1 Peter 3:18-22
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive,[a] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits— 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God.[b] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
We’ve followed Daniel’s story this term and seen how he bore witness to God in a hostile world. Reading this passage made me reflect on Noah and his life and how he bore witness to God in a hostile world for all those years while he built the ark, and no doubt was ridiculed for building an ark on dry land.
It is only because Christ bore witness through his suffering and death in the hostile world that we can be justified. Christ suffered unjustly, so that Daniel, Noah, you and I can be made just, and we can bear witness through our lives even in a hostile world and trust God to vindicate us. It seems like Peter is saying to the small minority of people seeking to obey God and surrounded by a godless culture to ‘Stand alone for God, if you must. Don’t cave into the pressure to conform to this godless world. Like Noah you will bear witness and also like Noah you will be delivered, and this wicked world will perish.’
Do I truly trust that I deserve to perish like the wicked if it wasn’t for Jesus, the righteous dying for the unrighteous? Have I testified to my faith in Christ through baptism and so publicly identified myself with his death and resurrection? Am I standing for Christ even if it means that sometimes I’m standing alone?
Petrina Rangiawha
