Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that you no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies, carousings, and abominable idolatries. They think it is strange that you don’t run with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming. They will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For to this end the Good News was preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed as men in the flesh, but live as to God in the spirit.
But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer. And above all things be earnest in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good managers of the grace of God in its various forms. If anyone speaks, let it be as it were the very words of God. If anyone serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Beloved, don’t be astonished at the fiery trial which has come upon you to test you, as though a strange thing happened to you. But because you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, that at the revelation of his glory you also may rejoice with exceeding joy. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed; because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. On their part he is blasphemed, but on your part he is glorified. For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil doer, or a meddler in other men’s matters. But if one of you suffers for being a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this matter.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 1 Forasmuch then as Christ When he had before…
1 Forasmuch then as Christ When he had before set forth Christ before us, he only spoke of the suffering of the cross; for sometimes the cross means mortification, because the outward man is wasted by afflictions, and our flesh is also subdued. But he now ascends higher; for he speaks of the reformation of the whole man. The Scripture recommends to us a twofold likeness to the death of Christ, that we are to be conformed to him in reproaches and troubles, and also that the old man being dead and extinct in us, we are to be renewed to a spiritual life. (Philippians 3:10; Romans 6:4.) Yet Christ is not simply to be viewed as our example, when we speak of the mortificaion of the flesh; but it is by his Spirit that we are really made conformable to his death, so that it becomes effectual to the crucifying of our flesh. In short, as Peter at the end of the last chapter exhorted us to patience after the example of Christ, because death was to him a passage to life; so now from the same death he deduces a higher doctrine, that we ought to die to the flesh and to the world, as Paul teaches us more at large in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. He therefore says, arm yourselves, or be ye armed, intimating that we are really and effectually supplied with invincible weapons to subdue the flesh, if we partake as we ought of the efficacy of Christ’s death.
For he that hath suffered The particle ὅτι does not, I think, denote here the cause, but is to be taken as explanatory; for Peter sets forth what that thought or mind is with which Christ’s death arms us, even that the dominion of sin ought to be abolished in us, so that God may reign in our life. Erasmus has incorrectly, as I think, rendered the word “he who did suffer,” (patiebatur) applying it to Christ. For it is an indefinite sentence, which generally extends to all the godly, and has the same meaning with the words of Paul in Romans 6:7,
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“He who is dead is justified or freed from sin;”
for both the Apostles intimate, that when we become dead to the flesh, we have no more to do with sin, that it should reign in us, and exercise its power in our life.
It may, however, be objected, that Peter here speaks unsuitably in making us to be conformable to Christ in this respect, that we suffer in the flesh; for it is certain that there was nothing sinful in Christ which required to be corrected. But the answer is obvious, that it is not necessary that a comparison should correspond in all its parts. It is then enough that we should in a measure be made conformable to the death of Christ. In the same way is also explained, not unfitly, what Paul says, that we are planted in the likeness of his death, (Romans 6:5;) for the manner is not altogether the same, but that his death is become in a manner the type and pattern of our mortification.
We must also notice that the word flesh is put here twice, but in a different sense; for when he says that Christ suffered in the flesh, he means that the human nature which Christ had taken from us was made subject to death, that is, that Christ as a man naturally died. In the second clause, which refers to us, flesh means the corruption, and the sinfulness of our nature; and thus suffering in the flesh signifies the denying of ourselves. We now see what is the likeness between Christ and us, and what is the difference; that as he suffered in the flesh taken from us, so the whole of our flesh ought to be crucified.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Having ended his digression and sliding from his matter,…
Having ended his digression and sliding from his matter, now he returneth to the exhortation which he brake off, taking occasion by that which he said touching the death, and resurrection of Christ, so defining our sanctification, that to be sanctified, is all one as to suffer in the flesh, that is to say: to leave off from our wickedness and viciousness: and to rise again to God, that is to say, to be renewed, by the virtue of the holy Ghost, that we may lead the rest of our life which remaineth, after the will of God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–16 1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us…
1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
Ver. 1. Christ hath suffered] As 1Pe 3:18.
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In the flesh] In human nature; so must we suffer in sinful nature, subduing it to God, and ceasing from sin, hailing it and nailing it to the cross of Christ. First have sin to the cross of Christ; force it before the tree on which he suffered: it is such a sight as sin cannot abide. It will begin to die within us upon the first sight of Christ upon the cross. For the cross of Christ accuseth sin, shameth it, and by a secret virtue feedeth upon the very heart of it. 2. Use sin as Christ was used when he was made sin for us; lift it up, and make it naked by confession to God. And then pierce, 1. The hands of it, in respect of operation, that it may work no more. 2. The feet of it, in respect of progression, that it go no further. 3. The heart, in respect of affection, that it may be loved no longer.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–16 The apostle having in the former chapter exhorted believers…
The apostle having in the former chapter exhorted believers to patient bearing of afflictions by the example of Christ, 1Pe 4:18, proceeds in this to persuade them to improve the crosses they bore outwardly to inward mortification. Christ’s death is proposed to us in Scripture as an exemplar both of external mortification in bearing reproaches, persecutions, &c., (this the apostle prosecutes in the former chapter), and of internal, in the destroying the body of sin; this he exhorts to in this chapter, and indeed draws his argument from Christ’s death, not only as the exemplary, but efficient and meritorious, cause of our mortification, and which hath a real influence upon it, in that Christ by his death did not only merit the pardon of sin, but the giving the Spirit, whereby corruption might be destroyed, and our natures renewed.
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us; viz. not only as an exemplar of patience and submission to the will of God, but for the taking away of sin, both in the guilt and power of it, and that he might be the procurer as well as pattern of our mortification.
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In the flesh; in his human nature, as 1Pe 3:18.
Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; strengthen and fortify yourselves against all temptations, and unto the mortification of your lusts, with the consideration of these ends, and the mighty efficacy of Christ’s death, he suffering in his flesh, i.e. in his human nature, that you might suffer in your flesh, i.e. in your sinful, corrupt nature; or, (which comes to the same), with the same mind which Christ had, who, in his death, aimed not only at the pardon of your sin, but the destruction of it, and the renovation of your natures: or, arm yourselves with the same mind, viz. a purpose of suffering in the flesh, i.e. of dying spiritually with Christ in the mortification of your flesh, Rom 6:6,7; as Christ died, and suffered in the flesh, so reckon that you, by the virtue of his death, must die to sin. and crucify your flesh, with its affections and lusts, Gal 5:24; or else, what the same mind is, he declares in the following clause.
For; or rather, that, the Greek word here seems rather to be explicative than causal.
He that hath suffered in the flesh; i.e. the old man, his corrupt flesh, (flesh being taken here in a different sense from what it was in the former part of the verse), he that is spiritually dead with Christ, whose old man is crucified with him.
Hath ceased from sin; from sinning willingly and delightfully, and yielding himself up to the power of sin; compare Rom 6:1-23, which explains this: what Peter here calls suffering in the flesh, Paul there calls a being dead to sin, Rom 6:2,11; and what Peter calls a ceasing from sin, Paul calls a living no longer in sin, Rom 6:2, and a being freed from it, Rom 6:7. And this may be the mind, or thought, with which they were to be armed, that they being dead with Christ to sin, should not live any longer in it; having their flesh crucified, should not indulge its affections and lusts.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 These words may be considered, 1. As an inference…
These words may be considered, 1. As an inference drawn from what the apostle had asserted in the foregoing chapter, namely, That Christ Jesus suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust; 1Pe 3:18.
Now, says the apostle, forasmuch as Christ has thus suffered for us, first as our surety and representative, in a way of satisfaction;
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secondly, as our pattern and example, in order to our imitation: let us arm ourselves with the same mind and resolution, to be conformed to him in his death, dying to sin as he died for sin: for he that hath crucified the flesh, and mortified his corrupt nature, in imitation of Christ’s suffering in our flesh and nature, that man hath ceased from sin, that is, from living unto sin, or serving sin any longer, but spends the remainder of his life wholly according to God’s will, not according to his own or other’s lustful desires and inclinations.
2. These words may be considered as an argument to excite Christians to eschew evil and do good, which he had pressed upon them in the former chapter, from the example of Christ.
And the force of the argument lies thus: "All Christians should be armed with the same mind and resolution against sin, and for holiness, that Christ was. But Christ having suffered in the flesh for sin, and ceased from sin, lived in the Spirit unto God: therefore all Christians should wholly endeavour all they can to cease from sin, and live no more to the lusts of men, but to the will of God."
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 12 The apostle here draws a new inference from the…
The apostle here draws a new inference from the consideration of Christ's sufferings. As he had before made use of it to persuade to patience in suffering, so here to mortification of sin. Observe,
I. How the exhortation is expressed. The antecedent or supposition is that Christ had suffered for us in the flesh, or in his human nature. The consequent or inference is, "Arm and fortify yourselves likewise with the same mind, courage, and resolution." The word flesh in the former part of the verse signifies Christ's human nature, but in the latter part it signifies man's corrupt nature. So the sense is, "As Christ suffered in his human nature, do you, according to your baptismal vow and profession, make your corrupt nature suffer, by putting to death the body of sin by self-denial and mortification; for, if you do not thus suffer, you will be conformable to Christ in his death and resurrection, and will cease from sin." Learn, 1. Some of the strongest and best arguments against all sorts of sin are taken from the sufferings of Christ. All sympathy and tenderness for Christ as a sufferer are lost of you do not put away sin. He dies to destroy it; and, though he could cheerfully submit to the worst sufferings, yet he could never submit to the least sin. 2. The beginning of all true mortification lies in the mind, not in penances and hardships upon the body. The mind of man is carnal, full of enmity; the understanding is darkened, being alienated from the life of God, Eph 4:18. Man is not a sincere creature, but partial, blind, and wicked, till he be renewed and sanctifies by the regenerating grace of God.
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II. How it is further explained, Pe1 4:2. The apostle explains what he means by being dead to sin, and ceasing from sin, both negatively and positively. Negatively, a Christian ought no longer to live the rest of his time in the flesh, to the sinful lusts and corrupt desires of carnal wicked men; but, positively, he ought to conform himself to the revealed will of the holy God. Learn, 1. The lusts of men are the springs of all their wickedness, Jam 1:13, Jam 1:14. Let occasional temptations be what they will, they could not prevail, were it not for men's own corruptions. 2. All good Christians make the will of God, not their own lusts or desires, the rule of their lives and actions. 3. True conversion makes a marvellous change in the heart and life of every one who partakes of it. It brings a man off from all his old, fashionable, and delightful lusts, and from the common ways and vices of the world, to the will of God. It alters the mind, judgment, affections, way, and conversation of every one who has experienced it.
III. How it is enforced (Pe1 4:3): For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, etc. Here the apostle argues from equity. "It is but just, equal, and reasonable, that as you have hitherto all the former part of your life served sin and Satan, so you should now serve the living God." Though those were Jews to whom the apostle wrote, yet the living among the Gentiles they had learned their way. Observe, 1. When a man is truly converted, it is very grievous to him to think how the time past of his life has been spent; the hazard he has run so many years, the mischief he has done to others, the dishonour done to God, and the loss he has sustained, are very afflicting to him. 2. While the will of man is unsanctified and corrupt, he walks continually in wicked ways; he makes them his choice and delight, his work and business, and he makes a bad condition daily worse and worse. 3. One sin, allowed, draws on another. Here are six named, and they have a connection and dependence one upon another. (1.) Lasciviousness or wantonness, expressed in looks, gesture, or behaviour, Rom 13:13. (2.) Lusts, acts of lewdness, such as whoredom and adultery. (3.) Excess of wine, though short of drunkenness, an immoderate use of it, to the prejudice of health or business, is here condemned. (4.) Revellings, or luxurious feastings, too frequent, too full, or too expensive. (5.) Banquetings, by which is meant gluttony or excess in eating. (6.) Abominable idolatry; the idol-worship of the Gentiles was attended with lewdness, drunkenness, gluttony, and all sorts of brutality and cruelty; and these Jews living long among them were, some of them at least, debauched and corrupted by such practices. 4. It is a Christian's duty not only to abstain from what is grossly wicked, but also from those things that are generally the occasions of sin, or carry the appearance of evil. Excess of wine and immoderate feasting are forbidden as well as lust and idolatry.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in…
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh..... The apostle having finished his digression concerning Christ's preaching in the ministry of Noah, to men whose spirits were now in prison, and concerning the salvation of Noah's family in the ark, by water, and concerning its antitype, baptism, its nature and effect, returns to the sufferings of Christ he had before made mention of; and argues from thence to holiness of life, and patience in sufferings, after this manner; seeing then Christ, the eternal Son of God, the Lord of glory, the holy and Just One, suffered such indignities, reproaches, and persecutions from men, the wrath of God, the curses of the law, and death itself; and that not for himself, nor for angels, but for men, and those not all men, otherwise his death, with respect to some, must be in vain; but for a particular number of men, in distinction from others, described in the beginning of this epistle, as elect, according to the foreknowledge of God; and these sufferings he endured in the room and stead of those persons, in the days of his flesh, while here on earth, and in his human nature, both soul and body, and was crucified through the weakness of his flesh, and for the sins of our flesh, and which he bore in his own:
arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; that was in Christ; as he suffered for you, do ye likewise suffer for him, in his cause, for righteousness sake, for the sake of him and his Gospel; and bear all reproaches, afflictions, and persecutions on his account, willingly and cheerfully, with meekness and patience, as he did, and with the same view; not indeed to make satisfaction for sin, which was his principal design, but that being dead unto sin, you might live unto righteousness. The apostle speaks to the saints, in this exhortation, as to soldiers, and who had many enemies to engage with, and therefore should put on their armour, and be in a readiness to meet any attack upon them:
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for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin: meaning either Christ, who having suffered in human nature for the sins of his people, whereby he has made satisfaction for them, is now clear of them; the sins that were imputed to him being took and bore away, finished and made an end of, and he justified from them, and freed from all the effects of them, and punishment for them, as from all the infirmities of human nature, from mortality and death: or the person that has suffered in and with Christ, his head and representative, which is all one as if he had suffered himself, in person; by virtue of which his sin ceases, and he ceases from being chargeable with it, as if he had never sinned; which is the case of every criminal, when he has suffered the penalty of the law for his crime: or else the person that is dead to sin, by virtue of the death of Christ, and, in imitation of it, who has been baptized into Christ's death, and planted in the likeness of it; whose old man is crucified with Christ, and he is dead with him; who has crucified the affections with the lusts, and through the Spirit has mortified the deeds of the body; which way the generality of interpreters go: such a man has ceased from sin; not from the being and indwelling of it in him; nor from the burden of it on him; nor from a continual war with it in him; nor from slips and falls by it, and into it; no, nor from it in the most solemn and religious services; but as from the guilt of it, and obligation to punishment by it, through the death of Christ; so from the servitude and dominion of it, through the power of divine grace, in consequence of Christ's death: or rather, the believer that suffers death in his body, for the sake of Christ, such an one immediately ceases from the very being of sin, and all commission of it; he becomes at once perfectly pure and holy, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; and a noble argument this is to meet death without fear, and to suffer it cheerfully and willingly, since the consequence of this will be an entire freedom from sin, than which nothing can be more desirable by a believer: to this agrees the Syriac version, which renders the words thus: "for whoever is dead in his body hath ceased from all sins"; but the Arabic version more fully confirms this sense, and is the best version of the text, and is this; "be ye armed with this (same) thought, that (not for) he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin"; that is, fortify your minds against all the fears of sufferings, and of death, for the sake of Christ, with this single thought; that he that has suffered martyrdom for Christ, in his body, or has suffered death for his sake, or dies in the Lord, is free from sin, and so from sorrow, and is the most happy person imaginable; so that this last clause is not a reason of the former, but points out, and is explanative of what that same mind or thought is Christians should arm themselves with, against the fears of death; and it is the best piece of armour for this service, a saint can make use of.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Arm yourselves with the same mind - Which will…
Arm yourselves with the same mind - Which will be armour of proof against all your enemies. For he that hath suffered in the flesh - That hath so suffered as to be thereby made inwardly and truly conformable to the sufferings of Christ. Hath ceased from sin - Is delivered from it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 We should suffer patiently, after the example of Christ,…
CHAPTER IV.
We should suffer patiently, after the example of Christ, 1.
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And no longer live according to our former custom, but disregard
the scoffs of those who are incensed against us because we have
forsaken their evil ways, who are shortly to give account to
God for their conduct, 2-5.
How the Gospel was preached to Jews and Gentiles, 6.
As the end of all things was at hand, they should be sober,
watchful, charitable, benevolent, good stewards of the bounty
of Providence; and, when called to instruct others, speak as
the oracles of God, 7-11.
Of the persecutions and trials which were coming upon them, and
how they were to suffer so as not to disgrace their Christian
character, 12-16.
Judgment was about to begin at the house of God, and even the
righteous would escape with difficulty from the calamities
coming upon the Jews; but they must continue in well-doing, and
thus commit the keeping of their souls to their faithful
Creator, 17-19.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV.
Verse 1. As Christ hath suffered] He is your proper pattern; have the same disposition he had; the same forgiving spirit, with meekness, gentleness, and complete self-possession.
He that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sin] This is a general maxim, if understood literally: The man who suffers generally reflects on his ways, is humbled, fears approaching death, loathes himself because of his past iniquities, and ceases from them; for, in a state of suffering, the mind loses its relish for the sins of the flesh, because they are embittered to him through the apprehension which he has of death and judgment; and, on his application to God's mercy, he is delivered from his sin.
Some suppose the words are to be understood thus: "Those who have firmly resolved, if called to it, to suffer death rather than apostatize from Christianity, have consequently ceased from, or are delivered from, the sin of saving their lives at the expense of their faith." Others think that it is a parallel passage to Ro 6:7, and interpret it thus: "He that hath mortified the flesh, hath ceased from sin." Dr. Bentley applies the whole to our redemption by Christ: He that hath suffered in the flesh hath died for our sins. But this seems a very constrained sense.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 1Pe 4:1-2. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered —…
1Pe 4:1-2. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered — Even the ignominious and painful death of the cross, with all those previous and concomitant evils, which rendered his death peculiarly bitter; for us — And that from a pure and disinterested principle of love; arm yourselves likewise with the same mind — With a resolution such as animated him to suffer all the evils to which you may be exposed in the body; and particularly to suffer death, if called by God to do so for your religion. For this will be armour of proof against all your enemies. For he that hath — In conformity to our Lord Jesus; suffered in the flesh — Or, who hath so suffered as to be thereby made inwardly and truly conformable to Christ in his sufferings, hath, of course, ceased from sin — From knowingly committing it. “He hath been made to rest,” says Macknight, “from temptation to sin, consequently from sin itself. For if a man hath overcome the fear of torture and death, no weaker temptation will prevail with him to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.” That he no longer should live in the flesh — Even in his mortal body; to the lusts — The desires, of men — Either his own or those of others; should no longer be governed by those irregular and inordinate affections which rule in unregenerate men; but to the will of God — In a holy conformity and obedience to the divine precepts, how contrary soever they may be to his carnal and sensual inclinations, or apparently to his worldly interests.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in…
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh - Since he as a man has died for us. See the notes at 1Pe 3:18. The design was to set the suffering Redeemer before them as an example in their trials.
Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind - That is, evidently, the same mind that he evinced - a readiness to suffer in the cause of religion, a readiness to die as he had done. This readiness to suffer and die, the apostle speaks of as armour, and having this is represented as being armed. Armour is put on for offensive or defensive purposes in war; and the idea of the apostle here is, that that state of mind when we are ready to meet with persecution and trial, and when we are ready to die, will answer the purpose of armour in engaging in the conflicts and strifes which pertain to us as Christians, and especially in meeting with persecutions and trials. We are to put on the same fortitude which the Lord Jesus had, and this will be the best defense against our foes, and the best security of victory.
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For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin - Compare the notes at Rom 6:7. To “suffer in the flesh” is to die. The expression here has a proverbial aspect, and seems to have meant something like this: “when a man is dead, he will sin no more;” referring of course to the present life. So if a Christian becomes dead in a moral sense - dead to this world, dead by being crucified with Christ (see the notes at Gal 2:20) - he may be expected to cease from sin. The reasoning is based on the idea that there is such a union between Christ and the believer that his death on the cross secured the death of the believer to the world. Compare 2Ti 2:11; Col 2:20; Col 3:3.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15 He that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased…
He that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sins. Some expound these words of Christ; but he never had committed the least sin. The true sense is, that every one who suffers by Christ’s example, leaves off an sinful life, so as not to fall into great sins. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 1 Peter Chapter 4
1 Peter Chapter 4
From the beginning of this chapter to the end of verse, the apostle continues to speak of the general principles of God’s government, exhorting, the Christian to act on the principles of Christ Him elf, which would cause him to avoid the walk condemned by that government, while waiting for the judgment of the world by the Christ whom he served. Christ glorified, as we saw at the close of the previous chapter, was ready to judge; and they who were exasperated against the Christians, and who were led by their own passions, without caring for the coming judgment, would have to give account to that Judge whom they refused to own as Saviour.
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Here, it will be observed, it is suffering for righteousness’ sake (1Pe 2:19; 1Pe 3:17) in connection with the government and judgment of God. The principle was this: they accepted, they followed the Saviour whom the world and the nation rejected; they walked in His holy footsteps in righteousness, as pilgrims and strangers, abandoning the corruption that reigned in the world. Walking in peace and following after good, they avoided to a certain extent the attacks of others; and the eyes of Him, who watches from on high over all things, rested upon the righteous. Nevertheless, in the relations of ordinary life (chap. 2:18), and in their intercourse with men, they might have to suffer, and to bear flagrant injustice. Now the time of God’s judgment was not yet come. Christ was in heaven; He had been rejected on the earth, and the Christian’s part was to follow Him. The time of the manifestation of the government of God would be at the judgment which Christ should execute. Meanwhile His walk on earth had furnished the pattern of that which the God of judgment approved. (1Pe 2:21-23, 1Pe 4:1 and following verses.)
They were to do good, to suffer for it, and to be patient. This is well-pleasing to God; this is what Christ did. It was better that they should suffer for doing well, if God saw fit, than for doing ill. Christ (1 Peter2:24) had borne our sins, had suffered for our sins, the Just for the unjust, in order that we, being dead to sins, should live for righteousness, and in order to bring us unto God Himself. Christ is now on high; He is ready to judge. When the judgment shall come, the principles of God’s government will be manifested and shall prevail.
The beginning of chapter 4 requires some rather more detailed remarks. The death of Christ is there applied to practical death unto sins; a state presented in contrast with the life of the Gentiles.
