2. In the power with which it supplies others to glorify him. Probably to absence of love in the Church is due, more than to anything else, the defections from the Church. It is largely in the power of love to make others what they should be, to draw them into the Church if they are not in, and when they are, the quick eye of love should detect the first signs of wandering, and the gentle power of love restrain. The atmosphere of heaven is love, and when that is the atmosphere of the Church, God will be honored in the beauty of a piety which otherwise he seeks in vain.
3. In the opportunity it gives him of glorifying himself. Discord silences his voice and grieves his Spirit, and he needs to chasten us, and his Word becomes vain, and our labor vain. Brethren, "live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you."—C.N.
1 Peter 4:12-19 - The joyous aspect of suffering for Christ a help to persecuted Christians.
The apostle is writing on the eve of the dreadful persecution of the Church by Nero, which was already beginning to be felt. The increased bitterness of those around them, and probably dark intimations from their teachers that the evil times predicted by Christ were nigh, tended to awaken very gloomy forebodings in the hearts of the converts. No wonder if they thought the trial strange; even to us with our larger knowledge it always seems strange that the good should suffer, and often so severely. Yet God says, "Think it not strange, but rejoice," and that word "rejoice" is the key-word to the passage. There are three reasons here for this rejoicing.
I. THERE IS THE JOY OF FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST IN SUFFERING. Suffering for righteousness brings us into fellowship with Christ.
1. It is suffering for his sake. The persecuted partake of Christ's sufferings. Some of our Lord's sufferings were peculiarly his own, and could not be shared; but we participate in his sufferings when we suffer in the interests of his Church, the interests of righteousness, for the spread of his kingdom. Suffering is always suffering, but when we know it is for that for which our Lord suffered, and on which his heart is set, it is suffering glorified.
2. It is suffering by his side. We are never more conscious of his presence and sympathy than in suffering voluntarily endured for his cause. None ever suffered for Christ without loving him more.
3. It is suffering preparatory to his glory. Some of Christ's servants do not think much of his coming again. That may be due to their not having fulfilled the tasks he gave them. His servants know when they have really tried to please him, and he knows it too, and this gives them confidence towards him, and makes them eager for his appearing.
II. THERE IS THE JOY OF GLORIFYING THE SPIRIT IN SUFFERING.
1. Be sure that yours is really Christian suffering. "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as a busybody." (Strange company that, by the way, for busybodies!) Is it not strange that Peter should suggest that Church-members might be guilty of such things? The fact is that the early Church contained many from the criminal classes, and some of them were too easily admitted to fellowship; their adhesion to Christ being simply an endeavor to atone for a life of misdeeds while the misdeeds secretly remained. Let us see to it that we do not take to ourselves the comforts of those who suffer for Christ's sake, when we really suffer for our sins' sake. It is not the suffering that makes the martyr, but the cause of it.
2. Yours be Christian suffering, its endurance glorifies the Spirit. "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." The word "resteth" here is the same word our Lord uses when he says, "Come unto me and rest." On the seventh day God rested from his works, but be also rested in them: "He saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good." God in his works was satisfied. So the Spirit of God rests on the Christian martyr, for he sees his work there—the fruit of the sacred love he has inspired, of the sustaining grace he has imparted; and the gracious Spirit reposes in the glorious result of his mission.
3. Reproach becomes our glory rather than our shame. "If any man suffer as a Christian," etc. Christian was a name of scorn at first, and Peter says, "Be not ashamed, glorify God in this name; respond to the reproach of earth by praise of heaven." Why should we do this? Because in us at that moment the Spirit of God finds a resting-place. Do we not often forget the claims that gracious Spirit has on our service and our love? We owe all that Christ is to us, and all that the Father is to us, to him.
