God Preaching Through Us

I posted this recently on a discussion board, so I may as well put it here. I was arguing that God himself is preaching, appealing and offering the gospel through us to all that hear.

A Petrine Argument:

God is, in a sense, preaching through us when we preach in real holiness and truth, i.e. when we are consistent with his word. Just as Jesus suffered through his church when Saul persecuted her (Acts 9:4), so Jesus is preaching through his church (in the Spirit) when she faithfully offers the gospel terms to lost humanity.

I would argue that the pre-incarnate Christ was preaching through Noah when Noah preached to the perishing sinners in his day, according to 1 Peter 3:19. Just as he was in the prophets when they were searching the scriptures, he was also in Noah when he preached repentance.

NKJ 1 Peter 1:10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

NKJ 1 Peter 3:18 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.

NKJ 2 Peter 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;

Here's how I combine these passages. Noah was warning people and preaching repentance (even as we do, but we have more information about Christ). He was calling upon his generation to believe God's revealed word. When these people were alive on earth, they were disobeying the exhortations of Noah and the Spirit of Christ who was in him at (just as he was in all the prophets) making the appeal. Now, these same spirits are in a prison of sorts awaiting final judgment. Note: The timing of Christ's preaching was in the days of Noah and through Noah, not during some intermediate state between his death and resurrection.

God was in the prophets and Apostles in a special way when they spoke the word of God, but it is still true that the Spirit of Christ appeals to lost humanity through us, even as he did through them.

A Few Concluding Comments:

There are different ways that one can argue that God is preaching through us and offering the gospel indescriminately to all who hear, but I thought I would bring up these controversial passages to make the connection.

If one rejects this reasoning, then 2 Cor. 5:20 should be sufficient:

NRS 2 Corinthians 5:20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

p.s. If you want good commentaries that interpret 1 Peter 3:18 in the way I did, see Wayne Grudem's 1 Peter commentary in the Tyndale series, and check Curtis Vaughn's Bible Study Commentary on 1 Peter (Zondervan).