Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Christian Suffering from 1 Peter 3:13–4:19
Male: “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit. The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler.
However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, ‘If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’ So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”
This is the Word of the Lord, and we thank him for it. Let’s join together in prayer.
Father, in all things we give you praise through Jesus Christ, and today we want to come again on the last day of this convention to hear your voice speaking to us, so we pray for your servant and our brother Don. We pray that as he speaks, he will again do so as one speaking the very words of God. Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you that in all of it there is the good news, the gospel, that Christ died for our sins to bring us to God. Move our hearts again today in response to your great love for us in Christ. We pray in his name, amen.
Don Carson: There are a lot of ways to suffer. You can hit your thumb with a hammer. That will make you suffer. Or worse, you can hit your thumb with a hammer while trying to fix your mother-in-law’s built-in closet when she is too poor to have it done professionally. Then you not only have the pain on your thumb but a certain kind of self-righteous self-pity because you were trying to help and it happened to you. That’ll make you suffer.
You can fail an important exam. That’ll make you suffer. You can get jilted by a girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife after 1 year or 5 years or 20 years or 40 years. That’ll make you suffer. You can die of leukemia at the age of 15, as happened to my daughter’s best friend. That’ll make you suffer, and all of the people around you too. You can be bereaved after 50 years of marriage. That’ll make you suffer.
You can have a stroke. That’ll make you suffer. You can fall off a horse, get into a car accident, or break a leg while skiing. You can slip and pour boiling water over your hand. All of the full range of accidents. That’ll make you suffer. You can writhe in the shame of remembered guilt. That’ll make you suffer. You can fuel the alienation of deep hurt, of having been abused, and become an abuser yourself. That’ll make you suffer.
You can get tired, suffer a nervous breakdown, lose perspective, or become nonfunctional. That’ll make you suffer. In many parts of the world, you can get killed for being a Christian. Perhaps the most dangerous places statistically at the moment are the Southern Sudan and amongst the Karen peoples of Burma, but there are a lot of other places. That’ll make you suffer.
You can lose your health, wealth, family, and reputation like Job. That’ll make you suffer. You can suffer the ravages of war, famine, and plague. You can have a land mine take off your legs. That’ll make you suffer. You could get gang raped by soldiers when you yourself are a missionary, which happened to the daughter of a good friend. That’ll make you suffer. This is cheerful for the last day, isn’t it?
Of course, the various categories of suffering we experience or can imagine are all referred to in the Bible. I don’t mean the Bible actually mentions a case of hitting your thumb with a hammer, but there is no instance that is not covered in general terms. The various categories of suffering in this broken, sin-cursed world are all there. I tried to think my way through most of them in a little book on suffering a few years ago, and one of the things that struck me was how comprehensive the Bible’s perspectives on suffering really are.
But in this passage before us, we are focusing not so much on suffering in this global sense of all that belongs to a broken order. Rather, this passage focuses on what I have called distinctively Christian suffering. By this I am not referring to the ordinary suffering that befalls all groups of people as it is borne by Christians. Rather, I am referring to the suffering that may come to us precisely because we are Christians.
In other words, if we happen to get cancer and others get cancer, that is not distinctively Christian suffering, although we have already seen from this book that there are ample reasons for Christians to suffer that cancer in a peculiarly Christian way. What I’m referring to this morning is not that but rather the suffering that may well come precisely because we are Christians.
On first approach, this subject may well be a bit offensive. When we say, “I thought the gospel was about love, joy, peace, relationships, godly faith, discovering that the joy of the Lord is our strength, and things like that,” it may sound a bit depressing to talk about Christianity and distinctively Christian suffering. Yet just a few moments’ reflection remind us that we serve a master, the Lord Jesus, who is known as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
We remember the first Christians who actually rejoiced when they were counted worthy to suffer for the name, and we remember the words of the apostle Paul from Philippians 1:29 and Philippians, chapter 3. “It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in his name, but also to suffer for his sake.” It may help us to follow the flow of thought in the passage before us if we organize it into four sections. Four sections, I assure you, of unequal length and unequal treatment.
1. Do not withdraw, for Christ is your example.
Chapter 3, verses 13–22. You will doubtless recall that Peter has earlier hinted at the topic of persecution of Christians. He has mentioned it briefly in chapter 1, verse 6, three times in chapter 2, and earlier in chapter 3. Now he treats it in an extended argument. He begins by saying that in many contexts Christians will not be harmed and should not expect to be harmed.