III. THERE IS THE JOY OF TRUSTING THE FATHER. "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it -first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator." "The time is come that judgment," etc. We understand these words when we remember that the Epistle was written before the awful judgment which terminated in the destruction of the ecclesiastical and civil polity of the Jews, which our Lord had foretold: "wars, rumors of wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes," as "the beginning of sorrows;" and added to his people, "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all men for my Name's sake." "And if the righteous scarcely [with difficulty] be saved," etc. What fires of discipline, and what deep waters of sorrow, they have to go through to enter the kingdom] If this is what God's children endure, what of those who are not his? If so heavy is the hand of chastening, educating love, what will the hand of judgment and wrath be! Christian, shrinking under the one, remember that you are delivered from the other. Trustfully acquiesce in the endurance of Christian suffering. This suffering is according to God's will, the other is not, and can only be unmingled curse; but that of his people in the way of righteousness is his choice, he selects that, presides over it, tempers it, and leads it on to unmingled blessing. Here, then, is a fresh possibility of joy in suffering for Christ—the joy of resting in the will of the Father. I)o we know anything of suffering for righteousness' sake? Other sufferings we are each familiar with, but have we suffered for Christ? do we live a life of voluntary suffering for him? If not, I might say we have reason in that to wonder whether we are his followers at all. If we are strangers to Christian suffering, we are strangers to the deepest Christian joy. Christian joy is a flower which bears its fairest blossoms only when it grows on the grave where self lies buried - C.N.
HOMILIES BY U.R. THOMAS
1 Peter 4:3-6 - Living to the will of God.
We have seen that the apostle—the large-hearted, sympathetic, experienced apostle—is showing the scattered Christians he is addressing how to fortify themselves against the persecution that in stormful violence had fallen upon them here and there, before and since they became fugitives or exiles. This is part of a long paragraph beginning at the thirteenth verse of the last chapter, in which he is teaching that amid such persecution a good conscience is the only charm; that whatever befalls their circumstances or their bodily life, a consistent character will be as an asbestos robe enwrapping their spirits. Nothing can violate the charm of that good conscience, nothing burn or even singe the asbestos robe of that true character. Remember his defiant inquiry, "Who is he that can harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" This he has been showing in many verses; and the possession of that charm, the possession of that character is the burden of his exhortation here. The key-note of this chapter is—Live to the will of God.
I. LIVE TO THE WILL OF GOD. This is the lesson of man's past evil life. St. Peter urges that "the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles." What was the desire of the Gentiles in time past? What they desired for themselves and others. The life of that century throughout the Roman empire, where these scattered Christians were, has never, perhaps, been equaled in the hideousness of its private and public vices. The names of the Emperors Tiberius, Gaius, and Claudius Nero are so many symbols of cruelty, lust, and buffoonery. The walls of Pompeii, the pages of the poets, the annals of the historian, all testify how voluptuous, how debased, how heinously immoral, were the desires of the Gentiles.
1. Lasciviousness; outrageous debauchery in general, including all that follow—wine-swillings, roysterings, revels, and the filthy festivals of idolatry. So many forms—alas! scarcely exaggerated—of selfism prevalent in cultured and Christian England today. The apostle says, "The time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles." There is deep sadness in the irony here about time past. And yet there is deeper hope, for the past is past, and need not return.
2. Sadness. Enough sin! and such sin as we have been gazing at! Enough; for such time past—hour, or day, or year, or years—was simply
3. Hope. Time past may be left behind.
"Let the dead past bury its dead.
Act, act in the living present—
Heart within, and God o'erhead."
II. LIVE TO THE WILL OF GOD, NOTWITHSTANDING BAD MEN'S WONDER AT GOOD MEN'S CONDUCT. St. Peter said, nearly two thousand years ago, what can be truly said today, that worldly men, sinful men, sensual men, think it strange that Christian men do not run with them into the same excess of riot. Dissimilar characters often find it difficult to understand each other; the thoroughly corrupt man seems to find it impossible to understand the Christian.
