1 Peter 4:12-14, Unsurprising Suffering Leads to Glory

Living here in America we have not, as Christians, experience much persecution. We might likely feel surprise should persecution occur. But we shouldn’t. Jesus predicted we would suffer persecution [“If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:20)]. Paul said, “All who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:2). Maybe we haven’t been living that godly.

^4:12 Beloved, quit being surprised at the fiery ordeals happening to you, which are for testing you, as though it is something strange happening. ¹³ Instead, rejoice to the extent that you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may rejoice supremely also at the revealing of his glory. ¹⁴ If you are reviled because you bear the name of Christ, blessed are you, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Paul warned all his congregations that, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” (Acts 14:22). Undoubtedly Peter did also. But he has registered the surprise some of his readers have experienced at being persecuted, so he rebukes them for it and frames the experience of it as testing. As he said at the beginning of his letter, “you have been made sorrowful with various trials in order that the genuineness of your faith, which is more valuable than gold refined through fire, when tested, might be found worthy of praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:6,7).

So, because of suffering persecution Peter urges them to rejoice, hardly something we would expect. But he means rejoicing “to the extent that you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may rejoice supremely also at the revealing of his glory.” Sharing in Jesus’ sufferings is a privilege and an evidence of genuine faith which will be rewarded with that future salvation at Jesus’ coming.

To suffer slander for the name of Christ, then, is to be blessed. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,” Jesus said, “because theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). Believers are not only blessed when persecuted because their salvation is affirmed, but also because the glorious Holy Spirit of God rests upon them when persecuted. One is reminded of the experience of “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit,” while being stoned, who “looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). Of course, the Spirit’s resting on Stephen did not prevent his death.

As Paul said to the Philippian church, “I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:19,20).