The Ark and Baptism

All right, let's go to 1st Peter chapter 3, 1st Peter chapter 3, and we're continuing where we left off probably four months ago now. So we'll read from verse 18, 1st Peter chapter 3 from verse 18. Obviously we're not going to get done under the hour tonight. So 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 18, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, and being put to death in the flesh, he made but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water. 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, though through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. So we spoke about that very difficult section dealing with Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison. I'm not going to recap that. The message is on my personal website as an mp3, so you can listen to that there if you weren't here or if you've forgotten. Tonight we mainly want to deal with verses 21 and 22. But we have to pick up the connection, because obviously verse 20 is the introduction to verse 21. So he speaks about those who were disobedient, and then he speaks about Noah's ark, and they were disobedient while the ark was being prepared, and then he's now begin to speak about the ark. So he's spoken about the spirits that were disobedient, now he's speaking about the ark. And he says while the ark was prepared, in which that is, eight souls were saved through water. Eight souls were saved through water. Now this next passage, these verses that we're looking at now, are also a little bit more difficult, and I'll explain why they are a little difficult in a moment. And obviously we know the eight souls, it was Noah and his wife, and then his three sons and their wives making the eight souls. So they were saved, and they were saved through water. Obviously we know what happened, that the heavens opened up, and that the fountains of the deep, whatever that means, opened up, and the flood came and flooded the whole world. And Noah and his people were in the ark, and obviously the animals, and they were they were safe. Now verse 21 then says, there is also an anti-type which now saves us. Baptism. Now we have two words here that we must deal with. The first is anti-type. Anti-type. Some translations use a different word, but anti-type is probably the best word to use in this case. So we know we have types in Scripture, and we call or we refer to types and shadows. In the Old Testament, a lot of what was in the Old Testament were types of things that would happen in the New Testament. So they were earthly pictures of spiritual realities, or of something that has a future fulfillment. And so Moses is a type. Moses is a type of Jesus. Not that Moses can save, in the sense that Jesus saves, but Moses led the people, brought them out of Egypt, took them to the Promised Land. So he is a savior in that sense. The ark of the tabernacle was filled with types. Everything there represented something. When you came in the door, the door is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. Then you come to the altar of sacrifice, the first thing you come to. It is a type. It is a picture of the cross, where Jesus would ultimately make the ultimate sacrifice. Then you come to the laver. It speaks of the washing of the water of the Word. And so we can go right through, and I think we did study the tabernacle a long time ago. We can spend months and months and months looking at all. Everything is a type or a shadow of something in the New Testament, something that was future. Now the anti-type then is, let's just call it the fulfillment of the type. The fulfillment of the type. It stands against. Now we have a problem with this word anti, because generally when we use it we mean against, in a negative sense. But it can also be used in a positive sense. One of the hot topics right now is that people really hope that they have antibodies in their bloodstream against the virus. They are not bad, but they stand against. They oppose the virus. Now in this sense the anti-type does not oppose, but it stands opposite to. It is the fulfillment of. It is the other side of the coin. It is in fact the reality. Remember that we also speak of the Old Testament as being shadows, and obviously a shadow is cast by something that is real. So when you see the shadow of a tree, then you're able to look and see, oh no, there is a tree. The shadow is a outline of the reality. And so what happened with Noah in the ark is a picture of something that is a future reality. All right, now let's just leave that there, and then we'll try and put this all together. And the next word that is a problem here is baptism. We've spoken about this word before, but it's important for us to understand the problems with this word here, because in that lies the key of understanding what this verse is really saying. Remember that the word baptism is not a modern, not a modern, but a few hundred year old, but it is not, it is a made-up word. It's not a real word, if I can use that term. The problem, just to remind you, was that when the early translators of the English Bible came across this word in the Greek baptizo, which means to dip or to immerse, they had a problem. They could not translate it correctly, because the only way to translate that word is dip or immerse. They couldn't use, they couldn't translate it correctly, because the church at that time was not dipping or immersing. They were sprinkling babies. Now if they used the