John Calvin Commentary 1 Peter 4

Forasmuch then as Christ—When Peter had previously presented Christ to us, he only spoke of the suffering of the cross. For sometimes the cross means mortification, because the outward man is wasted by afflictions, and our flesh is also subdued. But he now ascends higher, for he speaks of the reformation of the whole man.

The Scripture recommends to us a twofold likeness to the death of Christ: that we are to be conformed to Him in reproaches and troubles, and also that the old man, being dead and extinct in us, is to be renewed to a spiritual life (Philippians 3:10; Romans 6:4). Yet Christ is not simply to be viewed as our example when we speak of the mortification of the flesh. Rather, it is by His Spirit that we are truly made conformed to His death, so that it becomes effectual for the crucifying of our flesh.

In short, as Peter at the end of the last chapter exhorted us to patience following the example of Christ (because death was to Him a passage to life), so now from the same death he deduces a higher doctrine: that we ought to die to the flesh and to the world, as Paul teaches us more extensively in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. He therefore says, arm yourselves, or be armed, intimating that we are really and effectually supplied with invincible weapons to subdue the flesh if we properly partake of the efficacy of Christ’s death.

For he that has suffered—The particle ὅτι does not, I think, denote the cause here, but is to be taken as explanatory. For Peter explains what that thought or mind is with which Christ’s death arms us: namely, that the dominion of sin ought to be abolished in us, so that God may reign in our life. Erasmus has incorrectly, as I think, rendered the word “he who did suffer” (patiebatur), applying it to Christ. For it is an indefinite sentence, which generally extends to all the godly, and has the same meaning as the words of Paul in Romans 6:7:

He who is dead is justified or freed from sin.

For both the Apostles indicate that when we become dead to the flesh, we are finished with sin, so that it no longer reigns in us nor exercises its power in our lives.

It may, however, be objected that Peter here speaks unsuitably in making us to be conformed to Christ in this respect—that we suffer in the flesh—for it is certain that there was nothing sinful in Christ which required to be corrected. But the answer is obvious: it is not necessary that a comparison should correspond in all its parts. It is then enough that we should in some measure be made conformed to the death of Christ.

In the same way, what Paul says is also explained, not unsuitably: that we are planted in the likeness of His death (Romans 6:5). For the manner is not altogether the same, but His death has become, in a way, the type and pattern of our mortification.

We must also notice that the word flesh is used here twice, but in a different sense. For when Peter says that Christ suffered in the flesh, he means that the human nature which Christ had taken from us was made subject to death—that is, that Christ as a man naturally died. In the second clause, which refers to us, flesh means the corruption and the sinfulness of our nature; and thus, suffering in the flesh signifies the denying of ourselves.

We now see what the likeness is between Christ and us, and what the difference is: that as He suffered in the flesh taken from us, so the whole of our flesh ought to be crucified.

That he no longer. Here he sets forth the way to cease from sin: that renouncing the covetings of men, we should strive to conform our lives to the will of God. Thus, he includes here the two things in which renovation consists: the destruction of the flesh and the vivification of the spirit. The course of good living, therefore, is to begin with the former, but we are to advance to the latter.

Moreover, Peter here defines the rule of right living: that a person is to depend on the will of God. Therefore, it follows that nothing is right and well-ordered in a person’s life when he wanders from this rule. Furthermore, we should notice the contrast between God’s will and the covetings or lusts of men. From this, we understand how great our depravity is, and how we ought to strive to become obedient to God. When he says, the rest of time in the flesh, the word flesh means the present life, as in Hebrews 5:7.

For the time past of our life may suffice. Peter does not mean that we should be weary of pleasures, as those tend to be who are filled with them to satiety; but that, on the contrary, the memory of our past life ought to stimulate us to repentance.

And doubtless it ought to be the sharpest goad to make us continue well, when we recollect that we have been wandering from the right way for the greater part of our life. And Peter reminds us that it would be most unreasonable if we did not change the course of our life after being enlightened by Christ.

For he makes a distinction here between the time of ignorance and the time of faith, as if he had said that it was only right that they should become new and different men from the time Christ called them. But instead of the lusts or cravings of men, he now mentions the will of the Gentiles, by which he reproves the Jews for having mixed with the Gentiles in all their pollutions, although the Lord had separated them from the Gentiles.

In what follows he shows that those vices ought to be put off which prove men to be blind and ignorant of God. And there is a peculiar emphasis in the words, the time past of our life, for he intimates that we ought to persevere to the end, as when Paul says that Christ was raised from the dead, to die no more (Romans 6:6). For we have been redeemed by the Lord for this purpose, that we may serve him all the days of our life.

