The Glory of Jesus the Christ

1 Corinthians 1:26-31.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Resurrection Sunday, April 5, 2026.

Today we are going to contrast the glory of this world with the glory of Jesus who is the Christ.  You may or may not have anything glorious about you, at least by the world’s standards.  What you are currently doing may never be praised by other people.  But God sees our life like a Father watching over a child.  He helps as needed but also wants us to choose and grow to be like Him.

The glory of this world hits us at a very young age.  Who are the smart kids in class?  Who are the strong kids or the beautiful kids?  Most of us are somewhere in the middle of that experience.  You could say that nothing about us stood out from the rest.

The word glory (as a verb glorying) is synonymous with the idea of a boast or boasting.  At its root, there is the idea of something either worthy of praise or something that is simply praised by people.  Thus, to obtain glory in this world is to obtain something that is praise-worthy by the world’s standard.  A person who glories in their own accomplishment is praising themselves.

Paul challenges us not to boast in ourselves but to boast in the Lord Jesus.  Of course, God is not against our gifts and achievements per se.  He is the God who made muscles, but He did not make them for a muscle-bound man to praise himself and use those muscles only for selfish ends.

I said earlier that most of us are probably average.  However, we are quite innovative when it comes to this area of boasting.  Glory has a sphere to it: global, national, regional, local, my family, etc.  This area can be fraught with a driven pursuit that feeds upon that glory which is not healthy.

When people have a lot of glorious things in their life, it is hard for them to see the glory of Jesus and believe in him.  We might even see that it is impossible with a man, but all things are possible for God.  The problem for a rich man is not that he is rich.  His problem is that he boasts in himself and sees the riches as proof of how great he is.  He will idolize those riches to the exclusion of a relationship with God.

The glory of Rome and empires

Rome represents the glory of this world that is in ignorance of God’s Word.  They were an empire that ruled over a large region of the world.  They were able to project their power long distances from Rome, their capital city.  The Romans may have run into some Jews, but in the end, they did not know God.  They did not know His Word.  This ignorance was due to the rebellion of their (and our) ancestors at the Tower of Babel. 

Those first generations were in rebellion to the truth and knew it.  They purposefully rejected God and so were rejected by Him.  Of course, another generation grows up that begins to listen to justifications by their rebellious fathers.  This continues until a generation arises that is not even aware of the earlier rebellion.  They become ignorant that there was a time in which their ancestors lived and believed differently.  There is also a spiritual dynamic to this justification.  Many false religions have their roots in deceiving spirits that lead men into error and into permission-systems that give them power over whole societies.

In seeking a way different from God’s command, they followed the same path of Adam and Eve.  They (we) listened to the serpent’s lie and follow a path of false hopes and false glory, a glory that ignores and is ignorant of God.

Such a path is precarious.  The Romans were not always the empire.  Before them, there was the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, etc.  All nations lust after this kind of glory, the glory of dominating others and being the head of the nations. 

The glory of Israel

In some ways, Israel was no different, but it was not as far down the path that the nations had gone down.  God had kept a remnant among them, and His Word was still prevalent if not followed.  Israel represents a glory that arrogates and twists God’s Word to itself.  Thus, many gave lip service to God’s glory, but in the end, they were only concerned with their own glory.

God’s work among Israel was glorious.  Somewhere along the line, the glory of God became mixed up with their own glory.  To arrogate is to presumptuously appropriate to oneself without right or authority.  This is a subtle rebellion that masks itself under a thin veneer of righteousness.  The religious leaders as a whole had twisted the system to their purpose and their glory.  This essentially ignored God’s Word while continuing a sick insistence that they were adhering to God’s Word faithfully. 

The glorious construction of temples and palaces within the people of God was not wrong.  God had told them to build the temple and make it glorious.  However, this was to point to God’s glory.  Even boasting in a temple is beneath our calling.  We can glory in all the wrong things about what God is doing in us, missing the purpose for which He gives the gifts that He does.

Idolatry and the altar of self

This is what Paul is talking about in this passage.  Christians were not generally from the great of Rome or Israel.  Yet, God had chosen them, the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

When our glory is self-seeking, it becomes an idol, idolatry.  Few people obtain the heights of worldly glory.  However, everyone glories in something.  It is because we were made by a glorious God in order to dwell within His glory.  We were made to be in relationship with the ultimate glory, God Himself.  When we cast off God, the glory within in us is simply a mark of His purpose.  Detached from God, this kind of glory is destined to fade and decay, like a corpse without a spirit.