Christ on the cross (the apostle alludes to verse 18 of the preceding chapter (1Pe 3:18)) suffered in the flesh for us. He died in fact as regards His human life. We must arm ourselves with the same mind, and allow of no activity of life or passions according to the will of the old man, but suffer as to the flesh, never yielding to its will. Sin is the action in us of the will of the flesh, the will of the man as alive in this world. When this will acts, the principle of sin is there; for we ought to obey. The will of God ought to be the spring of our moral life; and so much the more, because now that we have the knowledge of good and evil-now that the will of the flesh, unsubject to God, is in us, we must either take the will of God as our only motive, or act according to the will of the flesh, for the latter is always present in us.
Christ came to obey, He chose to die, to suffer all things rather than not obey. He thus died to sin, which never for a moment found an entrance into His heart. With Him, tempted to the uttermost, death was preferred rather than disobedience, even when death had the character of wrath against sin and judgment. Bitter as the cup was, He drank it rather than not fulfill to the uttermost His Father’s will, and glorify Him. Tried to the uttermost and perfect in it, the temptation which ever assailed Him from without and sought entrance (for He had none within) was always kept outside; was never entered into, nor found a movement of His will towards it; drew out obedience, or the perfection of the divine thoughts in man; and by dying, by suffering in the flesh, He had done with it all, done with sin for ever, and entered for ever into rest, after having been tried to the uttermost, and tempted to all things similarly to us[6] as regards the trial of faith, the conflict of the spiritual life.
Now it is the same thing with respect to ourselves in daily life. If I suffer in the flesh, the will of the flesh is assuredly not in action; and the flesh, in that I suffer, is practically dead-I have nothing more to do with sins. [7] We then are freed from it, have done with it, and are at rest. If we are content to suffer, the will does not act; sin is not there, as to fact; for to suffer is not will, it is grace acting in accordance with the image and the mind of Christ in the new man; and we are freed from the action of the old man. It does not act; we rest from it; we have done with it, no longer to live, for the remainder of our life here below in the flesh, according to the lusts of man, but according to the will of God, which the new man follows.
It is enough to have spent the past time of our lives in doing the will of the Gentiles (he still speaks to Christians of the circumcision), and in committing the excesses to which they addicted themselves, while they wondered at Christians for refusing to do the same; speaking evil of them for this reason. But they would have to give account to Him, who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
The Jews were accustomed to the judgment of the living, for they were the centre of God’s government on the earth. The judgment of the dead, with which we are more familiar, had not been definitely revealed to them. They were liable nevertheless to this judgment; for it was with this object that the promises of God were presented to them while living, in order that they might either live according to God in the spirit, or be judged as men responsible for what they had done in the flesh. For the one or other of these results would be produced in every one who heard the promises. Thus, in regard to the Jews, the judgment of the dead would take place in connection with the promises that had been set before them. For this testimony from God placed all who heard it under responsibility, so that they would be judged as men who had to give account to God of their conduct in the flesh, unless they came out of this position of life in the flesh by being quickened through the power of the word addressed to them, applied by the energy of the Spirit; so that they escaped from the flesh through the spiritual life which they received.
Now the end of all things was at hand. The apostle, while speaking of the great principle of responsibility in connection with the testimony of God, draws the attention of believers to the solemn thought of the end of all these things on which the flesh rested. This end drew near.
Here, observe, Peter presents, not the coming of the Lord to receive His own, nor His manifestation with them, but that moment of the solemn sanction of the ways of God, when every refuge of the flesh shall disappear, and all the thoughts of man perish forever.
As regards the relations of God with the world in government, the destruction of Jerusalem, although it was not “the end,” was of immense importance because it destroyed the very seat of that government on the earth in which the Messiah ought to have reigned, and shall yet reign.
God watches over all things, takes care of His own, counts the hairs of their heads, makes everything contribute to their highest good, but this is in the midst of a world which He no longer owns. For not only is, the earthly and direct government of God set aside, which took place in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and, in a certain sense, in those of Saul; but the Messiah, who ought to reign in it, has been rejected, and has taken the heavenly place in resurrection which forms the subject of this epistle.
The destruction of Jerusalem (which was to take place in those days) was the final abolition of even the traces of that government, until the Lord shall return. The relations of an earthly people with God, on the ground of man’s responsibility, were ended. The general government of God took the place of the former; a government always the same in principle, but which, Jesus having suffered on the earth, still allowed His members to suffer here below. And until the time of judgment, the wicked will persecute the righteous, and the righteous must have patience. With regard to the nation, those relations only subsisted till the destruction of Jerusalem; the unbelieving hopes of the Jews, as a nation, were judicially overthrown. The apostle speaks here in a general way, and in view of the effect of the solemn truth of the end of all things, for Christ is still “ready to judge;” and if there is delay, it is because God wills not the death of the sinner, and that He prolongs the time of grace.
In view of this end of all that we see, we ought to be sober, and watch in order to pray. We ought to have the heart thus exercised towards God, who changes not, who will never pass away, and who preserves us through all the difficulties and temptations of this passing scene until the day of deliverance which is coming. Instead of allowing ourselves to be carried away by present and visible things, we must bridle self and will, and commune with God. This leads the apostle to the inner position of Christians, their relations among themselves, not with God’s general government of the world. They follow because they are Christians, Christ Himself. The first thing that he enforces on them is fervent charity; not merely long-suffering, which would prevent any outbreak of the anger of the flesh, but an energy of love, which by stamping its character on all the ways of Christians towards each other, would practically set aside the action of the flesh, and make manifest the divine presence and action.
Now this love covered a multitude of sins. He is not speaking here with a view to ultimate pardon, but of the present notice which God takes-His present relations of government with His people; for we have present relationships with God. If the assembly is at variance, if there is little love, if the intercourse among Christians is with straightened hearts and difficult, the existing evil, the mutual wrongs, subsist before God: but if there is love, which neither commits nor resents any wrongs, but pardons such things, and only finds in them occasion for its own exercise, it is then the love which the eye of God rests upon, and not the evil. Even if there are misdeeds- sins-love occupies itself about them, the offender is brought back, is restored, by the charity of the assembly; the sins are removed from the eye of God, they are covered. It is a quotation from the Book of Pro 10:12”: Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins.” We have a right to forgive them -to wash the feet of our brother. (Compare Jas 5:15-20:1Jn 5:16.) We not only forgive, but love maintains the assembly before God according to His own nature so that He can bless it.
Christians ought to exercise hospitality towards each other with all liberality. It is the expression of love, and tends much to maintain it: we are no longer strangers to each other. Gifts come next after the exercise of grace. All comes from God. As every one had received the gift, he was to serve in the gift, as a steward of the varied grace of God. It is God who gives; the Christian is a servant, and under responsibility as a steward, on God’s part. He is to ascribe all to God, in a direct way to God. If he speaks, he is to speak as an oracle of God, that is, as speaking on God’s part, and not from himself. If any one serves in things temporal, let him do it as in a power and an ability that come from God, so that, whether one speaks or serves, God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To Him, the apostle adds, be praise and dominion. Amen.
After these exhortations he comes to suffering for the name of Christ. They were not to view the fiery persecutions that came to try them, as some strange thing that had befallen them. On the contrary, they were connected with a suffering and rejected Christ; they partook therefore in His sufferings, and were to rejoice in it. He would soon appear, and these sufferings for His sake should turn to their exceeding joy at the revelation of His glory. They were therefore to rejoice at sharing His sufferings, in order to be filled with abounding joy when His glory should be revealed. If they were reproached for the name of Christ, it was happy for them. The Spirit of God rested on them. It was the name of Christ that brought reproach on them. He was in the glory with God; the Spirit, who came from that glory and that God, filled them with joy in bearing the reproach. It was Christ who was reproached-Christ who was glorified- reproached by the enemies of the gospel, while Christians had the joy of glorifying Him. It will be observed, that in this passage, it is for Christ Himself (as it has been said) that the believer suffers; and, therefore, the apostle speaks of glory and joy at the appearing of Jesus Christ, which he does not mention in 1Pe 2:20; 1Pe 3:17. (Compare Mat 5:10, and Mat 5:11-12 of the same chapter.)
As an evil-doer then the Christian ought never to suffer; but if he suffered as a Christian, he was not to be ashamed, but to glorify God for it. The apostle then returns to the government of God; for these sufferings of believers had also another character. To the individual who suffered, it was a glory: he shared the sufferings of Christ, and the Spirit of glory and of God rested on him; and all this should turn to abounding joy when the glory was revealed. But God had no pleasure in allowing His people to suffer. He permitted it; and if Christ had to suffer for us when He who knew no sin did not need it for Himself, the people of God have often need on their own account to be exercised with suffering. God uses the wicked, the enemies of the name of Christ, for this purpose. Job is the book that explains this, independently of all dispensations. But in every form of God’s dealings, He exercises His judgments according to the order He has established. He did so with Israel, He does so with the assembly. The latter has a heavenly portion; and if she attaches herself to the earth, God allows the enemy to trouble her. Perhaps the individual who suffers is full of faith and devoted love to the Lord; but, under persecution, the heart feels that the world is not its rest, that it must have its portion elsewhere, its strength elsewhere. We are not of the world which persecutes us. If the faithful servant of God is cut off from this world by persecution, it strengthens faith, for God is in it; but they from the midst of whom he is cut off; suffer and feel that the hand of God was in it: His dealings take the form of judgment, always in perfect love, but in discipline.
God judges everything according to His own nature. He desires that all should be in accordance with His nature. No upright and honourable man would like to have the wicked near him, and always before him; God assuredly would not. And in that which is nearest to Him, He must above all desire that every thing should correspond to His nature and His holiness -to all that He is. I would have everything around me clean enough not to disgrace me; but in my own house I must have such cleanness as I personally desire. Thus judgment must begin at the house of God: the apostle alludes to Eze 9:6. It is a solemn principle. No grace, no privilege, changes the nature of God; and everything must be conformed to that nature, or, in the end, must be banished from His presence. Grace can conform us, and it does. It bestows thedivine nature, so that there is a principle of absolute conformity to God. But as to practical conformity in thought and deed, the heart and the conscience must be exercised, in order that the understanding of the heart, and the habitual desires and aspirations of the will, should be formed upon the revelation of God, and continually directed towards Him.
Now if this conformity should so fail that the testimony of God is injured by its absence, God, who judges His people, and who will judge evil every where, does so by means of the chastisements which He inflicts. Judgment begins at the house of God. The righteous are saved with difficulty. It is evidently not redemption or justification that is here intended, nor the communication of life: those whom the apostle addresses were in possession of them. To our apostle “salvation” is not only the present enjoyment of the salvation of the soul, but the full deliverance of the faithful, which will take place at the coming of Christ in glory. All the temptations are contemplated, all the trials, all the dangers, through which the Christian will pass in reaching the end of his career. All the power of God is requisite, directed by divine wisdom, guiding and sustaining faith, to carry the Christian safely through the wilderness where Satan employs all the resources of his subtlety to make him perish. The power of God will accomplish it; but, from the human point of view, the difficulties are almost His judgment conformable to the principles of good and evil in His government; and who will in nowise deny Himself in dealing with the enemy of our souls-if the righteous were saved with difficulty, what would become of the sinner and the ungodly? To join them would not be the way to escape these difficulties. In suffering as a Christian, there was but one thing to do-to commit oneself to Him who watched over the judgment that He was executing. For, as it was His hand, one suffered according to His will. It was this that Christ did.
Observe here, that it is not only the government of God, but there is the expression, “as unto a faithful Creator.” The Spirit of God moves here in this sphere. It is the relationship of God with this world, and the soul knows Him as the One who created it, and who does not forsake the work of His hands. This is Jewish ground-God known in His connection with the first creation. Trust in Him is founded on Christ; but God is known in His ways with this world, and with us in our pilgrimage here below, where He governs, and where He judges Christians, as He will judge all others.
Footnotes for 1 Peter Chapter 4
6: It is not, as in the Authorised Version, “yet without sin,” true as that may be, but “choris hamartia”, “sin apart.” We are tempted, being led away by our own lusts. Christ had all our difficulties, all our temptations, on the way, but had nothing in Himself which could lead Him wrong-far surely from it- nothing which answered to the temptation.
7: Peter rests on the effect; Paul, as ever, goes to the root, Rom 6:1-23.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 12 Analysis:—Exhortation to being armed with the mind of the…
1Pe_4:1-6
Analysis:—Exhortation to being armed with the mind of the sufferings of Christ, and to killing the flesh in order to make room for the life of the spirit
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1 Forasmuch then1 as Christ hath suffered for us2 in the flesh, arm yourselves3 likewise with the same mind: for4 he that hath suffered in the flesh5 hath ceased6 from 2sin; That he7 no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.8 3For the time past of our life may suffice9 us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when10 we walked in11 lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, 4banquetings, and abominable12 idolatries: Wherein13 they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot,14 speaking evil of you: 5Who shall give 6account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For, for this cause15 was the gospel preached also to them that are dead,16 that they might be judged17 according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1Pe_4:1. Christ then, having suffered for us—do you also arm yourselves with the same mind.—οὖν takes up again 1Pe_3:18, and shows that the subject developed in 1Pe_3:19-22 is governed by the reference to the sufferings of Christ.—ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, for our benefit and in our stead, cf. 1Pe_3:18.—σαρκί; Roos rightly remarks that Peter never uses σάρξ in the bad sense in which Paul has used it several times, but only as denoting the weak, mortal nature belonging to our earthly condition.—ἔννοια; Wiesinger [and Calvin, Beza, Gerhard, Bengel and Erasm.-Schmidt.—M.] render it “thought,” but it denotes as much as mens, mind, intent, resolution, as appears from a passage from Isocrates, cited by Riemer. [οὐ γὰρ [οἱ Θεοὶ] αὐτόχειρες οὔτε τῶν ἀγαθῶν οὔτε τῶν κακῶν γίγνονται τῶν συμβαινόντων αὐτοῖς, [τοῖς ἀνθρώποις], ἀλλ’ ἑκάστοιςτοιαύτην ἔννοιαν ἐμποιοῦσιν, ὤστε δἰ ἀλλήγων ἡμῖν ἑκάτερα παραγίγνεσθαι τούτων; see also Eur. Hel. 1026; Diodor. Sic. II. 30.—M.] Exhibit a manly, constant readiness (intent) to suffer innocently for the sins of others and for their benefit (yet not vicariously) with the purpose, as much as you are able, to remove sin and to conduct, souls to God.—ὁπλίσασθε, cf. Rom_13:12; 2Co_10:4; Eph_6:11; use this purpose as a shield against temptation to sin.
[Arming oneself with a thought, without the intent or resolution of using it as a piece of armour for defensive warfare, conveys no very clear idea. The aforesaid commentators, who render ἐννοιαν, thought, and ὄτι, that, are clearly embarrassed about καὶ ὑμεῖς and τὴν αὐτήν, which are decisive for the interpretation given in the text. “Do ye also arm yourselves (καὶ ὑμεῖς) with the same (τὴν αὐτήν) mind, viz.: put on the purpose to suffer in the flesh, as Christ did, as a piece of armour.” This strikes us as being far more to the point than the paraphrase of Amyraut: “Mais encore nous nous devons armer de cette bonne pensie contre toutes sortes de tentations au mal. que celui qui a soufftrt en cette nature humaine, n’a desormais plus de commerce avec le péché” or the interpretation of Gerhard: “ὅτι rectius accipitur expositive, expoint enim Apostolus illam cogitationem ἔννοιαν qua nos vult armari: hæc cogitatio erit vobis uistar firmissimi scuti et munimenti contra peccatum.” It is, moreover, difficult to make good sense of these interpretations, unless the thought be clothed with intent.—M.]
ὅτι must not be joined with ἔννοια, as specifying the substance of this thought, this would require ταύτην instead of τὴν αὐτήν,—but it defines the exhortation more closely. [Rendering ὅτι because, as Alford does, makes his paraphrase very forcible, “and ye will need this arming, because the course of suffering according to the flesh which ye have to undergo ending in an entire freedom from sin, your warfare with sin must be begun and carried on from this time forward.”—M.]
Because He that hath suffered as to the flesh hath rest from sin.—ὁ παθὼν ἐν σαρκί, it appears to me, is best applied to Christ Himself; the expression then connects closely with that which precedes, and defines it. For He who has once suffered as to the flesh, which suffering includes His death, as in 1Pe_3:18, has now rest from sin, He is fortified against all its assaults. [πάσχειν σαρκί means to suffer according to the flesh. Winer, p. 431. The Dative, relating to things, denotes that in reference to which an action is done, or a state exists. Winer, p. 228.—M.] He has died unto sin once, as Paul expresses it in Rom_6:10; Rom_6:7. Hence, he who puts on His mind, and is in communion with Him, henceforth must serve sin no more. The Aorist παθών denotes an action once existing, but having now absolutely passed away. All other explanations are liable to many grammatical and psychological objections. Weiss: “He that suffers on account of sin, because of opposition to sin, thereby breaks with sin, and testifies that he will no longer obey the will of the world.” But the Aorist παθών, not the Present πάσχων is used; again, many experiences might contradict the general statement, and the exhortation which follows would seem to be superfluous.—Others are compelled to have recourse to arbitrary supplements. So Steiger: “Christ suffering bodily freed us from sin, and we, participating by faith in the sufferings of Christ, die unto sin.” Grotius and others, contrary to all grammatical usage, understand the passage of the crucifying and the mortification of fleshly lusts.
1Pe_4:2. To the end that. ye should not.—Join εἰς τὸ μηκέτι with ὁπλίσασθε, not with πέπευται, which concludes the parenthesis. Acquire the mind which has done with sin, so that your relation to sin may be that of one who has died and is risen again, as that of Christ after His exaltation, 1Pe_3:21-22.
To the lusts of men, not to be taken as = fleshly, worldly lusts in general (κοσμικαί, σαρκικαὶ ἐπιθυμίαι, Tit_2:12; Rom_12:2), not as in 1Pe_1:14; 1Pe_2:11, but in a narrower sense with reference to 1Pe_4:4, denoting the desire of worldly-minded men, that believers also ought to live as they do, and that they ought not to single themselves out at the world’s disposition to coerce them also to serve its idols. The will of God alone ought to be our pole-star. The Dative is the dativus commodi, to live to some one=to devote to him one’s life, to place oneself at his service, cf. 1Pe_2:24; Gal_2:19.
The rest of your time in the flesh,=the time of our pilgrimage, as in 1Pe_1:17. This is to indicate that our earthly life constitutes only a small part of our existence, and that to individual Christians, after their conversion, only a brief term of grace is allotted. But there is also a reference to what follows.
1Pe_4:3. For sufficient is the past time—to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.—ἀρκετὸς γὰρ ἡμῖν sc. ἐστιν.—The following Infinitive depends on these words; the time past is sufficient to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. Here is an implied irony. If you believe that you are debtors to the flesh (Rom_8:12), and obliged to serve sin, surely you have done enough, and more than enough of it, you have abundantly done your duty in the service of sin. Grotius quotes a passage from Martial: “Lusistis, satis est—”you have played, it is enough. This lessens the severity of the reproach. Otherwise Bengel, who avers that penitents are seized with a loathing of sin.
τὸ βούλημα τῶν ἐθνῶν.—(The Text. Rec. has θέλημα). On the demands made upon them by the heathen, among whom they were obliged to live, cf. 1Pe_4:2. Suppose that the readers of Peter’s Epistle had been formerly heathens, his reproaching them with having formerly done the will of the Gentiles would surely be singular. This passage, therefore, renders it highly probable that he was addressing Jewish Christians, who, belonging to the chosen people of God, and having received extraordinary revelations, ought so much the less have placed themselves on a level with the heathen. Paul also reproaches the Jews with their heathenish, vicious life, Rom. ii. Only the expression ἀθέμιτοι εἰδωλολατρεῖαι might militate against our view.—Ἀθεμίτοις=things forbidden by, wrong and wicked before laws human and divine, especially opposed to the law of the Old Covenant, Act_10:28. It is asked, Where is the evidence of such open participating on the part of the Jews of that time in such heathen iniquities? Weiss replies that the expression is susceptible of a wider meaning, that the use of the Plural intimates an enlarged application of the term, cf. Eph_5:5; Col_3:5; Php_3:19, and that ἀθεμίτοις relates to persons on whom the law of the Old Covenant was obligatory. Grotius calls attention to their participation in the common meals of heathen communities. Those who are not satisfied with these explanations may reflect that individual former heathen may have joined those Jewish Christian congregations. [On the other hand, the strong expressions used by the Apostle seem to contemplate a great deal more than isolated participation in heathen wickedness and abomination. There is absolutely no evidence that the Jews ever went so far as the language employed indicates. Moreover, there is nothing absurd, or even strange, in the Apostle’s reproach, if addressed to Gentile Christians; they had doubtless intimate relations with their friends in heathenism, and the danger of relapsing into their abominations must have been ever present, at all events, it was as great as that of modern Christians, from intercourse with worldly and ungodly people, of relapsing into the ways of an ungodly world.—M.]—κατειργάσθαι allude? to sexual sins.
Walking (as ye have done) in—idolatries.—πεπορευμένους like περιπατεῖν ἐν=הָלַךְ Luk_1:6; Act_9:31; 2Pe_2:10. Calov: “Not only because life is compared to a journey, but also in order to denote the eagerness with which they go on from sin to sin.”—ἀσέλγειαι, licentious practices, the outbreaks of intemperance, and excesses of every kind, while ἐπιθυμίαι denote hidden sins of voluptuousness, inward unchastity and lewdness, where the power to indulge in outward acts is wanting.—οἰνοφλυγίαι; φλύω to bubble up, overflow like boiling water, intoxication.—κῶμοι, cf. Rom_13:13; Gal_5:21, festive processions on days sacred to Bacchus, characterized by wild revelling, licentious songs and jests, and folly in general. Then banqueting, convivial carousing, terminating, as Eustathius remarks, in deep sleep.—πότος, particularly drinking in common, drinking-bouts.
1Pe_4:4. At which—speaking evil of you.—ἐν ᾦ relates to ἀρκετός. Suffering it to suffice, and giving up your former course, seems strange, and is altogether inexplicable to them. The fuller meaning is brought out by μὴ συντρεχόντων ὑμῶν, because you no longer join them and run with them.—εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν—ἀνάχυσιν, probably a place reached by the sea at the flood-tide, the flowed-out water forming a pool or puddle.—ἀσωτία from ἄσωτος, without salvation, past redemption, hence extravagant, voluptuous, profligate manner of life, Eph_5:18; Tit_1:6; Luk_15:13; εἰς τὴν αὐτήν into which formerly they had thrown themselves, and dragged you.
[Wordsworth:—A strong and expressive metaphor, especially in countries where after violent rain the gutters are suddenly swollen and pour their contents together with violence into a common sower. Such is the Apostolic figure of vicious companies rushing together in a filthy conference for reckless indulgence and effusion in sin, cf. Juvenal, 3, 63, “Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes,” etc., and G. Dyer’s Description of the Ruins of Rome, 4:62–66.—M.]
βλασφημοῖντες.—Grotius:—Of Christians as those who leave civil society; Calov:—Of the Christian religion, because it leads to a different manner of life. The two ideas may be combined.