right word, that would have exposed the church, and that would have created all sorts of problems. So they had a dilemma, so they talked about it, and they came up with a decision, and the decision was, let's create a new word. So they took the Greek word baptizo, and they made it English, they anglicized it, and they made it baptize. So now nobody is the wiser about what this word really means, and so they say, well what we're doing is we're baptizing when we sprinkle, when we sprinkle water on someone. But in fact it's not, that is not baptism, it is not immersion or dipping. So that's the background, that's the problem. Now that creates another problem, because immediately we now associate, every time we read the word baptism in the Bible, we associate that with water baptism. But it does not always speak about water baptism, and you'll remember that there are four different baptisms. Baptism into Christ, baptism into water, baptism in the Holy Spirit, and baptism in suffering. Those terms are used in the New Testament, and again we don't have time, if you have a difficulty with that, I have a book on that, that deals with those. So here's the problem. Here he uses the word baptism, but whenever you read it in the original language, in the sense that you must ignore the idea that there's water baptism, and ask yourself the question, is this water baptism, or is it some other baptism, or some other immersion? So when you read the term, there is also an antitype which now saves us, immersion, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God. All right, so is this water baptism? And probably, I would imagine, seventy percent of expositors and of preachers will say this is water baptism. But I want you to ask a very important question, and this is part of understanding the passage. There is an antitype, so I'm going to deal with the antitype in a moment, which now saves us. Baptism. So he's saying baptism is the antitype of what happened with Noah and the ark. Okay, I'm going to go back to that in a moment. Now let me ask you this question. Does water baptism save us? And obviously the answer is no. Water baptism does not save us. There is a wrong doctrine that teaches, or that we call baptismal regeneration, and basically what it says is that when you baptize, you get born again. That's based on the whole covenant theology of reformed doctrine, which basically says that that little baby, when you bring that baby, and you sprinkle that baby, or baptize that baby, then that baby is born again. That is, all reformed churches teach that. The Anglican church or the Episcopalian church, that's all part of their understanding. And so baptism clearly cannot save. What saves? The blood of Jesus Christ. The sacrifice of the cross is the only thing that saves, and faith, obviously, in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what saves. Baptism does not save. You can be baptized a thousand times, and you will not be more saved than when you began. So you can see the problem. The antitype which now saves us, baptism. So we say, well it's water baptism, because didn't the previous verse speak about water? So this must be water. But it cannot be water, in my understanding, because baptism in water does not save me. Now, we're not going to be able to get into the whole teaching on water baptism, but remember that water baptism is simply an outward expression of an inward reality. Something that happened to me inside. Let me go over that very, very quickly. What happened on the inside? I died with Christ, I was buried, and I rose again in newness of life. Romans chapter 6. And so water baptism symbolizes that I have died as I go under the water, I'm buried, and I come up a new creature. The water does not do that. The water is simply symbolic of what already has happened spiritually inside of me. There's an aspect in which the water baptism speaks about the cleansing of my sins. And you'll see makes reference not to the removal of the flesh. All right, so there is an aspect in which this is a picture, where the picture of water baptism is in this passage. But I don't believe this is water baptism. I believe in water baptism, as you know, but we've got to be careful. There are particularly two passages, this one and Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6 is used by most people as a definitive passage on water baptism, but Romans chapter 6 clearly does not speak about water baptism. What do these two verses speak about? They speak about baptism into Christ. Baptism into Christ. So now, and that's a whole other doctrine which we don't have time to deal with tonight. Maybe we'll come back to it. So let me ask you the question now. The anti-type saves us. If water baptism cannot save us, then what is the anti-type? What is the reality? Clearly the reality is Christ. It is Christ that saves us. Now let's go back to verse 20. And the last three lines, four lines. While the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water. Now go back to the ark. What did the water represent? What was the water did it speak of in Noah and the ark? Did it speak about the washing of the blood of Jesus Christ? No. What was it? It was the wrath of God. It was God's judgment. And remember, He gives them the rainbow saying, I'm not going to destroy the earth again this way. Jason and Angela may not always believe that, but the water does not represent the blood in Noah's ark. There's no way it does. The water does not