In lasciviousness. He does not give the whole catalogue of sins, but only mentions some of them, from which we may briefly learn what those things are that men, not renewed by God’s Spirit, desire and seek, and to which they are inclined. And he names the grosser vices, as is usually done when examples are given. I will not stop to explain the words, for there is no difficulty in them.

But here a question arises: Peter seems to have wronged many by making all men guilty of lasciviousness, dissipation, lusts, drunkenness, and revellings; for it is certain that all were not involved in these vices. Indeed, we know that some among the Gentiles lived honorably and without a spot of infamy.

To this I reply that Peter does not ascribe these vices to the Gentiles in such a way, as if he charged every individual with all of them, but rather that we are by nature inclined to all these evils. Not only that, but we are so much under the power of depravity that these fruits he mentions necessarily proceed from it as from an evil root.

Indeed, there is no one who does not have within himself the seed of all vices, but these seeds do not all germinate and grow in every individual. Yet the contagion is so spread and diffused throughout the whole human race that the whole community appears infected with innumerable evils, and no member is free or pure from the common corruption.

The last clause may also suggest another question, for Peter addressed the Jews, and yet he says that they had been immersed in abominable idolatries; but the Jews then living in every part of the world carefully abstained from idols. A twofold answer may be offered here: either that, by mentioning the whole for a part, he ascribes to all what belonged to only a few (for there is no doubt that the Churches to which he wrote were made up of Gentiles as well as Jews), or that he calls the superstitions in which the Jews were then involved idolatries. For although they professed to worship the God of Israel, yet we know that no part of divine worship was genuine among them.

And how great must the confusion have been in uncivilized countries and among a scattered people, when Jerusalem itself, from whose rays they borrowed their light, had fallen into extreme impiety! For we know that foolish notions of every kind prevailed with impunity, so that the high-priesthood, and the whole government of the Church, were in the power of the Sadducees.

Wherein they think it strange—the words of Peter literally are these: In which they are strangers, you not running with them into the same excess of riot, blaspheming. But the word, to be strangers, means to stop at a thing as new and unusual. This is a way of speaking that the Latins also sometimes use, as when Cicero says that he was a stranger in the city because he did not know what was carried on there. But in this place, Peter fortifies the faithful, so that they would not allow themselves to be disturbed or corrupted by the perverse judgments or words of the ungodly. For it is no light temptation when those among whom we live charge us that our life is different from that of mankind in general. “These,” they say, “must form for themselves a new world, for they differ from all mankind.” Thus they accuse the children of God, as though they attempted a separation from the whole world.

Then the Apostle anticipated this and forbade the faithful to be discouraged by such reproaches and calumnies; and he proposed to them, as a support, the judgment of God: for this is what can sustain us against all assaults—that is, when we patiently wait for that day in which Christ will punish all those who now presumptuously condemn us and will show that we and our cause are approved by Him. And he expressly mentions the living and the dead, so that we would not think that we will suffer any loss if they remain alive when we are dead; for they will not, for this reason, escape the hand of God. And in what sense he calls them the living and the dead, we may learn from 1 Corinthians 15.

For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, or, He has been evangelized to the dead. We see in what sense he understands the former passage in the third chapter: namely, that death does not prevent Christ from always being our defender.

It is then a remarkable consolation to the godly that death itself brings no loss to their salvation. Though Christ, then, may not appear as a deliverer in this life, yet His redemption is not void or without effect, for His power extends to the dead.

Since the Greek word is ambiguous, it may be translated in either the masculine or neuter gender. However, the meaning is almost the same: that Christ was made known as a redeemer to the dead, or that salvation was made known to them by the gospel.

But if the grace of Christ once reached the dead, there is no doubt that we also shall share in it when we are dead. We then set limits for it that are far too narrow if we confine it to the present life.

Concerning the phrase That they might be judged, I omit the explanations of others, for they seem to me to be very remote from the Apostle’s meaning. This was said, I believe, by way of anticipation, because one might object that the gospel is of no benefit to the dead, as it does not restore them to life. Peter concedes part of this objection, yet in such a way that they are not deprived of the salvation obtained through Christ.

Therefore, in the first clause, when he says, that they might be judged in the flesh, according to men, it is a concession. 'Judged' here means, as often elsewhere, 'condemned'; and flesh is the outward man.

So the meaning is that, though according to the world's estimation the dead suffer destruction in their flesh and are considered condemned as to the outward man, they nevertheless do not cease to live with God, and that in their spirit, because Christ gives them life by His Spirit.

But we should also add what Paul teaches us in Romans 8:10, that the Spirit is life; and thus He will eventually absorb the remnants of death that still cling to us. The sum of what he says is that though the condition of the dead in the flesh is worse, according to man, it is enough that the Spirit of Christ revives them and will eventually lead them to the perfection of life.