New Thoughts: (03/24/14-03/29/14)
The first clause of verse 1 is enough to keep us occupied for a goodly while. It opens with the word ‘therefore’, telling us that what follows is predicated upon what has preceded. How far back we need to look to find the precedent is open to discussion. In some ways, it seems that we are arrived at a point built upon the entirety of the letter to date, which is a reasonable thing to expect. The Epistles are generally found to address a particular problem or aspect of faith, even though they may impart a wide range of doctrine.
We could also take this as referring back only so far as 1Pe 3:18 and on. Christ died for sins. Therefore… He is now at the right hand of God. Therefore… It is through His resurrection that you have cause to appeal to God as to your conscience. Therefore… We could summarize the point. It’s all about Christ. Therefore…
Let us move on to that which is built upon this base. We immediately hit into a supporting clause, a flying buttress, if you will, so that what is built on that base may tower high and remain strong. What is this buttress? This same Christ who is our foundation suffered in the flesh.
OK. What exactly do we mean by this, particularly the ‘in the flesh’ part? We are inclined to jump to the conclusion that flesh is automatically to be contrasted to spirit or soul. Flesh is the evil bit, and soul is the good bit. We can get quite Manichean in our sense of the divide. But, Scripture supports no such thing. Both were created equally good. Both are equally fallen and in need of rebirth. Further, the very fact that we find Christ Jesus in a physical body ought to serve as evidence that the body itself is not inherently evil.
This has, of course, been a point of debate in church history. There were those who came with theories that He was never truly possessed of a physical body, that He was always all Spirit. But, this has long since been settled as heretical, and passages such as the one before us serve to establish the point rather firmly. Christ suffered in the flesh. That would be rather difficult to do without having a fleshly body in which to suffer. This should serve to tell us just how far back that particular heresy has its roots. The Apostles were already finding it needful to establish the physical reality of Jesus. Peter does so here in fairly gentle form, almost a passing comment, really. John makes the point in his first epistle. “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled” (1Jn 1:1). He was and is very real. He was physically present. We touched Him. We ate with Him. We lived with Him those three years. It’s not possible for us to be mistaken on this point. Those who teach otherwise, who neither saw nor touched, by their teaching make plain that neither have they heard. On what possible basis could they claim to counter that which we witnessed first-hand?
Is that all that Peter intends to convey here, that Jesus really, physically lived and died? It is an admittedly critical point, apart from which our salvation is left unachieved. But, it is not germane to the point Peter is pursuing. His focus is on the suffering. He died for your sins, and in doing so suffered greatly. This was ‘in the flesh’. And, he tells us in the subsequent clause, he who has suffered ‘in the flesh’ has ceased from sin. Oh, that’s helpful. So, does that mean Jesus ceased from sin? And if He did, doesn’t that require that He had sin to cease from? And, pursuing the thought further, wouldn’t that require that His death was to no avail? Well, yes, if that was the train of thought Peter was conveying, it would certainly lead to just that conclusion. That conclusion having already been rejected back in 1Peter 3:18, the rest of the train must be rejected as well.
Perhaps we can unravel Peter’s intended meaning by looking forward to verse 2: So as to live the rest of the time ‘in the flesh’. Given the three uses of that phrase in such near proximity, it seems reasonable to suppose he has the same thought in mind in each case. The last case seems clearest. It is as if to say, ‘in this life’, or ‘this side of the grave’. So long as you continue to live on this earth, let it be in this wise, with the same purpose Christ proved to have as He lived on this earth, and mindful that while He lived on this earth, He suffered.
Now, we might be inclined to think that suffering is exclusively focused on the final day, when Jesus faced trial, scourging, physical abuse and ridicule, and finally, that most heinous means of death: crucifixion. That would certainly suffice to define suffering, would it not? But, one might also consider the whole of His life on earth. Consider that this is God we are talking about, God who cannot so much as abide sin. Consider the fallen world into which He came, which is in every respect tainted by sin and sin’s affects. Humanity? Absolutely. Rotten to the core. But, not just humanity. The animals, the trees, even the grass in the field, we are told, cries out for redemption, for all has been set under the curse that mankind brought upon itself.
How do you suppose it was for this perfectly holy One to come into time in such a place? Is it any wonder that we find Him commenting, “How long must I put up with you?” Suffering? Here was perfect Glory at the very least forced to hide Himself away, to take on this lesser form. Here, depending on your understanding of what it means that He emptied Himself (Php 2:7), is one who has known an eternal communion and fellowship with Himself in the three Persons of the Godhead, now finding communications limited. I think it would be easy to argue that His entire life was one of suffering, even granted that the culmination on that last day was suffering on an entirely different scale. This understanding of Christ’s suffering in the flesh, in this life, seems to accord quite well with the way Peter proceeds to develop his point.
