John Calvin Commentary 1 Peter 4:1

"Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;" — 1 Peter 4:1 (ASV)

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.