1 Pet 4.1-6
The turn
(1 Peter 4.1-6)
Jason Procopio
One thing about modern Christianity that has always perplexed me is the idea of a “nominal” Christian, or a “non-practicing” Christian. I know where it comes from—it comes from Christianity becoming more of a cultural or a family tradition for many people—but I still find it really strange. As traditions go, Christianity is pretty terrible. The Christian faith requires you to affirm many things, and live out many things, that are frankly absurd if you don’t actually believe them. God becoming a man and being born of a virgin girl and offering his body and blood to eat and drink in a symbolic ritual… It’s all pretty weird, if you don’t think it actually, truly happened.
But nominal Christians there are, and almost always have been.
But something just as perplexing—although far less easy to notice—is those Christians who are in fact nominal Christians, even if they don’t think they are. The apostle John puts it this way (1 John 2.3-4):
3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him...
That’s pretty tough…but that is the persistent message of the Bible. A Christian is not someone who affirms what the Bible says, but someone who lives in obedience to God’s commandments, as a natural response to what the Bible says.
This is the direction Peter is going to take us now, in 1 Peter chapter 4. We took a break last week to do a deep dive in baptism, in the last two verses in 1 Peter 3. So real quickly, before we get started, let’s remember what we’ve seen so far.
We are elect exiles on this earth, naturalized citizens of the kingdom of God, and heirs of God’s promises to his people. These future blessings give us reasons to pursue holiness in our lives, to live as God’s people in the midst of a hostile world. We testify to God’s grace in the way we respond persecution and unjust suffering. And we have a model for this right response in Jesus Christ, who suffered unjustly for us, to bring us to God.
That, in a very short nutshell, is what we’ve seen so far. And it is to this example that Peter returns now, in chapter 4, verse 1.
The Turn (v. 1-2)
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking,
What way of thinking is that? The same way of thinking Peter started to show in in chapter 3, verse 18—Christ’s willingness to suffer to do God’s will.
In general, people are willing to do anything to escape suffering. And that’s why what we saw in chapter 3 is so difficult for many of us to wrap our minds around: that the testimony of the gospel might be more important than escaping pain and living a comfortable life. But it is.
Peter says the same thing here, but this time, the goal is different. In chapter 3, the goal was to give a good Christian witness in suffering. This time, the goal is easier to understand, but harder to accept: we must be willing to suffer, if necessary, in order to avoid sinning.
This is what he means in 3.17 when he said that it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. And this is why he reminded us in 3.21 of the appeal for a good conscience we made to God. It is a very hard thing to accept suffering in order to do the right thing, to obey the good conscience God has given us.
And anyone who has ever been faced with that choice knows how hard it is. You are ridiculed for refusing to participate in certain conversations, certain activities. You lose a girlfriend or a boyfriend because you won’t sleep with them. You accept unjust rebuke in order to not save your pride, have the last word, and win the fight.
These are incredibly difficult decisions to make; incredibly difficult consequences to face.
But here’s what we have to remember. No matter how difficult these situations are, no matter how hard it is to make those choices, they are non-negotiable for the Christian. If we are faced with the choice, we must be willing to suffer in order to avoid sinning.
Why? V. 1 again:
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
Now this is sort of a confusing verse. Obviously he isn’t saying that suffering makes us no longer sin at all. We read from 1 John earlier. In 1 John 1.8, John says clearly that anyone who says they have no sin is a liar. So Peter’s not saying that going through suffering somehow makes us immune to sin.
He’s speaking about a clear and decisive shift in our lives. If someone manages to accept suffering in order to obey God’s commands, it is because he has made a decisive break from sin in his life: he has given his life over to Christ, pursuing obedience to him at all cost. He will still struggle with sin, certainly; but living in obedience to God, for his glory has become THE PRIMARY FOCUS AND GOAL of his life.
This is what we mean when we talk about repentance. Repentance is much more extreme than just saying you’re sorry for your sin, and asking God to forgive you. Repentance is turning away from sin, and walking in the opposite direction—away from disobedience, and towards obedience. Away from what displeases God, and toward what pleases him. It is a complete and total 180° turn.
Now why would Peter take the time to describe the relationship between suffering and holiness? Why would he go so far as to say that God calls us to live the rest of our lives, the rest of our time in the flesh, no longer for human passions but for the will of God? That’s pretty extreme.
He says it for two reasons. 1) Peter knows that this shift, this turn, is the norm for the Christian life. And 2) he knows that far too few Christians actually accept to live it out. Repentance is a 180° turn away from sin—and we settle for 90°. Repentance is putting sin to death, every day. And we settle for sticking it in a closet somewhere, where it’s out of sight…but where we can always go back to it if we want to.
