Living for God
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because those who have suffered in their bodies are done with sin. 2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. 4 They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. 5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
Dig Deeper
When I first went off to college, it would be somewhat of an understatement to say that I didn’t really take it seriously. I was there for several reasons but none of the top reasons had anything to do with academics. I was much more concerned with playing basketball, making friends, having fun, and of course the girls. Because of this, I actually paid little attention to my grades or my classes in general, showing little respect for myself or my parents who were making possible my ability to attend college. After a couple of wasted years in which I dug myself quite an academic hole, I moved to a new university in Oklahoma. It was there that I finally woke up to the sacrifice that others had made for me to be able to go to college and I also came to the realization of the importance of my grades and actually taking the academic side of college seriously. I quickly understood, however, that not only did my attitude toward the future change, I also needed to view it in terms of the time I had wasted in the past. My graduation was coming up quickly and I only had a couple of years to make up, in a sense, for the time I had wasted.
In many respects, this is the frame of mind that Peter presents in the opening verses of chapter 4. The believers were now in Christ. They had demonstrated that they understood what life was about and that they had simply wasted their lives before becoming Christians by engaging in all sorts of selfish and pagan behavior. Not only did they need to be about living lives worthy of those in Christ, they should also be reminded that they did waste all sorts of time before they were Christians not doing God’s will. Why would they want to continue living like that? Their time was now limited and the last thing they needed to do now was to waste more time not doing His will or only half doing. They need to be about the business of living in the new creation.
Peter reverts to the death of Christ (1 Pet. 3:18) and the example that he set as the gold standard for Christian believers. The saints should, says Peter using military language, arm themselves with the same attitude that Jesus displayed consistently throughout His life. Christ is the prototypical human being who fully carried the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 3:10) and lived up to the high standard and design meant for human beings who retained that image and did the will of God (cf. Ps. 8). Because Jesus was the only true human being, He is the only one that should ever serve as our ultimate model of imitation (even when we imitate other Christians it should only be in so much as they imitate Christ). As Christ demonstrated, the only way to truly be fully human in this age of sin and evil is to take that evil upon oneself for the benefit of others. As James points out in James 1:2-4, trials and suffering work like hard exercise in the life of the Christian. They are the only way that we can truly get the resistance we need in order to change and grow and become complete in the life of Christ. Thus, those who embrace a life of suffering for the benefit of others as a way to follow the Master, demonstrate that they are truly done with sin, and will increasingly realize that proclamation of action as we are molded by the Spirit in the life of Christ.
Those who have clothed themselves with Christ, rejecting the way of sin, should increasingly reject and not be drawn by to their evil human desires, but rather they live for the will of God. This can only be done because Christ has repaired the bridge between us and God. Those separated from God by sin cannot do the will of God. Jesus promised that only His brothers and sisters could do God’s will (Mark 3:35) but this is an option that was made available by His willingness to perfectly do God’s will. Adam and Eve had failed, in the garden of Eden, to do God’s will, instead choosing to do their own will. This was a situation would no human being could reverse; no one could open the scroll of the New Covenant and do God’s will (Rev. 5:1-10). Jesus, in a very deliberate and significant act, went into another garden, the garden of Gethsemene and struggled with doing God’s will, but of course did it in the most severe of circumstances. He chose horrible suffering, according to the will of God, in order to benefit others. The call for those who belong to Him is to do no less.
In verse 3, Peter goes into a bit of a practical line of thinking. Not only should a life of sin be avoided for the reasons Peter has already detailed, but for the simple and pragmatic reason that Christians have already spent enough time in the past doing what the pagans choose to do—a list that could be summed up by saying "choosing to do our own will rather than God’s." Peter assumes that those in Christ will choose to do the will of God which will make them stand out among their fellow neighbors like a black panther in a snow storm. The change in lifestyle should be so obvious that those with whom these believers used to engage in sinful behavior will now revile them. Peter says they they will be so surprised that believers will no longer join in on their reckless, wild living, and that they will heap abuse on them.
These former friends now find themselves in the category of blasphemers (cf. 1 Pet. 2:12; 3:16), because what is true of God’s people is true of Him. This means that those who falsely accuse and malign God’s people will stand before God one day, guilty of blasphemy against His own children. They will, says Peter, have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. Peter goes on, in verse 6, to say that this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now died, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to what they did while in the body in the present age. A majority of commentators hold that by this Peter is referring to early Christians who had the gospel preached to them and have now since died. This doesn’t seem, however, to really sum up or cover the magnitude of Peter’s point. I believe the more thorough explanation is that Peter has returned to cover the other side of the thought he presented in verses 19-20. There Peter made the point that Christ had entered Hades upon His death to declare His exaltation and vindication as the holy one of God. Now Peter bookends that thought by informing us that Christ also went to Paradise to announce the salvation that had finally become available to those who had lived righteously before Christ (see Dig Deeper on 1 Peter 3:18-22). This view is, I believe, bolstered by the fact that in 3:19 Peter says Christ preached to the spirits in prison, but uses the Greek word keryssein, which means to proclaim (usually in victory or triumph). In 4:6, however, he says "the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead," but uses the Greek word, euangelizesthai, which means to preach good news. In other words, Christ declared His victory to the disobedient spirits awaiting resurrection and judgment, and preached the good news of the gospel to the righteous dead who were awaiting the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:14; Acts 24:15). His point, then, is that all will have to give account before God, this is the reason that the gospel was preached and made available even to the righteous who died before Christ died and was raised from the dead.
Those who died before Christ but were regarded as righteous by God had been judged according to human standards while in the body, but now they live according to God in regard to the Spirit, awaiting resurrection and the great reconciliation and renewal of all things (Matt. 19:28). This would have served as an incredible encouragement to Christians who were persecuted outcasts in their society. They too, were being judged by human standards and treated as refuse, but they must remember that Christ, the standard for their behavior had also been treated that way, as had the righteous throughout history, and now all of those people live with God, exalted and vindicated with their king. We may be mistreated in the present age, but we do so for three primary reasons: It is the example that Christ set, it will benefit others, and just like Christ and His people, we will be vindicated one day. This is something that we must never forget either in our beliefs or in our actions.
Devotional Thought
Peter says that the change in life that a Christian makes should be so dramatic and shocking that at least some people who knew us might be led to heap abuse on us. Whether you have experienced that extreme or not, the question still remains. Has the change in your behavior and attitude been so shocking that those around you who knew you are surprised and take notice. Do the people that didn’t know you before you were a Christian still take note of how radically different you are?
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