There are pitfalls to glory that Christians must learn to navigate.  It is a mistake to glory in lesser things to the exclusion of the greater.  It is a worse mistake to glory in shameful things.  The only antidote to such pitfalls is to remain in humble relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ.  Another pitfall is to be corrupted by personal glory, thinking that we are its source.  Such vainglory causes people to be entitled, over-protective, immoral, and arrogant.

God’s Word warns against all of these things and shows us that all humanity is in a slavery and a bondage to sin.  We are unable to break free from its tyrannical hold and step into the purpose for which God made us, at least without Jesus.  This brings us to the glory of Jesus the Christ.

The Glory of Jesus the Christ

The glory of Jesus is that he is the only human who perfectly lived in connection to the Glory of God the Father.  He perfectly lived out the purpose of God.  What was that purpose?  It was to restore humanity to its intended place at God the Father’s side.  It is to be His image-bearers, imaging His purpose on the earth through our lives.

Does this mean that Jesus has failed?  Jesus has not failed.  He has and is accomplishing all that the Father desires.

Paul ends this passage (vs. 31) by quoting Jeremiah 9:23-26.  “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.  It pictures a person who understands and knows God the Father.  The knowing here is not a knowing of information.  It is a knowing of experiencing life with another.  Jesus is the only one who truly understood and knew God.  He heard the words of the Father and lived them out, speaking them exactly.  He never gave up believing in the will of the Father, even when it lead to a cross.

In Jeremiah, we are told that such a person discovers some things about God.  He is full of faithful, covenant-keeping love.  His judgments are all just and true, dependable.  Finally, His dealings are all right and good with everyone.  Jesus taught us to trust the Father no matter what.

Such a person also delights in the purpose of the Father.  Jesus delighted in God’s purpose to redeem humanity.  He delighted in the covenant-keeping love of God, not just for himself, but he imaged that love to the world around him.  He delighted in the just and true judgments of God but also imaged such to the world.  He delighted in righteous dealings with all.

It may be strange to think of Jesus delighting in going to the cross.  The Father did not so much delight in the cross as He delighted in what the cross would make possible.  And so Jesus delighted in the joy that was on the other side of the cross, not avoiding it, but going through it.

We can shrink back from difficult paths that God sets before us.  However, such difficult paths only enhance the glory of God and our knowledge of Him.  It is often the price of intimacy.

Jesus laid down his life as a sacrifice to pay the price for our sins.  He did so to make it possible that we could be forgiven and restored to the place intended for us at the Father’s right hand.

Let’s end with contrasting the glory of the cross with the glory of the resurrection.  The resurrection is a glorious and overcoming glory.  It is shocking in its power against an enemy that appears to be invincible (death).  It is similar to the glory of God to bring forth all of creation by His Word.  A part of us wants God to simply speak a word and fix everything.  This would be a fix that doesn’t require me (you) to change.  God will change us, but it cannot happen without death.

The glory of the cross is that Jesus sacrificed his mortal life to save us.  He is not throwing his life away because it is worthless.  Rather, he is laying down something of supreme value.  He was using it for the Father’s good purpose, to redeem humanity, you and me.

Jesus did not cling to the lesser glories that he could accomplish in his mortal flesh.  He did embrace the greater glory of one who knows the Father and trusts Him.  On the other side of laying down the false glories and the lesser glories of this world is the resurrection glories of Christ.

May we go forth and live for the glory of Jesus the Christ alone.  May we understand these two poles of the glory of God.  The glory of the cross involves pain and isn’t desirable in our flesh, but it leads to the glory of resurrection which involves great joy!

Glory of Jesus audio

Evangelist Joe Pyott

Evangelist Joe Pyott preached on Sunday, March 29, 2026.  We do not have an article or audio for this.

The First Letter of Peter- 18

Subtitle: Our Witness before the World- Part 10

1 Peter 4:7-11. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, March 22, 2026. 

As Peter has called Christians to have the same mind that Christ had when he suffered in the flesh for the will of God, he now turns to give some further commands that become more about how Christians are towards one another. 

Of course, this is a witness to the world.  Yet, more importantly, this world is coming to an end.  This makes our witness to the world far more critical.  This is the idea behind this passage.

Let’s get into our passage.

The end of all things has come near (v. 7-11)

Peter has just described Jesus as being “ready” to judge the living and the dead.  Here, we have a similar phrase.  “The end of all things is near (or at hand).”  In both of these phrases, we can focus on the amount of time connected to these events.  If Jesus is ready and the end is near (literally “has come near”), then surely it means that there is very little time until they happen.

