1 Peter 4:1-6, Overcoming Sin Through Suffering for Christ

Would you like to improve your character – your love, your commitment to doing good, your moving away from selfishness? Try this prescription…suffering. Now it’s true that suffering in and of itself will not improve character. My wife once worked in the spinal cord injury unit at the Veterans Hospital, and some of the guys with injuries were absolute jewels, but others were as selfish and manipulative as could be. Suffering by itself does not produce character. But as Peter notes, suffering for the sake of Christ and his gospel does.

^4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in the body, you also equip yourself with the same attitude, because the one who suffers in the body has ceased from sin. ² They no longer live for human desires, but for the will of God the rest of their time in the body. ³ For sufficient time has passed doing the intention of the Gentiles – trafficking in sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatries. ⁴ This surprises them that you do not join in with their flood of debauchery and they slander you. ⁵ They will render an account to the One who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ⁶ This is the reason the gospel was preached to those who are dead, that they might be judged on the one hand according to human standards with regard to the body, but might live by God’s standards in regard to the spirit.

Peter says, to a group of believers who are suffering persecution, that because Christ suffered for us, we ought to equip ourselves with the same attitude. What attitude is that? It is not stated but implied that we must be ready to suffer for his sake also, because it leads to holiness. As BibleRef.com says,

It’s not that Christians who suffer, or who are prepared to suffer for Christ, have become sinless and perfect. We have not. We will still make sinful choices. But we have certainly set the course of our lives away from the comfort, escape, and pleasures of sin and toward the readiness to be uncomfortable, to experience hard things, for the sake of Jesus.

Meyer notes:

…he who suffered on account of sin, that is, on account of his opposition to sin, has in such wise broken with sin that it has no more power over him (Weiss).

Peter knows his readers had spent time in sinful dissolution, but had surprised their unbelieving friends and family by the fact that they no longer participated in such “debauchery.” Because the believer’s light exposes the unbeliever’s darkness, the unbeliever sees believers as the enemy and hate them, just as Christ was hated (John 15:18-25). But Peter reminds us that our enemies will be judged. All the living and the dead will be judged at death. The gospel was preached to those who believed but are now dead, that they, despite being judged by humans as hateful, would be judged favorably by God.