Verse 13: “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?” Probably he says this in part because some of the Christians are gun shy. They may have already seen some outbreaks of persecution, and they’re a bit nervous. They’re beginning to go around with a mopey attitude, expecting to get clobbered. Still, Peter says, it’s very important to remember that ideally, and often in practice, government is set up in order to order life for the better.
Yes, the Roman government might be corrupt in many respects, he is saying implicitly, but nevertheless it does stop a lot of thuggery and brigands, and it holds down murder and corruption to some extent. It does an awful lot of good, and in fact, if you take away the order of government, very frequently what comes in as a result is much, much worse, namely anarchism. Just ask anybody who lives in Yugoslavia or the former Yugoslavia.
We may not think that the old Yugoslav government was entirely a paragon of righteousness, but would anybody want to suggest that anarchy and the current mayhem is much better? So there’s a kind of practical realism. Government ideally champs down evil. If you’re doing good, why should you be afraid of the government all the time? The principle at a certain level is transparent enough. If you’re not exceeding the speed limit, you should not fear the traffic cop.
Yet there may be something more to verse 13. It begins with an and, not preserved in the NIV, with the force of then. Thus, verse 13 gets linked to the preceding passage, to verses 10–12. It is as if the text is saying, in effect, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. His ears are attentive to their prayer. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So then who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?”
In other words, under God, no ultimate evil can befall you, even if you do face persecution and difficulty. It’s akin to Paul’s rhetorical question. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Or it’s akin to what the psalmist says in Psalm 56. “In God I trust. I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?” Well, at one level, they can do quite a lot, to be quite frank, but in any ultimate sense, they cannot work outside the framework of God’s sovereignty, and him you can trust.
Of course, sometimes governments are corrupt. Sometimes they are taken over by worldviews so alien to things Christian that they persecute you for doing what is right. Hence, verse 14: “Even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.” This is quoting the words of Jesus himself in the Beatitudes. The last beatitude in Matthew 5 is expanded upon at some length in Matthew 5:10–12. “In fact, we align ourselves with the prophets,” Jesus says, “who were persecuted before us. You are blessed when you are persecuted.”
That’s why Paul can write in 2 Corinthians 12 not only of his thorn in the flesh but also of all of the things he suffered as a Christian and as an apostle. He says, “That is why for Christ’s sake I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” In other words, some of the promised blessing is right now. It’s not as if we get only insults and weakness down here, and then up there we get all of our rewards. No, no.
Paul is saying that even in his current experience, when he is weak, he is strong. Let me tell you, that can be a tough thing for Christian leaders to absorb. I don’t care who you are in vocational ministry. Sooner or later you get kicked in the teeth. There are all kinds of people who will try to undermine your ministry on occasion, or sometimes gossips will tear you apart behind your back. The damage might be quite severe in a local church before you discover how bad the damage is.
It is very easy for those in vocational ministry to pick up these things and become self-pitying or even bitter. Alternatively, it’s possible just to laugh them off and become hard and cynical. All Christians can be tempted along these lines sooner or later. That’s not Paul’s way. It’s not Peter’s way. We suffer in only small ways compared to what our Master suffered, and it is said of him, “Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”
So Paul, then. “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” I’m always nervous when everything is going really smashingly. Sometimes it takes some real challenges to drive Christians to their knees. When a church is really going swimmingly, sooner or later the prayer meetings start declining. You get a first-class crisis coming along, and people start wanting the power and release and sovereign sway of the Lord God.
In any case, verse 14b: “Do not fear what the world at large fears; do not be frightened. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” Too often we withdraw and are defeated because we fear what people will say about us or do to us. We fear some fellow human beings. This is, after all, what happened to Peter himself in the courtyard. He understands what he’s talking about. He was afraid of what people would say.
They had already arrested his master, and here’s this young slip of a girl challenging him. “We can tell by your accent you’re not from around here. You’re from Galilee. You’re also with him.” And he collapses. The shame undoubtedly remained with him all his days, but the other side of the resurrection, the other side of Pentecost, you find him standing up to the high court of the land and saying, “We must obey God rather than men.”
So, he writes, “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.” It’s not simply the prohibition. Telling people not to be afraid is not usually very successful. He gives how you overcome your fear. “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” Isn’t that wonderful? He is really quoting Isaiah 8:12–13. “Do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it. The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread.”