This is not necessarily true, neither is it evidently true.  Jesus can be ready to judge now while the Father is not telling him to do so.  In other words, it is the Father who will signal when the judgment occurs.  Jesus is simply in the ready position.  He doesn’t need to do anything else.  Before the cross, before the grave, and before the resurrection, Jesus was not ready to judge.  He is ready now.  Yet, it can still be a long time until the Father sends him in judgment.

This same thing is true for the end of all things being at hand.  Many say that the disciples believed Jesus would come back in their lifetime and that they were simply wrong.  However, this is not necessarily true.  The disciples were given parables by Jesus stating that it would be longer than they would think (e.g., Luke 12:40-48).  John also records that Jesus told Peter how he would die (John 21:19).  It would be odd for Peter to think of Jesus coming back in his lifetime and yet dying a martyr’s death later.  Peter also warns people in his second letter (2 Peter 3:3-9) about scoffing at the delay in our Lord’s return.

So, what is intended here?  Some try to make this only about the end of temple worship and Israel as a nation.  I believe this is only a part of what Peter is talking about.  For Jews, the end of all of their things was at hand.  The nation would end, and the temple would end.  However, the judgment of Israel is itself a warning to the nations.  Just as Jesus was presented to Israel and then judgment, so Jesus is presented to the nations by Christians.  There is a day of judgment, an end of the times of the gentiles and the day of grace.  Thus, the lesser judgment of one nation like Israel, or like the Roman empire later, is a picture of a greater judgment that hangs over the whole earth, a judgment that Jesus is ready to bring to the earth at the Father’s command.

Christians are to live with this in mind.  The world is going to be judged.  We are to exercise patient diligence until that day.  Our patient diligence leads to the salvation of people who believe in Christ.  This fruitfulness is God’s desire through us.

Peter then gives two commands that should connect to our times of prayer.  The first has to do with having a sound mind, or healthy thinking, for the purpose of prayer.  Of course, this is not the only purpose for having a sound mind, nor is it only to be had during our prayers.  Our sound and healthy mind will look at the reality of God bringing the way of this world to an end in Jesus, and it will then be turned to prayer.  It is the word of God in connection with the Holy Spirit that transforms our thinking to that which Christ had (1 Peter 4:1).  It is in prayer that these things are kneaded into our lives like a baker kneads bread.  In prayer, we wrestle with our flesh and with the Lord over the reality of judgment hanging over this world.

The devil doesn’t want you to pray, but the worst enemy of prayer in our life is our own flesh (sinful nature).  Jesus planted a seed of teaching within his disciples on the night he was betrayed.  Their spirits were willing to stand with Jesus in his hour of trial, but their flesh was weak.  It is only through prayer we will be able to force our flesh to walk out the will of God the Father.  It was the sound mind of Christ that looked at his situation and recognized that the cross was the only way.  He knew what was at stake and what was needed to serve God.  We are to follow Jesus in this, seeking the help of God.

This can be contrasted with the worldly, unhealthy thinking that leads to the kind of things Peter described in 1 Peter 4:3,4.  The world thinks you are strange for not thinking and acting like they do, but you are listening to God, not them.

Peter also commands us to have a sober mind for the purpose of prayer.  This is a similar concept but comes from the realm of drinking alcohol.  Literal drunkenness would be included in this, but this verse speaks to a greater inebriation that occurs in a life that is focused on gratifying the desires of the flesh rather than the desires of God.  Alcohol messes with our inhibitions and our ability to properly analyze the world around us.  This often creates an unreal (fantastic) view of how we are doing.

All of this (the healthy mind and sober mind) pictures a person who knows the seriousness of the hour in which we live.  They understand that it calls for a serious and focused life.  Such a life is fueled by a relationship with God through the Word and Prayer.  It is in prayer that we seek God’s strength and wisdom to wrestle our flesh to the ground and pin it (over and over).  It is in prayer that we discover God’s purpose in our life.  It is in prayer that we guard our heart from the constant attempt of the devil, this world, and our own flesh to pull us off this course of following Jesus.

Peter then tells believers to keep fervent in their love for one another.  Fervent is a good translation.  However, it literally means to be stretched out.  A football player who really wants to catch the ball will stretch themselves out even though they risk injury when they hit the ground.  In loving people, the idea of stretching out connects to helping them.  This is often represented by our hands which are often the vehicle of helping others.  Is my love for others with a stretched-out hand, or do I have T-Rex like arms that can barely extend past myself?  Love is not primarily a feeling.  It is a choice to stretch ourselves for the well-being of another person.

Peter is focused here on loving other Christians, even though we are also to love our enemies.  Christians need to work for the spiritual and physical well-being of one another by the wisdom and help of Jesus.  Prayer is the place where we seek God’s wisdom in all the ways we can stretch ourselves out for one another.