1. He thinks his conduct strange, and so perhaps he ignores him altogether. He does not invite him to his carousals; he does not know him in society; still less is he on visiting or calling terms with him. He is an enigma he does not care to understand.
2. Or he thinks his conduct strange, and he is aggravated by it. He is contemptuous; he sneers; he tempts. He says about him, or to him, with curled lip, as he declines the wine-party, or gaming-talkie, or clubs of voluptuous pleasure. "Oh, you are 'green;' you are 'soft;' you are 'melancholy;' you're not 'half a man.'" And soon their irritation makes them scandal-mongers and slanderers, as were the pagan scandal-mongers and slanderers of -the early Christians.
3. Or, better far, he thinks his conduct strange, and it leads him to inquire. Wonder ends in respect, and respect in admiration, and admiration in imitation. Not a few of the men who have been reclaimed from lives of silly, not to say sensual, self-indulgence, began to climb the higher path and to breathe the purer air of Christian manhood because they saw a change come over some old companion that they at first thought strange, but soon found to be fascinating and ennobling. Who of you would not wish so to live that men should say, "We will go with you, for we have seen that God is with you"?
III. LIVE TO THE WILL OF GOD, FOR BOTH CHRIST'S JUDGMENT AND CHRIST'S GOSPEL ARE FOR ALL. The point the apostle is here pressing is that these bad men—these Gentiles and pagans of that day, who find their counterpart and succession in all worldly, sensual, selfish men of today—will have to give account to him who will judge quick and dead. The last time he mentioned Christ it was as having ascended to the right hand of God; just before that, as having suffered and died and gone to Hades; now, as in the very order in which the Apostles' Creed enshrines the great biography, he mentions him as judging the quick and the dead. All the living and all the dead shall stand at that tribunal. "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." But if all are to be judged, all must have the gospel preached to them; or the judgment would be partial, unjust, unrighteous. "Unto this end," that is, that all may be righteously judged, all have the gospel preached to them. The gates of mercy are as vast as the seat of judgment; the cross of Christ is as stupendous as the great white throne. Hence the good tidings had been preached "to the dead." "Spirits in prison' were visited by the Redeemer; to the dead Christ goes with his boundless gospel of righteousness and mercy. The myriads in the Roman empire in Peter's day who died without a single note of the evangel falling on their ears—died in gross corruption and bewildering superstitions of heathenism, are yet to be met with the offers of mercy, with the provisions of the gospel, and with the love of Jesus Christ. So that though according to the flesh—their life on earth—they were judged by men, and rightly judged, as evil and wicked men, they may, if they will yet receive the gospel preached to them, if they will read its blessed writing in the lurid light of the very flames of hell, yet be trophies of its unspeakable grace, and live to God in the spirit. Their life in the flesh was a ruin and a wreck, a scourge and a curse;—so they are judged according to men. But, wondrous ray of hope! their life in the spirit may, after the purgings of those terrific fires, and through the influence of the gospel of our blessed Lord, yet become a life unto God.
That is the object and only sufficient end of the preaching of the good tidings of Christ anywhere and at any time—now and here, or then and yonder. Has it led us to live unto God, as the flower lives to the sun, turning to it to paint its petals and to distil its odors and to nourish its exquisite life; as the subject lives to his sovereign, in unflinching and loyal fidelity; as the child lives unto his parent, in loving, watchful, eager obedience? Some men are alive to pleasure, or gain, or ambition, or friendship, and no more. Are we alive unto God?—U.R.T.