That is the passage he quotes and applies it explicitly to Jesus. We are to set Jesus Christ apart as holy. We confess his lordship, his transcendent deity, his unqualified sovereignty, but this is more than mere mental assent. This is the heart of devotion. We are to set him apart in our hearts. We are to stand before him in the adoration of praise. The praising heart is immune to the fear of other people. We fear God and no one else.
Did not Jesus himself say, “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body. Fear him rather who after killing the body can cast body and soul into hell.” So in joyful recognition that God is God, that he is sovereign, we learn not to be afraid of what others will think, not to be afraid of what others will do. This is the Lord Jesus, then, who said so specifically that we are not to fear those who merely have temporal authority over us (Matthew 10:28). We are to reverence him in our hearts.
After all, even now, Christ is Lord and has all authority, as Peter reminds us in the last verse of this paragraph. Verse 22: “Jesus has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him.” So strengthened, (verse 15b) we must always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have. Isn’t that lovely?
At one level, this does demand some development and study, some ability to give answers, yet we must not think that this “being ready to give an answer” is primarily a question of having sufficient courses in apologetics under our belts. I’m afraid to witness because somebody might ask me a question to which I do not have the answer, so I have to take another course on Van Tillian presuppositionnal apologetics, or something or other, in order that I might have an answer. Until then I’m not ready, so I can keep my mouth shut.
That’s not quite the idea. The idea is that we should not be afraid of people. We so sanctify Jesus in our hearts that we are emotionally, attitudinally ready, and then if somebody asks us a question about the hope we have, we can at least answer like the blind man. “Whether this or whether that I don’t know, but I do know that once I was blind and now I see.” The person who has sanctified Christ Jesus in the heart can at very least say that.
Then, if he or she is responsible, he or she will also go home and speak to the pastor and get some books off the shelf and find out some answers so that the next time they’re not caught on that one. You do not learn to do evangelism by taking courses on evangelism. Those courses on evangelism may be helpful, but you learn to do evangelism on the street. You learn to do it in a home Bible study. You learn to do it over the back fence.
In the same way, you don’t learn to give answers to other people about the hope that lies within you by studying in indefinite numbers of courses. Ultimately, you do it by doing it, and you develop an attitude toward doing it precisely by sanctifying Christ Jesus in your heart, setting him aside in your heart, fearing God. Be ready always to give an answer. None of this, of course, should be nasty or colored with a vicious anger or a smug condescension, as some witness is.
Rather, we are to do this (verse 15) “with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” In other words, we are to do this both so that we will keep a clear conscience and so that others, even if they disagree with us, cannot write us off as nasty hatemongers. They may even be attracted to the gospel. This is an important point in Christian witness.
I know of a medical doctor serving in a Muslim country that shall remain nameless who has proved wonderfully effective in his Christian witness. One of the most delightful stories I’ve heard about him is this. A woman came in with her son, 8 or 9 or 10. The son had had a nasty fall and a long deep gash in the calf of his leg, and the doctor was trying to clean it up and was explaining what he was doing as he was going along, how it was important to make sure that the wound was very clean before he bound it up and put in disinfectant and began to sew it up.
The woman listened. Then she suddenly volunteered, “Sometimes I wish somebody could clean up my dirty heart.” What would you say? “Your problem, ma’am, is that you’re a Muslim. We Christians have an atonement theory that explains what to do with dirt, but while you believe in the sovereignty of God and the holiness of God, you really don’t have a way of dealing with dirt adequately, do you? I’m not surprised you feel the way you do.” You just won an argument and lost a whole war.
Do you know what he said? “Oh, I know exactly what you mean. My heart was so filthy dirty. I was so ashamed of it. Then one day somebody came and cleaned it up, just like I’m doing with your son’s leg. Do you want me to tell you how he did it?” Isn’t that so much better? It’s the personal testimony in a spirit of humility and brokenness, being ready always to give a reason for the hope that lies within us, both so that we maintain a clear conscience and so that others cannot at least write us off as hatemongers.
In any case (verse 17), “It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” After all, in this respect, we follow the Lord Jesus, whose unique death is the best possible model. “For Christ died for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous.” There is the supreme model of someone suffering unjustly. One cannot be more righteous than he. One cannot imagine suffering more unjustly than he. “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
Thus, once again, that which lies at the heart of our salvation also lies at the heart of Christian ethics. Now the next few verses, from 18b on, kick off one of the most difficult passages in all the New Testament. I’m sure you knew that before I stood up here this morning. I’m still not quite certain how to take these lines, but let me tell you what I think. If you think somewhat differently, God bless you; go in peace.