Let me pause here to emphasize something, though. There is, as I have mentioned, a doctrinal point made here, even though it is tangential to Peter’s point. Christ suffered physically. Christ Jesus was a real man of real flesh. Don’t lose sight of this! This whole culminating point of Redemptive History was a real, flesh and blood thing unfolding in real time amongst real people and evidencing a real God. Jesus Christ had physical being, died a physical being, was resurrected a physical being. Let there be no doubt about this. The reality of His life and of His death is undeniable. The historical record is clear on this. The real, human witnesses to His resurrection are too numerous to suppose a conspiracy. We see this throughout the Scriptures, that real people – people who would have been known to those first reading – are presented by way of confirming the message. The tale of the centurion at the cross is confirmed by the centurion himself. The one who bore the cross of Jesus as He made His way to Golgatha? His son is in your church. You know these people, and you know their testimony. This is Truth! What purported historical expert, seated at two thousand years’ remove from events, can reasonably claim to have better knowledge of what happened? It’s preposterous on the face of it!
Now, then, before I wander off from this opening clause, there remains one other point to consider, and that is the nature or purpose of Christ’s suffering. For, in the second clause we are advised to have that same purpose. Is suffering itself the purpose? No way! Is salvation the purpose? It comes as the result of His suffering, to be sure, but if that is the purpose of His suffering, it cannot be ours. He has finished the work and for our part, we lack the sinless perfection.
Zhodiates offers an interesting take on this matter of suffering. In the New Testament, he says, the term is primarily used of such suffering as is done on another’s behalf. That aspect is certainly to be found in the suffering Christ, the Suffering Servant. He suffered in this life that we might be saved. Can it be said of our own? My immediate reaction is to say no, of course not. However, there is a sense in which we might say yes. In so much as our suffering serves as a beacon, drawing others to Christ, we might suggest our suffering is done on another’s behalf. In so much as we persevere in doing what is right and good in spite of suffering, we might construe our suffering as being done on His behalf. That is something Peter has brought to our attention already, and will do so again. Suffering in itself has no value. Suffering due to one’s sins is simply just punishment. It is in particular that suffering which comes unjustly to us that reflects the suffering of Christ. It is that suffering which occurs expressly because we are followers of Christ, because we are determined to live godly in this ungodly world that can be said to share in the purpose of His suffering and to find favor, if you will, in the sight of God – not as meritorious, but as obedient.
I would also look once again upon the nature of Christ’s suffering, remembering that it is not merely that physical torment He underwent at the end. Martyrdom is certainly nothing to belittle, and would most definitely count as suffering. But, look where Peter goes with this. Suffering is not restricted to physical abuse, to being jailed, tortured, even murdered for the name of Christ. The very fact that we continue to walk in this fallen world with all its temptations, with all those past habits of ours calling out to us, with the peer pressure, and every enticement to sin: All of this causes us to suffer ‘in the flesh’.
This might help us come to grips with the last clause of verse 1. For, we know only too well that we have not entirely ceased from sin. But, there is that statement: He who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. We might take this in the sense that he who is so painfully aware of his own propensity for sin, who feels the anguish that Paul expresses so well in Romans 7, demonstrates by this agony of conscience that he has indeed ceased from sin. It no longer defines him. It is not his chosen course and habit of life. He has stepped onto a new course. Yes, the old ways call to him. Yes, there are going to be occasions where the call of those old ways will lead to a relapse. But, it is not the defining character anymore. Rather, it is the anomaly. In the end, it but strengthens our resolve to be quit of such things. And it is to that end that we find Peter’s admonition in the middle clause, which I shall look at tomorrow.
“Arm yourselves.” The very wording here gives us the clue we need to recognize a verb in the Middle Voice, although ‘yourselves’ is actually specified separately. In simplest form, a Middle Voice verb indicates the subject acting upon himself. Personal involvement is going to be required here. Interestingly, this is also an Aorist Imperative, suggesting a one-time command where we might expect continual application. The term itself, hoplisasthe, has the sense of equipping with weaponry.
One might be familiar with the hoplite soldiers of Sparta. The connection to this term is both clear and significant. Those soldiers were not professional military men, but rather farmers and artisans. However: They had sufficient means to purchase their weaponry and armor. They had, then, armed themselves. These hoplite soldiers would likely have been known to those to whom Peter is writing. This, I have to say, rather alters how I perceive that middle clause. “Arm yourselves also with the same purpose.” I had taken that as equating purpose with arms, perhaps indicating that resolve Christ showed as our weapon. But, I think we do better to read ‘with the same purpose’ as meaning ‘to the same end’. It is not describing the armament, but rather the reason armament is needed.
