1Since therefore Christ suffered in
the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has
suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so
as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions
but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for
doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions,
drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With
respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood
of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they
will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For
this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though
judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way
God does.
1 Peter 4:1-6
The theme of suffering never subsides
in 1 Peter. Here in chapter 4, the theme
of suffering is highlighted once more.
Tying the Christian suffering with the suffering of Christ, Peter warned
his audience to be careful with how they live their life. Peter even listed the horribly disgusting
sins that his audience once committed in the past. Why in the world did Peter do that? Being reminded of past sins was like opening
up the old wounds. Yet somehow Peter
found it necessary to do so. There must
be a reason for that. His lengthy
discourse on suffering in the previous chapters was augmented in this
passage. Especially, after he talked
about the suffering of Christ Jesus, our Lord.
We have known for some time now that
Peter was addressing the Christians who were dispersed because of the heavy
persecution the Romans and the religious leaders did to them. These Christians suffered much. In that kind of situation, it’s easy to fall
back into the old way of life. I imagine
them comparing their old life and their new life. Perhaps before believing in Christ, they all
lived in a better state than what they were now. Surely they were still under the Roman
occupation. But it was not that bad
compared to the persecution they now experienced by becoming Christians. Perhaps it was similar to the struggle of the
first generation of Israel that came out of Egypt. They too compared their new life of freedom
with the old life of slavery.
Surprisingly, they preferred their old life as slaves to the new life of
free people. The reasoning was
simple. The old life was familiar, in
which they could eat their favorite food, they could find water, they did not
have to suffer the desert, and life was predictable. Whereas the new life was quite unpredictable,
they suffered the desert day and night, it was difficult to find water, and
they missed their favorite food. And so
if given the opportunity, they would just sell their right as free people for a
little comfort of the old life of slavery in Egypt. We must be remembering Esau at this point,
who sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. Just like Esau despised his birthright, the
first generation of Israel that came out of Egypt also despised their freedom
that God gave through His mighty redemptive act.
Now, given the severity of the
persecution, it’s very possible that Peter’s audience also flirted with this
kind of arrangement. The suffering they
experienced was rattling their cage. It
was very likely for them to think that their newly found freedom in Christ
Jesus was not as pleasant as their old life of slavery under sin. It is not difficult to make the connection
that they were tempted in many ways to just sell their freedom in Christ for
the sake of being reinserted into the slavery of sin. They missed their old life of orgies, of
debauchery, of sensual passions, of fornication, and of idolatry. It’s true that their new life in Christ freed
them from those sinful lives, but with it they gained troubles, sufferings,
living as fugitives, insecurity, persecutions, and even the possibility of
inhumane deaths. The temptation could
not be easily quenched.
Obviously, we are Peter’s audience as
well. We experience similar things to
what God’s people experienced in the span of thousands of years. Just like Esau, who was famished and in need
of immediate refreshment, we too are tempted to sell our faith in Christ for a
bowl of sins that would alleviate our earthly needs. Just like the first generation Israel that
came out of Egypt, who preferred to be enslaved by the Egyptians to the life of
freedom under the true God, we too are tempted to exchange our freedom in
Christ with the old enjoyment under the slavery of sin. Just like the persecuted Christians Peter
originally wrote his letter for, who were so much tempted to leave their holy
life in Christ for the sake of sinful living that promised freedom from being
persecuted, we too are tempted to deny Christ for the sake of enjoying the
abundant earthly life of wealth, power, fame, and entertainment. Facing these temptations, what do we do? What can we do? Should we abandon our faith? Should we exchange our freedom in Christ for
the slavery in sin? Should we deny
Christ so we could life like all the godless people?
Let me put it in a more practical
way. Should we abandon our faith so that
we could bribe our way to win a tender?
Should we exchange our freedom in Christ with slavery of sin so that we
could enjoy pornography, or alcohol, or drugs, or freesex? Should we deny Christ so that we can be
accepted and supported by the liberals, by scientists, by the LGBT community? Before answering, let us truly reflect what
is in our heart and be honest to God.
This is a mighty struggle. And
there is no easy process for this.
The biblical answer is clear and
cannot be negotiated, as declared by Peter in the first three verses of chapter
four of his first letter:
1Since therefore Christ suffered in
the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has
suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so
as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions
but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for
doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions,
drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
The
grace of God is bestowed upon us amidst the pressures and the temptations. In fact, God’s grace has been given to us
even before we were born and continues to stay with us for eternity. The ultimate grace that God gives is Jesus
Christ. John 3:16 speaks volume to this
amazing grace:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have
eternal life.
The
apostle Paul also speaks of God’s amazing grace in Romans 5:8:
8 but God shows his love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Thus
Peter was not alone when he spoke of Christ’s suffering for our sakes. In 1 Peter 3:18 Peter echoes John and Paul:
18 For Christ also suffered once for
sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being
put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Peter’s
exhortation, therefore, is not empty, but instead is filled with eternal force
and heavenly grace. True Christians must
always direct their hearts and minds toward Christ and be like Him in every way
possible. A commentator of 1 Peter, Robert
Leighton in the Crossway Classic
Commentaries, commented on verse 1:
The chief study of Christians, and the very thing that makes
them Christians, is conformity to Christ. “This is the sum of religion,” said
the wise heathen Pythagoras, “to be like him whom you worship.”[1]
If
we truly worship Christ, then it is only logical that we become like Him. If we claim we worship Christ, but we do not
wish to become like Him, then we are deceiving ourselves. For the desire of God for all Christians is,
as pointed out by Paul in Ephesians 4:11-13:
11 And he gave the apostles, the
prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure
of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
It
is not too much, therefore, for Peter to instruct his audience to have the mind
of Christ, to be like Christ, which is to be willing to suffer for the sake of
righteousness and to endure sufferings patiently for the sake of Christ who has
died for all of us.