There are three main views and many, many variations on those views. Let me simply tell you what the three views are and then tell you why tentatively I hold to one of them and how I think it fits in the flow of the big argument here. I’m not going to try to evaluate all of them. It would take much too long, and it’s much too boring.
The three main views are these. The first says that after his death and before his resurrection, Jesus descended into hell and preached to the spirits of those sinners who had perished in the flood at the time of Moses. What he was preaching to them people have different opinions about. Some say he was offering them a second chance, which is certainly against the vast sweep of biblical theology.
Others say it was a kind of triumphalist proclamation of victory. “You see? The redemptive plan of God did win.” One of the weaknesses of this view is the question why he should speak to this particular group as to other particular groups, but we’ll let that pass. That is the first view. It is historically connected with the church father Origen.
Second, Christ through the Spirit preached to the people who were alive in Noah’s day when they were alive. Obviously, he didn’t do it personally, but he did it by his Spirit, perhaps through the preaching of Noah himself. They were either in prison then, in the sense that they were in spiritual bondage (so Saint Augustine, though I think he’s wrong), or, better, they are in prison now.
Jesus by his Spirit preached to them in those days, and they are in prison in bondage now in hell, though not when Jesus preached to them. That is the view I hold, but I’ll come back to it in a moment. Third, the spirits in prison, some argue, are fallen angels, not human beings. Jesus then proclaims to them his victory and their certain doom. I shan’t set out the pros and cons, as I’ve said. Let me tell you why I hold that the second view is most likely. I shall do so by laying out the turning points as I see them.
Verse 18b. “Jesus Christ was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit,” the NIV has. Strictly speaking, it’s not in the body and by the Spirit. The same preposition is used in the original. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, in the realm of the Spirit. The reason people don’t like that translation is because it sounds as if his resurrection was merely immaterial. He was made alive in the Spirit but not in his body, some might say.
I don’t think that’s quite the issue. Do not forget that, after all, Paul speaks of Jesus Christ resurrecting with a spiritual body. He dies in the old domain of the body, but he resurrects in the domain brought alive by the Spirit. It is in the entire spiritual domain in which he is also given a spiritual body. This fits well with Peter’s emphasis on the relative unimportance of suffering in this transient world compared with the eternality of all that is spiritual and the spiritual inheritance that is ours.
Through him, then, “he went and preached to the spirits in prison,” the NIV has. Who are the spirits in prison? The word spirits occasionally refers to angels good or evil, but only occasionally. It also fairly often refers to human spirits of people who have died. I’ll mention two or three references in case you’re taking notes, but we won’t look them up. Matthew 27:50; Acts 7:59; 1 Corinthians 5:5; Hebrews 12:23, and there are others.
But these spirits, we are told in verse 20, formerly disobeyed long ago. There are very good reasons for taking the underlying Greek this way: “Jesus went and preached to those who are now spirits in prison when they disobeyed formerly when God’s patience was waiting in the days of Noah.” What that means is that Jesus preached to them then by his Spirit, and now they are in prison, in hell itself.
Recall, after all, that in 2 Peter 2:5 the apostle Paul calls Noah a “preacher of righteousness,” and recall also in his first epistle, in the first chapter, we read these lines in verses 10–11: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted [such-and-such].”
In other words, according to Peter, when the prophets preached in the Old Testament, it was the Spirit of Christ that was motivating them, impelling them, inspiring them, carrying them on, because after all, the eternal Word is preexistent. He is antecedent to the days of the human Jesus. So also here. In Peter’s thinking, Noah was the preacher of righteousness, but he was the preacher of righteousness precisely because it was the Spirit of Christ in him who was impelling him to preach righteousness. I think that is what Peter has in mind.
In other words, Noah was preaching to his generation. He was insisting on the righteousness of God and calling people to repent. Peter sees that if Noah did that it was because the Spirit of Christ was in him, empowering him to do so. So then, the parallels between Noah’s day and Peter’s day may be set forth like this. Both were minorities in a hostile culture. Second, Noah was a righteous man in the midst of a great deal of wickedness, as Christians here are expected to be righteous in the midst of a great deal of wickedness.
Third, both are to witness. Noah bore witness and became the preacher of righteousness to his generation. It was pretty hard to hide an ark that big in any case, so he had to give some sort of explanation, and he gave an explanation that was based on his faith in the Word of God for a long time until the flood actually came. So also Christians are to bear witness to the Word of God for a long time until the judgment finally comes.