1Pe_4:5. Who shall give account—dead.—Let not their evil speaking confuse you, they will have to render account.—τᾤ ἑτοίμως ἔχοντι. He is fully prepared, all the means and necessary conditions are already in His hand, as described in Psa_7:12-17.—ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, cf. Act_10:42. None can escape the judgment, it comprehends all, no matter whether at the appearing of the Judge one is alive or dead; and it may come at any moment. “Where the Apostles did not treat expressly of the time of Christ’s advent, they were wont to describe it as immediately impending.”
1Pe_4:6. For to this end was the Gospel preached even to them that are dead.—This evidently goes back to the important passage, 1Pe_3:19-20. The Apostle meets the objection: Can the dead also be judged? Yes, and for this very purpose Christ, as aforesaid, preached the Gospel in Hades to the dead. This is the most natural connection. Bengel takes it in conjunction with ἑτοίμως ἔχοντι, the Judge is ready, for the end must come after the Gospel has been preached. Steiger: “The verse is to prove not the reality, but the moral possibility, the justice of a judgment even on the dead, since the Gospel was preached to them also for the purpose of giving them the means of being delivered from the wrath of God.” So Weiss and Wiesinger.—νεκροῖς in our exposition is not to be taken generally, as 1Pe_4:5, but as applying to those spirits in prison; these are adduced by way of example, from which we may draw a conclusion affecting all other dead men, who before Christ were surely as yet more or less in prison.—κηρύττειν 1Pe_3:19, explains εὐηγγελίσθη; cf. Mat_11:5; Rom_10:15. The above-mentioned example is therefore simply to prove the universality of the judgment as extending also to the dead; that it is just, is a secondary point. But what is the object of that preaching which was vouchsafed to the dead and particularly to the dead of the deluge?
That they might indeed be judged—as to the spirit.—Various expositions, arising from dogmatical prejudices, have been set up with regard to this passage, which we do not refute in this place. The right exposition depends on the correct meaning of κριθῶσι. The tense is designedly different from ζῶσι in the corresponding secondary sentence. The Aorist as contrasted with the Present points to some past action; it is used of past actions, see Winer.—ἵνα after εὐηγγελίσθη refers to something subsequent to the preaching of the Gospel. This apparent contradiction is solved, if κρίνεσθαι is taken to denote a judicial sentence, as such decisions are made by human tribunals (κατὰ ἀνθρώπους). On Christ’s appearing in the realms of death and preaching to them repentance and faith, the declaration that was to be published to them was as it were thus: “You have merited death both as to the body and to the soul, because of your disobedience you perished in the flood and were brought to this subterranean place of confinement; but a way of salvation has now been opened for you, so that you may live in the spirit as to God, according to the will of God.” This declaration, on the one hand, must have produced a painful impression upon them, but on the other, encouraged them to accept the offered salvation. However we are not informed whether few or many [or any.—M.] did thereby attain unto spiritual life. The apposition beginning with ἵνα relates not to 1Pe_4:5, but to 1Pe_3:19, thereby shedding more light on the latter passage. How forced, as contrasted with this exposition, is that of Hofmann, that salvation was published to the dead in order that they might secure a life surviving the judgment of death which they have incurred and must continue to incur, or that of Wiesinger, that the Gospel was preached to the dead for the purpose of shaping their condition so that, while on the one hand they are judged according to the flesh (the state of death viewed as a continuing judgment according to the flesh), on the other they might be able through the judgment (Aorist) to attain, in God’s way, to the immortal life of the spirit. Nor is the view of Köing more admissible, that in the resurrection their judgment in the body should consist in their receiving a less perfect resurrection-body. For other expositions consult Steiger and Wiesinger. [See also the Excursus on the Descensus ad Inferos at the end of the preceding section.—M.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The common view, which is shared also by Gerlach, sees in 1Pe_4:1, the leading idea, that to the Christian, in virtue of the communion of his heart and life with Christ, suffering in the flesh is the dying of sin. So early an expositor as Justin says: “Suffering and temptation, like a medicine, render man more free from his evil intent, and make him more sound.” Tauler: “What the fire is to iron, what the crucible is to cold, such is temptation to the righteous.” But this is introducing the Pauline doctrine of the communion of suffering with Christ, although the original contains no allusion to it; besides the circumstance is lost sight of, that the original says “who hath suffered,” not “who is suffering.” According to the exposition given above, it should be the aim of believers not to let the sins of others find a point of support in themselves in order that not sinning after the example of Christ may become their second nature.
2. The abuse which the ungodly cast on the former companions of their sin has its final reason in the circumstance that they feel themselves reproved, opposed and judged by their conversion.
3. Holy Scripture nowhere teaches the eternal damnation of those who died as heathens or non-Christians; it rather intimates in many passages that forgiveness may be possible beyond the grave, and refers the final decision not to death, but to the day of Christ, Act_17:31; 2Ti_1:12; 2Ti_4:8; 1Jn_4:17. But in our passage, as in 1Pe_3:19-20, Peter by Divine illumination clearly affirms that the ways of God’s salvation do not terminate with earthly life, and that the Gospel is preached beyond the grave to those who have departed from this life without a knowledge of the same. But this proves neither the doctrine of universal recovery, even that of Satan, the devils and the ungodly, nor the doctrine of purgatory to the cleansing of which the Romish Church affirms subjected all who reach the other world without being wholly purified, and further maintains, that the stay in it may be shortened by the performance of many good works in this life and even after death by the performance of good works and prayers for the dead on the part of survivors. Gerlach cites a passage from John Damasc., in which the doctrine of the ancient Church on the subject of Christ’s descent into hell is summed up as follows: “His glorified soul descends into Hades in order that like as the Sun of righteousness did rise to men on earth, so in like manner He might shine on those who under the earth sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; in order that as He did publish peace to men on earth, gave deliverance to the captives and sight to the blind, and became the Cause of eternal salvation to believers, while He convicted the disobedient of unbelief, so in like manner He might deal with the inhabitants of Hades, so that to Him every knee should bow of those who are in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and that having thus loosed the chains of those long-confined prisoners, He might return from the dead and prepare to us the way of the resurrection.” The divine truths contained in this passage may be abused against the cause of missions and the necessity of a holy life; but abuse does not cancel the right use.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The Christian’s best armour against the assaults of suffering is the believing, obedient and submissive mind of suffering in which Christ accepted His suffering as a cup tendered by the paternal, hand of God.—God’s chief design in sending suffering is to withdraw us from sin and the lusts of men up to Himself.—Sufferings under persecution and abuse are a means of purifying and refining.—Which are the dangers against which we ought to be especially armed under persecutions for righteousness’ sake?—Consider the comforting fact that Christ has suffered in the flesh for you. Look, 1. at His person; 2. at the greatness of His suffering in the flesh; 3. at His suffering for you; 4. at the result of it.—Preservatives against relapsing into heathenish ways: 1. the communion with and conformity to Christ; 2. frequent reflection on your former sinful condition; 3. the abuse of unbelievers; 4. the nearness of the impending account to be rendered: 5. prayer; 6. continuance in the communion of love with the brethren; 7. the founding of all your actions on the word and strength of God.—The unhappy consistency in the service of sin.—Will you continue in the service of sin, although Christ came to save you?—The appearing of Christ among the dead is both the last degree of His condescension and the turning-point of His exaltation.—The mercy of God extends even to the judgment-prison of the realms of death.—Who will preach to the untold thousands, who after Christ’s descent into Hades have been born and have died without a knowledge of the Gospel?—Why should that fact not check, but rather strengthen missionary zeal?
Starke:—Shall the disciple be greater than his master, and the servant greater than his Lord? Be content, if in the world it fares with you as with your Saviour, it is enough that you shall be like Him in heaven. Mat_10:24-25.—Will you fret at sufferings and tribulations? If you knew the wholesomeness of this cup, you would joyfully empty it, Eze_2:6.—The beloved cross is like strong salt: as the latter prevents corruption, so does the cross prevent the corruption of the flesh, Psa_119:71.—Sin at a standstill is the well-being of sinners, continuance in sin the strongest barrier against grace, the best repentance is never to sin.—Christianity renders the best, service to the commonwealth, in that it most earnestly forbids the vices which are most dangerous to it.—The children of the world grieve most at your separating from their communion; by that they consider themselves put to shame and despised. Haughtiness and venomous malice are the sources of their abuse.—The remembrance of the last day and its judgment ought to be to us a constant sermon on repentance, Ecc_12:13-14; 2Co_5:10.
Lisco:—The blessed effect of suffering.—The Lord’s miracles of grace in His kingdom. The sufferings of Christ present us with a strong motive to arm ourselves with His mind.
[Pythagoras:
1Pe_4:1. Summa religionis imitari quern colis.—M.]
[Leighton:—Love desires nothing more than likeness, and shares willingly in all with the party loved; and above all love, this Divine love is purest and highest and works most strongly that way, takes pleasure in that pain, and is a voluntary death, as Plato calls love.—M.]
[Atterbury:—“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, let us arm ourselves with the same mind,” with a resolution to imitate Him in His perfect submission and resignation of Himself to the Divine will and pleasure; in His contempt of all the enjoyments of sense, of all the vanities of this world, its allurements and terrors; in His practice of religious severities; in His love of religious retirement; in making it His meat and drink, His only study and delight, “to work the work of Him that sent Him”; in His choosing for that end, when that end could not otherwise be obtained, want before abundance, shame before honour, pain before pleasure, death before life; and in His preferring always a laborious uninterrupted practice of virtue to a life of rest and ease and indolence.—M.]
[Bengel:
1Pe_4:2 “βιῶσαι. Aptum verbum; non dicitur de brutis.”—M.]
[Augustine:—Perdit quod vivit, qui te Deum non diligit; qui curat vivere, non propter te, Domine, nihil est et pro nihilo est; qui tibi vivere recusat mortuus est; qui tibi non sapit, desipit.—M.]
[Leighton:—Politic men have observed, that in states, if alterations must be, it is better to alter many things than a few. And physicians have the same remark for one’s habit and custom for bodily health upon the same ground, because things do so relate one to another, that except they be adapted and suited together in the change, it avails not; yea, it sometimes proves the worse in the whole, though a few things in particular seem to be bettered. Thus, half reformations in a Christian, turn to his prejudice; it is only best to be thoroughly reformed, and to give up with all idols; not to live one half to himself and the world and, as it were, another half to God; for that is but falsely so and in reality it cannot be. The only way is to make a heap of all, to have all sacrificed together, and to live to no lust, but altogether and only to God.—M.]
[Illustration of 1Pe_4:3-4. The poet says of the orgies of Bacchus:—
“Turba, ruunt; mixtæque viris, matresque nurusque
Vulgusque, proceresque ignota ad sacra feruntur
Quis furor—
Femineæ voces, et mota insania vino
Obscenique greges, et inania tympana.”
Ovid, Met. 3, 529, etc.—M.]
Footnotes:
[1]1Pe_4:1. [οὖν=then, better than forasmuch; render, “Christ then having suffered.”—M.]
[2]1Pe_4:1. [ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν inserted in Text. Rec., A. K. L., omitted in B. C. and by Lachmann and Tischendorf. Cod. Sin. reads ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν.—M.]
[3]1Pe_4:1. [καὶ ὑμεῖς ὁπλίσασθε=“Do you also arm yourself with,” strongly emphatic.—M.]
[4]1Pe_4:1. [ὅτι=because, gives a reason for τὴν αὐτὴν ἔννοιαν ὁπλίσασθε.—M.]
[5]1Pe_4:1. [σαρκί. Text. Rec. inserts ἐν before second σαρκὶ with K., Vulgate and others; A. B. C. L., Cod. Sin., Alford omit it. σαρκί, used adverbially=quod ad carnem.—M.]
[6]1Pe_4:1. [πέπαυται, Pass.,=is made to cease; he has rest from sin. Winer § 39, 3, p. 277.—M.]
[7]1Pe_4:2. [εἰς τὸ μηκέτι=“with a view, to the end that”; depends on ὁπλίσασθε. The Greek has no pronoun, but the construction and sense require the continuance of the 2 p. Plural. The 3 p. Sing, of the English version is singularly unhappy, and obscures the sense.—M.]
[8]1Pe_4:2. [Render, either with Alford, “With a view no longer (μηκέτι subjective) by the lusts of men, but by the will of God, to live the rest of your time in the flesh”; or to avoid the awkwardness of that rendering: “To the end that, as for the rest of your time in the flesh, ye should live no longer to (as conforming to) the lusts of men but to the will of God.”—M.]
[9]1Pe_4:3. [ἀρκετὸς γὰρ ἡμῖν, Text. Rec., with C. K. L.; Lachmann, Tischendorf, Alford, with A. B. omit ἡμῖν, Cod. Sin. has ὑμῖν. τοῦ βίου after χρόνος inserted in Text. Rec. with K. L., omitted in A. B. C., Alford, Lachmann and Tischendorf. Translate: “For sufficient is the past time (or the time past of your life).”—M.]
[10]1Pe_4:3. [Cod. Sin. has πορευόμενους, but read with Receptus, πεπορευμένους, and translate, “walking as you have done”, so Alford.—M.]
[11]1Pe_4:3. [ἀσελγείαις, Plural.—M.]
[12]1Pe_4:3. [ἀθεμίτοις=lawless, godless, nefarious.—M.]
[13]1Pe_4:4. [ἐν ᾦ=at which.—M.]
[14]1Pe_4:4. [τῆς ἀσῶτίας ἀνάχυσιν=slough or puddle of profligacy.—M.]
[15]1Pe_4:5. [εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ=for to this end.—M.]
[16]1Pe_4:6. [καὶ νεκροῖς=even to dead men.—M.]
[17]1Pe_4:6. [Translate: “That they might indeed be judged according to men as to the flesh (see note 5 under 1Pe_4:1), but that they might (continue to) live (present tense) according to God, as to the spirit.”—M.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–16 That he, &c.--"That he (the believer, who has once…
That he, &c.--"That he (the believer, who has once for all obtained cessation from sin by suffering, in the person of Christ, namely, in virtue of his union with the crucified Christ) should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God" as his rule. "Rest of his time in the flesh" (the Greek has the preposition "in" here, not in Pe1 4:1 as to Christ) proves that the reference is here not to Christ, but to the believer, whose remaining time for glorifying God is short (Pe1 4:3). "Live" in the truest sense, for heretofore he was dead. Not as ALFORD, "Arm yourselves . . . with a view no longer to live the rest of your time."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–16 4. Christ’s example, also, of holiness to be followed,…
4. Christ’s example, also, of holiness to be followed, 1Pe_4:1-6.
1. Christ hath suffered—1Pe_3:18.
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Arm yourselves—As a soldier called to a warfare.
The same mind—The same thought and purpose of suffering innocently and in God’s cause, that Christ manifested.
For— Some understand this clause, of the believer’s identification with Christ in his suffering and death, as in Rom_6:7-11, and Gal_2:20. But this is too Pauline for St. Peter’s style of expression; and, besides, the words hardly admit of it. Referred to Christ himself, it states, as a fact, the rest from sin that followed his suffering, and presents a valid reason for the arming, namely, that they, having the same purpose, should likewise have no more to do with sin.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–16 1. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered … in…
1. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered … in the flesh] The thoughts of the Apostle go back, somewhat after the manner of St Paul after a dogmatic digression, to the point from which he had started. Christ had suffered in the flesh. If those who had been baptized in His name were called so to suffer, they, looking to the glory that had followed on His sufferings, were to follow His example. They were, it might be, engaged in a tremendous conflict, but they needed no other armour than “the mind of Christ,” the temper of patient submission and unwavering trust in the wisdom and love of the Father.
for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin] If this had been the close of the sentence we might have looked on the “suffering” of which the Apostle speaks, as including death, as it had included it in the case of Christ. So taken, the words might seem to express the familiar thought that “Death only can from sin release,” as in the Rabbinic maxim “He that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom_6:7), that men were to welcome the sufferings that brought death near to them, as working out their complete emancipation. The words that follow, however, make this interpretation impossible, and the “ceasing from sin” must therefore be understood of that “deadness to sin,” “sin no longer having dominion over us,” of which St Paul speaks in Rom_6:7-11. That Apostle, it may be noted, though he quotes the Rabbinic proverb, transfers its application from literal to spiritual death, and St Peter, following a like train of thought, affirms as a general law of the spiritual life that the very act of suffering in the mind of Christ and for Him so strengthens the powers of will and faith that the sufferer is ipso facto delivered from the life in which sin is dominant. It is hard to think of a martyr in the hour of death, or of a confessor patiently bearing his cross, as malignant or fraudulent or impure.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–16 (1) Forasmuch then . . .—Literally, a participial phrase:…
IV.
(1) Forasmuch then . . .—Literally, a participial phrase: Christ, then, having suffered in (or, to) the flesh—i.e., so far as the flesh is concerned. The reference is to the words “killed in (or, to) the flesh” in 1Pe_3:18, to which the word “then” takes us back. It is difficult to decide about the right of the words “for us” to stand in the text. Tischendorf and Lachmann strike them out, and they are probably right in doing so. The authority for the reading “for you” is nearly as strong; but in fact neither is wanted here, as the point is not the atoning character of Christ’s death, but the death itself.
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Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.—Or rather, with the same conception. It does not mean merely “put yourselves into the same disposition:” that is, “resolve to die with Him.” Though the word which is here rendered “mind” may possibly bear the meaning “intent” assigned to it in Heb_4:12 (the only other place in the New Testament where it occurs), the more natural and common sense is that of conception, notion, view. Christ is therefore said to have been “armed” with a particular “conception” or “view,” which He found to be sufficient shield in the day of suffering; and we are exhorted to try the same defensive armour. The “view” which Christ found so efficacious was the view He took of the “suffering” itself. What that view was is forthwith explained.
For he that hath suffered in the flesh . . .—Rather, that he that hath suffered to the flesh is at rest from, sin. This is the “view” which we are to take. The thought is probably derived from Rom_6:7. The death of the body puts a stop (at any rate, for the redeemed) to any further possibility of sin. Welcome, death! A slight difficulty is caused by the implied fact that Christ, too, in dying “ceased from sin.” But the Greek word for “hath ceased” literally means hath been caused to rest, St. Peter using expressly (for the only time in the New Testament) that part of the verb which does not mean a voluntary cessation from what one was doing before, but a pause imposed from without. And that Christ looked upon His death as a boon of rest from sin (it does not say from sinning) is not only a true and impressive thought, but is fully justified by Rom_6:10, “He died unto sin,” and even by His cry, “It is finished.” Whatever harshness there is in the thought is much softened by the fact that St. Peter names it as the view we are to take, not directly as the view He took; so that it admits of some adjustment when applied to Him.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in…
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh. St. Peter returns, after the digression of 1Pe_3:19-22, to the great subject of Christ"s example. The words "for us" are omitted in some ancient manuscripts; they express a great truth already dwelt upon in 1Pe 2. and 3. Here the apostle is insisting upon the example of Christ, not on the atoning efficacy of his death. Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. The word rendered "mind" (ennoia) is more exactly "thought"; Heb_4:12, the only other place where it occurs in the New Testament but it certainly has sometimes the force of "intention, resolve." The Christian must be like his Mustier; he must arm himself with the great thought, the holy resolve, which was in the mind of Christ the thought that suffering borne in faith frees us from the power of sin, the resolve to suffer patiently according to the will of God. That thought, which can be made our own only by faith, is the Christian"s shield; we are to arm ourselves with it against the assaults of the evil one (comp. Romans 2Co_10:4; Eph_6:11) For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. The thought is that ofnnoia: Rom_6:6-11. Some translate the conjunction oti, "that," and understand it as giving the content of the e "Arm yourselves with the thought that," etc.; but this does not give so good a sense, and would seem to require tauthn rather than thn thought," rather than "the same thought." Some, again, understand this clause of Christ; but this seems a mistake. The apostle spoke first of the Master; now he turns to the disciple. Take, he says, for your amour the thoughts which filled the sacred heart of Christ the thought that suffering in the flesh is not, as the world counts it, an unmixed evil, but often a deep blessing; for, or because, he that suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. If, when we are called to suffer, we offer up our sufferings to Christ who suffered for us, and unite our sufferings with his by faith in him, then those sufferings, thus sanctified, destroy the power of sin, and make us cease from sin. (comp. Rom_6:10)
Vers. 1-6.
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Exhortation to entire separation from sin.
I BY UNION WITH CHRIST.
1. Through suffering. Suffering is the appointed discipline of the Christian soul. Gold is tried by fire, the Christian"s faith by suffering. Christ himself suffered in the flesh, and while we are in the flesh we must also suffer. "In that he died, he died unto sin once;" his death separated him from sin, from the sight and hearing of sin, from that mysterious contact with human sin which he endured when "he was made sin for us, though he was without sin." Our suffering ought to have the like power it ought to remove us out of the dominion of those sins which have hitherto ruled over us. This is the end, the blessedness, of suffering. God sends it in love; he chastens us for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. But suffering doth not always save. "The sorrow of the world worketh death;" it produces discontent and murmuring, and hardens the heart. To gain the blessed fruit of suffering, the eye of the suffering Christian must be fixed upon the suffering Lord. We must "arm ourselves with the same mind." "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." It must be our effort to think the same holy thoughts, to be animated by the same high resolve, which filled the sacred heart of Christ. Those thoughts, that resolve, are our spiritual amour. If we let our thoughts dwell on our troubles, if we fret ourselves, we are defenseless, we are exposed to the temptations which swarm around us. But we must look away from our own sufferings and
2. keep the earnest gaze of faith fixed upon the cross. Thus by an act of faith we may unite our sufferings with the Savior"s sufferings, and then suffering sanctified by faith in Christ will have its blessed work in destroying the power of sin.
3. Through the change of heart wrought by suffering. "He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." Suffering meekly borne is a great help in the daily conflict against sin; it shows us our own weakness and the emptiness of earthly comforts; it humbles us, and makes us less unwilling to submit ourselves to the holy will of God; it points our thoughts to the transitoriness of human life; it is miserable folly to waste that little life in following the wretched lusts of the flesh, when we ought to be doing the will of God. As the blessed angels do God"s holy will in heaven, so we must strive to do it in earth; we shall never dwell with the angels unless we are really trying to learn that deep and holy lesson.
II BY FORSAKING OLD SINS AND OLD COMPANIONS IN SIN.
1. What we must forsake. The will of the Gentiles. The Gentile world was very evil when the Lord Jesus came; sin reigned everywhere, open, rampant, unblushing. It was a shame for the heathen thus to live, for they had the light of conscience; it is a shame of far deeper guilt for us Christians, who have the full light of the gospel, to live as did the Gentiles. Converted men must cast off those old sins; the sins of the flesh, uncleanness, drunkenness, and such like, ruin body and soul. Men set up idols in their hearts money, station, honor; they fall down and worship these things. Christians must forsake these unlawful idolatries. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God; him only shalt thou serve." Him only; Satan stands behind these idols it is he whom men really worship when they give their hearts to this or that earthly idol. We have given too much time, far too much, to these idolatries. Let the time past suffice which we have miserably wasted; the residue may be very short. There is much to be done, let us take heed that we waste our time no more.