Naturally, the amazing grace that
God has bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus continues and it leads to what Peter
teaches in verses 2 and 3, in which Christians should no longer live to gratify
the desires of the sinful nature of the flesh.
Christians ought to be intentional not to give in to temptations. Even though persecutions were present at the
time, Peter gave no opportunity for Christians to use persecution as their
excuse to go back to their old way of life, which is described very vividly in
verse 3.
living in sensuality, passions,
drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
Returning
to the old way of life would constitute abandoning our faith in Christ,
exchanging freedom with slavery, and denying Jesus Christ for the sake of
worldly comfort.
But Christians are enabled to resist
temptations. In Christ we are given the
tool to combat them and win. God is not
ordering His people to resist temptations and then threaten to punish them if
they fail. God is not cruel. In the minds of those who do not know God,
God is cruelly oppressing humankind. But
that is not true even one bit. God the
Son had to go through the unspeakable suffering that we can’t even imagine (and
we have no time to discuss about it here), in order for those who truly believe
in Him will be saved. Yes they will still
suffer, internally and externally, as they follow Christ. But that also is God’s grace for all
Christians, for through the suffering because of Christ we too will receive
glory in Him. God provides the grace,
the power, the assurance, of salvation.
True that He demands all of us to become like Christ even in His
suffering, but He does not bully us nor toy with us. The process of following Christ, which
includes suffering, is a natural course that sanctifies us to become like
Christ. What an amazing grace it is,
isn’t it?
Yes we might fall here and
there. But we do not fall joyfully. We might give in to temptations at one time,
but our hearts would be hurt so deep that we will repent. Peter and Paul knew all about it. Peter denied his Master three times. His heart was broken, and this led him to
true repentance. Paul persecuted
Christ’s followers zealously, thinking that he did what was pleasing to God. Jesus intervened and confronted him of his
evil deeds. Paul was heartbroken, and
this also led him to his true repentance.
Remember that Paul said that Christ
died for us when we were still sinners?
It’s true for him, for Peter, for John, for James, for all apostles, and
prophets, and the patriarchs, and also for all of us. Repentance and the road to repentance is also
God’s wonderful grace for all Christians.
And so Peter warned his audience not
to return to the old life of sin. If we
return to the old way of life willingly and joyfully after believing in Christ,
we will find it extremely hard to come back to Christ, if not impossible. Hebrews 6:4-6 warns all of us sternly:
4 For
it is impossible,
in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the
heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God
and the powers of the age to come,
6 and
then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are
crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to
contempt.
Esau
could not take his birthright back after he sold it. So he was denied the very blessing he
wanted. If Israel went back to Egypt willingly
and joyfully and then be reinserted again as slaves of the Egyptians, they
would forever be slaves. That is the
point of no return. Brothers and
sisters, reflect on this: “If terrifying persecutions experienced by the first
century Christians could not be used as an excuse to abandon their faith in
Christ, what then is our excuse?!
Let me tell a story from the Matrix,
a breakthrough movie in 1999. Morpheus
was the captain of a vessel called Nebuchadnezzar. His mission was to rescue people who were
enslaved by the machine. In that story,
humans were not born, but they were grown.
The machine grew humans in the field.
And they were harvested only to make them power supplies for the
machine. All humans were put to eternal
sleep. They were inserted into a program
called the Matrix, in which they all lived in a dream world. These sleeping batteries did not realize that
they were all enslaved by the machine.
Their life as they knew it was a fake.
It was a computer simulation program to deceive the mind as if it was
the real world. And so humans live their
entire life in a fake world, in which their only meaning is to supply energy to
the machine. Morpheus could not take
that reality. He was one of the many who
were awaken from the Matrix. His main
goal was to free all, so they could become true humans. And he set out in a mission to free Neo, the
one person who could fight against the machine in extraordinary way. One of Morpheus crews was Cypher, which
Morpheus freed some time ago. But Cypher
did not like the suffering. He preferred
the fake world over the real world. So
he made a deal with the machine to hand over his savior, Morpheus, in order for
him to be reinserted into the Matrix. He
chose slavery over freedom. And by doing
so, he had to betray everyone in Nebuchadnezzar. He killed his own crew members for his own
selfish gain. And he let Morpheus to be
caught by the machine. Cypher was at the
point of no return. His crime was just
unpardonable.
Brothers and sisters, we are not
Cypher. We are not people who have no
faith. And we are not people whose faith
is unclear. God’s grace is so amazing
and great in Christ Jesus. He is not
only our savior but also our model. He
too lived on earth. He too suffered, and
an even greater suffering than what we might endure at this point. He knows.
We can always come to Him for counsel, for comfort, and for
assurance. Do not live like someone who
is faithless. Do not live like someone who
has no God. We have a God who
cares. God also suffers with us. No matter how hard our suffering is, wait for
the Lord. Do not choose the way of
Cypher, of Judas, of Esau. Choose the
way of the faithful. Peter waited for
the Lord patiently during his internal suffering, and he was restored by Jesus
Himself. Paul took the step toward
repentance as soon as he was confronted.
Both of them, together with all the other prophets and apostles, endured
suffering patiently and faithfully. And
so was Polycarp, Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Hudson Taylor, John
Sung, and many other faithful Christians in this world. Amen!
[1]
Robert Leighton, “1
Peter,” in 1, 2
Peter, Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999),
177.
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