That is the fourth point. Judgment in both cases was impending, sweeping judgment. Then in the fifth place, in this spiritual realm, the realm of the Spirit, Christ was preaching through the prophets in the Old Testament, including Noah, and now he does so again here through us. Then finally, the righteous are saved at the end. They are vindicated. Hence 4:13, which makes this point abundantly clear. “Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
This triggers in Peter’s mind yet another parallel. Noah and his crew were saved through water, which he says is the type (that’s the word that is actually used; the NIV has symbolizes) of Christian baptism. What are we to say about this? In the 1930s in America, there was a very famous preacher called Billy Sunday. Have you heard of Billy Sunday? Some older heads here say yes. I don’t even know if Billy Sunday made it to this country.
He was a baseball player. He was a rough-mouthed, crude man, very gifted in his own sport, who was wonderfully converted. He didn’t have much theology, much biblical grasp, but he was passionate. He went around the country preaching approximately an equal mixture of gospel and prohibition against alcohol. He set up a huge tent and would go around preaching. This tent, unfortunately, was not blessed with a concrete floor like this one. In fact, it had dust everywhere.
If you pitched the tent on dry ground, when people came forward at the invitation (it was in the Finney tradition) it would kick up clouds of dust, which proved not to be all that edifying. Alternatively, if he pitched the tent after the ground had been sopping wet, then when people came forward they were slithering to the front in muck. That wasn’t all that edifying too, especially if some of them lost their footing.
Very soon, therefore, in his experience, he learned to put sawdust down on all the aisles, and out of this came the expression to hit the sawdust trail. So you could ask somebody in America about 1934, “When were you converted?” “Ah, I hit the sawdust trail in Cincinnati in ‘31.” In fact, this expression became so endemic to the evangelical subculture that even if you got converted in a substantial cathedral, you would still speak of “hitting the sawdust trail.”
In other words, hitting the sawdust trail was so bound up in the American evangelical consciousness with conversion itself that you could refer to conversion by mentioning that with which it was so commonly associated in the ministry of Billy Sunday. Now forgive me, but baptism is a bit like that. You could ask a Christian in the first century, “When were you converted?” and he or she might well say, “Oh, I was baptized in 51 in Corinth,” except they didn’t use that calendar then.
In the first century, baptism was so bound up with conversion … when you were converted you were baptized … it stood by metonymy for the whole. You could refer to the part of the experience of the whole thing of conversion (that part was baptism) and thus refer to the whole. Thus, for example, if you ask an American farmer, “How many cattle do you have?” he might reply, “Oh, I have a thousand head.”
In fact, he has a lot more than a thousand head. He has the bodies and the legs and the tails, but you count the cattle by counting their head. I suppose it’s better than counting their legs and dividing by four. You can refer to the number of cattle by referring to a part of them, their head, and thus you can refer to the whole Christian experience of conversion by referring to one part that was invariably connected with it, namely baptism.
That is why Paul can say, for example, “As many as have been baptized have put on Christ.” It’s not because baptism itself affects everything. It’s precisely because it stands for conversion by metonymy. That’s what’s presupposed here. “In it [the ark] only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also.”
It doesn’t save you literally, he says. Of course not. It’s not the removal of dirt from the body. Rather, it is bound up with the whole experience of conversion. It is the “pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you [not by the water itself but] by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” In other words, the chapter ends with the triumph of Christ.
The point is do not withdraw, for Christ is your example, both in his sufferings as an innocent victim and in his constant preaching to the most unpromising and in his final vindication. He’s an example on all three fronts. That’s how the whole paragraph runs. Do not withdraw, for Christ is your example, not only in his innocent sufferings and not only in his constant preaching even to the most unpromising, but also in his final vindication. Do not withdraw, for Christ is your example.
2. Do not be sinful, for Christ is your Savior.
Chapter 4, verses 1–6. The willingness to suffer unjustly follows the example of Christ, but this willingness to suffer is committed not only to witness, as in the preceding verses, but also here now to fighting evil, even if this means suffering. “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.”
The example of Christ is clear enough. The point of verse 1 is not that all physical suffering purifies people. It doesn’t. A lot of physical suffering just makes people bitter. You find some people who are really happy-go-lucky, really pleasant, nice people, and then suddenly they go through horrible suffering and become inward-looking, bitter, hard, and cynical. So you must not think there’s some sort of automatic response to suffering that guarantees purification.