It is easy to let our love grow cold for others.  In Matthew 24:12, Jesus said that “because of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.”  May the Lord help us to remain fervent (hot) in our love for one another, stretched out to the point of risking ourselves.

At this point, Peter quotes from Proverbs 10:12. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”  This is not to say that we should cover up sin.  Rather, it is the picture of how loving relationships are working towards peace and not strife, growth and not death, lifting up and not pushing down.  Love does not look for errors to be used against another person.

The idea of covering has a connection to atonement.  To atone for sin is to make a proper covering for it.  God’s covering for our sins does not pretend that they never existed, yet neither does it desire to rub our nose in it.  Love seeks a righteous and healthy way to cover for the sins of others.

Sometimes this is simply not making an issue of small sins.  We all need room to grow and a personal audit by everyone in our life regarding the minutia of our failures becomes stifling.  We are all a work in progress. Instead of looking for ways to expose and highlight one another’s faults, instead of harshly condemning one another for even the hint of spiritual immaturity, we help each other, knowing that we too have much room for improvement.

Sometimes love sees that a correction is needed.  Yet, we speak the truth in love (for their well-being).  It is for the purpose of healing things that require the help of another.  We need God’s wisdom to discern when this is needed.

In Psalm 32:1, David paralleled this concept, to cover sins, with the idea of forgiving a multitude of sins.  Our faults and failures are tests of how committed to loving one another we are, and our commitment to loving one another is a test to how committed we are to loving Jesus.

Peter further describes this fervent love with the command to be hospitable to one another without complaining.  Hospitality at its root has the idea of love shown to those who are strangers.  Of course, they don’t have to be a stranger to you.  When you invite a friend into your home and show them hospitality, this is not their home.  They are foreigners or strangers to this home in the sense that they do not live there.  Yet, you take their coat, feed them, and serve them.  This is hospitality.

Hospitality includes the drawing of people into a relationship and caring for them as family.  To do so without complaint may not be hard for some people, but it can be for others.  We should never complain when we stretch ourselves out in love because Jesus stretched himself out for us.  If you find yourself complaining about these matters, be quick to stop yourself.  Ask the Lord to forgive you and fill you with a heart of love for others.

Peter then tells us to be serving one another.  Again, this is simply another way of speaking about love.  We should note that this is the third time that he has used this phrase “one another.”  Its repetition helps to slam home the point.  We are in this together.  Jesus is not just saving me; he is saving “we.”  We need one another.  This is the bond of love that creates a unity of the Spirit of God.

This serving term is pretty elastic.  It is not about a high or low level.  It is simply about serving others.  Perhaps, Peter may have been thinking about the words of Jesus in Matthew 20:26-28. Those Christians who want to be great need to learn to serve one another, and if you want to be first, you need to learn to become a slave of all the rest, like Jesus did.  Of course, they are not our masters.  Jesus is.

In this area of serving one another, Peter speaks about gifts that we each have.  The word behind this is the Greek word charisma.  Charis is Greek for grace.  When a Greek word has the -ma ending, it is speaking of a particular instance of grace.  It is generally translated as a gift and can refer to natural gifts and spiritual gifts.  God has blessed believers with natural and spiritual gifts.  We need to use these to serve one another on his behalf.

In fact, we are to be “stewards of the manifold grace of God.”  God’s grace is spread through a great variety of gifts, specific grace. 

These gifts in your life are really from God.  Why has He given them to you?  He has not given them to you as a means of saying that you are more special than others who do not have your giftings.  Rather, the giver of all gifts spreads them variously as He desires.  We need to see them as His.  We are to manage God’s things in this life that He has given us.  Whether this is a wealth of money or a wealth of wisdom, whatever it be, we must be good stewards.  A good steward doesn’t hide the gift and bury it.  A good steward doesn’t abuse the gift and use it only for themselves.  Rather, a good steward spends time in prayer seeking God’s intention for those gifts.  He didn’t give them to me for serving myself.  He has gifted others to serve you.  You must focus on serving others as the practical outflow of God’s love in your life.

The steward image reminds us that we will give account to the giver of these gifts.  When we serve others, we are being fruitful in the way that God intends.  A common pitfall that messes up our serving is when we look at others and compare ourselves to them.  One person may become conceited because their gifts seem greater than others.  Another person may become depressed and do nothing because they think that they do not have any gifts.  Both of these are errors.  Quit looking at the gifts others have.  Rather, look at how you can help the people around you, even if it is in little ways.  Pray about it.  Seek God and His gifts will manifest in your life in small and great ways.