In short, Christian, you are in a battle. You may not have chosen to be thus occupied but you are. No doubt, those hoplite soldiers would as soon have been back on the farm or in the shop rather than taking life in hand to battle some foe. But, they did not shirk their duty when the call came. They were armed and they resisted those who would invade. So it is with us and temptation. Temptation is forever seeking opportunity to invade. Peter will return to this point, describing the enemy’s vigilance. He ‘prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’ (1Pe 5:8). Would you face a lion unarmed? Not willingly.
Now, I have been told, though I find no particular support for this in the lexical aids at my disposal, that the Middle Voice as used in the NT has this sense of a cooperative effort between God and man. It is not man actively doing the job, neither is it man passively receiving what God has done. It is God providing and man using, if you will. Wheeler’s does note a Causative/Permissive use of the Middle Voice, where the subject either causes something to be done for him or allows the same. But, here we don’t necessarily see any other actor who might be doing for him. That being the case, I am inclined to set that extra significance aside.
Before I leave off the matter of voicing entirely, though, I would note that there are several terms in this passage that are either in the Middle Voice themselves or derive from Middle Voice forms of their root words. In the last clause of verse 1, ‘ceased’ is in this same voice. In verse 3, speaking of the desire of the Gentiles, desire derives from a Middle Voice form. Likewise the term ‘pursued’ later in that verse. All of these, certainly the latter two, lack any sense of an outside force being permitted to act. The desire of the Gentiles is not a thing imposed upon them from outside themselves. It is their innate inclination. Arguably, it is the absence of that outside force of the Holy Spirit which we require to instill in us any capacity for desiring what is good. And when Peter speaks of pursuing a course of such poor choices, it’s not being driven to so choose, it’s choosing to so choose. It’s self-inflicted damage. Taking that sense back to verse 1, it is self who must arm self. God may provide the necessary arms, but if we do not take them up, buckle them in place, and train ourselves in their use, they will just be a pile of metal on the floor. We cannot case from sin apart from God, to be sure. But, neither shall we ever cease from sin without expending effort.
Have I, then, slipped into the Causative/Permissive sense for verse 1? Not entirely. A larger sense of Scripture requires us to understand that except God provides, we have nothing with which to arm ourselves and no hope of ceasing from sin. But, that’s not what Peter is addressing at the moment. Notice: There is a past tense sense to the matter. You have suffered. You have ceased from sin. Experience, together with a full understanding, suggest that this is one of those now / not yet situations, and that the situation in view is sanctification. It has been achieved in that God having started the process will by no means leave it unfinished. It has not been achieved in that we must continue to work out our sanctification with fear and trembling all the days of our lives. Those temptations aren’t going anywhere. Our flesh is not yet resurrected, though we know ourselves reborn. We may only have to arm ourselves the once, but we shall be taking up arms continually.
But, let me note the Middle Voice once more as regards this ceasing from sin. In this voice, the term bespeaks a willing cessation. It is not, then, that we are forced away from the sins we wanted to pursue, or are held back from our pleasures. It is that our pleasures have altered and sin no longer holds the same enticement for us that it once did. That is not to say we are as dead to sins as we ought to be. One thinks of Paul’s admonitions in that regard. You’re dead men walking! Buried in Christ, your bodies are insensate to sin. What could possibly tempt a corpse? But, as he proceeds to discuss of his own case, that death is not so complete as to leave us free of the temptations. Sins do continue to entice. Those lusts we used to pursue are lurking wherever we turn. The world makes certain they remain constantly within our perception. Arm yourself! Resistance, in this case, is not futile. It’s necessary. So, as the New International Reader’s Version renders it, “get ready as a soldier does.” Don’t just buy your equipment and leave it in the closet or over the mantel. Maintain it. Train with it. Know how to use it and when. Be ready for the call to arms, whenever it may come, and be courageous to take up your arms and defend your ground.