Peter’s point here must be read in the context. Note the therefore. The idea is that the person who has suffered physically and/or personally, in his body, for righteousness’ sake, for Jesus’ sake, has made a clear break with sin. He or she has ceased from sin in that sense. Let me give an illustration, and you will see right away what I mean. It is one I have used once in a while elsewhere. Forgive me if you’ve heard it before.
I know a good church with, at the time, a very capable pastor, who took on board an elder on his staff. This elder was a medical doctor, a former missionary. We’ll call him Charles. Charles was brought up in a Christian family with three older sisters. They doted on him, and he turned out to be a really nice kid. He did all the right sorts of things and made profession of faith and eventually went on to university and became a medical doctor.
Then, interested in public health issues and interested in serving Christ, he pushed the envelope a bit to explore the possibilities of missionary service. He was president of the CU while he was at his university, and eventually he married the right girl and went to North Africa to a leper colony, where he served for a number of years, since leprosy is a public health disease. After a number of years, he came back and settled into this particular church, where he began to pursue advanced studies to become a consultant in public medicine.
With his background in medicine and missionary work, it was not long before he was asked to join the elders’ board, where, in fact, he served very admirably for a number of years. He proved to be an effective counselor and able to distinguish what was often organically based depression, for example, from something that was much more due to bad behavior of some sort or another that needed the direct counsel of the Word of God.
Then, without any warning that others foresaw, he told his wife he was divorcing her and was going to live with his nurse, and that’s what happened. To make a long story short, the senior pastor and others in the church spent a lot of time trying to counsel him and his wife, but this fellow’s mind was made up. In fact, his attitude was a bit, “Why are you telling me what to do? I’m determined on this course. I’m not doing anything wrong. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”
In due course, he did divorce his wife and ultimately married this other girl, and they moved elsewhere in the country. Months later, I was riding in a car with the pastor of that church, and we were talking about various matters, and because I knew at least a little of the circumstances in this case, I asked him, “What do you think went wrong in this case? What was the problem?” He said, “I don’t think Charles was a Christian.”
I said, “Come on, give me a break. The fellow was a missionary in North Africa. He was exposed to the gospel all along. He had made profession of faith. He had followed the Lord for many years, led others to Christ, and you say you don’t think he was a Christian?” He said, “No, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not for a moment suggesting that Christians can’t fall into adultery. All I’m saying is that I don’t think he was a Christian.”
I said, “Why not?” He said, “Because I cannot find any place in his life where he ever took a major decision simply because it was the right thing to do under the lordship of Jesus.” I said, “What do you mean? There must have been some sort of self-sacrifice and principle of rightness going out as a missionary.” He said, “No, not even then.”
He said, “He was brought up in a Christian family, and everybody doted on him, and he was everybody’s idol, and he did what everybody wanted, but he did what he wanted to do. He went to university and studied what he wanted to study. He was a natural leader and became head of the CU because everybody thought he was wonderful, so he did the wonderful thing and became head of the CU.
He married the right girl, and everybody applauded him. He went and did public health because that’s what he wanted to do. He went to North Africa because that’s what he wanted to do. At no point can I find any place where he took a decision against what he wanted to do for Jesus’ sake. I cannot find any place in his life where there is an ounce of unambiguous self-denial.
So he eventually comes to the point where he finds a pretty skirt, and he does what he always does. He does what he wants to do. Then he’s offended that we challenge him, and he says, in effect, ‘What right do you have to tell me what to do?’ All along everybody has been telling him how wonderful he is for all that he does.”
Biblically faithful Christianity turns on repentance and faith. It comes under the lordship of Christ as a matter of principle. O God, help us. We do sin. We do shake our puny fists in God’s face in frustration, we who are Christians too sometimes, but there has to be a principled submission to the lordship of Christ somewhere, or where is the repentance? What does it mean to confess Jesus as Savior and Lord?
He said, “I cannot find any place in his life where that really became a fundamental issue.” Now Peter says, “Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.” On the night he was betrayed, Jesus cried in the garden, “Not my will but yours be done.”
I’m not suggesting for a moment that Jesus was sinning, but he was tempted to, and the issue was whether he would do what he naturally wanted to do, namely to walk away from this mess, or to bow to his Father’s will, and in an agony of horror, he still cries, “Not my will but yours be done.” It is precisely when Christians begin to face suffering for Jesus’ sake, for Jesus’ sake doing what is right, that you see that divide coming that reinforces all of what it means to bow to the lordship of Jesus.
