This is one of the hardest paragraphs in the New Testament, and one of the most comforting once its center is found. The ESV Expository Commentary notes that these verses have drawn more commentary space than any other passage in the letter, so a short reading cannot settle every question. It can stay with what Peter most clearly says.
18"Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." The word "also" ties the sentence to what came before, where Peter said it may be God's will for his readers to suffer for doing good. Three phrases carry the weight. Once means the suffering is finished. The righteous for the unrighteous means the innocent stood in for the guilty. And the purpose, to bring us to God, is about access. The Greek verb, *prosago*, means to lead someone into a presence. Everything he suffered was aimed at walking you in.
Then Peter says Christ was 18"put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." Flesh and spirit name two spheres of existence, the human realm of weakness and mortality, and the realm of God's power. Christ passed out of one and into the other, and that is the road Peter promises his readers.
The next verse is the famous difficulty. 19"He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison." Readers have proposed several identities for these spirits. Michael Heiser and others point to Genesis 6:1-4 and the Jewish traditions about rebellious heavenly beings, which Peter's first readers would have known. On that reading Christ announces his victory to the imprisoned powers. The Greek verb is a herald's word, an announcement, and it need not mean an offer of salvation. Wherever a reader lands, the force is clear: no power, however ancient, stands outside the reach of what Christ did.
Noah gives the next picture. 20"God's patience waited in the days of Noah," and the waiting itself was mercy. Then eight people were 20"brought safely through water." Peter's readers were a few, scattered and slandered, and he reminds them that being few has a precedent. The water that judged the world carried eight people to safety, because they were in the ark.
Baptism 21"now saves you," Peter says, and then he says what he means. It is an 21"appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The Greek word for appeal occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and interpreters have rendered it both appeal and pledge. Either way it is a person turning toward God. Behind the water stands the resurrection, the same power that gave new birth in the first chapter.
The paragraph ends at the throne. Jesus is 22"at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." Peter's readers feared neighbors and magistrates, and he sets the throne in front of them.
Ask what you fear this week that Christ has already been set over.
Prayer
Father, thank you that Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to you. Where we cannot understand every line, keep us close to what is clear. You brought Noah's family through the water, and you have brought us through death to life by the resurrection of your Son. Give us a good conscience before you, and let us fear no power, for he is at your right hand. In his name, amen.