ANNOUNCER: What does it mean in 1 Peter 4 that the righteous can be saved by suffering for Christ? Hello, friend. Glad you’ve joined us today. This is Grace in Focus. We are a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, a focused Free Grace organization. Look us up on the web at faithalone.org. We have a free online seminary and a free subscription magazine. We also hold a national conference every year. This year, it is May 18th through the 21st. We want to invite you to come and join us. If you are a first-timer, the registration fee is waived. It’s a great time of fellowship and learning every year. So join us this year. More details at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s discussion, here’s Bob Wilkin, along with David Renfro. 

BOB: David, we’ve come to chapter 4 of 1 Peter, verses 12 through 19, the end of the chapter, and it’s all about suffering to the glory of God, and ultimately suffering for the salvation of our psuche, our souls. 

DAVID: That’s the ultimate goal, yes. 

BOB: Okay, so there’s some very interesting verses, especially verse 18, but let’s begin at the beginning. He says, “Beloved, do not think it’s strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as some strange thing happened to you.” 

DAVID: Yeah, this is in a way a transition. Notice he refers to him as “beloved,” and I think he’s talking to all believers. This is what all believers should do. Don’t think it’s strange. Don’t think that God is angry at you, and therefore you’re going through the suffering. As a matter of fact, the suffering is for your benefit. 

BOB: Right. As long as you’re suffering for Christ. 

DAVID: If you’re suffering for obedience to Christ, that is a good thing. 

BOB: Yeah, and he says, “but rejoice,” right? We’re to rejoice. And he says, notice, “to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings.” 

DAVID: Right. The more you suffer, even in our day, there’s people being martyred because of their faith in many parts of the world. 

BOB: Right, but we don’t need to go there, because in the previous context, he talked about the fact that if they’re having drinking parties and you don’t participate, they’re mocking you. And that’s suffering too. 

DAVID: I think in Peter’s day, Christians suffered in many different ways based on not only the problem if they’re Jews, but they suffered horribly because of the pagan influence. 

BOB: Well, and people can call us all kinds of names, you know, they can say, if we say, for example, that homosexuality is not something which pleases God, but it’s actually sin, we’re called homophobic. There’s all kinds of names, people call us. If we stand up for example, for a young earth, if we believe in young earth creationism, then we’re called idiots or we’re called anti-science or whatever, 

DAVID: Anti-intellectual. And somehow evolution is intellectual. Somehow, good luck with that. 

BOB: Yeah, right. So the point is, he says, “but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings that when His glory is revealed,” that’s the Second Coming, “that you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” In other words, isn’t in verse 13, Peter saying that our rewards in the life to come are proportional to our suffering for Christ in this life?

DAVID: Absolutely. Not only that, on top of that, because we partake, and I think that’s an interesting word, it has the idea that suffering is a means of fellowship with Christ.

BOB: Yes, because, of course, it’s wrong to think we suffer for Christ in order to get into the kingdom. That works salvation. That’s the “example view” of the atonement. 

DAVID: This is fellowship with Christ. 

BOB: This is fellowship. This is sanctification. This is glorification. 

DAVID: Right. And these verses like 12 through 14, the idea is that suffering results in glory. We partake in Christ’s sufferings, and what’s the result? We may be glad and joy, because we are partakers of Christ’s suffering. 

BOB: Yeah, notice 14. “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory, and of God rests upon you. On their part, He is blasphemed, but on your part, He is glorified.” So when people are reproaching us for the name of Christ, that is something which is glorious. It ultimately brings glory to God. And so we need to realize that if we are experiencing some name calling, then that is something which is highly rewardable. 

DAVID: That word reproach, I looked that up. It can mean demean, mock, or insult. A lot of people demean Christians, that they believe that there is a God and so on. That’s part of their desire to make us suffer. But I love what it says, “blessed are you.” That reminds me of Psalm 1, where it says, blessed is the man who does not walk and so on. But the Hebrew word there is esher, which is plural. And I’m taking it the same here. It would be better to translate this. Oh, the blessednesses to you for the spirit of glory and of God. Because I think it’s intense. We are going to be blessed like crazy. If we are reproached, demeaned, or mocked because we follow Christ, oh, the blessednesses is that come to you. 

