1 Peter 4:3

Peter opens the chapter with “Forasmuch then”, a therefore that gathers up what he has just written. He has set out Christ’s suffering as our example and our redemption (1 Peter 2:21–25), and his suffering, death and exaltation (1 Peter 3:18–22). Now he turns that finished work into a word for daily life. His readers were believers scattered across Asia Minor, slandered, pushed to the edges of their society and sometimes harder pressed for their faith (1 Peter 1:6, 1 Peter 3:16). They needed a way to think about their suffering, and Peter points them to Christ’s.

“Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh.” The verb páschō means to suffer, to undergo something, usually something painful. “In the flesh” tells us his suffering was real and bodily, and “for us” tells us it was in our place, since he had no sin of his own to suffer for. So his suffering is both the ground of what Peter asks and its pattern.

“Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” The verb hoplízō comes from the word for a weapon and means to equip with weapons. Peter uses it in the middle voice, of arming oneself, and in a figure: the believer takes up a way of thinking as a soldier takes up his arms. The word for mind, énnoia, means thinking, a way of thinking, an intent or purpose. The mind Christ showed in his suffering was obedience to his Father’s will, all the way to death, and Paul calls for the same: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5–8). Arming is done ahead of time, so Peter asks his readers to settle their purpose before the next trial comes.

Then comes the reason: “for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.” Here Peter is speaking of the believer, who suffers in the flesh for righteousness and in this shares Christ’s death to sin. The verb paúō means to stop, to quit, to come to an end, and it stands in the perfect tense, “hath ceased”, a finished act whose result lasts. The word for sin, hamartía, means a sin, and Strong’s marks it as properly abstract, so it can name sin itself as a power as well as single acts. The one who has suffered with Christ has broken with sin’s rule. Paul teaches the same thing: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). He writes too, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God,” and draws the conclusion, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Colossians 3:3–5).

Verse 2 says what the break with sin is for. “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh” uses the adverb mēkéti, “no longer”, which marks the end of a former way of living. “The rest of his time” joins epíloipos, what is still left or remaining, with chrónos, a space of time. Peter means the years of earthly life that remain after a person comes to Christ, and all of them are to be spent one way.

Two masters stand side by side in the verse. “The lusts of men” uses epithymía, desire or longing, and especially lust for what is forbidden. The word can be used of right desires as well, and its bad sense here comes from what is desired: the self-centred cravings of fallen human nature. Over against them stands “the will of God”, where thélēma means a purpose or determination, God’s own design for us and his revealed commands. The verse is phrased as a purpose, and it carries the force of a command, because Peter expects his readers to live it.

This is the renewal Paul describes, to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2), and to “put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24). Paul’s long teaching on being dead to sin and alive to God, raised to walk in newness of life, says the same (Romans 6:1–14). Peter himself has already called these believers to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15–16).

Jesus lived his whole life to the will of God. In Gethsemane he prayed that his Father’s will be done over his own (Luke 22:42), and he “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and his suffering in the flesh has given us the means to be free of sin’s reign. So the life Peter describes comes through union with Christ and the power of his Spirit, and willpower alone could never produce it.

“For the time past of our life may suffice us.” The word arketós means enough, sufficient. Peter uses it as a gentle understatement for “far too long already”. The time spent on the old life is over, and there is every reason to leave it there.

“To have wrought the will of the Gentiles” uses katergázomai, to work fully or accomplish, so the old life was carried out thoroughly. The word for Gentiles, éthnos, means a nation or people, and in its extended sense the Gentiles. Here it names the pagan world around Peter’s readers, its customs and its religion. Asia Minor was steeped in Greek and Roman paganism, and the will of the Gentiles stands opposite the will of God in verse 2, the old master against the new.

“When we walked” uses poreúomai, to go or travel, and also to live or behave, so the walking is a whole way of life. Peter then lists six things it was made of:

• Lasciviousness, asélgeia: licentiousness and wantonness, indulgence that throws off restraint and is shameless about it.
• Lusts, epithymía, the same word as in verse 2: strong desires, here for forbidden pleasures.
• Excess of wine, oinophlygía: drunkenness, drinking that takes away self-control.
• Revellings, kōmos: riotous, drunken feasts and wild celebrations.
• Banquetings, pótos: drinking parties, often long ones.
• Abominable idolatries, athémitos eidōlolatreía: the first word means unlawful or forbidden, and the second is the worship of images, here the many gods and goddesses of the Roman world.

The list was a familiar picture of pagan life to the first readers. Idolatry closes it, and it was the root and setting of much of the rest, since feasts and drinking were bound up with pagan festivals and social gatherings. That is why leaving these things cost converts their old circles of friends. Paul remembers the same past, when we were dead in sins and walked according to the course of this world (Ephesians 2:1–3), and he tells how the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared and saved us from it (Titus 3:3–7). The line God draws at conversion is the line Paul draws in “Mortify therefore”, and it is the end of one life and the start of another.