Wuest suggests, contrary to what I am seeing, that the ‘same purpose’ is indeed the armor we are to utilize. Other translations offer the ‘same mind’. There is doubtless something to that view. So, then, what was the purpose Christ had in resisting sin so successfully? Are we to see the particular work of salvation in this reference? I don’t think so. Rather, the mindset and purpose of Jesus consisted in doing only what He saw the Father doing. In other words, His one overarching desire was to do what pleases God. If we have this same mindset then of course the temptations we face must prove weak and ineffectual. Our problem is primarily that we don’t maintain that mindset. The spirit, as Jesus said, is willing, but the flesh proves weak (Mt 26:41), and we forget. I should note that even as Jesus pronounced this verdict, He spoke the antidote. “Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation.” Indeed! And that is exactly what Peter is driving at with this passage. You are walking, always walking, through the Valley of Temptation. That need not mean you enter into temptation, but it is ever present, always seeking a means to strike at you, and you must remain armed if you are to resist. Resist the devil and he will flee, it is true (Jas 4:7). But, that is not to say he will decide you’re just not worth the trouble. It means he will bide his time, looking for the opportune moment when you’ve let down your guard. So be on guard! “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1Co 10:12). Notice that Paul makes that statement in the context of temptation. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking you’ve progressed so far that temptation is no longer going to be a problem. It is.
OK. Peter moves on to noting the social pressures that increase our need to be armed for resistance, and so shall I. Before I do, though, I just need to finish this one observation from the parallel verses brought out for verse 1. In particular, these three, read in near proximity, paint such a great picture. I am paraphrasing here, as usual. “You have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you. He is the example for you to follow” (1Pe 2:21). “So, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Eph 6:13). “For he who has died is freed from sin” (Ro 6:7). Christ is the example, and He died for our sins. We have followed His example in dying to sins, being freed from sin by our participation in His death. Being His, we then take up the full armor which God has provided, arming ourselves to resist and stand firm in the evil day. And when is that evil day? “The rest of the time in the flesh” (verse 2). It’s a daily exercise. Morning by morning we must needs take up our armor once more. Noontime by noontime we must check that we are continuing to watch, praying even as we take sustenance, that our spirits may be strengthened as well as our bodies. Evening by evening we must consider our days, repent of that which needs repentance and seek that forgiveness which will grant us our needed rest. For tomorrow, the battle begins anew.
Moving on to verse 2, I note that the Today’s New International Version decides to move into the third person. “As a result, they do not live...”. This certainly seems to be a minority view, and really doesn’t make a great deal of sense in context. Peter has been addressing the need to arm yourselves, not the need for them to do so. The only anchor to be found for setting this in the third person is to suppose Peter is discussing those who have ceased from sin in verse 1. Even then, it would require us to suppose the ones who have ceased from sins are not the same ones he is telling to arm themselves. The question, then, becomes whether Peter is continuing the thought begun in the final clause of verse 1, or that clause was more by way of an aside.
The connecting term between these two verses is eis [1519], which I spent some time with during the study on baptism. It is towards or into, indicating in this case the purpose, or the point reached. The question, again, is whether this is describing the result of having suffered in the flesh and finished with sin, or the result of arming yourself with the same attitude. I am inclined to connect it to that earlier clause. Arm yourself so as to spend the rest of your life in this fashion. That seems to fit the overall sense of the passage more neatly. To enter into a lengthy description of somebody else (not Christ) who has already succeeded in this effort seems like something one would either do more fully or not at all.
I am inclined then, to take this as follows. There is something you need to do: arm yourselves. There is a reason to do so: Christ suffered for your salvation. Your present suffering is not evidence of His failure, but rather your own being finished with sin. But, not in such fashion as leaves you free of temptation, no! In such fashion as leaves you armed to resist. Arm yourself to this end: To spend the rest of your earthly lives pursuing God’s will rather than the lusts of men.
If we were trying to take the ‘he’ of verse 1 as referring back to Jesus, it would seem to raise all sorts of problems. To have ceased from sins presupposes there being sins from which to cease, which we could not apply to Jesus. Likewise, the idea of living the rest of his time in the flesh for God supposes that up to some point, he did not. This is likewise unthinkable in regards to Jesus. Well, then, who is this he, Peter, that we may go learn from him? But, he is you, and that is exactly my point. You, inasmuch as you are suffering, have ceased from sin. No, not entirely. But, the bondage to sin is broken. It no longer defines you. It violates you. It offends you, even though you still know its enticements. If you are going to live for the will of God, it will prove necessary to be armed for the battle.
Now, the particular term Peter employs to describe the will of God is theleemati, which indicates what should be done as a thing pleasing to Him. It is not at the level of decree. There is that will of God which is so absolute as to be undeniable. Those decrees by which the mechanics of the universe are set forth, by which the days of our earthly lives are numbered, and by which we are found among the elect (or not): These are will of a different sort. They are the active outworking of God’s decisions. This will of God that Peter is currently addressing, though, is more by way of describing what God approves and prefers. If you wish to please God, you do the things that please God, His will.
Reinforcing the idea that verse 2 is to apply to the reader and not some unnamed hypothetical third party is the fact that verse 3 returns to the personal experience. You’ve had plenty of time for that stuff. Your past is understood. We all have one. But, look at it now for what it was.