2. Whom we must forsake. Our old companions, it may be, think it strange that we no longer live as once, perhaps, we did; we were as bad as themselves once, they say. It may be so, but we are changed, and they, alas! are not; we have, we humbly trust, put on the new man; we are (God grant that it be so D in Christ, abiding in vital union with him, as living branches in the true Vine; and old things must pass away old desires, old pursuits, old hopes and fears; all things must become new, for we are new creatures in Christ. Men think us strange; they speak evil of us, perhaps; they call us hypocritical, sanctimonious; they exaggerate the inconsistencies which they see in us, and invent and eagerly propagate falsehoods. They cannot understand the Christian life; they cannot feel its hidden sweetness; it seems to them strange, hard, unattractive. We must not heed the vain talk of men; we must seek the praise that cometh from God; we must take patiently the accusations of evil tongues; in some degree, probably, we have deserved them; only let us labor more and more to please God in all things.
III BY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE JUDGMENT.
1. All must be judged. All, believers and unbelievers, saints and sinners, persecuted and persecutors, slandered and slanderers, all must give account of their deeds; for the Lord is at hand, ready to judge the quick and the dead; as soon as the number of his elect is complete, the judgment will be set, the books will be opened. This thought gives an awful solemnity to human life; the record of each day as it passes is entered in those mysterious books. Sufferings, slanders, can be patiently endured when we think of the coming judgment. The persecutors, the evil-speakers, must give account to the great Judge; the Christian should pity them, should pray for them. It seems sad now to be persecuted; then it will be sadder far to have been persecutors.
2. For all will have heard the gospel. Quick and dead alike will have heard it. It was preached in Hades by the Lord himself to the dead who in life had not heard the glad tidings. It is a sweet and comforting thought that they were not left to perish uncared for. We know not the result of the Savior"s preaching; it is hidden from us; conjecture is vain, perhaps irreverent. But we have the fact the gospel was preached to them, and the object was that they might live according to God in the spirit. Is it now preached to the dead who in life have had scanty opportunities and scanty knowledge? We are not told; but we know that God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;" we know that the Lord Jesus Christ "tasted death for every man; " we know that the true Light" lighteth every man;" and we feel sure that none can be left perish without the means of grace; we feel sure that, in some way, and at some time, the gracious offer of salvation comes to every man in life or in death, in ways known or unknown.
LESSONS.
1. Christ teaches how to suffer. Learn of him in this as in all things.
2. Make suffering a means for destroying the power of sin. It will be so, if in suffering you contemplate the suffering Lord, and arm yourselves with his holy resolve.
3. The time is short. Live a godly, righteous, and sober life.
4. Shun evil companions; when they would tempt you to sin, think of the coming judgment; take heed to yourselves, and pray for them.
HOMILIES BY C. NEW Vers. 1-7.
The persecuted Christian reminded of the necessity of suffering for righteousness.
This passage is the most difficult in the entire Epistle. We can see a meaning in each of its sentences taken separately, but when we take them together their meaning, as a whole, is obscure. As far, however, as I can understand it, I would entitle the paragraph, The persecuted Christian reminded of the necessity of suffering for righteousness. Peter here states the fact that suffering for righteousness is no strange thing, but what Christians must reasonably look for.
I CHRIST"S SUFFERING BIDS HIS PEOPLE BE READY TO SUFFER. The sufferings of our Lord alluded to here are not his substitutionary sufferings they are referred to in the eighteenth verse; of them, to the world"s last moment, it will be true, "I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with me." But there is another class of our Lord"s sufferings in which his people can, and according to their likeness to him must, shape the suffering he bore in the maintenance of holiness in an evil world; of this he could say, "The disciple is not above his Master." There is sometimes confusion in Christian minds, in finding that Christ is said to suffer for us, and yet that in many places we are called to suffer with him. Let us be clear on this point, we are "redeemed by the precious blood of Christ;" God requires nothing from us for our redemption, but, when thus redeemed, much of Christ"s suffering becomes the pattern of ours; and of that he says, "He that taketh not up his cross and cometh after me cannot be my disciple.
1. Christs experience would lead us to expect that holiness must suffer on earth. For three and thirty years he, the Embodiment of perfect love to God and man, lived and moved upon this earth, and what was the result? He was "despised and rejected of men;" the longer he lived, the more he wrought, the wider he was known, the wilder and louder and fiercer became the cry, "Away with him! Crucify him!" Goodness condemns wickedness when the lips say nothing; the very presence of a good man in an ungodly circle is a protest against evil. On one side at least there will always be enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman; and the nearer his people approach conformity to their Lord"s character, the more may they be sure of conformity to their Lord"s death.
2. What Christs sufferings have made possible to us should lead us to be willing to suffer for its attainment. Our Lord"s sufferings had no other end than our sanctification, to secure God-likeness in us. How great a boon must this be, when it could be purchased at no less a price than what comes to mind, when we speak of our Lord as "the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" and for which he did not regard that Drice as too great to pay! And if we find, when we try to secure and maintain this great blessing, that it can only be done at much cost to ourselves, how impossible it is for us to shrink from it, when we remember the greater cost of this to him] It were a solemn thing to refuse through cowardice to "fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ.
3. The claims of Christ should lead us to resolve to suffer if need be for him. Where Christ"s sacrifice is present to the mind, there is no room for self left; the "I" in us is destroyed; the blood of Christ, when rightly apprehended, not only blots out our sin, but also our self. We come now to the difficult part of this passage, but I think it brings before us this truth
II THE SUFFERING OF CHRIST"S PEOPLE NECESSARILY ARISES FROM THREE CAUSES.
1. Suffering through mortification of the flesh. It seems natural to suppose that when, having said, "Christ hath suffered in the flesh," the apostle goes on to say, "For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin," he is still referring to Christ. But it cannot be so, for of him" who did no sin" it cannot be said that he hath "ceased from sin;" it must refer to us. Yet how can it be said of them whom he has called to arm themselves with the same suffering mind as Christ, that they have "ceased from sin"? I think we have here a parallel to what we read in, Rom_6:6-11," Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him," etc. That contains a priceless truth, which we do not half realize. It speaks of a death in us, corresponding to our Lord"s death; that this is to be the sublime result of his death the death of sin in his people; and it is this which Peter here holds up to us, "He that hath suffered in the flesh (hath put to death the flesh) hath ceased from sin," etc. But that destroying the flesh is suffering, to take our natural desires and passions and nail them to the cross is crucifixion a slow, lingering death, which involves unutterable pain till it is complete.
2. Suffering through difference from the world. "For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles," etc. We have here a true picture of the pagan character, and it is hardly possible for us to imagine the contrast which was manifest when such a one became converted to Christ. Glaring evils had to be renounced at once, lifelong associations had to be severed at a blow. That was the case here; and what was the result? They were evil spoken of, and that is where the suffering always comes in when we break with wrong associations. We shall be thought strange by others, and shall seem to be condemning them, assuming that we are better than they. And to be misjudged, misrepresented, reviled, is suffering; but, as Christians, there is no help for it, we must sever ourselves from what is worldly.
3. Suffering through, spiritual discipline. "For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead" etc. The word "dead" here must be taken to mean those who are dead whilst they live. But. even with that alteration, it is difficult to see clearly what the verse means. Now it is said that the construction of the Greek allows of the insertion of the word "although;" just as in a passage in Rom_6:17, which we never read without mentally inserting the word "although." If that be so, the meaning is evident: "For to this end was the gospel preached even to them who were dead in sins, than (although) they might be judged, condemned, persecuted, put to death according to men in the flesh, they might live according to God in the spirit." Spiritual life is God"s end with us, let men do with us what they may. And the spiritual life is often developed by means of what men do to us. Every act of persecution is to be followed by a deeper peace, a holier purity, a higher power.
III THE COMING END ASSISTS CHRIST"S PEOPLE TO BEAR SUFFERING IN A RIGHT SPIRIT. Looking at this superficially, some might think this a hard gospel; the follower of Christ is to arm himself with the expectation of suffering. But look what comes before, and what follows after this. What comes before? "Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh." What follows it? "The end of all things is at hand." This hard demand stands between the cross and the crown; that makes all the difference.
1. The coming end calls us to estimate reasonably the extent of the sneering. Read it as it is in the Revised Version. "Be ye therefore of sound mind." The apostle is here calling the persecuted to regard their sufferings reasonably, in connection with the fact that "the end of all things is at hand." The earth-trials of God"s people are, after all, but the momentary cloud in the day of heavenly sunshine, which shall have no evening, of which now in Christ we have the dawn.
2. The coming end calls us to vigilance lest we lose the coming blessing.
That "coming end" wilt be the beginning of the glorified life that life in which what we have sown here we shall reap; that life in which we may have "an entrance ministered to us abundantly," or in which we may be "saved yet so as by fire." Beware lest under the pressure of temptation you conform to the world, you be ashamed of Jesus, you refuse your cross, and thereby lose your crown. Suffering there must be; look to the end, anticipate the glory which it begins, and against all that would rob you of the fullness of that glory, watch unto prayer. C.N.
HOMILIES BY R. FINLAYSON Vers. 1-6.
Coming to judgment.
I THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST CARNIES WITH IT THE RESOLUTION TO SUFFER. "Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind." Peter goes back to the starting-point, that from it, with practical instruction, he may go beyond the present session of Christ at the right hand of God, viz. to his coming to judgment. He does not say, "put to death in the flesh," but more generally, to suit the condition of those whom he was addressing, "suffered in the flesh." When it is said that he suffered, we are to understand that he did not avoid, but bravely faced, whatever suffering came to him in the way of righteousness. He armed himself with the resolution to suffer; and thus he was prepared for it when it came. Let us also arm ourselves with the same mind. Let us not, in the way of evil compliance, avoid suffering. Let us be resolved bravely to face whatever ordeal our God appoints; thus also shall we be prepared for it when it comes. When it is said that Christ suffered in the flesh, there may be, in the line of a former thought, a look beyond his past condition to his present condition. He is no longer in the flesh to suffer; so shall it soon be with us, that we are no longer in the flesh to suffer.
II THE RESOLUTION TO SUFFER CARRIES WITH IT A BREAK WITH SIN. "For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that ye no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." It is better to carry the third person through the whole, the second part being simply a further definition of the first. It is wrong also not to bring out the past tense, "he that suffered," just as it was said "Christ suffered." It is, however, introducing a foreign thought to suppose the meaning to be that, when Christ suffered, the person thought of suffered. The person to be thought of is one to whom at a previous stage and a critical stage in his history there was given the choice of suffering or not suffering. When he resolved to suffer, he very distinctly broke with sin. He said that he would rather suffer than sin. tie looked forward to the rest of his time in the flesh, and said that the rule of his life would no longer be the lusts of men (a rule variable and without authority), but the will of God (a rule invariable and having the highest authority). The "no longer" of sin along with "the time past of suffering" is to be explained by the fact that suffering commenced with conversion to Christianity.
III THE BREAK WITH SIN IS NOT TO BE REGRETTED. "For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, wine-bibbings, revellings, carousings, and abominable idolatries." The life according to "the desire of the Gentiles" is particularly described. It was a life in excesses, especially of impurity. It was a life in lusts, especially fleshly. It was a life in wineswillings. It was a life in night-banquetings, after which the custom was to sally out into the streets "wakening the echoes with song and dance and noisy frolic." It was a life in drinking-bouts. It was a life in idolatries that violated what was sacred (associated with many abominations). Peter"s readers were of Gentile extraction; for it is said that in time past they had wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and walked in the things mentioned, He adroitly founds on their experience, saying less than the reality in order to suggest the more. "The past may suffice; there is a figure in that, meaning much more than the words express. It is enough oh, too much, to have so long, so miserable a life" (Leighton). We are reminded of Paul"s way of dealing with the Roman Christians, "For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
IV THE NEW ARE A PUZZLE AND AN OFFENSE TO THE OLD. "Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you." The heathen represented as rushing over the barriers that stand in the way of vicious indulgence: and they are astonished to find their former companions not rushing with them to the same goal. They are puzzled to understand the new principles from which they act, the complete revolution that has taken place in their ways of thinking and acting. And they are more than puzzled; they are offended. They take it as an affront that their company should not be thought good enough, and so they steak evil of them.
V ACCOUNT IS TO BE GIVEN TO CHRIST AS JUDGE. "Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Was it right for the Christians to withdraw? was it wrong for the heathen to resent their withdrawal? Yes; it would be as decided by Christ, to whom these evil-speakers would give account. Thus does the apostle return to his line of thought. So far from being crushed by death, Christ is to be gloriously active in the future on earth again, He is here represented as ready to judge the quick and the dead. He is to judge all without exception, He is ready to judge, as invested with all the authority and power that are necessary for judgment. At this moment, if the materials for judgment were complete, he could descend from heaven to hold the great assize.
VI CONNECTION WITH JUDGMENT OF THE FORMERLY MENTIONED PREACHING TO THE DEAD. "For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." "Dead" is general; but we are not to think of all the dead. The word is properly limited by the connected language. The time is to be observed the gospel was preached to the dead. And we are only to think of the dead with whom the language can be associated, that they had been judged according to men in the flesh. The reference seems to be simply to the antediluvians. They had been overtaken, not by death in the ordinary way; but, in the interests of humanity, it had been considered necessary that they should be swept from the face of the earth. This judgment according to man was not one with the final judgment on them. To them, after they had been judged thus on earth, in Hades the gospel was preached. The aim seems to be so stated as to throw the judging before the preaching. The expression of the aim as life in the spirit is very startling. This is far from being plain to us; and we have not the links that would enable us to connect it with judgment. We can only apply to Peter"s own writings the words he applies to Paul"s, "In which are some things hard to be understood. R.F.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 12, 16 Christ suffered in the flesh.
1Pe_4:1-6
Christ suffered in the flesh.
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Ecce Homo
The Redeemer of the world is in one sense infinitely above us; but in another sense He is actually beside us. His sympathy is as true as His sovereignty.
I. Try to understand what the sufferings of Jesus were. He suffered in the flesh. No one can read the Gospels without seeing indications of those sufferings.
1. There can be no doubt that Jesus was exempted from many of the physical ills from which we suffer. We can only think of Him as healthy, not only because of His birth, but because the exacting nature of His self-forgetful work required a perfect physique. Besides this, we must remember that many of our physical sufferings we bring on ourselves. Idleness, self-indulgence, artificial modes of life, irregularities, are the causes of many of the ills which flesh is heir to; but the life of Jesus was exquisite in its simplicity and unstained by a single vicious propensity. And this reminds us further that He could not have suffered, as we do, from a sense of personal sin, from the remorse which follows after our utterance of an unkind word, or the indulgence of an evil propensity, or from the tumult of passion which rises up within a sinful heart. Yet He was a sufferer. He was a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses. But besides these His whole life was a martyrdom. His sensibility, not only to physical pain, but to mental and moral agony, must have been exquisite.
2. Think, too, of His utter loneliness. His was the solitude of a holy soul surrounded by sinners; of a heavenly spirit in contact with things earthly and sensual; of a mind whose higher thoughts not a single being on earth could appreciate; whose truest objects in living and dying as He did none could comprehend.
3. That expression, in the flesh, reminds us of His uncongenial surroundings. He lived and died among a despised people, and was regarded as an outcast even by some of them! Often must He have felt as the Jews did when, exiled from home and fatherland, they hanged their harps upon the willows, and wept as they remembered Zion, saying, How can we sing the Lords song in a strange land?
II. How these sufferings were endured by Him.
1. It is evident that He accepted them as Gods appointment for Him here. The cup which My Father hath given Me shall I not drink it? indicates His attitude to trouble right through. If a days ministry brought Him no result, He did not repine; if His own nation rejected Him, He meekly accepted the result, though with unutterable sorrow over the issues of it to them; if the Cross was to be faced, He went forth willingly to Calvary, there to die-the just for the unjust-to bring us unto God.
2. Notice also that our Lord never allowed Himself to be absorbed in His own sorrows. He was always ready to enter into other peoples joys and griefs, whatever His own sorrows might be. He is not so absorbed in the joys of heaven that He will not listen to the faltering cry of the lowliest penitent. I have known some sufferers who have been armed with the same mind. Their unselfishness has been sublime. Their couch of pain has proved the centre of joy and peace to those who circle round them.
III. But how can we do this? (A. Rowland, LL. B.)
Christs sufferings
I. Christ suffered in human nature. His sufferings in the flesh were-
1. Great, corporeal, social, mediatorial.
2. Ignominious. Poverty, obloquy, persecution, crucifixion.
II. Christ suffered for men.
III. Christ suffered with a spirit which men should cultivate.
1. Profoundly religious.
2. Self denyingly philanthropic.
IV. The possession of this spirit is the power to deliver us from moral evil. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Sin pierced
Use sin, as Christ was used when He was made sin for us; lift it up, and make it naked by confession to God. And then pierce-
1. The hands of it, in respect of operation, that it may work no more.
2. The feet of it, in respect of progression, that it go no further.
3. The heart, in respect of affection, that it may be loved no longer. (J. Trapp.)
Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.-
Conformity with Christ
I. The high engagement to this conformity. He suffered for us in the flesh. We are the more obliged to make His suffering our example, because it was to us more than an example; it was our ransom. This makes the conformity reasonable in a double respect. It is due that we follow Him, who led us as the Captain of our salvation; that we follow Him in suffering and in doing, seeing both were for us. What can be too bitter to endure, or too sweet to forsake, to follow Him? Were this duly considered, should we cleave to our lusts or to our ease? Should we not be willing to go through fire and water, yea, through death itself, yea, were it possible, through many deaths, to follow Him? Consider, as this conformity is due, so it is made easy by His suffering for us. Our chains which bound us over to eternal death being knocked off, shall we not walk, shall we not run, in His ways?
II. The nature of this conformity, to show the nearness of it, is expressed in the very same terms as in the pattern; it is not remote resemblance, but the same thing, even suffering in the flesh. But that we may understand rightly what suffering is here meant, it is plainly this, ceasing from sin. So that this suffering in the flesh is not simply the enduring of afflictions, which is a part of the Christians conformity to His Head, but it implies a more inward and spiritual suffering. It is the suffering and dying of our corruption, the taking away of the life of sin by the death of Christ: the death of His sinless flesh works in the believer the death of sinful flesh, that is, the corruption of His nature, which is so usually in Scripture called flesh. Ceased from sin. He is at rest from it, a godly death, as they who die in the Lord rest from their labours. Faith so looks on the death of Christ, that it takes the impression of it, sets it on the heart, kills it unto sin. Christ and the believer do not only become one in law, so that His death stands for theirs, but one in nature, so that His death for sin causes theirs to it (Rom_6:3).
III. The actual improvement of this conformity. Arm yourselves with the same mind, or thoughts of this mortification. Consider and apply the suffering of Christ in the flesh, to the end that you with Him suffering in the flesh, may cease from sin. Think that it ought to be thus, and seek that it may be thus with you. Arm yourselves. There is still fighting, and sin will be molesting you; though wounded to death, yet will it struggle for life, and seek to wound its enemy; it will assault the graces that are in you. You may take the Lords promise for victory in the end; that shall not fail; but do not promise yourself ease in the way, for that will not hold. If at sometimes you be undermost, give not all up for lost; he hath often won the day who hath been foiled and wounded in the fight. But likewise take not all for won, so as to have no more conflict, when sometimes you have the better in particular battles. Now the way to be armed is this, the same mind. How would my Lord Christ carry Himself in this case? And what was His business in all places and companies? Was it not to do the will and advance the glory of His Father? Thus ought it to be with the Christian, framing all his ways, and words, and very thoughts, upon that model, the mind of Christ, and studying in all things to walk even as He walked; studying it much, as the reason and rule of mortification, and drawing from it, as the real cause and spring of mortification. (Abp. Leighton.)
Cardinal truths
I. The cardinal truth of Christianity Christ hath suffered for us.
II. The Christians cardinal duty-Christ having suffered for us, arm yourselves with the same mind.
1. Arm yourselves with the same mind as to the method of conduct.
2. Arm yourselves with the same mind as to the purpose in view.
III. The Christians daily course of life-that we should no longer live, etc. (J. J. S. Bird.)
Christ the grand necessity of man
I. Christs mind is the weapon with which man is to fight his way on to moral perfection. His moral perfection is here taught. But to reach this what a battle man has to fight! By the mind of Christ we are to understand, of course, not His mere intellect, great as it was, nor His conscience, sublimely pure though it was; but the moral spirit that inspired and directed all His intellectual and moral powers. By His mind we mean, in one word, His moral character. Now this is the weapon by which alone man can win victories over evil, and obtain the crown of life, namely, conformity to the will of God. Doctrines will not do it, however Scriptural; religious rites will not do it, however studiously observed. Who is the man in our world the most successful in putting down wrong? Not the legislator, however just the laws he enacts; not the moralist, however cogent his arguments and powerful his rhetoric; but the man who has the mind of Christ as his armour.
II. Christs sufferings are the argument for the employment of this weapon. First, the sufferings of Christ were in the flesh. He was in the flesh, but not flesh. Secondly, Christ suffered in the flesh in order to establish human holiness. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The rest of his time in the flesh.-
The rest of his time in the flesh
Who can tell how long that may be for any one of us? The sands run swiftly through lifes hour glass. The shadow hastens to go down upon the dial. The waves eat away so quickly the dwindling shoal of land which crumbles beneath us. The Christian finds nothing in such thoughts to make him sad. Every milestone marks the growing nearness of his home. The waves cannot be crossed too swiftly by the eager traveller. Before us lie the ages of eternity, filled with a blessedness of personal enjoyment and rapturous ministry which defy tongue to tell or mind to picture. But the blessed future must not divert our thoughts from the duties to be discharged during the rest of the time which we are to spend in the flesh. We must not be dreamers, but warriors. To arms! Arm yourselves with the same mind; and when we ask, What mind? we are told to arm ourselves with the mind that took Jesus to His death. In a venerable old church at Innsbruck, famous for containing the tomb of the great Emperor Maximilian, there is a magnificent bronze statue of Godfrey of Boulogne, the illustrious crusader. His head is covered with a helmet, and on the helmet rests a crown of thorns. Of course, there was a meaning in the mind of the artist other than that with which we now invest the strange conjunction. He doubtless designed to represent the sacred cause for which that helmet was donned. But we may discover an apt symbol of the teaching of our apostle, who unites in these verses the armour of the Christian soldier, and the recollection of Christs suffering in the flesh. This witness of the sufferings of Christ first takes us to the Cross; and after gazing reverently on that spectacle of love, we are brought to a point where two ways diverge. And the only way of discovering and maintaining the right path is to imbibe the spirit of that wondrous death; nay, to bind it around us as a talisman of victory. In hoc signo vinces. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The right use of the residue of our time
I. Negatively. Not to the lusts of men! This does not mean that we are to neglect our bodily interests. What are the lusts? Animal instincts grown to a dominant force.