It’s not as if he is saying here that from now on, because you’ve had suffering, you will never sin again. No, he’s saying when you face this sort of thing and then do what is right in this sort of context there is a break. There is a turning point. There is an orientation that is fundamentally different. Besides, he goes on to say, judgment awaits those who abuse you. Verses 4–5: “They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”
In any case, as for believers (verse 6), “For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that [first] they might be judged according to men in regard to the body …” The judgment of death common to all human beings still comes upon them, but second, they “live according to God in regard to the spirit.” They live before God in the spiritual realm. Yes, the gospel absorbed into the life of the believer does not prevent us from dying, but we shall live in the heavenlies in the very presence of God. That’s our orientation.
“The gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body …” They would have to die. “… but live according to God in regard to the spirit.” Thus, the purpose of the gospel was preached for this reason: to save us from our sins and all of their consequences. Do you see the kind of polarization that’s developing in this text? On the one hand, those who are against Christ’s people and, on the other hand, Christ’s people.
In various parts of the New Testament, this kind of antithesis can become very sharp. There is a sense in which none of us are in any position whatsoever to gloat. We are never more than poor beggars telling others where there’s bread. That’s true. Yet this antithesis becomes sharpest perhaps in the book of Revelation. In the book of Revelation, some people have the mark of the Beast. If they have the mark of the Beast, then they are saved from the wrath of the Beast, but they must face the wrath of the Lamb.
Others have the mark of the Lamb. If they have the mark of the Lamb, then they’re saved from the wrath of the Lamb, but they must face the wrath of the Beast. In the book of Revelation, everybody has something on their foreheads. They either have the mark of the Beast or they have the mark of the Lamb. If you have the mark of the Beast, then you face the wrath of the Lamb. If you have the mark of the Lamb, then you face the wrath of the Beast.
So the question, sooner or later, becomes … Whose wrath do you want to face? Because you’re going to face somebody’s. The fact of the matter is Christ came and bore our curse so that although according to men we will be judged … we die; sin leads to death … yet we live according to God in regard to the Spirit. We have escaped the wrath to come because Christ died for us. So do not be sinful, for Christ is your Savior.
3. Do not be halfhearted, for Christ is your coming sovereign.
Verses 7–11: “The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever.” Now the emphasis on the end, on the ultimate judgment and ultimate vindication, is very strong.
Shall I give you an outline that those of you who teach Sunday school classes and preach sermons could use sometime? Here it is: Pray unencumbered (verse 7). Love profoundly (verses 8–9). Deploy your gifts self-denyingly (verse 10), and in particular speak for God, not yourself (verse 11a), and serve with God’s strength, not your own (verse 11b). In all of this, aim to glorify God (verse 11c). That’s the paragraph I decided I would skip over quickly, even though it is full of good things.
4. Do not be afraid of persecution, for Christ is your patron.
“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” At one level, the main point is simply being repeated. “Don’t be surprised when you face this sort of thing.”
But verse 13 offers a new spin, a new perspective. We actually participate in the sufferings of Christ, and this must be a cause of joy. Do you remember what Jesus says on the Damascus Road to Saul? Saul is persecuting the church, and Jesus says, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Not persecuting my church but me. After all, the church is Jesus’ body. What we suffer, he suffers. If we do something to hurt the church, we wound Christ, and thus we participate in the sufferings of Christ.
This is such a strong theme in the New Testament that the apostle Paul can go so far in Colossians 1:24 as to suggest that granted that the church must suffer, granted that there are the sufferings of Christ in this sense still to fill up, he would like to have more than his share so that others could have a little less. “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you,” he says, “and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”
A friend of mine runs a very large mission. His name is Doug Nichols. It’s a mission devoted to working with 100 million or so under-13 street children in the poorest cities around the world. He came down with cancer three or four years ago and was still trying to maintain a very busy schedule while the chemotherapy was making him so weak and so poor blood was seeping out from under his fingernails as his 21-year-old son was driving him to his next speaking engagement.
The son said, as he was driving, “Dad, I wish I could take some of this suffering for you.” The father smiled and said, “Oh no, you can’t do that. Jesus has given this to me. This suffering is mine, and I rejoice to serve him.” It’s such a different stance from the self-pity that characterizes most of us. I’m not suggesting for a moment that there are no tears in these things. Of course there are tears in these things, sometimes just tears of exhaustion.