There are a couple of translations that offer curious renderings of the opening clause in this verse. Wuest provides, “for you to have carried to its ultimate conclusion the counsel of the pagans”. I should have thought the ultimate conclusion was death, which would make this understanding a bit suspect unless one thought Peter was just pointing out to them that they really ought to have been dead by now. Thinking back across my own years of pursuing such a course, there’s something to that point. There are many events I look back upon and recognize that but for God I should indeed be dead long since. There are many things which, if I considered them more honestly and earnestly, I should find cause for immediate termination of life now. The wages of sin is death. There’s no escaping that. Yet, somehow the mind is inclined to suppose one’s own personal sins are exempt. Surely, those don’t warrant death. But, the real answer is that they do indeed.
All that aside, I don’t think this is really where Peter is going. The focus in verse 3 and going forward is upon the contrast between past habit and present battle. This is what you used to be like but you’re not like that anymore. This is what will keep trying to call you back, but don’t go. You know now where it must eventually lead. You have chosen life. More rightly, Life has chosen you. Don’t fall back. Arm yourself!
Young’s looks at what the NASB speaks of as the desire of the Gentiles and arrives at ‘the will of the nations’. In fairness, there is a question as to whether the term in that instance is the same theleema used in relation to God, or whether it is bouleema. If the former, then desire would seem to better express the point. If the latter, we are nearer the realm of decrees. There is not only the desire, but also the acting upon said desire. It could be argued, certainly, that the same term having been used in regard to both God and Gentiles, the same sense ought to be provided in translation. If it is the will when referring to God, why not also make it the will when referring to Gentiles? If it is desire in regard to Gentiles, why not also when speaking of God? But, somehow, the phrase ‘desire of God’ just doesn’t cut it.
Looking at what follows, it seems to me that desire certainly fits what is being described of the Gentiles. Desire pursued. There was, in one of the terms here (I forget which), the sense of acting upon the urges of pathos. Passion takes over and reason flees away. The way Peter lays out the examples demonstrates the growing infection of sin. The course starts with sensuality, but moves headlong into lusts. The course starts with a bit too much wine, but it doesn’t stop there. It pushes onward into parties where drinking to excess is considered routine. It proceeds into competitive drinking, seeing which can drink the other under the table. It goes from being merely foolish to potentially doing oneself irreversible physical damage. And, of course, the whole mess lands one in abominable idolatries. Now, it would be fair to say that the judgment of Scripture is that all idolatries are by definition abominable. But, I think the progression that Peter lays out for us gives one an idea of just what he’s talking about. It’s that particular suite of idolatries that manage combine the preceding downward spirals. It’s the point at which lusts and drunkenness have met and found a ‘god’ that not only approves but even promotes the combined debasing dissipation.
Of interest in this regard is the term we have translated as carousals. The exact derivation of this seems to be a matter of some debate, but Zhodiates traces it back to the god Comus, set over feasts and revels, whose rites, he says, consisted in not only such parties, but also in ‘obscenity of the grossest kind’. If this false god is not the source for the term it would not be hard to see him as the object of those abominable idolatries at the end.
I think it is also worth pointing out that wine itself is not the issue, but rather our propensity for losing perspective. It is not oinos, but oinophlugiais, a surplus of wine, that is in view. Now, one must ask the question whether he is capable of remaining on the right side of the line. Can you discern where the boundary of surplus lies and, having discerned it, remain safely behind the line? If not, then the line ought most likely be drawn at zero. If you cannot control the urge, better not to entertain it whatsoever. But, I cannot avoid the fact that Christ Jesus opened His ministry by making wine, and closed it out at a meal which featured several glasses thereof, even promising that He and His disciples would drink again in heaven. Wine is not the issue. Fallen nature is the issue. The constant desire for too much is the issue.
Now, it would not surprise me at all to find somebody reading through this and saying, “thank God I don’t have a problem with that stuff!” I have perhaps aged to the point that lust isn’t so much of an issue as it was in my youth. And, drinking just never appealed to me. I don’t even like the taste, let alone the after effects. So, I guess this isn’t for me, right? Wrong. Let John speak to this. “For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh and the eyes, the boastful pride of life – is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1Jn 2:16). Maybe these particular items aren’t your issue.
What about work? We live in a nation of workaholics. Are you one of them? Can you recognize the signs? Could you stop if you wanted to, or do you find cause to tell yourself that’s the case? Maybe it’s television, or web-surfing, or entertainment in some other form. We are a society absolutely addicted to entertainment. It has long been the case that if you want to strike it rich in technology you should invent something that serves to entertain. Usefulness doesn’t sell. Amusement and distraction do. On the receiving end, we’ve bought into it completely. We go through the day looking for the next distraction. God forbid that we should have to spend even one moment in quiet contemplation! The silence is unnerving. The introspection would unman us. So, we avoid it. But, this is all from the world, not from the Father.