II. Positively. To the will of God. This implies-
1. That God has a will.
2. That God has a will concerning men.
3. That Gods will is revealed.
What is the will of God concerning men? First, it is His will that we should believe in Christ (Joh_6:29; 1Jn_3:23). Secondly, it is His will that we shall be purified from sin. This is the will of God, even your sanctification (1Th_4:3). Thirdly, it is His will that we should cultivate a practical gratitude for all the blessings of life (1Th_5:18). Fourthly, it is His will that every man shall be saved (1Ti_2:4). (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The time in the flesh
I. Our time in the flesh is chequered.
II. Our time in the flesh is short.
III. Our time here is uncertain.
IV. Our time here is important. (Homilist.)
To the lusts of men.
Mens lusts opposed to Gods will
1. To live after the lusts of men and to the will of God are opposite each to other as light and darkness.
2. We cannot at one and the same time both walk after our lusts and live to Gods will. One lust loved, sufficient to condemn.
3. In the course of sanctification, we must begin at renouncing our own will, and the lusts of men. None sow a plant till weeds be pulled up; none put on new apparel till they have put off their rags.
4. It is not sufficient that we renounce our lusts and evil, except we yield obedience to the will of God.
5. It is not one action or two whereby a man is discovered what he is, but his constant course of walking or living. (John Rogers.)
The flesh rightly used
The flesh itself, under the calm subduing influence of your purer spirit, will become a dignified servant in waiting on its superior. Good gardeners know a better way of conquering the wild thorn than by uprooting and destroying it. They set it in their garden. They graft it on some queenly rose. Then the wild thorn expends its energy not upon itself, but upon that which is above itself; and as a reward is crowned with a glory which itself could not possibly produce. (G. Calthrop.)
To the will of God.-
Will of God
1. It is a good will.
2. A holy will.
3. A just will.
4. An impartial will.
5. A practicable will.
6. A supreme will.
7. An obligatory will. (John Bate.)
Living to Gods will
I. This is the lesson of mans past evil life.
1. Sadness.
(1) Enough of sin, because of its-
(2) Degradation to self.
(3) Injuriousness to others.
(4) Rebellion against God.
2. Hope.
(1) Forgiveness for time past.
(2) Deliverance from time past.
II. Notwithstanding bad mens wonder at good mens conduct, what Peter said two thousand years ago is true today. The thoroughly corrupt man finds it impossible to understand the Christly man.
1. He thinks his conduct strange, and so, perhaps, ignores him altogether.
2. Or he thinks his conduct strange, and is aggravated by it.
3. Or he thinks his conduct strange, and it leads him to inquire. This is the good effect.
III. Both Christs judgment and Christs Gospel are for all. (U. R. Thomas.)
Gods win
The perfection of a mans nature is when his will fits on to Gods like one of Euclids triangles superimposed upon another, and line for line coincides. When his will allows a free passage to the will of God, without resistance, as light travels through transparent glass; when his will responds to the touch of Gods finger upon the keys, like the telegraphic needle to the operators hand; then man has attained all that God and religion can do for him, all that his nature is capable of.
The will of God
What a glorious contrast to the will of the flesh is the will of God! This was the food of Jesus. To do this He came to earth. It was the fire cloud that lit His pathway, the yoke in carrying which He found rest, the Urim and Thummim, which dimmed or shone with heavenly guidance. There is no course more safe or blessed than to live in the will of God. Gods will is good will. Where the will of God lies across the wilderness pathway, there flowers bloom, and waters gush from rocks of flint. Sometimes the flesh rebels against it, because it means crucifixion and self-denial, but under the rugged shell the sweetest kernel nestles, and none know the ecstasy of living save those who refuse the broad, easy road of the lusts of men, to climb the steep, upward path of doing the will of God from the heart. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 12, 15 Chapter 12
Chapter 12
THE LESSONS OF SUFFERING
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1Pe_4:1-6
IT is always hard to swim against the stream; and if the effort be a moral one, the difficulty is not lessened. These early Christians were finding it so. For them there must have existed hardships of which today we can have no experience, and form but an imperfect estimate. If they lived among a Jewish population, these were sure to be offended at the new faith. And when we remember the zeal for persecution of a Saul of Tarsus, we can see that in many cases the better the Jew the more would he feel himself bound, if possible, to exterminate the new doctrines. Among the heathen the lot of the Christians was often worse. Did the people listen a while to the teaching of the missionaries, yet so unstable were they that, as at Lystra, today might see them stoning those whom yesterday they were venerating as gods; and they could easily, by reason of their greater numbers, bring the magistrates to inflict penalties even where the multitude refrained from mob violence. The cry, "These men exceedingly trouble our city," or "These who turn the world upside down are come among us," was sure to find a ready audience; while the uproar and violence which raged in a city like Ephesus, when Paul and his companions preached there, show how many temporal interests could be banded together against the Christian cause. On individual believers, not of the number of the preachers, the more violent attacks might not fall; but to suffer in the flesh was the lot of most of them in St. Peters day. Hence the strong figure he employs to describe the preparation they will need: "Arm ye yourselves" - make you ready, for you are going forth to battle. St. Paul also, writing to Rome and Corinth, uses the same figure: "Let us put on the armor of light," "the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left."
"Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind." Though some strokes of the foe will fall on the flesh, the conflict is really a spiritual one. The suffering in the body is to be sustained and surmounted by an inward power; the armor of light and of righteousness is the equipment of the soul, which panoply the Apostle here calls the mind of Christ. Now what is the mind of Christ which can avail His struggling servants? The word implies intention, purpose, resolution, that on which the heart is set. Now the intention of Christs life was to oppose and overcome all that was evil, and to consecrate Himself to all good for the love of His people. This latter He tells us in His parting prayer for His disciples: "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth," {Joh_17:19} while every action of His life proclaims His determined enmity against sin. This brought Him obloquy while He lived in the world, and in the end a shameful death; but these things did not abate His hatred of sin, nor lessen His love for sinners. For still into the city where He reigns there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, {Rev_21:27} though to the faithful penitent "the Spirit and the bride say, Come, and he that is athirst, let him come; he that will, let him take the water of life freely". {Rev_22:17}
Christ bare willingly all that was laid upon Him that He might bring men unto God. This is the spirit, this the purpose, the intent, with which His followers are to be actuated: to have the same strenuous abhorrence of sin, the same devotion in themselves to goodness, which shall make them inflexible, however fiercely they may be assailed. Let them only make the resolve, and power shall be bestowed to strengthen them. He who says, "Arm yourselves," supplies the weapons when His servants need them. Jesus Himself found them ready when the tempter came, and drew them in all their keenness and strength from the Divine armory. Satan comes to others as he came to Christ, and will make them flinch and waver, if he can. At times he offers attractive baits; at times he brings fear to his aid. But, in whatever shape he comes or sends his agents, let them but cling to the mind of Christ, and they shall, like Him, say triumphantly, "Get thee behind me, Satan."
"For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin." God intends it to be so, and the earnest Christian strives with all his might that it may be so. To help men God sends them sufferings, and intends them to have a moral effect on the life. They are not penal; they are the discipline of perfect love desiring that men should be held back from straying. Men cannot always see the purposes of God at first, and are prone to bewail their lot. But here and there a saint of old has left his testimony. One of the later psalmists had discovered the blessedness of God-sent trials: "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I observe Thy word"; and, in thankful acknowledgment of the love which sent the blows, he adds, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes". {Psa_119:67; Psa_119:71} Hezekiah had learnt the lesson, though it brought him close to the gates of the grave; but he testifies, "Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness. Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." {Isa_38:17} God had blotted out the evil record that he who had suffered in the flesh might cease from sin. It is good for us thus to recognize that Gods dispensations are for our correction and teaching, and that without them we should have been verily desolate, left to choose our own way, which would surely have been evil; and though we cannot cease from sin while we are in the flesh, Gods mercy places the ideal state before us-"He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin"- that we may be strengthened, nevermore to submit ourselves to the yoke of wickedness. How shall he that is dead to sin live any longer therein? Live therein he cannot. Of that old man within him he will have no resurrection, for though the motions, the promptings to evil, are there, the love of evil is slain by the greater love of Christ.
"That ye no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." Christians must live out their lives till God calls them, and for the rest of their time in the flesh they will be among their wonted surroundings. Just as Christian slaves must abide with their masters, and Christian wives continue with their husbands, so each several believer must do his duty where God has placed him. But because he is a believer it will be done in a different spirit. He is daily cutting himself away from what the world counts for life; he has begun to live in the Spirit, and the natural man is weakened day by day; he knows that what is born of the flesh is flesh, and bears the taint of sin: so he refuses to follow where it would lead him. Men often plead for evil habits that they are natural, forgetting that "natural" thus used means human, corrupt nature. The birth of the Spirit transforms this nature, and the renewed man goes about his worldly life with a new motive, new purposes. He must follow his lawful calling like other folks, but the sense of his pilgrimage makes him to differ; he is longing to depart, and holds himself in constant readiness. Worldly men live as though they were rooted here and would never be moved. "Their inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwellingplaces to all generations; they call their lands after their own names". {Psa_49:11} To the servant of Christ life wears another aspect. He is content to live on, for God so wills it, and has work for him to do. To continue in the flesh may be, as it was to St. Paul, the fruit of his labor. And he welcomes this owning of his work, and will spend his powers in like service. Yet, with the Apostle, he has ever "the desire to depart and be with Christ, for it is very far better". {Php_1:23} And as he strives to fulfill Gods intent by crucifying the old man and ceasing from sin, the Christian rejoices in a growing sense of freedom. To follow the lusts of men was to serve many and hard taskmasters. Riches, fame, luxury, sensual indulgences, riotous living, are all keen to win new slaves, and paint their lures in the most attractive colors; and one appetite will make itself the ally of another, lust hard by greed, so that the chains of him who takes service with them are riveted many times over, and difficult, often impossible, to be cast off. But the will of God is one: "One is your Master"; "Love the Lord your God with all your heart"; "And all ye are brethren"; "Love your neighbor as yourself." Then shall you enter into life. And the life of this promise is not that fragment of time, which remains to men in the flesh, but that unending afterlife where the natural body shall be exchanged for a spiritual body, and death be swallowed up in victory.
"For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles." The Apostle here seems to be addressing the Jews who, living among the Gentiles, had, like their forefathers in Canaan, learned their works. The nation was not so prone to fall away into heathendom after the Captivity; yet some of them in the dispersion, like Samson when he went down unto the Philistines, may have been captured and blinded and made to serve. The proximity of evil is infectious. To the Gentile converts St. Peter speaks elsewhere as having been slaves to their lusts in ignorance. {1Pe_1:14} But whether Jew or Gentile, when they had once tasted the joy of this purer service, this law of obedience which made them truly free, they would be strengthened to suffer in the flesh rather than fall back upon their former life. The time would seem enough, far more than enough, to have been thus defiled. All was Gods; all that remained must be given to Him with strenuous devotion.
St. Peter seems to place in contrast, as he describes the two ways of life, two words, one by which he denotes the service of God, by the other devotion to the world and its attractions. The former (θελημα) implies a pleasure and joy; it is the will of God that which He delights in, and which He makes to be a joy to those who serve Him. The other (βουλημα) has a sense of longing, unsatisfied want, a state which craves for something which it cannot attain. St. Paul describes it as "led away by divers lusts, ever learning" (but in an evil school), "never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, corrupted in mind, reprobate". {2Ti_3:7} Such is the desire of the Gentiles. The Apostle describes it in his next words: "To have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revellings, carousings, and abominable idolatries." How gross heathendom can be our missionaries from time to time reveal to us. All the corruptions, which they describe, were reigning in full power round about these converts. When men change the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of corruptible man or even worse, and worship and serve the creature, their own animal passions, rather than the Creator, there is no depth of degradation to which they may not sink. St. Paul has painted for us some dark pictures of what such lives could be. {Rom_1:24-32; Col_3:5-8} But though Christianity in our own land has forced sin to veil some of its fouler aspects, vice has not changed its nature. The same passions rule in the hearts of those who live to the lusts of men, and not to the will of God. The flesh warreth against the Spirit, even if the Spirit be not utterly quenched, and brings men into its slavery. For the sake of Christ, then, and for love of the brethren, the faithful have need still to be proclaiming, "Let the time past suffice," and by their actions to testify that they are willing to suffer in the flesh, if so be they may thereby be sustained in the battle against sin and may strengthen their brethren to walk in a new way.
"Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you." The godless love to be a large company, that they may keep one another in heart. Hence they who have been of them, and would fain withdraw, have no easy task; and to win new comrades sinners are ever most solicitous. Their invitations at first will take a friendly tone. Solomon understood them well, and described them in warning to his son: "Come with us," they say: "let us lay wait for blood; let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause; let us swallow them up alive as Sheol, and whole as those that go down into the pit. We shall find all precious substance; we shall fill our houses with spoil. Thou shalt cast thy lot among us; we will all have one purse". {Pro_1:11-14} This is one fashion of their excess of riot, but there are many more. The Apostles words picture their life as an overflow, a deluge. And the figure is not strange in Holy Writ. "The floods of ungodly men made me afraid," says the Psalmist; {Psa_18:14} and St. Jude, writing about the same time as St. Peter and of the same evil days, calls such sinners "wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shames". {Jud_1:13} "Shames," he says, because the floods of excess pour on in overwhelming abundance, and those who escape from them do so only with much suffering in the flesh, sent of God, to set them free from sin.
And if there be no hope of winning recruits or alluring back those who have escaped, the godless follow another course. They hate, and persecute, and malign. Ever since the days of Cain this has been the policy of the wicked, though not all push it so far as did the first murderer. {1Jn_3:12} For the life of the righteous is a constant reproach to them. They have made their own choice, but it yields them no comfort; and if one means of making others as wretched as themselves fails, they take another. They point the finger of hatred and scorn at the faithful. To the Greeks Christs faith was foolishness. The Athenians, full of this worlds wisdom, asked about Paul, "What will this babbler say?" and mocked as they heard of the resurrection of the dead. With them and such as they this life is all. But the Christian has his consolation: he has committed his cause to another Judge, before whom they also who speak evil of him must appear.
"Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." The Christian looks on to the coming judgment. He can therefore disregard the censures of men. Neither the penalties nor the revilings of the world trouble him. They are a part of the judgment in the present life; by them God is chastening him, preparing him by the suffering in the flesh to be more ready for the coming of the Lord. In that day it will be seen how the servant has been made like unto his Master, how he has welcomed the purging which Christ gives to His servants that they may bring forth more fruit. He believes, yea knows, that in the Judge who has been teaching and judging him here day by day he will find a Mediator and a Savior. With the unbeliever all is otherwise. He has refused correction, has chosen his own path, and drawn away his neck from the yoke of Christ; his judgment is all yet to come. The Judge is ready, but He is full of mercy. St. Peters phrase implies this. It tells of readiness, but also of holding back, of a desire to spare. He is on His throne, the record is prepared, but yet He waits; He is Himself the long-suffering Vinedresser who pleads, "Let it alone this year also."
Such has been the mercy of God even from the days of Eden. In the first temptation Eve adds one sin upon another. First she listens to the insidious questioning which proclaims the speaker a foe to God: then without remonstrance she hears Gods truth declared a lie; hearkens to an aspersion of the Divine goodness; then yields to the tempter, sins, and leads her husband into sin. Not till then does Gods judgment fall, which might have fallen at the first offence; and when it is pronounced, it is full of pity, and gives more space for repentance. So, though the Judge be ready, His mercy waits. For He will judge the dead as well as the living: and while men live His compassion goes forth in its fullness to the ignorant and them that are out of the way. "For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." "Unto this end" what does it signify? What but that God has ever been true to the name under which He first revealed Himself: "The Lord God, merciful and gracious"; {Exo_34:6} that He has been preaching the Gospel to stoners by His dispensations from the first day until now? Thus was the Gospel preached unto Abraham {Gal_3:8} when he was called from the home of his fathers, and pointed forward through a life of trial to a world-wide blessing. Heeding the lesson, he was gladdened by the knowledge of the day of Christ. In like manner and unto this end was the Gospel sent to Gods people in the wilderness, {Heb_4:2} even as unto us; but the word of hearing did not profit them. With many of them God was not well pleased. Yet He showed them in signs His Gospel sacraments. They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, did all eat the same spiritual meat, and all drank the same spiritual drink, {1Co_10:2-4} for Christ was with them, as their Rock of refreshing, all their journey through the desert, preaching the Gospel by visitations now of mercy, now of affliction. Unto this end He brought them many a time under the yoke of their enemies; unto this end He sent them into captivity. Thus were they being judged, as men count judgments, if haply they might listen in this life to the gospel of trial and pain, and so live at last, as God counts life, in the spirit, when the final judgment-day is over. They are dead, but to every generation of them was the Gospel preached, that God might gather Him a great multitude to stand on His right hand in the day of account.
Some have applied the Words of this verse to the sinners of the days of Noah, connecting them closely with 1Pe_3:19; and truly, though they be but one example out of a world of mercies, they are very notable. They were doomed; they were dead while they lived: "Everything that is in the earth shall die". {Gen_6:17} Yet to them the preacher was sent, and unto this end: that though they were to be drowned in the Deluge, and so in mens sight be judged, their souls might be saved, as God would have them saved, in the great day of the Lord. But every visitation is a gospel, a gospel unto this end: that through judgment here a people may be made ready in Gods sight to be called unto His rest.
Few passages have more powerful lessons than this for every age. The world is full of suffering in the flesh. Who has not known it in many kinds? But it is in consequence, to those who will hear, very full of Gospel sermons. They cry aloud, Sin no more; the time past may suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. Suffering does not mean that God is not full of love; rather it is a token that, in His great love, He is training us, opening our eyes to our wrong-doings that we may cast them off, and giving us a true standard to judge between the desire of the Gentiles and the will of God. And though men may look on us as sore afflicted, our Father, when the rest of our time in the flesh shall be ended, will give us the true life with Him in the spirit.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–16 1–6. Arm yourselves. The saints must be equipped for…
1–6. Arm yourselves. The saints must be equipped for warfare and suffering. With the same mind. The mind that was in Christ when he suffered, a willingness to suffer to do the will of God. Hath ceased from sin. The idea seems to be that of Rom. 6:7, “He that is dead is freed from sin.” Suffering with Christ puts an end to (or ceases) our connection with sin.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 12 1Pe_4:1. In the flesh.—Or to the flesh; i.e., so…
THE CALL TO HOLY LIVING
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
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1Pe_4:1. In the flesh.—Or to the flesh; i.e., so far as the flesh is concerned. The same sphere in which Christian disciples were called to suffer. Same mind.—Or thought. The same temper of trust, obedience, and submission. Put yourselves into the same disposition. Ceased from sin.—“Hath been caused to rest.” The moral result of the suffering is deliverance from the motions of sins. But it is suffering borne in the mind of Christ’ that alone has its full moral power on us. See Rom_6:7-11.
1Pe_4:2. This verse explains the previous verse. Suffering, rightly borne, brings a mood of submission to the will of God, and this involves our deliverance from our own self-will. A man ceases to live unto the lusts, desires, of his own heart, when he comes fully to do and bear God’s holy will ἐπιθυμίαις All sensual objects, pleasures, profits, honours, which are repugnant to the will of God.
1Pe_4:3. Will of the Gentiles.—Almost satirical, as addressed to Jews. It was altogether unworthy of them to take up with the self-indulgent customs of the Gentiles; it was impossible for Jews who had become Christians in any way to keep association with old evil practices. It seems that both Gentiles and bigoted Jews were trying to draw the Christian Jews away from their profession by the enticements of sensual indulgence, and public excitements. If we could understand the state of society in those days, we should readily see how attractive, and how subtle and strong in their influence, those enticements and temptations were, and therefore how needful was the apostolic warning. Those pledged to do the will of Christ must in no sense allow themselves to do the “will of the Gentiles.” To us Christ our Master must be all, or nothing at all. Lasciviousness.—A plural form for all kinds of bodily impurity. Lusts.—See above. Excess of wine.—A contemptuous word is used—“wine-swillings.” Involving loss of due self-restraint. Revellings.—Roystering parties. Banquetings.—Or carousings; drinking-bouts. Idolatries.—With reference to the excitements and immoralities usually associated with idol feast-times. It is evident that licentious Jews had sadly fallen into evil ways, but it is difficult to conceive that the Christian Jews had yielded to such enticements. Perhaps St. Peter only warns them of serious possibilities of temptation.
1Pe_4:4. Wherein.—In regard to which fleshly life. Christians always excite surprise in persisting in separation from carnal indulgences. Riot.—Or letting loose of bodily passions. The word used may mean, sink, slough, puddle. Speaking evil of you.—Slanderously affirming that you are as bad as themselves. Such slander was part of the suffering of the Christians; and they must take care that they gave no conceivable occasion for it.
1Pe_4:5. Who.—That is, these revilers and slanderers. They will surely be called to account before God. “They who now demand an account, will one day have to render it.” St. Peter offers the consideration of God’s near judgment, fur the comfort and assurance of Christians unjustly slandered. The early disciples thought of Christ’s vindication as near at hand, “Hence St. Peter includes the slanderers of his day among the living, as just about to be judged” (Bengel).
1Pe_4:6. Them that are dead.—Not the souls of the dead; but to those who once were alive, and are now dead; e.g., the men of the age of Noah, to whom reference is made in the preceding chapter. This sentence should help us to understand the preaching to the “spirits in prison.” In 1Pe_4:5 the “quick” and the “dead “are distinguished. The familiar apostolic meaning is the “dead” before Christ’s coming, and the “quick “or “alive “at Christ’s coming. This is the idea of “dead” in this verse. Alford thinks those in their graves are meant. According to men.—That is, the discipline of life, the common experience of human suffering, was God’s gospel preached to them, with a view to their quickening to spiritual life. If they failed to respond, there could be for them but “a fearful looking for of judgment.” St. Peter is comforting tempted and tried Christians, by assuring them that their tempters and persecutors are in the hands of God, in the just judgment of God. “Even such as are now dead had the gospel preached to them, with this result, that the common judgment should pass upon them in the flesh, and yet that they should have a higher life before God by the operation of the Spirit” (W. W.). “They were judged after the manner of men, by the laws by which all men are judged according to their works; but the purpose of that judgment, like that of the judgments that come upon men in this life, was to rescue them from a final condemnation” (Plumptre). Many of the slanderers and persecutors of the Christians would be their personal friends and relatives; and St. Peter would feel it necessary to temper and relieve, as far as possible, his denunciations of them. We all want some ground of hope concerning our unbelieving and ungodly friends.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Pe_4:1-6
Suffering in the Flesh as Help to Ceasing from Sin.—It will be seen how directly adapted, pointed, and practical, St. Peter’s teachings are. They apply precisely to the conditions, sufferings, and temptations of the brethren of the “Dispersion,” to whom the epistle is addressed. St. Peter has not the interest in theology which characterises St. Paul, and he should not be studied in order to find settings of doctrinal truth. His supreme interest is in Christian living, and in truths only so far as they may inspire and guide godly living. And in this epistle he is mainly concerned with the hindrances to Christian living which come from the disabilities and distresses which making a Christian profession then involved. He looks at the sufferings of the brethren from different points of view, and from every point of view he finds encouragement by showing that they always “work together for good.” Here his point of view is the peril occasioned by having to live in the very midst of a licentious Gentile society—a peril all the greater because they once indulged in the unrestrained and degrading customs of Gentile life, and there was some affinity for such things left in their fleshly nature. And he reminds them that suffering in the flesh was the very thing to deliver them from the power of these evils, the very thing to work the very last relics of these things out of their natures, and enable them to cease altogether from sin.