Surely you’ve had this experience. You see a tendency in your own life—toward anger, toward pride, toward lust, toward dishonesty. And you know the Bible calls you not to give into that tendency. So you do your best for a while. But at a certain point, due to circumstances or just how you feel at that given moment, you remember how good it felt to give into it. To let your anger explode when you feel it. To get the last word in. To look where you shouldn’t look. To just get out of a tough situation by fudging the truth. And you want to feel that again. So you do it.
Now we’ve all had this experience. We’ve all been weak in this way before. And so what do we do? We ask God to forgive us and we commit to obey him once again.
But somewhere in the back of our minds, it’s still there, in the closet. We know we can go back to it if we want to.
And then we come before a situation in which it is very clear that if I resist this temptation, if I say no to sin, I will suffer for it. It will no longer be a private matter; people will see me not do what they’re all doing, and they’ll ridicule me for it—or even worse, they will openly persecute me for it.
In that moment, if our repentance has been anything less than a full 180° turn away from sin, we will be in a very precarious position. Because look at the choice we have.
On the one hand, I could resist sin, and suffer potential devastating loss because I chose to obey God rather than give in to temptation.
Or, I could escape that suffering, I could go on living an easy, pain-free life, by giving in to this sin.
That choice will be unbelievably one-sided if I haven’t made a practice of repentance. If I have made a 90° turn from sin, rather than a 180° turn. If I’ve kept sin in the closet, where I can go back to it when I feel like it, because secretly, deep down, I still kind of like it.
Suffer for an obedience I haven’t fully owned; or escape suffering by giving in to a sin I enjoy. That’s the easiest choice in the world.
Here’s the point of all this (here’s what Peter is saying): we know how sincere our repentance is when we stand to lose something for it.
When we suffer because we refuse to give in to temptation, we give ourselves tangible, visible proof that our repentance is sound, rooted in God’s good promises to us, proof that although we still struggle with sin, we are free from it. It no longer has decisive power over us. When we suffer in order to obey God, we reassure our own hearts and souls that we have made a break from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.
One Choice (v. 3-6)
So Peter has told us that when we suffer in order to obey God, we show that we have made a break from sin. That we have repented—that we have made a 180° turn away from sin and towards obedience to God.
And now he gives us further incentive to pursue obedience in this way, even if it is costly.
3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
A lot of people have a hard time with Christianity because they say, But think of all the things I won’t be able to do. Peter is clear: you’re not missing anything by saying no! All of us have sinned as unbelievers. All of us know what is like to live as sinners. That’s already more than enough experience: these are things we should no longer want.
But it’s important to take a close look at this little list he gives us (and it’s nearly always the same thing when an apostle lists sins). These lists are never exhaustive—he’s not saying that these things he’s listed are the only sins unbelievers want to indulge in. But the lists are telling in that nearly every time, and here as well, they don’t just speak of acts, but desires. We see the same thing in the gospels—Jesus is constantly targeting not just actions, but the heart from which those actions spring.
I know that a lot of people have a hard time with these kinds of messages. I’ve been accused of being legalistic, of being too extreme regarding my view on sin. But my only goal, at every point, is to communicate what the Bible says—I don’t want to say anything for which you can’t go back to the text we’re looking at and see why I said it. And I just can’t escape this—even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. If we take seriously what Peter says here, what the other apostles say, what Jesus said— if we are to take the Bible even remotely seriously—we must admit that we don’t take sin seriously enough. Far from it.
Just think about the things Christ commands his followers. Here are just a few examples.
He told us to take up our cross follow him (Matthew 16.24-25).
Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12.29-30).
He told us to rejoice when we are persecuted (Luke 6.22-23).
He told us not to be anxious about our daily needs (Matthew 6.25).
He told us not to be angry, or insult (Matthew 5.21-22).
He told us to forgive others when they wrong us (Matthew 18.21-22).
He told us to always speak the simple truth (Matthew 5.33-37).
One more—and this one I’ll read to you verbatim. Matthew 5.20:
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
In other words: think of the most righteous, most morally upright person you can imagine…and be more righteous than them. Now of course our righteousness isn’t determined by our own moral ability, but by the fact that Christ died for us and gave us his righteousness. But if we have received Christ’s righteousness, if we have been saved by his grace, that grace will necessarily drive us to become more like Christ, to live according to the righteousness he gave us.
And this is just a small selection of the commandments from only Jesus himself.
Remember what we’ve seen since the beginning: we are citizens of the kingdom of God, living as elect exiles in this world. You can often identify foreigners by a variety of traits: their physical traits, their way of dressing, their customs, their accents (that’s how you know I’m not a native Frenchman).
God is so extreme regarding holiness because it is the means by which his people are identified. You can identify citizens of the kingdom of God by their rejection of the sin everyone else celebrates. We don’t love the things they love; we don’t desire the things they desire; we don’t have the same priorities.
People will see this. And we have this romantic idea that when they see it, they’ll be pricked in their consciences, convinced it’s a good thing, and change their ways too. But it won’t always go like that.