I have known those who were effectively addicted to the news. They had to hear it incessantly, and it always seemed to have a negative effect. After all, the news industry figured out a long time ago that tragedy and outrage sell. Good news just doesn’t get the same sort of interest. Sometimes we just need to fast from the news. I’ll confess I feel that need myself. It’s too easy to tune into current events, to keep tabs on this website and that so I’m up on the latest outrages. But, to what end? Other than stirring up feelings of outrage or hopelessness, where’s the value in it? Better to blank the screen and pray.
I find the exact same effect playing out with some who become addicted to watching the professional prophets of the day. Used to be you needed some obscure UHF channel to see them, which made it somewhat easier to break free. But, now it’s all online videos on a constant feed. You watch them all day long and on into the night, and I am watching somebody drive themselves to distraction in just this fashion. But, it’s God warning us! I’ve got to hear it. I’ve got to warn everybody. Right. Who’s going to listen? You’re going to call your relatives and tell them how a bunch of online, self-proclaimed prophets are saying the end is nigh? That line’s been played for about as long as there’s been civilization. This isn’t God announcing His plans for the next month. It’s fear-mongering. I would venture to say that easily 90% of those claiming the prophetic mantle, probably 98% of those who do so on video, are bogus. I would certainly start from that premise. It seems to me that this, too, has ever been the case. The true prophets, even in ancient Israel, were the smallest fraction of those claiming prophetic abilities. The great majority were charlatans. Why would we think human nature has changed in our day? Shut it off!
Do you want to know God’s plans? Read the manual. Is the end nigh? Absolutely. Are we all going to die? You can pretty well count on it. But, beloved! To live is Christ and to die is gain (Php 1:21). That’s not just true for Paul. It’s for all who are in Christ Jesus. If God has set the number of our days, what prophecy is going to alter His accounting? If God has determined your family members are going to be saved, what prophet of doom is going to prove Him wrong? And, if they are accounted amongst the reprobate, though it grieves us, it is God’s will. I think of His command to Aaron when Aaron’s sons were put to death for offering strange fire before God. Don’t you go mourning. Don’t go putting on your sackcloth and ashes. This is God’s Justice, and glorifies God, and would you who represent God put forth that what glorifies Him is cause for sorrow? Far be it from you! Whichever way it falls out, the Truth remains the same. “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our sight” (Ps 118:23-26). Either way, it is the day the Lord has made, so rejoice and be glad in it. By all means seek that He might save. By all means preach His Gospel. But, don’t complain of His determined will.
Let me return to Peter’s message. He moves from what is past tense for his readers to what is present tense. Those with whom they used to run are still running. They are still on that same course, and they cannot fathom why you, gentle reader, have stopped. They are still off into the same excess of dissipation that you used to pursue with them. That word dissipation is interesting. For one thing, it already speaks of extravagant squandering, as Zhodiates gives the meaning. That gives us something of a double superlative, as Peter adds the note of excess. But, look more closely at the Greek term, asootias. You might recognize an affinity with the theological term soteriology; the study of salvation. That is because this term for dissipation has the root sozo, which is the term for salvation. Thus, dissipation is, at root, not saved. In a lesser degree, we might read it as unprotected.
The BBE translates this part as, ‘this violent wasting of life’. Now, my ears tend to hear that as implying murderous intent, but that is not the meaning the translators are striving for. It can be said, though, that this hedonistic lifestyle does most assuredly waste a life, and to add the sense of doing so violently amplifies the passion with which it is pursued. It’s a headlong rush into oblivion. It’s the mindset of youth that sees no cause for and little possibility of reaching an old age. I think of that crowd with which I used to run. We were by and large convinced we would never make it to thirty, and we thought that a fine thing. Die young and have a grand time getting there. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Now? Well, I left town before I left off running that course, so I cannot say what they may think of the me that is. As for those with whom I was associated when the break came, well: It was best to make a clean break, cut off contact entirely and let the past fade.
But, here I want to be careful. Consider that Peter is dealing with the topic of suffering throughout this epistle. In particular (and he emphasizes this repeatedly), he is addressing that suffering which is unjust, coming as the result of living a godly life in an ungodly world. That is very clearly what is set before us here, and it becomes more of a challenge for us in that we were long a part of that ungodly world. We were the same way but now we aren’t. This is a real ‘in your face’ matter for those who still are. And, friend, that’s the way it’s supposed to be! We don’t need to be offensive about it. We ought not be heading into the world with the intention of making ourselves offensive. One thinks of the Westboro Baptist folks. Indeed, the instructions are clearly opposed to this. “So far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Ro 12:18-19), “and never take your own revenge. That’s God’s prerogative.”