I. Christ’s example of suffering in the flesh.—What was the point of that example? What was the power that sustained Him? And what were the results of His endurance? It was distinctly and precisely such suffering as we have to undergo, suffering in the fleshly, human sphere; bodily and mental suffering, arising from conditions similar to ours; bodily states, sensibilities, oppositions of evil men, etc. It is only too easy to represent Christ as so unique a Being that we cannot see in His any likeness to our own bodily, fleshly sufferings. He was “in all points” tested, disciplined by suffering, even as we are. St. John vigorously pleads for the truth that Christ is “come in the flesh” St. Peter vigorously pleads for the truth that Christ “suffered in the flesh.” As to the power which sustained Him under the suffering, we have to see that the grace of God rested upon Him as it rests upon us; but beside that, and as the special point of interest now, Jesus was sustained—as we may be, and ought to be sustained—by His full loyalty and devotion to God, and absolute resolve to serve Him in righteousness and well doing, whatever that might involve. And as to the result, it may be said that, in entire consecration to God, to righteousness as God’s will, is always found the deliverance of a man from the “motions of sins in his members.” Sin is essentially self-centredness, self-seeking; and a man ceases from self-willedness and sin when he gives himself wholly over, in devotion and service to another. Christ absolutely ceased from the service of self, because He was entirely absorbed in the service of the Father.
II. Deliverance and elevation may come to Christians through their suffering in the flesh (1Pe_4:2-3).—The acceptance of bodily suffering in doing what we know to be right, and the will of God, is the sign of the highest moral triumph, of deliverance from the self. It lifts a man right up above the plane in which men seek their own pleasures, and indulge their own lusts and passions. To be willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake is proof of self-mastery. No man ever chooses suffering, or submits easily to it, save under the persuasion of some high and holy motive. Illustration may be taken from the case present to the mind of St. Peter. These Christians once had shared in the self-indulgent and demoralising Pagan life around them. On principle they had separated themselves from it all. But the separation was putting them under disability, and causing them suffering. Their loyalty to principle was severely tested, but if they held fast their loyalty, and patiently bore their sufferings, they would surely find that this would perfect the separation, and make it easy to stand quite aloof from every evil feature of the old Pagan life. It is the point which may be set in adaptation to the circumstances of every age. In the earnestness of the Christian life—and earnestness is effectively shown in willingness to endure—lies the true safety from surrounding evils, howsoever they may appeal to the fleshly nature.
III. The misunderstanding those must expect who are willing to suffer in the flesh (1Pe_4:4).—“Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot; speaking evil of you.” The early Christians were, in a remarkable way, exposed to slander and misrepresentation; and these are often harder to bear than actual persecutions affecting body and circumstances. A Christian who is indifferent concerning material things is intensely jealous concerning his good name, because the honour of his Lord is bound up in his keeping his good name. But even this he must be willing to bear; by his persistency in good and gracious living “putting to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” A Christian has always this effective power against the slanderer he can live so that no one can by any possibility credit the slanders. He can live so as to stand in the acceptance of the righteous God, and so as fearlessly to anticipate the time when human lives must be appraised and judged. The apostles, with their anticipation of the immediate return of Christ for judgment, constantly urge that whatever benefits accrue to the faithful will be shared by the Christians who have died before He comes, as well as by those who are alive when He comes. As they contemplated material blessings from the coming, it was necessary to show that those who had died before He came would be placed under no disability. St. Peter in no way refers, in 1Pe_4:6, to old-world sinners, but entirely to the Christians who had suffered in well-doing right up to death. The gospel—this same gospel of suffering with Christ, and in His spirit—was preached unto them (see Mat_5:10-12). They were misunderstood, judged, persecuted by men in their fleshly life. But in their loyalty and faithfulness they lived their spiritual life; in their spirits—their inner spiritual life—they kept true to God, and the will of God, as they knew it. And their being dead would prove no hindrance to their sharing the full Divine acceptance with the loyal living, and with Christ, who in the same way “suffered in the flesh.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1Pe_4:1. Suffering in the Flesh.—A key to the passage is found in the fact that it is addressed to martyrs and prospective martyrs, and through them to all sufferers of bodily woes. Willingness to suffer is the sign of ceasing from sin, the essence of sin being our living according to our self-will, and unto our self-pleasing. Willingness to suffer was a sign of Christ’s life to the will of God, and death to self-will. He was willing to suffer even to extremity, even unto death. That mind of willingness was Christ’s defence and power, and it may be ours. Christ presents the example of putting the body under restraint by the dominion of the will or spirit. His suffering in the flesh was for us, as an example and power upon us. Take these points:
1. Christ’s experience of suffering in the flesh.
2. In what senses this suffering was borne for us.
3. How the mastery of the flesh—which takes such a diversity of forms—can be regarded as one great battle.
4. What are the two possible laws under the control of which human lives can be conducted—the will of God or the will of the flesh?
5. How altogether inconsistent a fleshly life must be to a Christian, seeing he is a regenerate man and born unto God. Paraphrase. “As Christ suffered in the flesh without shrinking, take for your protection and support the same thought which proved a protection and support to Him—viz., that to be rid of sin for ever was the greatest of all possible blessings, and that this is only attainable through the bodily death. And the result of embracing this thought will be that for the rest of your lives on earth (so soon, perhaps, to be cut violently short) you may no longer live to men’s lusts, but to God’s will.”—Ellicott’s Commentary.
Christ’s Sufferings.—The Redeemer of the world is infinitely above us, and in another sense actually beside us. We adore Him as King of angels, and love Him as our Elder Brother. His sympathy is as true as His sovereignty; and because He once suffered being tempted, He is able now to succour them that are tempted. His incarnation was necessary. The suffering humanity of our Lord is the point where we may touch Him. He was a real man, living, sensitive, suffering, sympathetic, and such a Saviour became us. To see His footprints in the path we have to tread inspires us with willingness to endure to the end.
I. Try to understand what the sufferings of Jesus Christ were.—There is a mystery about His sufferings which even far-seeing angels cannot discover. Let reverence walk hand in hand with study.
1. There can be no doubt that Jesus was exempted from many of the physical ills from which we suffer. He was healthy, vigorous, with life replete. Many of our physical sufferings we bring on ourselves. Jesus suffered as a man, but not as a sinner. His whole life was a martyrdom. The pure amongst the impure.
2. His utter loneliness. His was the solitude of a holy soul surrounded by sinners; of a heavenly spirit in contact with things earthly and sensual; of a mind whose higher thoughts not a single being on earth could appreciate; whose truest objects in living and dying as He did none could comprehend.
3. The expression “in the flesh” reminds us of His uncongenial surroundings. The environment of our life has much to do with our happiness or misery. He lived and died among a despised people. At any moment He might have left the world to its sins and sorrows, and risen triumphant above them all. Then He could not have been our Brother, our Great High Priest. Jesus is our Example.
II. How these sufferings were endured by Him.—
1. It is evident that He accepted them as God’s appointment for Him here. “The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” indicates His attitude to trouble right through. It was a “cup” measured and proffered by the Father’s hand—a Father whose will was wise and good. The secret of patient, brave endurance of the ills of life is that God rules them, and in the long run will bring Divine issues out of them, as He did out of Gethsemane and Calvary.
2. Our Lord never allows Himself to be absorbed in His own sorrows. Suffering tends to make us self-absorbed. No selfishness in Jesus. He was always ready to enter into other people’s joys and griefs, whatever His own sorrows might be. If a follower of Christ, our couch of pain will be the centre of joy and peace to those who circle round us. Effort for others shall mitigate our own distress. “Arm yourselves also with the same mind.”
III. How can we do this?—
1. By God’s help in answer to prayer. We must set Christ before us as our Pattern. A living example is more helpful than abstract principles. Keep Jesus steadily before you.
2. Jesus is no historic personage, but a Living Presence. “I am with you alway.”
3. He identifies Himself with us. If we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified together. Trials of faith and patience and temper are not purposeless. Nothing in all this multitudinous world walks with aimless feet. The end of His pathway was not Calvary but heaven. Those who follow it will find at last, not a plunge into an abyss, but a path of ascension to realms sorrowless and sinless, which He entered and claimed for us when He ascended on high and a cloud received Him out of His servants’ sight.—A. Rowland, LL.B., B.A.
1Pe_4:1-2. The Mind of Christ the Christian’s Armour.—The ruling thought of the text is this: You may be persecuted, you may even be martyred; you may have much to suffer in your flesh, in your circumstances; but so had Christ. You may escape it all by giving up your allegiance to Christ. Live to yourself and to your own self-will, to the indulgence of your own love of ease and safety, and then you need not thus “suffer in the flesh.” But if you have the same mind as Christ, if you are determined to set the will of God first, and bear whatever doing that “will” may involve, then you will find yourself lifted up in spirit so as to look cheerfully on to suffering, even to martyrdom, and you will feel that self-will—the essence of sin—has ceased; it is crushed within you. Christ’s “suffering in the flesh” specially directs our thought to the physical sufferings of the cross. It was from those physical pains that His human nature shrank, and in Gethsemane He triumphed over that shrinking, and won the victory of a perfect and submissive trust in His Father’s will. He suffered, yielding His body to the great and prolonged agony, but able to bear it all calmly unto the end, because the self—the essence of sin—was quite mastered, and He could say, “Thy will be done.” “Arm yourselves with the same mind.” Christ was defended from yielding to bodily suffering, defended, too, from human shrinking from it, by a certain intent, thought, purpose, resolution, which may be sharply expressed in this way: “I shall do and bear the will of God, whatever it may have in it.” We can have that mind. Prospective suffering will show whether we have it. Actual suffering will test its power and influence on us. “Ceased from sin.” Understand “sin” here to stand for that which is the essence of sin, self will, self-pleasing, and the sentence becomes clearer. Live to do the will of God. Set that first, and you will surely find that you become dead to self; you cease from sinful shrinking back; nay, the actual suffering will but help to kill the self in you. The mind of Christ then will arm us for the battle and suffering of life.
I. What is that mind?—Like the early Christians, we find that in the Christian lot there is the “needs be” for what answers to their persecutions and martyrdoms. And we cannot control our circumstances. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.” Indeed, no man can master his circumstances until he has mastered himself; but then, even if he never can alter the things, he can alter the set and tone of his mind and feeling towards the things, and mate and master them thus. For, after all, the various things of life are to men according to their mind and feeling towards them. Things hurt us in one mood of mind which we do not at all feel in another; and by differences of disposition men’s troubles vary. The one most impressive of all lessons learned from the human life of the Lord Jesus is this: He could not change His circumstances or surroundings; He would not have done so if He could; and yet He really mastered them all by the inward feeling and purpose of submission and obedience which He so fully cherished. Nothing can master the disabilities of a human life but soul-strength; nothing can give and keep soul-strength save the simple, cheerful determination that everywhere and in everything we will do and bear God’s will. Here is the answer to the question, What shall arm us for the battle and sorrow of life? It is “the mind of Christ,” the set of soul towards God, and so towards holy things, which was characteristic of Christ. Can we yet more fully see what that prevailing mind and purpose of Christ was? Look at His childhood. There we often find the fore shadowings of the life; and in such a child as Jesus we may well expect to see the prophecy of the life. The thought evidently abiding in Him was this: Life for Me is My Father’s business. He began with something in His mind—with an idea and a resolution that lifted Him above the thought of suffering. Upon our Lord, during His ministry, there came awful visions of the woe awaiting Him in the Holy City, and He plainly saw, at the centre of all that woe, the agonising cross; and yet, what was His mind? It is revealed at once in this: “He set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem.” Strong to go forward, even into the mists and the darkness, because He must simply do God’s will. Gethsemane is the place where the mind of Christ is so fully revealed. It was Calvary without the bodily pain. There came upon the frail and worn human nature of our Lord the full vision of the awful scenes of the next day, and that human nature cried out in its shrinking, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” But quickly after it comes the triumph-cry of the soul’s set purpose: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” That is the mind of Christ which armed Him for all bearing work. And He was victorious right to the end. The last words that broke from His dying lips showed how thoroughly He had ceased from sin; He was dead to all self-will, all self-seeking—“Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” Get that spirit or mind of Christ. Be like Him, and it will not be hard to live the rest of life in the flesh, not to the lusts of men, not to the self-seekings of our own hearts, but to the will of God.
II. How may this mind be gained?—Christ’s suffering in the flesh was intended to bring closely home to us His kinship with us. Suffering is the common lot of humanity. However we separate Christ from us in His Divine nature, we must keep Him quite near in His human nature. We cannot be like Him in degree, we can be in kind. How can the mind of Christ be gained? We must have the same thought of God that Christ had. That only comes out of personal relations. We must have the same thought of self that Christ had. Self second, God first. We must have the same thought of life that Christ had. Life, the sphere of God’s mission. We must have the same thought of suffering that Christ had. The testing of the full obedience and trust.
III. How will this “mind” practically help us?—See how it will make us soul-strong
(1) in cases of bodily depression;
(2) in those changes that involve suffering;
(3) in perplexed, anxious times;
(4) when called to part with beloved friends. We might cover all human woes, and show how the medicine for all is the “mind of Christ”; we shall only cease from self as we can get it. It is the uplifted face of the Son to the Father, and the trembling cry from the bitter cross—“As Thou wilt.” But neither Christ, nor we, can ever feel it, or ever say it, until our souls get a vision of the Father’s hands. All is well then. We can suffer and be strong.
1Pe_4:6. Preaching to the Dead.—Having just spoken of Christ as the judge of the living and the dead, he now affirms that the dead—those who are now dead—will be judged according to men in the flesh; that is, as those now living will be judged. But to those now living the gospel has been preached. They have heard of the redemption provided for them in Christ Jesus, and have, therefore, been placed in the most favourable circumstances for preparing for the judgment, and escaping final condemnation. Is this the case also with the dead? with the heathen world, who, indeed, ran to all kinds of excess in sin, but never had the light of revelation? The apostle answers in the affirmative, for the gospel was preached to them also; for when Christ, in His disembodied spirit, went into Hades, He proclaimed to them the good tidings of salvation, and offered to them deliverance from their prison, and a title to eternal life. St. Peter goes back to the former passage (1Pe_3:18), and re-affirms the fact of Christ’s preaching to the inhabitants of the unseen world; and further, he affirms the object of the preaching, that they, being judged as having merited death, might, notwithstanding, live as regards the spirit. St. Paul affirms, “The body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom_8:10), meaning that the body, even of a Christian, dies on account of sin, but that the spirit lives because of the righteousness it has obtained through Christ. Even so have all past generations died, whilst the antediluvians especially, and others who died in a state of alienation from God, were judged to imprisonment in Hades, until Christ came and offered them salvation. If any of them accepted it—and perhaps many of them did—they already live in the spirit, having entored upon a state of blessedness which Christ prepared even for them.—Thornley Smith.
The Dead and the Living.—The dead here, contrasted with the living, must naturally mean those who were in the state of the dead when this message came to them. It sounds like an unexpected and mysterious extension of the gospel message, so that not living men alone, but the departed also, came directly within the range of its proclamation. The change was to affect their state, not in the sight of men but of God alone. The men in the days of Noah, the dwellers in the cities of the plain, the Egyptian host, the Canaanite armies, to the eye of men were all swept away in one indiscriminate judgment. Yet in each case there may have been a secret and powerful work of repentance, by which a remnant turned to God in the hour of calamity and desolation. To all such the message of mercy might come, when our Lord, in His separate spirit, preached to the dead, to the spirits in prison; and the destined result was attained, “that they might live according to God in the spirit,” or gain a firm hold of that Saviour and His finished sacrifice, on whom, as the promised seed of the woman, with a dim and starlight faith they had learned to put their trust in the hour of judgment, when all their refuges of lies were swept away.—Birks.
Alive and Dead.—The remarkable expression used by St. Paul in 1Th_4:15, “We that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep,” indicates a prevailing sentiment in the early Church which materially helps in the understanding of this difficult verse. When the visible coming of Christ was daily expected, those seemed to be placed at grave disadvantage who were taken away by death before He came. In this way Christians mourned over their dead fellow-Christians, as having missed the great Christian hope and privilege. St. Peter intends to comfort such distressed souls. He is speaking of dead Christians and living Christians. He bids the troubled ones be quite sure that as the gospel was preached to their dead friends, and they found the eternal life through it, they do live, according to God’s thought for them, that very spiritual life into which we all are to be brought at Christ’s coming, though, in the ordering of God’s providence, they had died. The mistakes in apprehending both this and the previous passage arise from our putting our modern ideas into St. Peter’s mind, instead of simply endeavouring to discover what actually was in his mind.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
1Pe_4:2. Lawful Pleasure.—Undoubtedly there is a degree of natural pleasure, connected with the exercise of the appetites, which is lawful. But it is very obvious that self is the natural man, which, in always seeking for pleasure, without regarding either its nature or its lawfulness, has polluted everything here. It is in connection with the appetites in their unsanctified state that we find one of the strong ties which bind man to his idols, and which subject his proud spirit. This strong bond must be sundered. No one can be acceptable to God who does not crucify and reject every form of attraction and pleasure from this source which is not in accordance with the intentions of nature, and does not receive the Divine approbation and sanction.—Upham.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 7, 12 1. “Therefore Christ having suffered in the flesh you…
ARGUMENT 18
OUR CRUCIFIXION SIMILITUDINOUS TO THAT OF CHRIST
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1. “Therefore Christ having suffered in the flesh you also arm yourselves with same mind, because the one having suffered in carnality has ceased from sin.” As Christ is the only unfallen son of Adam, His physical being was pure. Yet it suffered death on the cross for the sins of the world. How shall we be “armed with the same mind”? By reason of the fall we all have the carnal mind which Jesus never had. As the mind which rules the body predominates even in its eclipse, so, in common parlance, the body is lost sight of. Hence our crucifixion, which is absolutely necessary, pursuant to true discipleship, while it may include the body, especially if we live in an age of martyrdom, does not essentially mean physical crucifixion, but always and invariably that of the carnal mind, which is utterly destroyed, i.e., crucified in sanctification, leaving the heart pure from all the malevolent affections, the clean temple of the Holy Ghost. In this verse sarx, flesh, occurs twice, antithetically referring to Christ in one case and to us in the other. Hence, in the normal exegesis it refers to Christ’s mortal body and our carnal mind. This carnal mind is born in us, transmitted from Satan in the fall through Adam. It is conquered in regeneration, when the mind of Christ is imparted by the Holy Ghost; still surviving in subjugation, it is crucified on the cross, when we follow Christ in entire sanctification.
2. This verse describes the beautiful life of the sanctified, no longer in carnality, but in the sweet will of God.
3, 4. Here the Holy Ghost draws an appallingly dark picture of the wicked delighting in brutal sensualities and diabolical debaucheries, and at the same time unutterably astonished because the Lord’s people will not participate with them in their bacchanalian revelries.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 1Pe 4:7
1Pe 4:7
Christ’s Absence and Return.
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All the practical exhortations of this passage are founded upon the truth that "the end of all things is at hand." Yet, strange to say, there is hardly any passage of Scripture which has given rise to more frequent cavils than this simple assurance.
I. Some persons are fond of asserting that the Apostles were mistaken in this belief; that when they wrote the end of all things was not at hand. But the answer is, that the Apostles warned the men of their own age, and through them the men of every age, that by remembering the uncertainty of the world’s duration they should assign to temporal things their true value and see that the true safety of a Christian consists in a life of prayer, and love, and active duty.
II. But there are some who object altogether to the hope of heavenly reward as a motive of action. Christ Himself, however, encouraged His disciples by such promises. St. Paul was stirred up by them to ever-increasing diligence and greater eagerness in pressing towards the mark. If we are not to lower our conception of goodness by practising it for the sake of future happiness, neither are we required to
"Wind ourselves too high
For sinful man beneath the sky,"
and to exclude from the heart every feeling except a cold and naked sense of duty.
G. E. L. Cotton, Expository Sermons on the Epistles, vol. ii., p. 40.
References: 1Pe 4:7.—W. W. How, Church of England Pulpit, vol. x., p. 517; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 260.
1Pe 4:8
It is quite evident that the sins spoken of here are not our own sins, but the sins of other persons, and that the intention is to say that as hatred brings causes of quarrel to the surface, so love puts the faults of other people down out of sight.
I. Love shall cover multitudes of sins—from. God and from man. Love by silence and by veiling hides from man, and by prayer and by converting hides from God. And yet, in all ages of the Church, men have built from my text the fallacy that a man’s charities are, in some way, a set-off against his sins. Love covers sins. Love learnt her office where she learnt everything: upon the bosom of Jesus Christ. It is a good and pleasant exercise to substitute for the word "charity," wherever you find it in the Bible, the word "Christ." And see how accurately and how exquisitely true the sentence runs respecting all that charity is and charity does when charity is Christ. And this is Christ’s blessed work: He covers the multitude of sins.
II. Your mission as a Christian is to be a coverer of sins. If you know of anything to any one’s detriment, hold it as a sacred deposit, to be used religiously. Never think that you can make yourself great by making another less. Let it be your characteristic, the point by which you are known in society, that, like your Master, you always cover everybody’s sins. It will be true religion.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 1865.
References: 1Pe 4:8.—G. Dawson, The Authentic Gospel, p. 86; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension to Trinity, p. 93; F. VV. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 353; E. H. Plumptre, Ibid., vol. xix., p. 392. 1Pe 4:9, 1Pe 4:10.—H. D. B. Rawnsley, Ibid., vol. xxxii., p. 93.
1Pe 4:10
Combination.