save. The water is the judgment. What saved them? The ark saved them. And we know the story that only those who got into the ark were saved. Those who stayed outside the ark were killed. They drowned. So what is the ark a picture of? Of Christ. So what is Noah preaching for a hundred years? He is saying, get into the ark. But he's really saying, you need to be in Christ. Now he didn't understand that message, but we preach the same message. We're waiting for Jesus to come again. We're waiting for the judgment to come again. This time the judgment's not going to be water, it's going to be fire. But our message is the same. Get into the ark, get into Jesus, so that you can be saved. Because if you're not in Jesus, if you're outside of Him, the wrath of God will fall upon you. Remember, John says the wrath of God abides upon those who don't believe. And so everyone who is, every person who lives, lives under the wrath of God. But what did Jesus do? He came and He came between us and the wrath of God. We got into Him, as it were, and we sheltered in Him as God poured upon the Lord Jesus at the cross of Calvary, His judgment and His wrath. Which was really mine, but Jesus takes it in my place. Can you see that the ark is a picture of Jesus? Now the picture, the thing gets a little bit more complicated because clearly there is a sense in which they go through the water and come out on the other side into a new life. Can you see that picture? Because remember the old earth is destroyed and when eventually the ark comes to rest and the waters subside and they're able to come out, they have a whole new world. Everything has been cleansed, everything is new. Now of course there is a sense in which the same picture exists in the Red Sea. The Red Sea did not save them. The Red Sea is also a picture of baptism, because just as in the same way they go through the Red Sea and they come out on the other side. They would have been dead, like the Egyptians, if the Red Sea, if God closed the sea while they were inside. So for those reasons I believe that when he's speaking about baptism here, he is saying that Noah had the type in the ark. We have the reality in Christ. They were saved, and obviously their salvation was from the flood, not eternal salvation like we have, but they were saved from the flood by being in the ark. We are saved from God's wrath by being in Jesus. Now obviously in the same way water baptism is a picture of all of this, and that's why it gets a little bit confusing, and that's why it's so easy to assume that this is speaking about water baptism. And so in the same way when we go through the waters of baptism, it speaks of the same thing of Noah going into the ark, leaving the old world behind, coming out on the other side into a new world. Now he touches on that then in the next verse, the next part of the verse in the section in brackets, not the removal of the filth of the flesh. It's another reason why I don't believe that this is water baptism, because he says it's not an external thing. The word flesh here, the Greek word sakhs, which simply means what we understand to be the flesh, not just the body, but the carnal nature. So it's not just my carnal nature that is cleansed, but the answer of a good conscience towards God. How do I get a good conscience? By believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't get a good conscience if you've sinned, and all have sinned. How do you change the guilt into no guilt? You can't. You can try forget about it, you can try and flood your mind with other thoughts or do whatever, but the guilt is there. It's only the blood of Christ that can remove the guilt, and once the guilt is removed, I now have a good conscience. So again, what Peter is saying is that it is not the cleansing of my flesh, but it is the cleansing of my heart, if you will. It's the cleansing of my conscience that has happened, all that Jesus did for us at the Cross of Calvary. And here's another reason why this is not water baptism for me. The last part of the verse, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. How does this all happen? How do I get saved? How do I get a good conscience? It's through the resurrection, or through the Lord Jesus. Now remember, resurrection is not what saves us. It's the package deal, if you will. And we don't have the time, but if you go home and look at the previous verses, you'll see that in these previous verses he speaks about Jesus's death, speaks about his burial, preaching to the spirits that were disobedient. Now he's speaking about his resurrection. So all of this needs to be read in context. So he's not just saying we're saved through the resurrection, but in the context of what he is saying, we're saved through his death, through his burial, through his resurrection, and his ascension. You say, well, how does the ascension save us? Well, because we need a high priest. And the book of Hebrews says that he now ever lives to make intercession for us. He's pleading our cause. Now that doesn't save us in the sense of being born again, but there's a sense in which it keeps me saved, because he is pleading for me, he's praying for me. Remember, he says to Peter, he says, I've prayed for you. Satan wants you, but I've prayed for you that your faith will not fail. And so there is therefore the anti-type which now saves us. Now let's go to verse 22, and I'm going to just rush through this one, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God. Remember, he's speaking about Jesus. