A Time for Judgment in Time

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

1 Peter 4:17-19

Exegetical Part

Peter wrote this letter in approximately 62 to 63 from Rome, given the coded label “Babylon” at the letter’s end. That means that the persecutions under Nero were already underway.1 And it also means that when Peter calls these Christians “exiles,” he really means it. These first Christians had been looked down on and marginalized in both Jewish and pagan society. Now they were driven to the outskirts of society. Babylon was used as a euphemism for the Roman Empire because it had laid claims on God’s whole world, including God’s chosen city of Jerusalem. 

There are two fine distinctions made by Peter in this larger section. He makes the case that there is a glorious Christ-like suffering, and a shame-filled, well-earned suffering. And then, a second distinction, that there is temporary, refining judgment, and a far worse, condemning judgment. But we cannot be ready to hear any of this without those first words in the section: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (v. 12). There can be no romantic naiveté about suffering for Christ. On the other hand, there can be nothing but delusion if we do not come to grips with the very normal Christian expectation of suffering. It is in the shadow of this normalcy—that this is not to be thought strange—that we can view the punchline in verses 17 through 19. And I would observe three truths from this ending to the text:

• Consider God’s Refining Judgment for You

• Consider God’s Condemning Judgment for the World

• Do Good—Trusting in God’s Judgment 

Doctrine. The time of God’s judgment on nations is the time of refinement for the church.

Doctrinal Part

I. Consider God’s Refining Judgment for You

1. Peter says, ‘For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God’ (17a). Now the word for TIME (kairos) is different from chronos, which is the normal, left to right, timeline from which we derive the word “chronology.” And here’s the difference. Chronological time is all equal, one minute at a time, year after year. But kairotic time is momentous time, a moment of great importance, a moment not just like every other moment. There is a final judgment, but there is also present judgment. Paul says,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (Rom. 1:18).

And this present judgment of God is not simply an evenly distributed manifestation of the curse, so that all get sick or mistreated or die in a uniform way. And we know this in everyday life. But it is also true of the end of nations and of wars. There are times when the final sands of common grace have slipped through the hourglass, and a group of people must meet its doom. There is a reckoning. There is that writing on the wall to a Belshazzar. And this final stroke of midnight is the Lord’s doing: “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” (Amos 3:6)

2. And yet, God’s own people live amidst that city of man that comes to its demise. Sometimes, Christians have even allowed themselves to get caught up in the scenery and the promises of Vanity Fair as we are passing through. So Peter says that this judgment BEGINS AT THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD. One commentator says of this, that it is “judgment not in the form of condemnation but … as exoneration … judgment, not punishment.” Now it can only be exoneration if God’s people pass the test. It is a testing, a forging, as a metal through fire. But in this test, as Babylon is falling, there is an upward call: “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). When God’s people heed that call, we become the scourge of mankind. That’s Peter’s context. He was writing to exiles. 

3. But we are thrown for a loop here, because right when Peter turns the corner to the other kind of judgment—that is, for the unbeliever—there is a sense in which the believer seems (at first glance) swept up in that same calamity. He says, ‘and if it begins with us’ (17b). And if what begins with us? We need to keep fixed in our mind that, for us, this judgment is that “fiery trial” (v. 12) that is from God. Other places in Scripture speak of God’s refining fire. For instance, Paul compares the believer’s work on Christ’s church to a building project, and that, “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done” (1 Cor. 3:13). Now there Paul is speaking of the Last Day. But there are times of judgment before that time. 

4. The time of God’s judgment on nations is the time of refinement for the church. And so just when we are tempted to become confused, that we are swept up in the reprobate’s portion, what all of this means is that God’s fatherly hand of discipline is at the eye of the storm. Calvin says here,

For this necessity, he says, awaits the whole Church of God, not only to be subject to the common miseries of men, but especially and mainly to be chastised by the hand of God. Then, with more submission, ought persecutions for Christ to be endured.2

II. Consider God’s Condemning Judgment for the World

1. Peter continues the thought: ‘and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?’ (17b) Peter compares the incomparable here. A tale of two judgements: one that is real and painful, but ultimately good for God’s people, and the other that is incomparably more severe, and not at all meant for the good of its subjects. The Bible teaches that

when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

2. He drives home his point by citing an Old Testament passage: ‘If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’ (18) Many think this to be an allusion to Proverbs 11:31, which our ESV translates, “If the righteous is repaid on earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner!” In any case, we know that sometimes in life it can actually temper our sadness and disappointment to reflect on those who have it far worse off than us. This is especially true about fears and of the greatest danger. So, is this part of what Peter is doing? It is an appeal like the one made by that martyr, Polycarp, who snapped back to the Roman officer who was his executioner with the words, “You threaten me with a fire that burns for a season, and after a little while is quenched; but you are ignorant of the fire of everlasting punishment that is prepared for the wicked.”3

3. But there’s an objection here: “Every time we see nations judged, someone else comes out on top. Not everyone is judged. Some gain a more evil power by God allowing them to punish the wicked.” This was the lament of Psalm 73, and it was also the cry of Habakkuk, 

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? (1:13)

But that prophet should have remembered that the same God that would use Babylon had just a century and a half earlier used Assyria, as “the rod of my judgment” (Isa. 10:5). But in that same chapter of the prophet, it says that, “When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes” (10:12). In other words, God is using the most wicked men in our world today like puppets on his sovereign string, as he had used the jealous brothers against Joseph,4 as he had used Pharaoh against the escaping Hebrews,5 as he used Satan against Job,6 just as surely God lays a snare for the Hamans of our day with the snare they had set for his church.7 

