The guy gets in the pulpit and says, "well you know we're in a series in 1 Peter,
you know, and now we're in 1 Peter 3:14 through 22 and...
we're just going to skip this."
He goes, "it's just so strange. I don't know what's going on here.
We're just gonna skip it." And he did! like this wasn't even there.
I tell the story a lot about the 1 Peter passage because this is the spiritual warfare passage
and people listening to me right now are thinking, "why now 1 Peter 3.
That's that crazy passage. Where you're getting spiritual warfare out of that?”
1 Peter 3:14 through 22. So you have Peter for whatever reason.
What does he throw into the blender?
I'll stick with the meal. Just for the sake of those.
But we've got Noah, we've got the ark.
We've got the spirits in prison. We've got the resurrection.
Spirits still chained.
Right spirits still there in prison in chains. We've got Jesus.
What in the world is going on here? Like what possible relationship?
Defile themselves with strange flesh.
Like, what? This must have just been a bad day for Peter.
Like, "I don't know what the right so I'm throwing it all in there, you will figure it out later."
What relationship do these things have? Well, this is the passage
again, as my story goes, we were in Wisconsin looking for a church.
We thought we'd found one because this guy's going through 1 Peter.
So we skipped out a few weeks and visited some others to come back.
And it's like, it's 1 Peter 3 day. And I'm thinking; this is it. This is gonna be it, man.
This is gonna seal the deal right here. Because this is a weird passage. It's fun.
I can't wait to hear what this guy says.
So this is the one where the guy gets to the pulpit. I've only ever seen this happen one time.
The guy gets to the pulpit and says, "well, you know, we're in a series in 1 Peter.
You know, now we're in 1 Peter 3:14 through 22. And...
we're just going to skip this.
Because it's just so strange. I don't know what's going on here. We're just gonna skip it."
And he did. Like, it wasn't even there. And I'm like, I'm so stunned.
And another church where you just don't fit in, Mike.
He just put the white flag on the pole and starts waving. I honestly thought...
was going through my mind other than we're not coming back is, could you just try?
You stood up to heaven and...
Could you just try something, you know, just like fake it or so just try.
But it's actually not that terribly complicated.
Because you have to kind of know how to approach what Peter's doing.
And I like to illustrate this way. It's all about typology.
And people say; what in the world is typology?
Well, we know what a prophecy is; a prophecy, you read the prophets.
It's a verbal utterance of something that's going to happen in the future. Okay?
A type is a nonverbal thing or institution or event or person
that foreshadows something in the future.
Okay.
It's a nonverbal prophecy.
So, you know, the Passover lamb is a type of what happens with Jesus.
Yeah.
it foreshadows Okay,
Yep.
There's a connection there.
So, Paul, when he writes Romans, he uses Adam as a type of Jesus.
A foreshadowing. He'll talk about Adam, and then he'll proceed to go
from what we know about Adam to see how this foreshadowed
this part of Jesus' life and theology and all this stuff.
He uses Adam as a foil, or as a type.
Peter doesn't use Adam, he uses Enoch.
He uses the story of Enoch. So we know from 2 Peter, that he knows this material well,
because he'll allude to things that are in, like the spirits in prison.
That's not in the Old Testament with Genesis 6. That comes from other literature.
Yeap.
So we know that he knows this well. And so Peter uses the Enoch story
that he assumes his readers know.
And if you know the story, you know, Enoch, yes, he walks with God,
but this is in connection with what happens before the flood, with the sons of God.
Yeah.
The Watchers, and they're being condemned. And so at one point in the story,
as it's told in the Book of Enoch, the Watchers contact Enoch and said,
"well, you got a lot of favor with God, you know, so can you like, go up to God and ask him
to not keep us in prison here. We're sorry. It was wrong.
You know, we get it. He's right. Could you go intercede for us?"
And so Enoch goes to God. Tells God what the request is. God says, "Nah, I don't think so."
Yeah.
And then he descends to the spirits in prison.
And he announces to them; "well, you're still doomed."
Yeah.
"The answer's no." And then he leaves. Okay, so Peter knows the story
is connected with the flood, there you got the ark, the water, the whole bit.
That's great.
So when Jesus, (he gets he uses all that to mirror Jesus),
when Jesus dies, he descends.
Yep.
We know that part, into the grave. I mean, it's even in the Apostles Creed.
You know, I mean, it just stuffs like this.
But early church tradition linked baptism,
because this is where this story is going to end; with baptism,
to a denunciation of the dark powers, in the baptismal formulas.
Because their idea was Jesus goes down there, he preaches to the spirits in prison,
which are not the dead humans. It's these guys.
Yes. And I think a lot of Christians would even think;
oh, the dead spirits. Those are like, you know, righteous people
that died and now they're getting to hear the gospel.
They're the ones that are in prison. And so Jesus goes down there.
And again, this is Mike's paraphrase, but it's like,
"I know you didn't expect to see me here fellows.
And you probably think that the rest of your compatriots won
because I'm dead.
No. The answer's no, because I know something..."
He's the second Enoch.
They said that's what Enoch told them.
You're still defeated. You are still doomed. You're not getting out of here.
Wow.
But I am. So that's where the resurrection comes in. So Peter uses the story.
So that the "he led captivity captive"
That's something different.
Okay.
There's parts of it that are related, but it's something different,
because that is conquest language for the dark power.
So that's when he uses the Ascension and the disarming of the powers.
And then the coming of the spirit and all that, again, to mess with the dark powers,
with the Holy Spirit. So Peter is actually playing off this story.
And he's using it as a type to tell the story about Jesus's death,
his burial and his resurrection. And that's why he says, you know, that baptism,
when you're baptized with this story in mind,
and he connects it to having a good conscience before God, in faith and things like this.
Baptism is important because it is a sign; it's as though you,
when you go down below the water and come out,
you are mimicking this journey of Jesus. Okay, we know this from Romans 6,
you know, you're down and you're brought up, but you're mimicking this.
And if you have this in your head, when you go down under the water
and come back up, it tells the spirits in prison, that they're losers.
You're staying here, and I'm not.
It's a statement of who you're aligned with. Okay, it's really awesome
when you thought about what he's doing.
Yeah, it's like, say, I just saw it differently this time. It's like, okay,
so someone when they get baptized, it's like, it's almost like
the Lord showing them off down. "Like, just like, Jesus, guess what?
You're staying here. I'm not. I'm not part realm of the dead." Wow.
You got witnesses, and it's not just human witnesses. This is the supernatural part.
Yeah.
If you're thinking about baptism, the way Peter was trying to analogize it.
Aha.
Who else gets the message of whose side you're on?
They do. They do. We've lost another one, and we're still here.