But, if we don’t insist on our rights, if we don’t vociferously condemn every last evil in society, then evil wins! “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”, says Edmund Burke. But, that, I should think, gives far too much credit to man and rather fails to understand the power and the source of evil. Fallen man is going to act in fallen fashion, and the majority of the earth’s population consists in fallen man. The righteous remnant is just that, a righteous remnant, a distinct minority. Don’t expect it to be otherwise. Don’t expect that somewhere this side of Christ’s return, we’re going to see a proper Christian theocracy established. It’s not going to happen. This does not, though, give us license to be abusive or even strident in our dealings with the majority. There is no righteousness in that.
Rather, as Peter admonishes here, we are to arm ourselves with the same mindset that carried Jesus through. The Amplified identifies this mindset as ‘patiently to suffer rather than to fail to please God’. Yes! That doesn’t mean we are never to do anything about the darkness around us. No! We are to be the light as we abide in the Light and He in us. We are to be lamps on a lampstand, penetrating the darkness in hopes that those who now abuse us might see and become reconciled to God even as we have. But, that’s going to mean suffering. Good news!
Here’s the thing: When we think of suffering, we tend to discount what we face here in the West. Oh, we have our social pressures, sure. We have a media environment that is certainly anti-faith, and particularly, anti-Christian. We have an educational system which seeks to suppress any idea of God being real. What a surprise. But, we hear of our brothers and sisters in other countries – in Africa and the Middle East and Asia – and we know they are facing the threat of martyrdom. What are our trials compared to that? I mean, there is suffering. This is just petty annoyance. But, in some ways, I think we might discover that a lifetime of petty annoyance is greater suffering. It may not have the physical pain, but it is a constant drip, a constant wear upon our shield of faith (Eph 6:16). In that it doesn’t look like suffering to us, it is that much more insidious and requires more stringently that we hit each day armed for battle.
Consider something from Peter’s second letter. God, “rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day with their lawless deeds)” (2Pe 2:7-8). In fairness, I don’t generally think of Lot as a righteous man, but apparently God does. That’s beside the point. The point is what he was dealing with, the constant drip of living amongst the unrighteous. Welcome to life in Asia Minor, as Peter writes! Welcome to life in the West today, as we read his words.
Which is worse, the clear and present danger of a battle which once fought is over, or the daily battle against a flood of sinful influence? Look around! You can’t even read the news without being bombarded by images meant to entice. You can’t ride a bus without being injected with a constant drip-feed of temptation. We, as a culture, specialize in temptation. It has become more the case of late, it seems, but I find cause to wonder if it has ever really been any different. It’s just coarser now, perhaps. But, the fundamentals haven’t really changed very much.
Indeed, if there is a note of comfort to draw from Peter’s words it might be this: That the situation has ever been thus. In that time and place, it was the religion of the day that was pushing these things. Go back again to the root from whence the concept of carousing springs. It’s temple worship. We have gods for that. They encourage us to drink, to toss aside all restraint. OK, so the reality is that we set them up to allow us to do this, but the end result is the same. We have temple prostitutes encouraging us to sensual pursuits. In our day, the temples wear disguises, but they are temples nonetheless, and many are those who worship at their idols. Many are those, even in the church, even in the True Church, who find themselves succumbing to the siren call of these dens.
There are many who long to see miracles in our day. I am inclined to say that if there is any one of us who manages to resist this constant bombardment of temptation, therein lies a miracle. This is our suffering. We may think it nothing, but God thinks it something indeed. After all, when Peter considers the suffering of Christ ‘in the flesh’, he’s not just looking at the final day in the life of Jesus, but at the whole course of His life. Like righteous Lot, he found Himself in the midst of a thoroughly fallen people. Day in, day out, for thirty odd years, He had that constant, nagging pain of sin and temptation beating at Him from all sides. But, He armed Himself. He remained determined to please God, to resist, to refuse the enticements to sin. And, He did it! Where we would have failed in a flash, He persevered. And now, He calls us to do the same. He calls as our High Priest, and we are reminded that He has faced this same pressure we face. He understands. He sympathizes. But, He didn’t give in, and in His strength, we have hope and reason to do likewise.
Our High Priest instructs us that our God is merciful. He is clear that we shall not be tempted beyond our capacity to resist. We will often be tempted beyond our willingness to resist, but that is a different matter. The capacity is there. It is there in the armament that God Himself has provided for us. But, we must arm ourselves. We must take up arms against the temptation if we would stand.