I. Religion is, in one sense, a hidden thing—"a life hid with Christ in God." Acts rather than words are the invigorating exponents of emotion. And doubtless it is the consciousness of this law of our being which in great measure accounts for that delicate reserve which makes it repugnant to all minds of the finest temper to speak much of their religious experiences. In secrecy lies the secret of their strength. And further there is another motive, and that, too, a noble one, which makes many Christians, especially among the young, chary of giving utterance to their religious convictions. They distrust their genuineness, or at least their abiding power. To many it seems much more easy to obey Christ’s teaching when He warns them against ostentatious and therefore hypocritical devotion, than when He utters the no less needful exhortation, "Let your light so shine before men," etc.
II. And yet this last exhortation must not be forgotten, or received only with a lukewarm willingness to obey it. "As every man hath received the gift." What gift? The gifts of the Holy Spirit are infinitely various, but the greatest of all is the gift of Himself, the gift of loving God, of caring for the things of heaven, of having even a definite desire to be on the side of Christ, and not on that of His enemies. This is indeed a gift, and, like all gifts of God, it brings with it a responsibility. It is something which demands not only to be appropriated, but also to be traded with and devoted to the relief of others. If any one has, through God’s grace, been brought to hate sin and to see its ruinous, soul-destroying character; let him not shut up this holy conviction in his own heart, but let him be glad to find opportunities for imparting it to others. By so doing, he will greatly confirm his own sense of its importance, and he will have done much to confirm the faith and courage of his brethren. For there is no cordial so cheering to the Christian soldier as the discovery that he is not alone, but that, while he has been striving to serve his Master in secret, others also, unknown to him, have been engaged in the same struggle.
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 46.
Christian Stewardship.
In the kingdom of grace, as in the kingdom of nature, God turns everything to account. He gave it a beginning by His own direct and almighty power; and He could just as easily, by the same power, carry it on to its final completion. But this is not His manner of doing. He expects it, by virtue of that principle of life which He has communicated to it, to carry itself on now, not independently of Him, but in reliance upon Him and receiving from Him, just as nature is dependent on Him for the continuance of its vital and vitalising force. But still, in so far as instrumentality is concerned, the work is its own, not His. God did not give us the faculty for nothing. He gave it for use; He gave it that it might come out in its appropriate life, thereby always becoming more faculty, while it continues to yield more fruit.
I. Look at the nature of the thing spoken of: ministry; service. We are apt to look upon service as a menial thing. That may be our idea, but there is nothing more glorified in the Bible. Service, mutual helpfulness growing out of mutual dependence, is the law of the universe. So it is in grace. The spiritual sphere knows no other law. It is held together by it. Let us set this down as an unquestionable fact. Service is the law of our life, by which we rise out of sense to spirit; we touch angels; we perpetuate Christ; we repeat His example and keep His memory fresh in the world.
II. Observe the range of the duty. It is universal. "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same." This makes the matter very simple. It puts an end to all casuistry and all excuses. And, indeed, it could not be other than universal, since it is the law of rational life. It is not merely the law of spiritually renewed life. It is the recognised law in that case. But whether recognised or not, it is still the law. It holds angels—"Are they not all ministering spirits?"—and they honour the law; but it equally holds men and devils who break the law.
III. The rule of duty: "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same." It is idle to say you can do nothing, for if you are a Christian, you have received something. This rule applies to the form and to the measure of the gift, both to its kind and to its degree.
IV. Look, lastly, at what comes out of all this—this picture, if I may so say, of the family of Christ. (1) There is universal responsibility. It takes in all. The great is not above it, and the weakest is not beneath it. (2) There is universal utility. Every one is employed, young and old, rich and poor. Every one is a minister according to his gift. (3) A totality of progress. This diversity of gifts secures that every part of the work shall be done; for it is just love in its innumerable forms addressing itself to the world’s innumerable needs.
A. L. Simpson, Sermons, p. 16.
1Pe 4:10
The Christian Stewardship.
I. The manifold grace of God—the term is a remarkable one; it is that word by which the Greeks expressed infinite variety of hue or of design, the shiftings and glistenings of richly mingled colours or the dappled patterns of skilful embroidery. And by it a lesson is conveyed to us of no inconsiderable importance. We have not, I think, been good stewards of this manifold grace. We have been ever apt to look on the grace of God in one or at most in some few of its aspects only. We have forgotten its manifoldness, its many-shifting hues, its exquisite and inexhaustible richness of tint and pattern. In other words, we have assumed for the Gospel of Christ too exclusively theological a character. This has been the fault of the Church for ages. By setting forth the Gospel in its manifold points of human interest, we might have had much more hold on men’s hearts, and brought in a richer harvest of souls to Christ.
II. Every one of us is more or less put in trust with this manifold grace, in one or other of its departments. And when we review the wonderful process of love by which it has been won for us, is it not a very solemn question for us all, for every one in his own case, "Am I a good steward of this manifold grace?" (1) Wealth is a stewardship. As a man’s worldly means increase, so his charities ought to increase. (2) Talent is a stewardship. (3) Influence is a stewardship. If we use our stewardships as our own, His property committed to us as if it were not His, we cannot walk in the track of His gracious purposes, nor at last enter into His joy.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. v., p. 15.
References: 1Pe 4:10.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 60; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 287; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 228.
1Pe 4:11
God’s Scholars.
Consider:—
I. Our labours of the understanding. May I say, "If any man read, let him read as if his book were God’s work," or as if he were God’s scholar? We cannot make a Christian use of other books, if the book of God Himself be not familiar to us. Nor, again, can we possibly turn common things into our spiritual food. We shall not easily be led to think of the highest things by the study of books on worldly matters, if even, when the occasion directly calls for it, our thoughts are still slow to travel heavenward. And therefore, if we would learn to read everything as God’s scholars, we must at least read the Bible as such, I mean with a sincere desire to practise it.
II. Our labours of charity, or our acts of kindness to our neighbours. "If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth." If we give but a cup of cold water to one of the humblest of our brethren, let it be done for Christ’s sake. Perhaps the need of our remembering this is greater than we are apt to imagine. There is something so delightful in kindness, so natural in the wish to please and to relieve, so exceedingly sweet in the consciousness of having done good to others and in receiving the return of others’ grateful love, that I am afraid our charity is very often unsanctified. There is no real goodness, there is even no safety from condemnation, unless we glorify God through Jesus Christ. All our thoughts and all our actions are unworthy of God’s acceptance; they can be accepted by Him only in His beloved Son, He in our place and we in His, that as He took upon Him the infirmities of our nature, we might be clothed with the perfections of His; and as He died because we were sinners, so we might be loved and receive eternal life because He is righteous.
T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 193.
Reference: 1Pe 4:12, 1Pe 4:13.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 291.
1Pe 4:13
Consider:—
I. What Christ could not, as a perfectly pure and holy Being, have suffered for sins. (1) One element of suffering for sin, and that a most bitter one, of which Christ could have no direct experience, is conscious guilt. Wide as is the range of its sympathies with the sinful, there is a line beyond which a nature which is itself sinless can never pass. Into that dismal region overshadowed by the gloom of guilt, and where rage the furies of an avenging conscience, He who "was in all points tempted" like as we are, yet without sin, could never follow us. (2) Another element of suffering for sin of which a perfectly holy nature could have no experience is a personal sense of Divine wrath. Betwixt the experience of a guilty soul writhing under the frown of God and His there is an impassable gulf. (3) Nor, finally, though Christ tasted death for every man, could He ever experience personally that which constitutes to the sinner the very bitterness of death: the fear of what comes after death.
II. What kind of suffering for sin may be conceived of as noble and worthy, and so not impossible to a pure and holy nature. I notice (1) that which a pure and holy nature must feel from the mere contiguity of evil; (2) the reflected or borrowed shame and pain which noble natures feel for the sins of those with whom they are closely connected. (3) Christ suffered for sin, not only as bearing relatively its guilt, but also as its Victim.
J. Caird, Sermons, p. 167.
Reference: 1Pe 4:13.—W. Boyd-Carpenter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 97.
1Pe 4:14
The Ennobling Power of the Gospel.
I. Externally these kings and priests, these bearers on their heads of the Spirit of glory and of God, are invested with no dignities. Strangers and scattered, pained by ever-varying temptations, many of them slaves in the households of the heathen, all liable to be reproached for the name of Christ—such was their actual condition of humiliation and obligation; such, for many of them, was their actual present poverty and meanness of estate. They had been transformed, transfigured. From beings merely of the world around them, from the huge commonalty of character and condition, certainly from no assemblage of genius and culture, they had been refined into the family likeness of the children of God, by faith in Jesus. They had that upon them which, as we well know, made them an awful yet blessed power on the earth: the Spirit of glory and of God.
II. It was the nature of the message of Jesus to give to these peasants and slaves of Asia Minor the title, the aspirations, the courage, the wisdom, of citizens and heirs of heaven. It emancipated them into a Divine freedom. It raised them to a supernatural nobility. It taught them such things as facts about the soul and its future, about eternity, about God, as made them feel a totally new wonder and significance in themselves, their duty and their destiny; and so it led them to act, to live and die, with a purpose and in a manner that answered in some measure to that deep significance. Nothing but the Scripture revelation of redemption in Jesus Christ, with eternal glory, has proved itself to be the bearer of all the fruits of the Spirit. Other things can produce strength without meekness, kindness without holiness, aspirations without repentance, refinement without love. The Gospel is formed to produce them all, as the direct result from its simplest elements, and this not only because it is the message from the throne, but because, being such, it remembers, and provides for, and addresses the whole of man: his misery and his greatness; his greatness and his misery.
H. C. G. Moule, Christ is All, p. 191.
References: 1Pe 4:17.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxvi., p. 84. 1Pe 4:18.—J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons, p. 229; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 85.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v7 Division 5. (1Pe 4:7-19; 1Pe 5:1-14.)
Division 5. (1Pe 4:7-19; 1Pe 5:1-14.)
Responsibilities and judgment at the house of God already, with the judgment for the ungodly at hand.
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Throughout, we have seen that the apostle is really showing us the government of God -for the Christian, the Father’s government; but even in this government of the Father, He has respect to the world as that, the need of which He cannot forget. Thus, His people must honor Him in it, or He must honor Himself at their expense. This government of God, then, more or less, appears all the way through. We are now distinctly reminded of it in that which is pressed here, "the end of all things is at hand." The end of all things is, in fact, in judgment, although necessarily, in order to bring in the blessing that is beyond. That judgment is looked at, for the believer, in fact as begun already. Judgment is already beginning at the house of God, and this is shown in the fiery trial through which the saints are passing, in which they are at the same time partakers of Christ’s sufferings. We have seen already, in the Hebrews, that this does not at all hinder such suffering having a character of discipline at the same time for those who pass through it. Judgment is begun, then, at the house of God; but if it be often in this case a fiery trial, the seriousness of which they are made to realize, what will it be when it is no more the righteous that are in question, but the ungodly and the sinner? "If the righteous be with difficulty saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" We are necessarily reminded of responsibilities in connection with this, and the reward is also set before us. All this is stamped with the character of the whole book.
1. "The end of all things,’’ says the apostle, "is at hand." We are to live in the constant thought of that. It is easy indeed to take the long time since such words were written to make an argument for at least less vivid expectation of the end announced. But that is not the way in which the Spirit of God would teach us to use it. It would make us rather say, "The night is far spent," and therefore we may surely realize the day to be at hand. We know of no long interval before us. To interpose one involves the thought of the wicked servant, "My Lord delayeth His coming." The brightness of our lives consists in bringing the eternal things, to which the coming of the Lord introduces us, into the present. Thus to have it ever before us in the most vivid way can be no loss, but gain. There still remains for us scripture such as this. If the apostle could say in his day, "The end of all things is at hand," with how much conviction may we say it at the present time? The result is, as he puts it here, that we are to be sober, not allowing ourselves to take a roseate view of that which is manifestly going on to judgment; and with this we need watchfulness to prayer. How little, indeed, have we learned the value of that of which Scripture makes so much! -"praying always," "watching unto prayer." When we consider that God has opened to us in this way a wondrous store of blessing, which He only seeks on our part the longing desire to possess ourselves of in order to make it practically ours, what value must there not be to us in prayer! And it is as we are enriched in such a way that we find ability for that outflow out of an abundance which the apostle, as we shall see, insists upon here. Love is but that which necessitates the outflow, and he urges that above all things we should be fervent in love among ourselves. "Love covereth a multitude of sins." We are apt to be driven in upon ourselves by the disappointment we may meet in the conduct of others; but love is the spirit that overcomes in this way, and we must not let it suffer defeat. The very nearness in which we are brought to one another, and the dearness of the relationship which we have to one another, will make us feel, and should also make us feel, the more the failure in any way to act according to this relationship.* That is a necessity of the case, while at the same time it should awaken in us the consciousness of our own shortcomings, which will not allow the building up of pride by the failure of others as to which we mourn. Love covereth sins: it does not needlessly expose them, does not talk about them without some plain demand for it; does not dwell upon them, but upon the things that are good, in which, as the heart abides, the life is cheered and brightened, and we get courage for the way. Then, love is bountiful: does not merely give, but delights in giving. Thus he presses the using hospitality one to another without murmuring** at the demands which it may make upon us; and finally, the apostle bids us, as to whatever gift we have received, -where everything that we have as Christians is in fact a gift, -that we realize the responsibility necessarily connected with this, and that we minister it as those who are but stewards of the manifold grace of God." It is divine fulness in which we are filled up; and what capacity for ministry, as well as what responsibility, is involved in this! If any speak, he is thus to speak "as oracles of God" -a remarkable expression! It is not "according to the oracles of God," still less, "according to the Scriptures," as most probably we are disposed to take it; but it is as uttering from God that which is in His mind -a thing for which the presence of the Spirit in us is manifestly the most perfect qualification. If we were only subject to the Spirit and yielded up to Him, how thoroughly should we be able to communicate to one another that which was in fact God’s wisdom for us all -not merely scriptural, but the living ministry of the Spirit for the need, whatever it might be! Then if any one minister, he is to do it as of the ability which God supplieth; he is not left to any competency of his own. He is to learn to use the abundance which God has for him as the Lord taught His disciples when, in view of the need of the multitude around, which they were plainly unable to supply, He says: "They need not depart; give ye them to eat." How surely would this be so with us if the faith which works by love were more the full reality that it ought to be! And here the apostle is not speaking simply of teaching or evangelizing, which would be covered by what he has said just before, but of any kind of ministry, in which, if we have faith to reckon upon the bounty of God, such faith can never in fact be disappointed. We cannot imitate, of course, a faith like this; and we must be truly with God in order that we may be able rightly to exercise it. We are not possessed of stores which we are to lavish just according to our own thought of what may be good. Here, as in all things else, we need divine guidance, and true faith will be found only for that which is according to the mind of God; yet how much this opens to us which we all have to confess we know so little of in practice! The end before us, as the apostle puts it here, is that which will keep us right and give us wisdom in the stewardship of such abundance, "that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and power unto the ages of ages." Surely to realize how God is bent upon glorifying His Son is the way to realize the competence which is of Him for acting to His glory. Here, then, is responsibility indeed, of how wide a range!
{*May there not also be the thought that the service of love will watch with jealous eye the beginning of evil in a brother, and by washing his feet prevent the full development of evil which would require the publicity of putting away? Love cannot hide sin that ought to be manifest, but it can prevent the need of such manifestation by faithfulness in private dealing with the evil before it assumes the character of positive wickedness. What a blessed contrast is this to that of the busy-body who feeds upon evil and gloats over the fall of another. -S.R.
**It is to be feared that the showing of hospitality is often accompanied by murmuring which the unerring foresight of the Spirit of God here warns against. God loveth a cheerful giver, but how often is the hospitality marred by the grudging spirit in which it is given. How much deception too -so that it has become a byword in the world. -S.R.
2. The apostle turns now to exhort them concerning that which would make them realize indeed the end to be near; for the last days, according to Scripture, are not days of ease and comfort for the people of God; they are not days of the prevalence of good, but of evil; and in all this is involved, however different may be the expression of it, how much trial for those who at all costs would walk with God! Christians were not to think it strange, then, concerning the trial through which they would pass, though it might be a fiery trial to be felt, and which could only fulfil its purpose, in fact, by being felt. A trial is meant to try, and this is what the apostle presses upon those to whom here he writes. They must not think it a strange thing -a thing foreign to what might seem to suit the followers of the Lord of glory. How easy it is, in fact, with Christ upon the throne, to think that therefore Christians must find a good place in the world instead of tribulation, although the Lord has in the plainest way admonished us that it will be otherwise! We are not to be taken out of the path in which He walked, and therefore not out of the circumstances which made the path what it was. All this would only make the coming glory more expected, more rejoiced in, and, when it would actually come, a cause even of larger joy. All recompense would be found in it, while it is true that for the present time also to be reproached for the name of Christ involves itself a necessary blessedness. "The Spirit of glory and of God" rests upon those who suffer thus. It could not be otherwise. Christ could not fail His own who are earnest in the desire not to fail Him. Suffering of another sort would, of course, be inconsistent with the suffering for Christ. To suffer as a murderer or a thief, or an evildoer of any kind, or even as concerning themselves with things which were not theirs -such things would be incongruous for the Christian; but the suffering coming on him on that very account, because he is a Christian, can be no cause for shame. It is given him, on the contrary, to glorify God. So will He be most manifestly glorified. Think of Stephen’s face, and how it manifests this; and we are not to take these things as if they were wholly exceptional, but pictures with deep and blessed meaning for ourselves.
But again the apostle returns to that character of the suffering of which he has already spoken. "The time," he says, "is come for judgment to begin at the house of God." There where God dwells, there must assuredly be the maintenance of that which pleases Him; and, as we have often seen, the Father’s judgment is not necessarily a chastening for positive evil that has come, but will include all that is necessary to prevent its coming out. God knows us better than we know ourselves; and how much even may come out of us little worthy of Him, and yet of the character of which we are unconscious! It is thus we need so much to pray that He may search us and try us, and see whether there be any wicked way in us: any way, as the word means, of pain or grief to Him. His judgment is grounded necessarily upon this deeper knowledge, and as a Father’s judgment it is for our fullest blessing. Still, it is serious; as the apostle says, we are not, on the one hand, to faint under the discipline of the Lord, nor, on the other hand, are we to make light of it. It is the witness of a holiness which must be specially maintained as to those who are brought near to Him -a holiness which, the nearer we are brought to God, the more we shall justify Him in. In the sanctuary only can we understand it; and there we shall find, as the Psalmist did, the secret of this apparently strange thing -that whereas those away from Him may be left alone to prosper and increase in riches, those who are His may have to be "plagued all the day long and chastened every morning." But how solemn is the admonition, therefore, of such ways of God with His own! If judgment begin after this manner, "first at us," says the apostle, "what shall be the end of those who obey not the gospel of God?" Judgment will pass from us. What will it be for those upon whom it must abide? "If the righteous be with difficulty saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" It is not "scarcely saved." The thought is in some sense the very opposite of this. God has to take abundant pains with them, in order that He may carry them through in a manner according to His mind; and it is because the salvation is effectual and ample that the difficulty of it is seen. When we think of what we are, and of what God is, and that God and we are called to walk together, how should we realize what is indeed the tender love of God, which works with us thus to wean us from the things around, -from all that would awaken in the heart murmuring and unrest, -in order that we may be occupied with that which is our own, with the abundance with which He has provided us, and which He is always waiting to minister to us! "Wherefore," says the apostle, "let them who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing to a faithful Creator." God is pursuing in all this the very purpose which He had with man at the beginning, for which He made him -to have communion with Himself. This might be able, indeed, to be little developed at the beginning. It is now brought out in fullest reality.
3. The apostle turns now, in view of the people of God in weakness and suffering in a world like this, to exhort in an especial way those who had the special responsibility, involved in growth of wisdom and experience, to use these for the blessing of all. "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder." It seems plain that he is not thinking here of any office of eldership. We can hardly think of the apostle himself as assuming the position of one of the elders of a congregation in the sense in which we find them ordained in the separate assemblies. He is rather thinking of his years, of the long experience which they had furnished to him, of the wisdom acquired by the experience, and of those who had in their own measure a similar responsibility of such experience so acquired. This, even with the officially appointed elders, really was what would qualify a man for such an office; and it was a right thing, as Paul has told us, to desire such a place practically. It was desiring a good work. All elders in mere age would not be elders of this sort, and yet a certain age would naturally be needful as a qualification; but apart from any formal office, love would make one realize the responsibility of having that which could minister to the need of others in this way, as in every other way. The apostle was in an eminent way also "a witness of the sufferings of Christ," as he would be "a partaker of the glory" which is to be revealed. This, it is plain, does not exclude others from a proportionate share in either. Such, then, as those of whom he speaks were to tend the flock of God, exercising oversight not of necessity, but willingly, and not as lording it over possessions of their own. The flock is God’s flock. There is no idea in Scripture of any flock belonging to an under-shepherd. This is what is guarded against here. They were not to take the place of lords, but of ministers under Him who, after all, was Himself so thoroughly a Minister, the Chief Shepherd, who, when He is manifested, would bestow upon those who cared for His own an unfading "crown of glory." Here, plainly, is such oversight, as may be at any time exercised, no matter what may be the ruin of the days upon which we are fallen. Peter, it is evident also, is thinking of the Lord’s own charge to him. How could he forget those last, tender admonitions which were at the same time the revelation of a privilege which was his, and which, through grace, remained in spite of all his failure? It is striking that here what is spoken of is not a "crown of righteousness" simply, but a "crown of glory." Righteousness shall have its own reward, but the outflow of heart towards His people, a spirit of self-sacrifice for the blessing of those so dear to Him, must receive "a crown of glory" at His hands.
The next words show that it is, after all, not an official eldership that the apostle is thinking of here, for he now turns to the younger in contrast to these, and bids them be subject unto the elder; that is, they are of course to consider their years, and what it has furnished to them, and above all the ministry to which they see them devoted. Such love carries with it true wisdom, and he who is fully devoted to the need of the saints cannot really fail to find for himself in this way the blessing of it; but all the saints are to be subject one to another. They are to gird themselves with humility in this way, humility being that which will keep everything rightly adjusted, as the girdle the robe, and which would thus enable for such activity as all are called to; for humility is a grand help against discouragement by the difficulties of the way, and necessarily against all that would search out any remnant of pride in us. "God resisteth the proud," adds the apostle, "but giveth grace unto the humble." They were therefore to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God that He might exalt them in due time. Against the might of His hand, who can exalt himself? But He Himself is waiting and desiring to be able to exalt those who will not suffer from it; and upon such an One we may cast all our care, for He careth for us.
