Bring Us To God

Peter tells us that Jesus was the “just” man who suffered for the sins of the “unjust,” and that the purpose of this suffering was to “bring us to God.” William Dalton (Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits) points out that the verb prosago has technical legal meaning in classical Greek, “where it can mean the bringing of a person before a tribunal, or the presentation of a person at a royal court” (135). This usage is evident in New Testament passages where “Christ brings Christians to God’s merciful judgment seat, or, better, to the throne of the divine King” (135).

The “more interesting” usage is found in both classical Greek and the LXX, where the verb “can mean the ritual act of bringing sacrifice to God” or “the consecration of persons to the ritual service of God.” The Vulgate read Peter thus: ut nos offerret Deo. And Dalton thinks this fits Peter’s theology. He has already described the church as a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices (2:5) and thus “it is quite possible that in the prosagage of 3:18 we have an implicit reference to the consecration of the Christian priesthood” (135). Jesus offered Himself as sacrifice not so we can avoid being sacrifices. He offered Himself to bring us to God as sacrifices.

Dalton connects this with Peter’s mysterious and controverted statement about Jesus’ proclamation to the spirits. He argues that the opening relative clause of verse 18 (“in which”) refers to the pneumati of the previous verse: He died in the realm of flesh, was raised in the realm of Spirit, and in that realm made proclamation. Or, more straightforwardly: He makes proclamation by the same Spirit who made Him live (zoopoieo). That means that the proclamation to the spirits is a post-resurrection event. Jesus had to die in flesh before He could proclaim to the spirits. Dalton summarizes the point: “Christ suffered to bring us to God, and the way he brought us to God was by being put to death in the flesh, and then brought to life in the spirit. The text continues in the next verse: ‘and in this spirit he went and made proclamation. . . .’ We are dealing with two aspects of Christ’s saving ‘story.’ By his death and resurrection he brought us to God, and also as risen Lord, he proclaimed to the spirits what he had done” (148).

Though Dalton does not quite say it, the import is that Jesus’ proclamation in the Spirit includes the act of “bringing” or offering us to God. He makes proclamation to the spirits (in part) by offering us to God as sacrifices, righteous sacrifices. As Dalton says, the proclamation to the disobedient spirits (3:19-20) corresponds to the subjection of (implicitly) hostile spirits (3:22). Jesus rebukes the evil spirits by His resurrection and by offering us to the Father in His death and resurrection. The content of the proclamation is that “Jesus is Lord” (159), and His Lordship is demonstrated in His consecration of a priestly people.

Dalton notes the triple parallel implicit in the passage. In the immediate context, Christians are being attacked by persecutors; in the flood story, Noah was a preacher of righteousness mocked by his sinful contemporaries; in the gospel events, Jesus triumphs over evil spirits (159). We might press the analogy: Peter’s readers can be confident in fact of persecution because Jesus triumphed over spirits, just as Noah was delivered from his adversaries. Or, more precisely, because Jesus died and rose to offer us to God, our suffering is caught up into Jesus’ triumphant proclamation to the spirits.