious activity in his spirit in the new sphere of things and altered conditions into which he passed. (3) Being quwkened, he was also active in Hades. "In which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were dis- obedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water." In the spirit quickened, he was also active in a particular form. The congenial abode of Christ in Hades was Paradise, or the abode of the blessed dead. But he did not simply abide in Paradise; he went from it to the abode of the unsaved dead. This is here called a prison, being the place where there is meantime abridgment of liberty, He penetrated even to this department of Hades, and preached. This is a word of evan- gelical sense in the New TeFtament, and is to be interpreted in accordance with the rt-ference to Christ's death going before, and also in accordance with the preaching of the gospel in eh. iv. 6. We may understand that in Par~ise he not onl! mani- fested himself as the Incarnate One, but also announced hie death and his soon- to-be accomplished resurrection. And we are not to think of other announcement than this in the place where spirits are imprison~d. It is not. said tha~ ~e preached unto all the spirits in prison, but only unto a section of them, viz. the spmts of them that perished in the Flood. It cannot be said of the antediluvians referred to that they were very unfavourably situated for trial. There was addressed to them a call to repentance; for Noah preached-preached what their sins would bring upon them (according to the revelation made to him), but also preached the means of deliverance. He preached not only by word, but by act. And God was not in hasce to destroy. "My Spirit shall not always 1trive with man, for that he al.ao ie flesh: yet hil day■ cs. m. l-22.) TBE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. 169