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God. So again, he's writing in shorthand. He's not giving us all of the details. When he says that he is seated at his right hand, the right hand of God, what does that mean? Remember, all of these things have a meaning. When we speak about the White House, what do we mean by the White House? Do we mean the house down the street that's painted white? No, obviously we mean the one on Pennsylvania Avenue, but it represents much more than that. It represents the seat of government. It represents the place where the president operates from and lives in. And so we say, well, you know, the White House, it's not just the place with the pillars in front. There's a lot more attached to that. And in the same way here, this idea of Jesus seated at the right hand, or is at the right hand of God, there are two things that I'm just going to quickly highlight here. The first is what I've already mentioned, that he is interceding for us. That's what he's doing there at the right hand of the Father. He's pleading our cause. Why does he need to plead our cause? Well, first of all, he needs to pray for us that we would endure, that we would overcome, that we would be victorious, that we would be strengthened in our times of weakness. So he's praying for us for those things. But he's also praying for us in the sense of pleading our cause, just like a advocate or a lawyer pleads the cause of his client. So why does he have to plead our cause? Because we have an accuser. We have a prosecutor who is accusing us before the Father. Remember Job. Have you seen your boy Job? You think he's such a good guy? He's accusing us. And does he have ammunition to accuse us of? Of course he has. And we give him plenty of ammunition every day. I heard a preacher the other day speak about his wife, and he says that his wife hasn't sinned since sometime last year. Well, I don't know. We all sin, and we sin daily, and we give the devil ammunition to go before the Father and say, have you seen what that guy did? But Jesus is pleading our cause, and Jesus is saying, but my blood has paid for that sin. My blood is effective to remove and to wash and to cleanse that sin. So he is pleading our cause. The second thing that it represents when it says that he is seated at the right hand of God, is that he is in a position of authority. We've spoken many times about this thing of being seated, and when the Queen of England sits in her throne, she's in a position of authority. Jesus is in his position of authority. Remember that he humbled himself, became obedient to God, has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee should bow. So it's speaking about his authority. Remember Matthew chapter 28, going to all the world, sorry, all power, all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore into all the world and preach the gospel. And so it's speaking about the fact that he is in power. The book of Hebrews deals with this a lot, and I'd love to go back to the book of Hebrews. We dealt with Hebrews way back in Burbank, but in Hebrews it says that the priests and the Old Testament could never sit down. There was no chair or seat in the tabernacle or in the temple, because they had to stand all the time, because the work was never done. But then it says of Jesus that he has sat down, meaning the work is finished. Now obviously he's still interceding, he's still advocating for us, but the work of atonement has finished, there's no more sacrifice. He said it is finished, he paid the price, and now he has sat down, the work is done. So it's representing those things. So the issue of authority is the next thing that he's going to deal with. So he has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God. Remember that there's, in the Hebrew thinking, there's a difference between the left and the right hand. The right hand is the position of, is the first position, or let's say the second position after the king, and then the third position is the left hand. And so he is at the right hand of God, in other words he is second, but at the same time he is God. Angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. All right, now next week we're going to begin to deal with verse chapter 4, where he speaks about suffering again, and when he gets really into this thing of suffering. So he's now laying a foundation for our suffering. And I think that while there are definitely people who have a worse situation than we have, at the same time we do understand the difficulties that we've experienced, and they may be minor, as Erica said, this is not war. But you know, the effect that it has on our minds and on our emotions is very, very real, and ultimately even on our bodies. Having been cooped up over all these months, and now having all of the demonstrations, let's call it, and all of the stuff going on at the same time, it really has an impact upon us. But he is reminding us that in whatever situation we find ourselves, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. He is praying for us, but he has all power, he has all authority, and he's reminding us that he has authority. Now I want you to see, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him. I'm not going to analyze those words because we're out of time, but in those words are included the good angels, also the demons, also any governmental authorities in this world. In other words, non-spiritual, let's