4. In his classic work, The City of God, Augustine had to answer this same charge, that the Christians were as vulnerable and slated for destruction as the pagans were, in the barbarian sack of Rome. His reply showed the right balance,

For if every sin received obvious punishment in the present, people would think that nothing was reserved for the last judgement; but if God’s power never openly punished sin in the present, people would think that there was no such thing as divine providence.8

Whatever may come in the days and years ahead, divine justice is always right on time. There is a time for full judgment in the end, but God is always smashing to pieces the delusions of secular permanence. The only Great Reset that’s going to make a dent on Judgment Day are all of the judgments of God that preceded it, knocking down here and raising up over there.  

III. Do Good—Trusting in God’s Judgment 

1. Finally, Peter gives us the upshot application. And once again it parallels what Jesus did in the gospel in Chapter 2: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (2:23). So we are to follow in his steps here. The only difference between how Jesus entrusted Himself through suffering to God and how we are being called to entrusted ourselves to God through suffering is that, in the case of Christ, the focus is on God as Judge, whereas here Peter switches his emphasis to God as “faithful Creator.” He says, ‘Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good’ (19). So why the emphasis on God as “Creator” in verse 19? Edmund Clowney says that, “Peter reminds us that the Lord whom we trust is the Architect of all things, accomplishing his great design.” In other words, the suffering of the saints was all part of the divine plan from the beginning.

2. Now to see the whole weight of how suffering comes in here, we must return again to the whole flow of thought, from verses 12 to here. Suffering ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL has already been defined by Peter. He contrasts the two back in verses 15 and 16: But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. You see that Peter understands to suffer as these shameful things to be not at all the same thing as to “suffer as a Christian.” 

So, one application that really comes through if we take the whole portion, from verse 12 to verse 19, is that Christ is magnified in the unjust treatment of Christians, so let us suffer in a way that tells the truth about the gospel.

3. Doing good includes suffering well—and that is the main idea here—but it encompasses more than suffering. Doing good is comprehensive. We don’t know when our end has come, and so we cannot say we will do good only by making plans to lay down and die. It may come to that. And Jesus has left us an example there “that we would follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). But we don’t know that day or hour. So what is “doing good”? The prophet says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8). This is a general statement meant to communicate comprehensive good, such as we find in God’s law. Christians are confused about this today, because the dominant “thinking” in books and podcasts for this generation has been that one must choose between gospel suffering and doing right, as if we compromise our witness by following God’s commandments rather than the culture’s. 

4. In his classic work on resisting tyranny, Lex, Rex, the Scottish Puritan, Samuel Rutherford, made the point that even as the people of Judah saw the Babylonians at their gate, the fact that this was judgment from God was no argument to lay down their sword of legitimate self defense. It is true, as Calvin said, that when God judges a people he gives them wicked rulers. It is also true that Elijah and Amos could prophesy against them,9 the Apostles could ignore their unlawful orders,10 and Josiah could smash their idols.11 Let us not confuse submitting to God’s decree with acquiescence to the tyrant’s whims. The courage of the saints is also decreed. Likewise, Rutherford draws the analogy, “Famine is often a punishment of God in a land, (Amos iv. 7, 8,) is it therefore in famine unlawful to till the earth, and seek bread by our industry, and are we to do nothing but to pray for daily bread?”12

5. To summarize, a lot of doing good has been given to you and the suffering part is out of our hands. But how we respond is put right back in our hands. Notice that those who suffer well ENTRUST THEIR SOULS. When it is time for a judgment in time, “let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.” The author of Hebrews even said, “you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (10:34). When things are stripped away, remember your soul, and remember the souls of those under your care. How do you prepare their souls for suffering? 

CONCLUSION

If the gravest conceivable judgment of time were to fall upon our country, would your faith have let you down? Would you think you were condemned by God? Why or why not?

The greatest judgment of time, in fact, did not fall upon ancient Israel in the sixth century BC or in 70 AD, nor did the greatest judgment in time break apart the Assyrians, or the Babylonians, or the Persians, or the Greeks or Romans, nor will it even be upon America. 

Jesus said, “the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners” (Mk. 14:41).

The greatest judgment in time was when God poured out the fullness of hell, that would have been for you and me, with unimaginable, holy displeasure, the fire that would have surpassed all fiery trials put together, poured out on the Son instead of on us. And so we can say to all earthly powers, 

Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him (Ps. 2:10-12).

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1. Carson and Moo locate the audience of persecuted Christians in Asia Minor. And the references in our text (vv. 12-19) especially make those authors convinced that these were not the ordinary sufferings of the Christian life, but rather “some kind of persecution.”

2. Calvin, Commentaries, XXII:138.

3. Polycarp, in Eusebius, Church History, IV.15.24.

4. Genesis 50:20

5. Romans 9:17

6. Job 1:8; 2:3

7. Esther 7:10

8. Augustine, City of God, I.8

9. 1 Kings 18:18; Amos 7:14-17

10. Acts 4:19-20; 5:29

11. 2 Chronicles 34:3-7, 33; 2 Kings 23:4-20

12. Rutherford, Lex, Rex, Q. XVIII