I remember when I got typhoid in Africa. You’re not supposed to get typhoid in Africa these days, but I did some stupid things, and I managed to get typhoid in Africa. After the first week, when the drugs were beginning to look after it, I started trying to lecture again. I’d sort of totter down the hill, and I was too weak to lecture, so I sat there and lectured for an hour and tottered back up, and then burst into tears for an hour.
One part of my head was saying, “Carson, why are you crying? You’re not feeling sad. You’re not depressed.” But I couldn’t stop. I’d sort of get myself together an hour later, go down the hill, lecture for another hour, come back up, and cry for another hour. That’s how I passed my next week. I quite understand how you can be so debilitated you can’t stop the crying and you can be enervated. I know that’s true. We are in the body.
Yet sufferings endured for Jesus’ sake … “Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” This is not masochism. It’s living with eternity’s values in view. Verses 14–16 drive home this fundamental perspective. “If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed …” Did you get that? Then why are we so afraid of insults that we hardly ever open our mouths in witness? Think of all the blessing you’re not getting. What’s the matter? Don’t you want blessing?
“If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler.” Some of us suffer from that. “However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.” Then were the apostles glad that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name.
The fact of the matter is that suffering is coming at the end. If it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God, what will the end be for those who do not know God? “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”
Brothers and sisters, this twentieth century has seen more Christian martyrs than the previous 19 combined. It has also seen more gospel outreach than the previous 19 combined. I’m neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, and I work for a nonprofit organization, but let me tell you what’s going to happen. Jesus says in the parable of the wheat and the tares, “Let both grow until the end.”
Unless Jesus comes back first, what will happen in this next century, about to open up on us, is that both will grow some more. There will be more outreach, and there will be more tares. If you think that in this bloodiest of centuries we have managed to abolish war, wait until you see the twenty-first century. There will be more persecution. There will be more struggle, more fighting between good and evil, inevitably, on all kinds of fronts, and some of it will be very mixed, and there will be more Christian witness. That’s what’s going to happen.
It is quite possible that in the West there will be more persecution than there is, although there is more here than some people realize. I’ve had a Jewish friend converted, for example, whose parents then held a public funeral for him. When I was a boy growing up in French Canada, it was common for those who were converted to lose their businesses. Sometimes people were beaten up. Pastors spent eight years in jail between ‘50 and ‘52 alone.
I can imagine a thousand scenarios in which it will become much more difficult to be a Christian. Some of you became Christians, went home to tell your parents, and they just treated you like a pariah because they just think you’re a self-righteous prig.
I told the folk I cherished how my sins had been forgiven
How Jesus changed my outlook, took my guilt, and gave me heaven
They thought I’d lost my senses, turned fanatic, lost my reason
They charged me with betrayal, with a vicious kind of treason
And I wondered why salvation should cause me so much pain.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you
For the slave is not above the Lord he serves
My assignment was the cross; you, my slave, will bear some loss
My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.
Then soon I learned my brothers and my sisters in the Savior
So often shine in suffering with astonishing behavior
Adorn the blessed gospel with forbearing perseverance
Forgive their cruel tormentors with a graceful, firm endurance
Still I wondered why salvation should cause them so much pain.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you
For the slave is not above the Lord he serves
My assignment was the cross; you, my slave, will bear some loss
My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.
What alien perspectives I’ve pursued with willful blindness
For apostolic servants would rejoice at God’s great kindness
In reckoning them worthy to take on a little battering
They longed to know Christ’s power and the fellowship of suffering
For they understood their calling to trust and suffer pain.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you
For the slave is not above the Lord he serves
My assignment was the cross; you, my slave, will bear some loss
My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.
We must take up the challenge of taking on the hard jobs, reaching the hardest places in our cities, going to the hardest places around the world, asking not, “What job, what form of ministry will fulfill me?” but “Can I take on my share of the sufferings of Christ’s body? How can I bear witness to those who ask me for a reason for the hope that is within me?”
For Christ is our example, and we have learned that Christ’s strength is made perfect in us in our weakness. There is where our joy is for this world, and the overjoy comes in the life to come. We follow the Savior. I think one of the most beautiful hymns written in this last decade is that of Stuart Townend.
How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That he should give his only Son
To make a wretch his treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns his face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.
Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon his shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished.
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from his reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom.
Let us be disciples of Christ in the light of his ransom, amen.