1 Peter 4:7, 1 Peter 4:8 - A solemn fact and urgent duty.
"But the end of all things is at hand," etc. These words, which are part of the paragraph that ends with the eleventh verse, naturally follow the exhortation on 1 Peter 4:3-6—an exhortation to pure living, and this because our past life is long enough for sin and its vanities; notwithstanding that sinful men think your separation from them in spirit and conduct strange; and to pure living, because Christ's judgment and Christ's gospel are for all. The exact point in the argument is this—that even to the dead was the gospel preached; and this is a deep fathomless mystery of justice and of grace. But however that may be, you are to remember and to realize, that "the end of all things is at hand," etc. Here we note—
I. THE PREDICTION OF A SOLEMN FACT. "The end of all things is at hand." There are, as every student of the New Testament Epistles knows, great diversities of opinion as to the aspect of the transitoriness of all things on which Peter was now dwelling, and from which he was enforcing great lessons. It is clear that not only here, but all through his Epistles, he was deeply impressed with the transitoriness of all things. Glance back at the first chapter, and on: Sojourners—" a little while;" "time of your sojourning;' "All flesh is grass," etc. "Sojourners and pilgrims in the day of visitation." Peter seems to have expected now a termination of human history—at least an approaching end of the age. He was old now, nearly seventy. He came to Rome on the eve of the conflagration of the city by Nero. He felt himself growing old—a prisoner hounded on to the death of martyrdom like the Master who preceded him; and, getting to the end of all things, discerns in the corruptions of the Roman empire indications of ruin—"the end of all things." He discerns, too, the end of Judaism, of ceremonial, of institutions; germs perishing; and the scattering of Christians; the end of all things to the Church—personally, in the empire, in systems. Whether "the end" be "the end of the world" or "the end of the age, that is approaching, so far as we and all with whom we daily have to do are concerned, "the end of all things is at hand." In our persons, homes, institutions, in the world itself, are elements of decay, indications of transitoriness. Yesterday, honors, old age, are carried to the grave; tomorrow, youth and hope—one shadow on all households; one and another and another join the majority. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?"
II. THE CONSEQUENT CALL TO THE HIGHEST PERSONAL AND SOCIAL DUTY. The thought of the termination of our connection with all things produces different impressions on different minds. Epicureans both ancient and modern, as represented by Athens and England, have said, "Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die!" "A short life, and a merry one," is the maxim some formulate from their impression of all things passing away. Wiser, deeper, Heaven-taught natures draw an altogether other lesson. Here it is:
1. Personal. "Be of sound mind and sober," etc - an echo (especially as the old version puts it of what Peter had heard from his Lord on the last evening of his life, and in discourses in which he portrays the great days of judgment. A memory which saddened him; for he had not watched "one hour" which he would give worlds to have back. The bitter experience of his fall had taught him his deepest need. "Sound mind;" not volatile and fickle, and perhaps impulsive and fanatic. "Sober" Another word than that which clears gluttony and drunkenness from the experiences of the Christian life; all temperance, all self-control, free from the intoxication of all inordinate excitement, whether the cause be alcohol or gold, appetite or ambition. "Unto prayer." This is the point to be touched, the focus through which life shall pass—the concert-pitch note of prayerfulness. Prayer is both a means and an end. Here it is an end. Such nearness to Heaven is the secret of confidence in and submission to God.
2. Social. "Above all things." This is all-comprehending and crowning social duty. Love alone—all alone. John, Paul, Peter, James.
a better, truer spirit. As you have seen ivy covering twisted gnarled oak, defaced and scarred ruins, so let love be ever green, covering the multitude of sins that defame and deface and scar human nature on every side of you - U.R.T.
1 Peter 4:9-11 - Christian love as a service.
"Using hospitality one to another," etc. Here the apostle describes Christian love as a service. For as the word variously translated "minister" and "deacon" denotes a servant, so the word "ministereth" here really conveys the simple thought of service—a thought which veins the beautiful marble of these two verses. This service is—
I. UNIVERSAL IN ITS OBLIGATION. "As each hath received a gift." That includes all, for all are gifted by God with some endowment or other. The man who has received no gift from God would be one not only without possession or influence, but without life; he is as nothing, and he is nowhere to be found. We have seen all through the Epistle some of Peter's memories of his Lord's teaching. Is there not here a recollection of the parable of the talents? In its light every gifted man is "a steward" (1 Peter 4:10).