To face those who knew us when, to hear their insults, the aspersions they cast upon our good name, and all because we no longer do as they do; it hurts. It raises the temptation to a whole new level. But, it’s still no more than Christ faced. He was called a son of the devil, and for what? For casting out demons and freeing those in bondage to sin. He was considered a bastard son of a wanton woman, a friend of the sorts of folks who were clearly beyond the pale. He befriended prostitutes and tax-collectors, rescued adulteresses, spoke with Samaritans! How could He be righteous? He didn’t follow the code of the Pharisees. He’s not one of us. Oh, they dragged is good and most holy name through the dirt, yet He had never done the even the least thing deserving of that treatment. He knows what we face. He faced it. And He stood firm. Go, thou, and do likewise.
“Keep a good conscience so that those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame regarding the thing in which you are slandered.” That was Peter’s advice back in 1Peter 3:16. He’s still on the same point. The past was sufficient for you to try and get along with them by acting like them. That way lies death, but you have chosen life. Don’t turn back now! It is with that in mind that Peter gives us the reminder of verse 5. The Judge will hold them to accounts. It matters not whether they are alive or dead when He comes. They will face justice. There is a quiet reminder in that. You will, too. On what grounds would you prefer to stand before Him: as one whose debt He has already paid, or as one whose sins condemn you? Before you think about giving in, before you think about seeking your own revenge against those who malign you; count the cost. Is it worth facing the final Judge with nothing but your own worthless merit as defense? They shall. Is that not enough?
Here, we have echoes of an earlier sermon of Peter’s. He has been sent to Cornelius – a Gentile! It took repeated signs from heaven to convince him that this was even permissible, let alone advisable. But, he went, and as he preached to Cornelius and his family, he spoke of his commission. “He [Jesus] ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead” (Ac 10:42). James, admonishing the church, warns, “Don’t complain against one another, brothers, lest you yourselves be judged. For the Judge is standing right at the door” (Jas 5:9). It matters not how long He tarries. He is still right at the door, and He is still Judge of the living and the dead. There is no escaping His Justice.
We look around the world in which we live and see injustice on every hand. This is nothing new. It is as old as man. The Psalmists saw it. Job experienced it. We see the wicked apparently prospering and the righteous suffering, and we may be inclined to question. How is this just, Lord? How can You let this stand? But, the scales of Justice are eternal. Perhaps it is the case that He has determined to let these fill the measure of their sins to the full in order that their punishment may be the more complete.
Think, for example, why it was that God kept Israel in Egypt for centuries, and then had them wander the wastelands for a few decades. Yes, there was that in Israel that needed purging, but that wasn’t the only issue. There was the matter of letting those who would be removed from the land fill up the measure of their sins before the weight of God’s judgment fell upon them. A similar theme plays out with Israel subsequent to the crucifixion of Christ. We hear it being set out in the parables of Jesus. You rejected these messengers, killed those, and now that the Son has come, you slay Him and think you’ve finally won. But, it’s just God allowing you to fill the full measure of your sins. Justice will come, and you cannot escape it, even in death.
When we see the extent of that punishment which Justice will mete out, it is that much greater cause to side with Christ, to take up the arms He has provided and serve as a bondservant in His house. He is indeed Judge of all. Justice shall be served, and when it is served, it shall have no end, for He has no end. The sins of man are ever against an infinite God. It matters not whether they were done with clear and conscious intent of opposing Him, or done with no thought for Him whatsoever. David, realizing the extent of his crimes, did not consider that he had wronged Uriah, primarily. He had much bigger things to worry about. He had sinned against God. All sin is against God, whatever its immediate object and whoever may be its victim. And, He shall see Justice served. Forever.
It is in light of this that we are called to go make disciples. It is in light of this that we are called to become lampposts, beacons calling the lost to repentance. This is what drove John to take up his ministry of baptism. You all need to repent, and the time for doing so grows short. We are forever setting before you life and death. You must choose. But, eventually, if you will not choose, you will find that in so doing you have chosen, and that choice cannot be undone. So, choose while you may. Choose life. A Savior beckons. That eternal debt which you must at this point work off in eternal punishment is a debt He willingly paid on your behalf. He has provided the arms by which you may stand in righteousness before God Almighty. But, you must choose to take up those arms and to stand. Oh! That He might come to you! Oh! That He might open your eyes and your mind to the Truth of heaven. Oh! That He might choose in His sovereign will to save you from your sins! Today, if you hear Him calling, do not refuse Him. Answer, that you too may live. It will not be easy. Let no man tell you otherwise. But, it will assuredly be worth it. Let neither man nor demon convince you otherwise.