“Wherein” points back to this very change. The verb xenízō means to be a host, or in the passive a guest, and by implication to be or to think strange. It describes the surprise of meeting something foreign. Former companions are bewildered that people who once shared their pleasures have left them. To them the believers’ new life looks alien.

“That ye run not with them” pictures a crowd rushing headlong together, and the believers have stepped out of the rush. “The same excess of riot” joins two words. The first, anáchysis, means an effusion or pouring out, and in a figure, license. The second, asōtía, means profligacy, wasteful and dissolute living. Together they picture a flood of reckless living, overflowing every bound. A Christian’s refusal to join in was noticed at once, and it was taken as an insult to the life of the community.

“Speaking evil of you” uses blasphēméō, to vilify, and in its special sense to speak impiously. Peter writes the participle blasphēmoúntes, “speaking evil”, and it means slander, reviling and abuse. Christians were accused of being unsociable or disloyal, even of immorality, which is the irony of the verse: those running into excess speak evil of those who have left it. The world condemns what is good while it holds on to what destroys it.

Jesus said that those persecuted for righteousness’ sake are blessed (Matthew 5:10–12). Paul calls believers to refuse conformity to this world (Romans 12:2), writes of those who live as enemies of the cross (Philippians 3:18–19), and tells believers to walk as children of light and have no fellowship with the works of darkness (Ephesians 5:8–11). Christ himself met the same scorn. He was called a glutton and a winebibber (Matthew 11:19), accused of blasphemy (Mark 2:7) and reviled as he hung on the cross (Matthew 27:39–44). When believers are thought strange and spoken against, they share in his sufferings, and they share in his vindication too.

“Who shall give account” turns to the slanderers of verse 4. They speak against believers now, and they themselves will be called to speak. The verb apodídōmi means to give away, give back or render what is due, so this is an account that is owed. The word for account, lógos, means something said, and by extension a reckoning or computation. It describes a formal examination in which deeds are laid bare. Paul says the same of all of us, “every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12), and that all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10). It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

The Judge is “ready”. The adverb hetoímōs means in readiness. He is prepared and poised, so the judgment is certain and could come at any time. The verb krínō means to distinguish or decide, and so to try and to condemn: it covers the whole work of a judge, from weighing the truth to passing sentence.

“The quick and the dead” is the KJV’s old English for the living and the dead. “Quick” translates záō, to live, used here of those alive when the judgment comes, and nekrós means dead, those who have already died. Between them they take in all humanity across all time. For believers who were being slandered, this was hope. A higher court was coming in which every false charge would be answered and wickedness condemned.

“For for this cause” ties verse 6 to the judgment of verse 5. Because God will judge the living and the dead, the gospel was preached “also to them that are dead”. The verb euangelízō means to announce good news, and in the New Testament especially the gospel of Jesus. In the passive, as here, it says that people had the good news proclaimed to them. “Them that are dead”, nekrós again, are believers who heard the gospel while they were alive and have died since.

“That they might be judged according to men in the flesh” describes how their lives looked from the human side. Men passed their verdict on them in the flesh, and physical death came to them as it comes to all, looking to human eyes like the end or even a punishment. For the first Christians this could mean being condemned, persecuted and even put to death by the authorities for their faith. “But live according to God in the spirit” gives God’s side, and it has the last word. The verb is záō, to live, the same word as “quick” in verse 5. Though the body dies, they live to God in the spirit.

This follows the path of Christ. He was judged by men and handed over to be crucified (Matthew 27:26), and Peter has just written that he was put to death in the flesh and quickened by the Spirit (1 Peter 3:18). He is the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Corinthians 15:20), and those united to him share his life. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25–26). Paul writes that the Spirit is life because of righteousness, and that he who raised Christ will also quicken our mortal bodies (Romans 8:10–11), and that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6–8). There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). God has made us alive together with Christ (Colossians 2:13), raised to newness of life (Romans 6:4), and the gospel that reached these believers was the good news of him who is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

This passage gives us a way to see our whole life. Christ has suffered for us, and his suffering is both the price of our freedom and the mind we take up as armour. The past is enough, and a clear line runs between the life we once lived and the years still left to us, which belong to the will of God.

Peter is honest that this change will look strange to others and draw their abuse, and he shows us that Jesus walked this road first. He also shows us a God who sees every slander and stands ready to judge the living and the dead. The last word over every believer belongs to him. Men may condemn us in the flesh, and still we live to God in the spirit, as those who have already died in Christ are living now.