1 Peter 3:17 had also begun with the word “for,” to introduce the ground for what Peter had just said in 1 Peter 3:16. In the present verse the apostle uses a different Greek word (though also translated as “for”), this one used to lead him to expand on the bigger point he had been making in 1 Peter 3:13–17 as caught in 1 Peter 3:15: “Honor Christ the Lord as holy.”
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,