II. MANIFOLD IN ITS METHOD. All serve, but all serve in different ways. The service of love is not a dreary monotone, but the richest music; it embraces the full diapason of duty. It is "the manifold grace of God." Some of the notes are here. "Using hospitality." This is specially applicable to those to whom the Epistle was first written, i.e. "strangers of the dispersion." It was, indeed, almost the earliest form of Christian charity. Peter finds it in Simon the tanner, Paul in Gains, etc. It is incumbent on men now in the midst of the yawning social distinctions, and of the ceaseless travel of today, Here is an echo of the teaching of the apostle's Lord, "I was a stranger, and ye took me in." "Without murmuring;" i.e. without grumbling. Three watch-dogs keep the door of the inhospitable man: temper, suspicion, reproach. "If any man speaketh." Just as the hands put on the table viands for the body, the lips are to spread a banquet for the intellect and the heart. How? "As it were oracles of God." That must mean with reality, with purity, with tenderness. "If any man ministereth." This comprehends every form of service. It is a widening of the other two just mentioned. "As of the strength which God supplies." That implies that the service will be rendered
III. ONE IN PURPOSE. "That in all things God may be glorified." Hospitality, teaching, almsgiving, all are to be for the glory of God. "Through Jesus Christ." Had it not been for Jesus Christ, that kindness, activity, wisdom, liberality, would not have been. He awakened all. He is the Head from whom the life of love flows. "Whose is the glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen." This is not a note of conclusion, but of strong emotion. Reason, gratitude, love, all utter their deep "amen' to the declaration that God through Christ has endless glory and dominion - U.R.T.
1 Peter 4:12-14 - The fiery trial of the Christian.
"Behold, think it not strange concerning," etc. Some have thought Peter is alluding to the burning of Rome, but both because the conception of suffering generally as fire is very common in the Old Testament Scripture, with which Peter shows himself familiar, and also because he is writing to Christians, upon whom through all parts of the Asiatic provinces of Rome the cruelties of Nero's persecution were being in many ways wreaked, we conclude that "the fiery trial" is a wider and more scathing and more enduring conflagration than that which destroyed the imperial city. So the lessons here are of wide application. They cover the whole scope of Christian suffering.
I. THE CHRISTIAN MUST NOT RECKON HIS SUFFERINGS AS STRANGE. Tenderly, with the word "beloved," Peter bids Christian sufferers not to feel themselves bewildered as men in a strange country. Do not let suffering shock you. Do not fear as you enter into the cloud. Why not? Because:
1. The sorrows the Christian shares in common with the world generally are not strange. His religion will not exempt him from bodily pain, business calamities, social bereavement, physical death.
2. The sorrows that Christians endure in persecution because they are Christians are not strange. Persecution is not to be wondered at. It is
3. The sorrows that are the direct result of Christian spirit and character are not strange.
No. Trial is not "strange;" for:
II. THE CHRISTIAN MAY FIND IN HIS SORROWS A CAUSE FOR PROFOUND JOY. To Peter, as well as his beloved brother Paul, the vast region of sorrow was not unknown or unexplored; they did not feel "strange" in it, as bewildered men in a foreign country. They had descried light on its hill-tope, drunk of streams in its deserts, plucked flowers in its solitudes, eaten manna in its wastes. How was this? They were "partakers of Christ's sufferings." Some of our Lord's sorrows are infinite secrets. Some can be known and shared. Such as:
1. Agonizing sensitiveness to sire His sigh, tear, groan, we may know in our experience.
2. Sacrificial compassion for sinners.
3. Sternly self-denying loyalty to duty. In all these we may, we must as Christians, be partakers of Christ's sufferings. "At the revelation of his glory." These words speak of unspeakable future joy. To rejoice in the revelation of his glory, which will be the triumph of pity, of purity, of the mission to bless others, we must be partakers of his sufferings. Blessed now with reproach for his sake, we shall, by growing resemblance to him and gracious reward from him, be blessed then. "The Spirit of glory and of God resteth on you." This token of the Divine presence not simply indicates the continuance of God with you, but the satisfaction of God in you. His spirit "resteth" upon you. The teaching is:
1 Peter 4:15-19 - Suffering, shameful and glorious.
"For let none of you suffer as a murderer," etc. The apostle is still dwelling on the "fiery trial." All trial to the Christian is a fire that
I. SUFFERING FOR WRONG-DOING IS CERTAIN AND IS SHAMEFUL. "Let none of you suffer as a murderer," etc. This is strange counsel to Christians. That it is thus given to them:
1. Reminds us of the classes from which the first converts were drawn. No doubt many were not only from the poorest, but from criminal, classes. Hence the apostle's reminder after he has described some of the basest of characters, "Such were some of you."
2. Suggests to us to be on our guard against sins to which before we became Christians we were addicted. The old taint is a peril. Perhaps tow now need fear being "murderers" or "malefactors," but many may be on their guard against being "meddlers." "Lay aside the sin that so easily besets." "Them that obey not the gospel." Here is another class whose sufferings will bring shame. The climax of judgment is for them. Who can tell what their" end" will be? "The house of God" is under his control, and all in it must suffer for their wrong-doing. Those who know the claims of the gospel, the possibilities it offers, and yet despise it and reject it, "do not obey it," must have even severer suffering than Christians who have blundered into error or been overborne by evil, for they at least have
II. SUFFERING FOR RIGHT-DOING MAY BEFALL US, BUT WILL BE A SOURCE OF GLORY. This Peter noted in earlier paragraphs, and reverts to again. "Suffer as a Christian," that is, because he is a Christian. The very name was at first one of scorn. And the name of scorn has become a name that glorifies God. So with all the sufferings that the character of those who truly wear that name has ever brought upon them. Are they the sufferings of
They are sufferings none need be ashamed of, but in which they may, as the noblest of men have done, glorify God.
III. SUFFERING FOR RIGHT-DOING MUST BE ENDURED IN THE RIGHT SPIRIT. The words of the nineteenth verse, the final words about "the fiery trial," are addressed to those who suffer because they are Christians.
1. They "suffer according to the will of God."
2. In such sufferings they are to "commit their souls, in well-doing unto a faithful Creator." Here is the obligation of:
"Faithful Creator." He knows—he cares: he will be faithful to his creation, and emphatically to the trustful ones. He who gave the soul its existence: and knows its capacities and needs, is its loving Guardian - U.R.T.
HOMILIES BY R. FINLAYSON
1 Peter 4:1-6 - 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 wine-swillings. 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 a,e 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.
1 Peter 4:7-11 - Duty in view of the nearness of the end.
I. NEARNESS OF THE END. "But the end of all things is at hand." It is presupposed that all things are to come to an end, i.e. the Divine purpose in all things is to be brought forward to its completion. What gives this solemn significance to us, is that there is to be, in view of probation, a final relating of us to the purpose. How shall we stand related to the completion of all things? Stress is laid here on the time of the end. It is not revealed when definitely it is to be—whether it is to be today or a thousand years hence. In judging of the language employed, it is to be borne in mind that with the Lord "a thousand years are as one day." Allowance is to be made for the great vividness of the language. The early Christians, taking some words of revelation too literally, thought the end of all things was to be in their day. We go to the opposite extreme, and put it far off. It is intended that the Church, in all times, should have a vivid realization of the end.
II. DUTY IN VIEW OF THE NEARNESS OF THE END.
1. Personal duty.
2. Relative duty.
1 Peter 4:12-19 - Fiery trial among the Christians.
I. HAPPINESS CONNECTED WITH THE FIERY TRIAL.