4. There are yet some further words with regard to the trial in which they found themselves. There was an active enemy walking about as a roaring lion, with the open mouth of persecution, as we see by the connection here, seeking to daunt the suffering soul, and thus to cast down from the steadfastness of a faith which must needs persevere through the sufferings; sufferings that are accomplished in all the Lord’s people who are in the world. They had only to wait for God to fulfil all His own meaning in this trial -a God of grace who has destined His people for His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, and who may be safely trusted for all the way that leads there. With Him the suffering had its ends, while of necessity it was merely temporary.* The effect would be, not what the enemy sought, but the perfecting, stablishing, strengthening, grounding of the soul. If they might seem to sink, they would soon touch the bottom, and find how firmly the Rock was underneath them. A real suffering for Christ could not fail to have this as its answer. The trial tries not the sufferer alone, but Him who has assured us that He will be "a very present help in trouble," and that all things, moreover, shall "work together for good to them that love God." The trial itself, therefore, must work this. We must not look at things as against us, lest we put into them a sting which God would not have there. "To Him," adds the apostle, belong the glory and the might, "unto the ages of ages."
{*While temporary, these sufferings will continue during this present life -a light and momentary affliction as compared with the eternal weight of glory. This is seen both from the grammar, the participial clause agreeing with "you," and from the context, as surely the prayer for their strengthening etc. would not be after they had suffered, but during it as well. -S.R.}
With a few words now the epistle ends. The apostle seems to have used for writing it the hand of another, as Paul had done; for it seems hard to think that he is speaking of another epistle than the one before us. The hand employed seems also to be that of a co-laborer with Paul, and one who, as belonging originally to Jerusalem, would naturally be well known to Peter also. This is Sylvanus, or Silas. He speaks of him as one whom he accounts a faithful brother, and yet, in the way in which he states this, as if they had not been long, or for long, together. His aim is to bear witness to them of the true grace of God in which they stood, and alone could stand.*
{*As at the close of Hebrews we see that Paul was in Italy, doubtless at Rome, when the epistle was written; so here we see Peter was at Babylon when this epistle was written. There is not the slightest hint that he ever was at Rome before this, and from the late date of this epistle it is most unlikely that he was ever there afterwards. Thus the fabric of his being the first bishop of Rome falls to the ground. Recognizing this, the supporters of that theory claim that the Babylon here is the mystic city, as in Rev 17:1-18, and therefore really Rome. But this never would have been thought of but for the theory. Peter is not writing symbolically. Doubtless the elect (sister) is either his wife, or some prominent lady as in 2Jn 1:1, or else it agrees with "brotherhood," understood, a feminine word, -S.R.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1–2 1 Peter
1 Peter
CHRISTIAN ASCETICISM
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1Pe 4:1-8.
Christian morality brought two new things into the world--a new type of life in sharp contrast with the sensuality rife on every side, and a new set of motives powerfully aiding in its realisation. Both these novelties are presented in this passage, which insists on a life in which the spirit dominates the flesh, and is dominated by the will of God, and which puts forward purely Christian ideas as containing the motives for such a life. The facts of Christ’s life and the prospect of Christ’s return to judge the world are here urged as the reason for living a life of austere repression of ‘the flesh’ that we may do God’s will.
I. We have, first, in verses 1 and 2, a general precept, based upon the broad view of Christ’s earthly history.
‘Christ hath suffered in the flesh.’ That is the great fact which should shape the course of all His followers. But what does suffering in the flesh mean here? It does not refer only to the death of Jesus, but to His whole life. The phrase ‘in the flesh’ is reiterated in the context, and evidently is equivalent to ‘during the earthly life.’ Our Lord’s life was, in one aspect, one continuous suffering, because He lived the higher life of the spirit. That higher life had to Him, and has to us, rich compensations; but it sets those who are true to it at necessary variance with the lower types of life common among men, and it brings many pains, all of which Jesus knew. The last draught from the cup was the bitterest, but the bitterness was diffused through all the life of the Man of Sorrows.
That life is here contemplated as the pattern for all Christ’s servants. Peter says much in this letter of our Lord’s sufferings as the atonement for sin, but here he looks at them rather as the realised ideal of all worthy life. We are to be ‘partakers of Christ’s sufferings’ {5. 13}, and we shall become so in proportion as His own Spirit becomes the spirit which lives in us. If Jesus were only our pattern, Christianity would be a poor affair, and a gospel of despair; for how should we reach to the pure heights where He stood? But, since He can breathe into us a spirit which will hallow and energise our spirits, we can rise to walk beside Him on the high places of heroic endurance and of holy living. Very beautifully does Peter hint at our sore conflict, our personal defencelessness, and our all-sufficient armour, in the picturesque metaphor ‘arm yourselves.’ The ‘mind of Christ’ is given to us if we will. We can gird it on, and if we do, it will be as an impenetrable coat-of-mail, which will turn the sharpest arrows and resist the fiercest sword-cuts.
The last clause of verse 1 is a parenthesis, and, if it is for the moment omitted, the sentence runs smoothly on, especially if the Revised Version’s reading is adopted. The purpose of arming us with the same mind is that, whilst we live on earth, we should live according to the will of God, and should renounce ‘the lusts of men,’ which are in us as in all men, and which men who are not clad in the armour which Christ gives to us yield to.
But what of the parenthetical statement? Clearly, the words which follow it forbid its being taken to mean that dead men do not sin. Rather the Apostle’s thought seems to be that such suffering in daily life after Christ’s pattern, and by His help, is at once a sign that the sufferer has shaken off the dominion of sin, and is a means of further emancipating him from it.
But the two great thoughts in this paragraph are, that the Christian life is one in which God’s will, and not man’s desires, is the regulating force, and that the pattern of that life and the power to copy the pattern are found in Christ, the sufferer for righteousness’ sake.
II. More specific injunctions, entering into the details of the higher life, follow, interwoven, as in the preceding verses, with a statement of the motives which make obedience to them possible to our weakness.
The sins in view are those most closely connected with ‘the flesh’ in its literal meaning, amongst which are included ‘abominable idolatries,’ because gross acts of sensual immorality were inseparably intertwined with much of heathen worship. These sins of flesh were especially rampant among the luxurious Asiatic lands, to which this letter was addressed, but they flooded the whole Roman empire, as the works of poets like Martial and of moralists like Epictetus equally show. But New York or London could match the worst scenes in Rome or Ephesus, and perhaps would not be far behind the foul animalism of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lust and drunkenness are eating out the manhood of our race on both sides of the Atlantic, and, if we have ‘the same mind’ as the suffering Christ, we shall put on the armour for war to the knife with these in society, and for the rigid self-control of our own animal nature.
Observe the strong motives which Peter just touches without expanding. A sad irony lies in his saying that the time past may suffice. The flesh had had enough of time given to it,--had not God a right to the rest? The flesh should have had none; it had had all too much. Surely the readers had had enough of the lower life, more than enough. Were they not sick of it, ‘satisfied’ even to disgust? Let us look back on our wasted years, and give no more precious moments to serve the corruptible flesh. Further, the life of submission to the animal nature is characteristic of ‘the Gentiles,’ and in sharp contrast, therefore, to that proper to Christ’s followers. That is as true to-day, in America and England, as ever it was. Indeed, as wealth has increased, and so-called ‘civilisation’ has diffused material comforts, senseless luxury, gluttony, drunkenness, and still baser fleshy sins, have become more flagrantly common in society which is not distinctively and earnestly Christian; and there was never more need than there is to-day for Christians to carry aloft the flag of self-control and temperance in all things belonging to ‘the flesh.’
If we have the mind of Christ, we shall get the same treatment from the world which Peter says that the primitive Christians did from the idolaters round them. We shall be wondered at, just as a heathen stared with astonishment at this strange, new sect, which would have nothing to do with feasts and garlands and wine-cups and lust disguised as worship. The spectacle, when repeated to-day, of Christians steadfastly refusing to share in that lower life which is the only life of so many, is, perhaps, less wondered at now, because it is, thank God! more familiar; but it is not less disliked and ‘blasphemed.’ A total abstainer from intoxicants will not get the good word of the distiller or brewer or consumer of liquor. He will be called faddist, narrow, sour-visaged, and so on and so on. ‘You may know a genius because all the dunces make common cause against him,’ said Swift. You may know a Christian after Christ’s pattern because all the children of the flesh are in league to laugh at him and pelt him with nicknames.
Further, the thought of Christ as the judge should both silence the blasphemers and strengthen the blasphemed to endure. That judgment will vindicate the wisdom of those who sowed to the spirit and the folly of those who sowed to the flesh. The one will reap corruption; the other, life everlasting.
The difficult verse 6 cannot be adequately dealt with here, but we may note that introductory ‘for’ shows that it, too, contains a motive urging to life, ‘to the will of God,’ and that no such motive appears in it if it is taken to mean, as by some, that the gospel is preached after death to the dead. Surely to say that ‘the gospel was preached also {or, even} to them that are dead’ is not to say that it was preached to them when dead.
Peter’s letter is of late enough date to explain his looking back to a generation now passed away, who had heard it in their lifetime. Nor does one see how the meaning of ‘in the flesh,’ which belongs to the phrase in the frequent instances of its occurrence in this context, can be preserved in the clause ‘that they might be judged according to men in the flesh,’ unless that means a judgment which takes place during the earthly life.
We note, too, that the antithesis between being judged ‘according to men in the flesh,’ and living ‘according to God in the spirit’ recalls that in verse 2 between living in the flesh to the lusts of men and to the will of God. It would appear, therefore, that the Apostle’s meaning is that the very aim of the preaching of the gospel to those who are gone to meet the Judge was that they might by it be judged while here in the flesh, in regard to the lower life ‘according to men’ {or, as verse 2 has it, ‘to the lusts of men’}, and, being so judged, and sin condemned in their flesh, might live according to God in their spirits. That is but to say in other words that the gospel is meant to search hearts, and bring to light and condemn the lusts of the flesh, and to impart the new life which is moulded after the will of God.
III. The reference to Christ as the judge suggests a final motive for a life of suppression of the lower nature,--the near approach of the end of all things.
The distinct statement by our Lord in Act 1:7 excludes the knowledge of the time of the end from the revelation granted to the Apostles, so that there need be no hesitation in upholding their authority, and yet admitting their liability to mistake on that point. But the force of the motive is independent of the proximity of the judgment. Its certainty and the indefiniteness of the time when we each shall have to pass into the other state of being are sufficient to preserve for each of us the whole pressure of the solemn thought that for us the end is at hand, and to enforce thereby Peter’s exhortation, ‘Be ye therefore of sound mind.’
The prospect of that end will sweep away many illusions as to the worth of the enjoyments of sense, and be a bridle on many vagrant desires. Self-control in all regions of our nature is implied in the word. Our various faculties are meant to be governed by a sovereign will, which is itself governed by the Divine will; and, if we see plain before us the dawning of the day of the Lord, the vision will help to tame the subordinate parts of ourselves, and to establish the supremacy of the spirit over the flesh. One special form of that general self-control is that already enjoined,--the suppression of the animal appetites, especially the abstinence from intoxicants. That form of self-control is especially meant by the second of these exhortations, ‘Be sober.’ How could a man lift the wine cup to his lips, and drown his higher nature in a flood of drunken riot, if the end, with its solemnities of judgment, blazed before his inner eye? But this self-command is inculcated that we may be fit to pray. These lower appetites will take all desire for prayer and all earnestness in it out of us, and only when we keep the wings of appetites close clipped will the pinions grow by which we can mount up with wings as eagles. A praying drunkard is an impossible monster.
But exhortations to self-control are not all. We have to think of others, as well as of our own growth in purity and spirituality. Therefore Peter casts one swift glance to the wider circle of the brethren, which encompasses each of us, and gives the all-embracing direction, which carries in itself everything. ‘Fervent love’ to our fellow-Christians is the counterpoise to earnest government of ourselves. There is a selfishness possible even in cultivating our religion, as many a monk and recluse has shown. Such love as Peter here enjoins will save us from the possible evils of self-regard, and it will ‘cover the multitude of sins,’--by which is not meant that, having it, we shall be excused if we in other respects sin, but that, having it, we shall be more desirous of veiling than of exposing our brother’s faults, and shall be ready to forgive even when our brother offends against us often. Perhaps Peter was remembering the lesson which he had once had when he was told that ‘seventy times seven’ was not too great a multitude of sins against brotherly love to be forgiven by it in one day.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Security of the Faithful in the Approaching Judgment
The Security of the Faithful in the Approaching Judgment
C (ii). 1Pe_4:1-6. 'This is your faith: live then in accordance with it. Arm yourselves against your troubles by resolving to be like Christ in suffering. Suffering gives rest from sin, and the results of what you have already endured should be a life henceforth in accordance with God's will. You have lived the heathen life long enough in the past to have learnt its wretchedness. The heathen are surprised now at your estrangement from them, and speak evil of you and of God. But think not that it is as they say, and that no one cares how a man lives. They shall give account to Him who is judging promptly and certainly as each man makes his choice, whether he be living or dead. For even the dead have had their chance. That was why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that they might be able through judgment to enjoy life.'
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1. Hath ceased from sin] cp. Rom_6:2, Rom_6:11. Suffering braces a man's mind, so that temptation loses its power over him, and the opposition of the heathen compelled Christians to be strangers to their mode of life: cp. Sir_17:3.
3. Will] RV 'desire,' contrasted with the will of God.
4. Speaking evil of you] 'Of you,' as RV shows, is not in the Gk. These men spoke the same kind of blasphemy as the mockers in 2Pe_3:8.
6. This V. refers back to 1Pe_3:19. The dead are the same persons in each place. Judgment does not mean punishment, but separation, and man, by choosing His side, cooperates with God's judgment. This choice and separation could not, St. Peter considers, be made until the gospel had been heard. Thus the judgment of these dead men did not take place till Christ preached in the spirit to them. Then they could choose their side, for or against Him. St. Peter, however, does not claim to penetrate the depths of the mystery of judgment, and leaves the subject with a statement containing, like that of St. Paul in Php_2:12., two parts which we cannot reconcile, but which he assures us will be reconciled—they must be judged as all men must, in the flesh, i.e. by what they did in their earthly life, and yet they may live, as God lives, in the spirit, i.e. by the choice they make in their disembodied state.
D. 1Pe_4:7-11. 'But all these present judgments are about to be completed by that great judgment which is the end of the whole present order of things. Be then sober, diligent, devout, aiming in all things at God's glory through Jesus Christ.' With this paragraph cp. Rom_12:3-21.
7. Prayer] RM 'Gr. prayers.' Neither the sensible conduct of affairs nor the regular course of the Church's devotions is to be changed.
8. Have fervent charity] RV 'being fervent in your love,' lit. 'intense'; perseverance and vigour, not excitement, is implied.
Shall cover the multitude of sins] 'covereth a multitude of sins,' from Pro_10:12, which is also quoted Jam_5:20. St. Peter gives, following our Lord's teaching (cp. Luk_7:47, a deeper meaning to the OT. words. If the Christians have love, they are not likely to have much sin among them: cp. Heb_6:9.
11. Let him speak as the oracles of God] RV 'speaking as it were oracles of God,' i.e. God's solemn utterances, such as the prophets used to introduce by 'thus saith the Lord.' God's oracles had always been entrusted to His people to minister to others: cp. Act_7:38; Rom_3:2; Heb_5:12.
Amen] a Heb. word used by our Lord (and translated 'verily') when He wished to assert anything with special emphasis: cp. Mat_26:34; Luk_23:43. Such sayings might be called His 'oracles.' 4:12- 5:14. With this second 'Beloved' the last section of the Epistle begins. In it the Apostle encourages the readers to meet with courage and trust the severer persecution which is threatening them. As good discipline in their community will help them to do this, he gives precepts for rulers and ruled, and then brings their thoughts back to God the Father, in. whose keeping their lives and the course of the whole world are secure. He adds a prayer to God for His support, and ends with greetings and a blessing.
The section falls into five parts: A, 1Pe_4:12-19, the fiery trial; B. 1Pe_5:1-5, discipline; C, 1Pe_5:6-11, trust and hope in God; D, 1Pe_5:12-14, greetings; E, 1Pe_5:14, blessing.
A. 1Pe_4:12-19. 'Beloved, the trial that is coming is not a strange one for Christians to endure, for it will prove you as God's gold must be proved, and will enable you to share Christ's sufferings and glory—that glory which is surrounding you even now, though you cannot see it yet. Suffering and reproach for the name of Christ are blessings: like Israel of old you thus partake in the lot and in the spirit of God's Anointed One. If they call you Christians in mockery, be worthy of that holy name, and give them no more real cause of offence. Judgment is about to begin, as it did at the fall of Jerusalem, from the house of God. You are that house, do not risk by disobedience the more fearful fate of those outside it. Those who suffer according to the will of God may do what their Lord did when He suffered, and commit their souls unto God, confident that He who created will also support: but, I insist, let it be in well-doing.'
14. If ye be reproached] RV 'are reproached.' This part of their trial had already come. Cp. Psa_89:51. The spirit of glory and of God] RV 'the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God,' double title of the one Spirit.
16. Christian] a name which the heathen first gave the disciples: see Act_11:26; Act_26:28. On this behalf] RV 'in this name'
17. Cp. Eze_9:6..
18. Cp. Pro_11:31.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 8, 10 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sin
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 12, 15 Admonitions in View of the Second Coming of Christ.
Admonitions in View of the Second Coming of Christ.
Ceasing from sin:
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v. 1. Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin,
v. 2. that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
v. 3. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries;
v. 4. wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you;
v. 5. who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.
v. 6. For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
The apostle here resumes the thought connection which he had touched upon in chap. 3:18, that of the sufferings of Christ and its lessons: Christ, then, having suffered for us in the flesh, you also arm yourselves with the same disposition of mind; for he that suffers in the flesh has desisted from sin, When Christ assumed true human nature, when He became a man for our sakes, He was obliged to suffer a great deal in this flesh, not only during His ministry, but especially during His last great Passion. The idea of Christ’s acting as our Substitute is brought out also in this case, in order to give additional force to the admonition. We should arm, or shield, ourselves with the same disposition or state of mind, with the same intention and purpose. For he that suffers in the flesh, he that willingly takes upon himself the cross which is the lot of all true Christians in the world, thereby has desisted from sin. If Christians take their cross upon themselves and follow Christ, they have chosen the best way of combating and overcoming sin; in fact, they have left sin behind as a ruling power.
The purpose of being armed with the mind of Christ as with a weapon is now stated by the apostle: In order no longer to spend the remaining part of his life to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. If God inflicts a chastisement, sends some suffering, this will indeed be disagreeable, full of bitterness, to the flesh. But God is acting like a wise physician; for He thereby protects the Christians themselves. Their life, which would ordinarily have been spent in serving the lusts and desires in which the unbelievers delight, is now devoted to battling against the temptations to sin and in fulfilling the will of God. They give up the delights of this short life, but they gain the bliss of everlasting salvation as God’s gift of mercy.
This thought is now brought out with all the force of a strong contrast: For the time now gone past suffices that you worked the will of the heathen, conducting yourselves in acts of licentiousness, lusts, carousings, revelings, banquetings, and unlawful, idolatrous acts, in which they are taken aback that you do not run with them into the same overflowing of profligacy, blaspheming This is a picture of the life of unbelievers when they give way to their natural desires and passions and live in every form of sensual sin, as most of the heathen Christians had done before their conversion. Peter reminds his readers that their behavior in their unconverted state certainly was sufficient and more than sufficient to pay the debt which they may have thought they were owing to the flesh. Note the irony in the words. A few of the sins of the flesh are now enumerated. They conducted themselves, they spent their life in acts of licentiousness, or sensuality, in giving free rein to all their lusts and desires. They were wine-bibbers, using intoxicating liquors to excess; they held night revels, with banquets where eating as well as drinking was carried far beyond the limits of decency; they became guilty of all the unlawful, heathen, idolatrous acts and practices whereby the proper honor was taken away from the living God. Of these acts of sensuality, of carnal mindedness, of godlessness, the Christians to whom this letter was addressed were now heartily ashamed, and they were straining every nerve to spend the rest of their lives in such works as were well-pleasing to God. This change of attitude, of course, was a surprise to the heathen, it took them aback in a very unpleasant way. That these former boon companions of theirs should now no longer be willing to accompany them to the places where licentiousness and profligacy went beyond all bounds, that they considered an insult. That the Christians should now consider their former dissolute life with abhorrence and should do everything in their power to forget the indecencies of that period of their life, put them into such a fury of rage that they set out to curse and blaspheme the Christians. Also herein history repeats itself, as many a believer that was converted in adult life will be able to testify.
The apostle wants the Christians not to be intimidated or otherwise influenced by the attitude of the unbelievers: They shall have to give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. A time is coming, and that very soon, when the unbelievers will think of their blasphemous behavior with a regret which will be too late. For the Lord is prepared even now to return for the judging of the living and the dead, for the final Judgment; and from His sentence there will be no appeal. These heathen who now abuse the Christians will then have to answer for their hatred and persecution of the Christians, and since they cannot give an account that will satisfy the holiness and justice of God, their portion will be that of eternal damnation. This fact is a consolation to all believers that are subjected to such maledictions more or less.
For the same reason the apostle adds: For to this end was the Gospel preached also to them that are (now) dead, that they might be judged in the flesh indeed after the manner of men, but might live in the spirit after the manner of God. This statement has no connection with the fact given in chap. 3:19, but belongs into this connection. To certain people that are now dead the Gospel was preached during their life, they became partakers of its wonderful blessings, in order that they, although subject to the general curse of death according to their mortal body, yet might live in the spirit, so far as their soul was concerned, and that after the manner of God, that is, in a spiritual, divine, glorified existence, until the day when God would reunite their bodies with their souls. Thus the purpose of the preaching of the Gospel was realized in the case of those that died in the Lord. The connection of thought, then, is this: While death does not remove the blasphemer from the final Judgment and condemnation, it confirms the hope of the Christians that their souls, which are safe in the hands of God, will be reunited with their bodies on the last day and enjoy everlasting salvation and glory in the presence of God.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 7, 10, 12, 15 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Peter continues to teach the believers about Christian living. He begins by giving a conclusion to his thoughts from the previous chapter about Christ's sufferings.
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in the flesh
"in his body"
arm yourselves with the same intention
The phrase "arm yourselves" makes readers think of soldiers who get their weapons ready for battle. It also pictures "the same intention" as a weapon or perhaps as a piece of armor. Here this metaphor means that believers should be determined in their mind to suffer as Jesus did. AT: "prepare yourselves with the same thoughts that Christ had" (See: Metaphor)
in the flesh
Here "flesh" means "body." AT: "in his body" or "while here on earth"
has ceased from sin
"has stopped sinning"
for men's desires
for the things that sinful people normally desire
translationWords
Christ
suffer
flesh
sin
life
will of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 4:1-6 Peter urges Christians to decisively turn their backs…
4:1-6 Peter urges Christians to decisively turn their backs on the former sinful way of life from which Christ in his suffering delivered us.
4:1 since Christ suffered physical pain: Peter introduced this idea in 3:18; he now indicates its significance in Christian experience. In our own physical sufferings, we are to imitate Christ’s attitude (see 2:21-24). Our suffering with Christ shows that we have identified with him (see Rom 8:17). Those who identify with Christ experience the victory over the power of sin that he won on the cross (Rom 6:1-10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.