4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.
Now this, like v. 19 in chapter 3, is a strangely worded verse—and it could give us the idea that after dying, Christ went into hell and preached to people there, to give them a second chance at salvation. The Bible is clear elsewhere that that didn’t happen. So what is Peter saying here? I actually don’t believe it’s as complicated as it seems, when we take it in context. (Keep verses 4-5 in view.)
V. 6 is a direct result of v. 5. “The living and the dead” in v. 5 refer to everyone—all people, living and dead, everywhere. But sometimes when people see that ‘God is willing to judge the living and the dead,’ we can take that to mean that even though Christ died for us, there is still judgment and condemnation waiting for us.
Peter corrects that idea in v. 6. “The dead” in v. 6, I believe, is referring to Christians—God’s people, who have now passed on. And I think that because he says that ‘they are judged in the flesh the way people are.’ There is a judgment against sin that all of us share, and that is the curse of Eden: sin has infected this world, and all of us—believer and unbeliever alike—suffer its consequences. We get sick, we suffer, and eventually, we die.
But when we die, if we are in Christ, we go to be with him (cf. 2 Cor. 2.5). And that’s why Peter says what he says in v. 6: the gospel was preached to these believers, who are now dead in their bodies, who suffered the curse of sin by dying…but who aren’t actually dead. Their bodies are dead, buried somewhere; but their spirits are alive, and they are living today with God.
You see, he is making a contrast between believers in v. 6 and the ‘maligners’ of v. 4. When they die, they suffer apart from union with God…but the believers who suffered dea are perfectly united to God in spirit; And one day, Christ will return to judge all of us—the living and the dead. Those who are in him will be raised, and judged righteous by his grace; those who are not will be raised, and be condemned.
So that’s what he means in a nutshell (and if you had a hard time following that, don’t worry about it: it’s a very tough verse). The important thing to see here is why Peter brought this up. It almost seems like a parenthetical statement, like a detail he just decided to add on to his thought.
It’s anything but. I believe Peter gives us v. 6 as a final, rousing encouragement, telling his readers, DON’T GIVE UP!
Remember, starting in chapter 3 verse 8 and continuing on until now, Peter’s been encouraging his readers to be ready to suffer. In chapter 3, it was Be ready to suffer to serve as a testimony for the gospel. Here in chapter 4, it’s Be ready to suffer in order to obey God. But he knows it’s going to be hard. He knows people will be afraid. He knows that they will look at the potential persecution waiting for them—maybe even to the point of death—and be tempted to back away.
So he’s telling them, Don’t give up. Don’t give into sin. Your persecutors will be judged for their sin—either themselves, or Christ for them. And you will be judged too if turn away from God in order to escape suffering. But if you persevere—EVEN if you die—IT WILL BE WORTH IT. You’ve heard the gospel; you’ve placed your faith in Christ. If you die today, you will live with him, FOREVER, in spirit.
Don’t give up. Don’t give into sin. Be ready to suffer, if you have to, in order to obey—because whatever suffering you endure because of your obedience, it is temporary, and it is WORTH IT.
As the apostle Paul said, the sufferings of this present moment aren’t worth comparing to the glories to be revealed to us.
So that’s where we need to end today—because he is calling us to examine ourselves in the light of that same contrast.
Some people will see Christians’ refusal to engage in sin, and malign them for it; and if they continue in their sin, they will have to answer to God for their rebellion. They will be judged for it.
Some Christians will see the sin their friends and neighbors engage in, and be faced with a choice: escape suffering in order to engage in sin, or endure suffering in order to obey God. If they persist in their sin to escape suffering, they will be judged alongside those who have rejected God, because they are rejecting God too—they will prove that they were nominal Christians—Christians in name only. But if they persevere in obedience, even in the midst of suffering, they will prove that they have made a clear and decisive break from sin: that they have repented, turned away from sin and toward obedience to God. And they will forever be citizens of God’s kingdom, heirs of eternal life with Christ.
So the call of this text is the same for Christians, and for those who today have no faith in Christ. The call is a question: What do you want? Judgment or life? This is the one and only choice that is put before us.
If you want judgment, the choice is easy: keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t put your sin to death; keep it in the closet. Give in to sin rather than suffer for obedience. Show by your actions that your faith is not real. This option is far easier, and it will bring you pleasure; but only for a short while. One day, you will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
If you want life, then repent of your sins, every minute of every day. Make a complete, 180° turn away from sin. Don’t give in. Resist temptation—even if it costs you. Even if you suffer. Even if you stand to lose what looks like everything.
Because when you suffer for doing what is right, you are showing the genuineness of your faith. You are showing the sincerity of your repentance. When you are willing to suffer in order to obey God, the memory of that suffering will serve as clear and visible truth that the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gift of salvation he has given you through pure grace alone, is more important to you than any comfort, any pleasure, this world has to offer.