call the others spiritual in the sense of demons and angels, but physical authorities. Everything has been made subject to him. Now this is the point that we must remember, I'm going to come back to this as we begin next week. Everything has been put under his feet. There is nothing that is not under his control, and this is important for us to understand, because we get to a place where we believe that things just happen, and that there is no control, that the devil just does what he does, that the stuff that has been happening over this year, that they just happen, that things just go wrong in our bodies, things just go wrong in our emotions and in our minds, that there is no God who is in control. And of course the problem is, and as it came out in the Testimonies also, is that what we know is that even if it doesn't work out the way we want it to work out, God knows best. He is working all things for the good to them that love him, and are called according to his purpose. And so we must get this idea that the devil is running around just doing whatever he's doing, and that he is a free agent out of our minds. Now I know that that creates all sorts of difficulties for us. Does the devil really have God's permission to do what he is doing in the world today? Yes he does, because the scripture is very clear that the devil is not a free agent. He is under, even in the Old Testament in Job, you can see that he is under God's authority. Now that we've come through the cross, he has even less power. So why is God then allowing him to do what he does? Because God has got a plan. God has a plan. And we are not subject to chance. We are not subject to the devil's plans and the devil's schemes. We are not subject to the political stuff that's going on in our world today. We're subject to God, and God is working his plan in our lives. And we think, well, you know, it doesn't make sense. It does make sense, and if you can't see it, I can see it. I can see a growth in most of you in these last five months that I have not seen in two years before. So God has brought something really good out of this. God has done things in people's lives, and all of the teaching and preaching that we've done in all of these years, you've now had to put it into practice. It's now needing to become real. And so where does this all come from? It's God allowing... I don't believe that God brings about this trouble that we find around us in the form of the virus, in the form of the political upheaval, in the form of all of these things. I don't believe that God is the cause of evil. There are those who believe that. There are Christians, particularly in the Reformed tradition, that believe that God is the author of evil. I don't believe that God is the author of evil. But he permits the devil to do what the devil does, because God is working out a better plan. God is using that which the devil has determined for our ill, for our harm. God is changing that for our good. And so he is in control, and so we must rest in that. And I believe that that is the great comfort that we have. That's the comfort that Peter really is giving these people who are facing physical persecution, possibly even physical death, martyrdom for the faith. And he's saying, God is in control, and your life and your faith and everything is in his hands. He is seated at the right hand of God, and everything—angels, authorities, powers—everything has been made subject to him. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. Lord, we thank you that he is our ark, that he is our refuge, that we can find in him safety from the storm. And Lord, that even though the trouble would come around us as a flood, as in Noah's day, if we find ourselves in Jesus, we are safe and we're secure, and we will not be overcome. And so Lord, we pray that you'd help us to be fleeing to you, and Lord, help us to be those that others can look at and say, we can see that you are riding on the waves instead of being drowned by them. And so Lord, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that he was risen, that he is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, that he is praying for each one of us. Thank you, Lord, that he is praying for Samson, he's praying for Simon, and for Lissette, and for each one of us, for Jason who's struggling. Lord, we thank you that he is praying for us, and Lord, that he is working within each one of us, his glorious plan, and conforming us to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Lord, I pray that these things may be real, that they may not just be theories, but Lord, that there may be realities that strengthen us in times of trial, in times of difficulty and challenge. We ask this in Jesus' name. We pray that you'd go with us. Lord, we remember those of our members who cannot come because of the restrictions, and we pray for them, Lord, and we trust that they were able to join with us on the live stream. We pray, Lord, that you would bring us together again safely on Sunday. Keep us from the virus. Keep us, Lord, from the violence. And above all, Lord, keep our hearts and our minds stayed on you, Lord, that we may not be upset and disturbed by the things that are just going on on the television, on the news, and around us all the time. But Lord, that our hearts may be fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we may fill our hearts and minds with his peace, and with his love, and his joy. We ask these things in Jesus' name.