John Calvin Commentary 1 Peter 4:17

"For the time [is come] for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if [it begin] first at us, what [shall be] the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?" — 1 Peter 4:17 (ASV)

For the time is come, or, Since also the time is come. He amplifies the consolation that the goodness of the cause for which we suffer brings us when we are afflicted for the name of Christ. For this necessity, he says, awaits the whole Church of God: not only to be subject to the common miseries of humanity, but especially and mainly to be chastised by the hand of God. Therefore, persecutions for Christ should be endured with more submission. For unless we desire to be blotted out from the number of the faithful, we must submit our backs to God's scourges. Now, it is a sweet consolation that God does not execute His judgments on us as He does on others, but that He makes us the representatives of His own Son when we suffer only for His cause and for His name.

Moreover, Peter took this statement from the common and constant teaching of Scripture; this seems more probable to me than that a specific passage is referred to, as some think. It was formerly the Lord's custom, as all the prophets witness, to begin His chastisements with His own people, just as the head of a family corrects his own children rather than those of strangers (Isaiah 10:12).

For though God is the Judge of the whole world, He desires His providence to be especially acknowledged in the government of His own Church. Hence, when He declares that He would rise up to be the Judge of the whole world, He adds that this would be after He had completed His work on Mount Zion.

He indeed puts forth His hand without distinction against His own people and against strangers, for we see that both are commonly subjected to adversities. If a comparison is made, He seems in a way to spare the reprobate and to be severe towards the elect. Hence the complaints of the godly: that the wicked pass their lives in continual pleasures, delighting themselves with wine and the harp, and finally descend painlessly and instantly into the grave; that fatness covers their eyes; that they are exempt from troubles; that they securely and joyfully spend their lives, looking down with contempt on others, so that they dare to set their mouth against heaven (Job 21:13; Psalms 73:3–9).

In short, God so regulates His judgments in this world that He fattens the wicked for the day of slaughter. He therefore passes by their many sins and, as it were, connives at them. In the meantime, He restores by corrections His own children, for whom He has a care, to the right way whenever they depart from it.

It is in this sense that Peter says that judgment begins at the house of God; for judgment includes all those punishments which the Lord inflicts on people for their sins, and whatever refers to the reformation of the world.

But why does he say that it was now the time? He means, as I think, what the prophets declare concerning Christ's time: that it especially belonged to Christ’s kingdom for the beginning of the reformation to be in the Church. Hence Paul says that Christians, without the hope of a resurrection, would be the most miserable of all people (1 Corinthians 15:19); and justly so, because while others indulge themselves without fear, the faithful continually sigh and groan; while God connives at the sins of others and allows them to continue lethargic, He deals rigidly with His own people and subjects them to the discipline of the cross.