It is Saturday of Passion Week.
The followers of Jesus are devastated. All their hopes and dreams are gone. This could well be the longest day in history. Jesus’ body lies wrapped in the grave clothes soaked with the spices and preserving materials. But Jesus is not in the grave. He was very busy on this important day.
1 Peter 3:18-22 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, [19] by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, [20] who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. [21] There is also an antitype which now saves us–baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, [22] who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
What does this mean? It means that right after Christ died, between the cross and His resurrection, He went before the spirits in prison and proclaimed that God’s promise of salvation was fulfilled in Him, the Savior of the world. But who are the spirits to whom He preached?
Scripture says that they were…
· the disobedient who were living upon earth while Noah was preparing the Ark.
· the disobedient toward whom God was longsuffering.
· the disobedient who were not saved during the flood.
This passage definitely says that Christ preached to the spirits of the unbelievers who had lived in Noah’s day and were in prison, that is, the prison of hell. Does this mean that Christ gave them a second chance to be saved? No! It means that Jesus Christ went before them and proclaimed His triumph; that is, He went to vindicate the way of faith—to proclaim that the faith of Noah was victorious. Noah’s life and his proclamation of faith in God were never vindicated in his day. Therefore, Christ Himself went before the spirits of unbelievers and personally proclaimed the victory.
Jesus also was collecting keys. He picked up the keys to death, hell, and the grave.
A busy day for the Savior. His followers did not have a clue. They were in despair. They did not know that anything was going on. They were in the dark and they wondered where was God.
All the time God was moving in the most triumphant way behind the scene and in the dark to work the greatest miracle of all time.
For…Sunday is coming!
Think on these things.
Billy and Sheilah Daws