BOB: We have this in the Beatitudes by the way and Matthew 5:3-12.He says, “Blessed are you when men persecute you and revile you and say all kinds of evil against you on account of Me.” Peter is certainly drawing upon that here. And so if we’re reproached for the name of Christ, it’s actually a good thing. It’s a blessed thing. He goes on to say, “But let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, as an evil doer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.” 

DAVID: Notice that contrast there. Verse 15, summarizing it, don’t suffer as a sinner. Don’t suffer because you sin, but in verse 16, if you suffer, suffer as a Christian, which is an interesting that they use the word Christian there? 

BOB: Yeah. And by the way, that word Christian only occurs three times in the New Testament. It was probably a derogatory term, meaning a little Christ or something followers to Christ.

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BOB: Then we’ve got here that if anyone suffers as a Christian, I would argue that Christian is more than believer. Christian is one who is an open follower of Christ. This is a baptized believer who’s openly following Christ. 

DAVID: They don’t hide their faith. 

BOB: They’re not hiding their faith. Of course, we use Christian today to mean anyone is born again, but I think in the New Testament, it’s referring to a baptized follower of Christ who’s walking in the light, et cetera. And so if we’re experiencing suffering for Christ as an open follower of Christ, we shouldn’t think that was strange. We should think that’s part of our common experience as part of the body of Christ. 

DAVID: That’s right. And see, that’s a perspective that’s totally against what the world. If you’re suffering, that means you did something wrong. 

BOB: No, if you’re suffering, if it’s for Christ, you’ve done something right. 

DAVID: Exactly. That’s why Peter is emphasizing this throughout his whole epistle is your perspective needs to be changed from, oh, I’m being, my suffering is supposed to punish me. No, if I suffer for doing right, for obeying the Lord, that is something that the Lord is saying, suffer well, you’re going to get glory in return. 

BOB: And I think we should point out briefly that this suffering doesn’t always come from those outside the church. For example, Paul’s letter to the Galatians referred to people who are coming into the churches of Galatia and preaching a false gospel, a faith plus works message for justification.  And that grieved Paul. Of course, in 1 John, we had people who went out from the church of Jerusalem because they did not fit doctrinally and that caused grief for the apostles because they were going out as false teachers and it caused pain and suffering. 

And I know in my own ministry with Grace Evangelical Society over the years, I’ve had lots of suffering because of people who from within have decided that they disagreed with what I was saying and what others were saying. And so they ultimately left and they’ve spoken and written against what we’re saying. And that causes grief. It causes me. I mean, pain because these are friends of mine, these arepeople I care about. And yet they’re ultimately—

DAVID: They want to tear you down.

BOB: They’re taking a stand against, yeah. But notice what he says in verse 17, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.” He’s not talking about eternal condemnation here. He’s talking about God examining believers in the house of God. “And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” And that would refer to unbelievers who are not believing in the message of the free gift of eternal life. Of course, you could argue that would even apply to believers who are not following the good news of Christ resurrected in 1 Corinthians 15. But either way, notice this quote, and this is from a verse in Proverbs, right? 

DAVID: Proverbs 11:31. 

BOB: And he says, “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Now, I’ve got a quote here from Tom Schreiner: “The difficulty envisioned is the suffering believers must endure in order to be saved.” That is an amazingly bad statement. We’re already saved. We don’t have to endure any suffering in order to be saved from eternal condemnation. 

And basically what verse 18 is saying is, look, the person who is righteous in his or her experience is scarcely saved at the Judgment Seat of Christ. That is experiencing the salvation of the psuche. But the ungodly is not going to experience that. In fact, Hodges has a good comment that they’re going to have the polar opposite. Whether this is an unbeliever at the Great White Throne Judgment or a believer at the Judgment Seat of Christ, if the person is ungodly, they are not going to experience the salvation of the psuche. 

DAVID: No, they’re not. That’s the contrast here. 

BOB: So we have that 4:13, “that when His glory.” 

DAVID: That’s right. And then verse 19, you know, “those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him and doing good.” In other words, if they do that, their souls are preserved and glorified. 

BOB: That’s Galatians 6 verse 9, “Therefore, let us not grow weary while doing good for a due time we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” And he’s talking about reaping fullness of eternal life in Galatians 6, 7, 8, 9. Well, thanks so much, David. And thank you all. And let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: who will receive the crown of glory? Come back and join us again. Until then, let’s keep grace in focus.