1 Peter 3:22

who is gone into heaven The parallelism between the substance of this verse and that of 1 Timothy 3:16, and of both with the closing clauses of the second section of the Apostles" Creed, leaves scarcely any room for doubt that we have here a precious fragment of the baptismal profession of faith of the Apostolic Church. The train of thought of the previous verse naturally led on to this. This was what the answer of a good conscience towards God involved. In the union of confession with the mouth and belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in Romans 10:9, we may probably trace a reference to a like formulary. The word for "he is gone" is the same participle as that in 1 Peter 3:19 and is important as determining its meaning. If there was a real Ascension into Heaven, there was also a real descent into Hades. St Peter seems to echo the words of St Paul, "Now that he ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?" (Ephesians 4:9.)

angels and authorities and powers Here again the phraseology reminds us of that of the twin Epistles of St Paul (Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16). "Authorities" and "powers" are used as comprehensive terms, including the whole hierarchy of heaven, Cherubim, Seraphim and the like; probably also, looking to Colossians 2:15; Philippians 2:10, and the manifest sequence of thought from 1 Peter 3:19, the powers of evil who had been subdued by the conquering Christ in His descent into Hades.