Peter then speaks to some particular gifts.  “If one speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.”  It is likely that Peter is referring to spiritual gifts that are expressed in the times that a church gathers.  However, this principle applies to all of our speech to one another.  If we are going to say anything, we need to say it as if we were giving an oracle from God.  I may not have received a prophecy, word of knowledge, etc. from God, but my speech needs to be treated seriously.  It is one of the gifts that God has given me.  I can speak into the lives of others.  I shouldn’t be flippant and manage that gift frivolously.  I should always be speaking into the lives of others for God’s purpose and not my own.

Similarly, Peter challenges us to serve with the strength that God supplies.  We may be afraid to stretch out and help others because we believe that we lack.  However, God often supplies as we stretch out for others.  There is a partnership and a co-working that happens when we serve His purposes in serving others.

Verse 11 caps this off with a great principle.  Our purpose in everything should be to glorify the Father through Jesus Christ.  Jesus is still seated at the right hand of the Father, ready and awaiting the day of the Father’s choosing.  He will come and set this world right.  Each day you wake up is another day of grace for the salvation of people.  Lean into it.  Step into it and stretch yourself out.  May God help us to be a gift to one another and a light to this dark world!

Witness 10 audio

The First Letter of Peter- 17

Subtitle: Our Witness before the World- Part 9

1 Peter 4:1-6.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, March 15, 2026.

Having looked at what Jesus accomplished through the things he suffered, Peter now calls us to have the same mind that Christ had when he did these things.  We can rejoice in having Jesus at the right hand of the Father interceding for us.  We can rejoice in salvation and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  However, it happened because Jesus was willing to suffer.  He embraced suffering for what it would accomplish.

Let’s look at our passage.

Arm yourself with the same mind Jesus had (v. 1-4)

The word translated as “arm yourselves” was typically used to prepare for battle.  It has the sense of equipping or providing yourself with what you need for a task.

So, who or what are we battling?  We can think about those who persecute and cause suffering in our lives just for doing the right thing.  I can imagine early Christians being challenged to recant their belief that Jesus was Lord, and instead, declare that Caesar is lord.  This may be true to some degree, but to a greater degree, we are arming ourselves with a mentality.  This mentality is something that is going on inside of us.  It is a mental and spiritual battle with our own flesh that can only be won when we think like Jesus did.

Our flesh is looking for any excuse to avoid suffering and obtain pleasure.  If we do not have the mentality of Jesus, then we will be overcome by the desires of our flesh.  The devil knows this and uses it for his purposes.  We can be intimidated away from the work that God has for us.  We can be shamed by social pressure to shrink away from the call of Jesus.  If you are going to follow Jesus, you will need to approach suffering the same way he did.

Now let’s be clear.  Jesus didn’t relish suffering and rush towards it with glee.  He wasn’t bored in heaven and decided to come to earth for some extreme experiences.   He wasn’t on a field trip.  On the other hand, Jesus is not trying to get everyone to like him.  He is not obsessed with getting the Pharisees and Sadducees to like him.  He is thinking about doing the will of the Father.  This is why Jesus prayed and sought God for that purpose he should pursue in the things that he faced.

Jesus did not let the threat of suffering cause him to shrink back from the good and right thing that God wanted him to do.  Yet he also knew that God had a timing to those right things he needed to do.  This timing will also affect our level of suffering.  Jesus could have been stoned to death earlier in his ministry, but it wasn’t God’s timing and way.

Here in America, our suffering is at a low level.  We are not being physically persecuted for our faith, though that does seem to be changing.  Yet there is a mental and spiritual suffering that we carry in our relationships.  Parents who are raising their children for Jesus will find that it is not easy.  Their flesh wants to quit.  It may not want to quit being a parent but at least being a parent for Jesus.  We can shrink away from the right thing that we know we should do. This is our flesh.

Peter then states that those who suffer in the flesh have been made to cease from sin.  The verb “to cease” is actually passive.  We have been made to cease from sin.  This doesn’t mean that we are perfect and never sin. Rather, sin has ceased to be the willing choice to obtain what our flesh desires.  It is no longer our target or focus.  Instead, we are focused on something else.  We have stopped going after sin through the lusts of our flesh and we have been going after something else.  Something has changed within us.  We think and act differently in life because our purpose in life is now led by Jesus.

Peter fleshes out the idea of ceasing from sin in verse two.  Peter refers to the “rest of his time” here.  Each of us have a period of our life that is before becoming a follower of Jesus and another that is after we have followed him.  This is what he is referencing.  How much time do I have left?  Whatever it is, I should use it for the will of God.

The rest of our time is, of course, hard to know for sure.  Psalm 90:12 reads, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  Wisdom recognizes that I am not guaranteed tomorrow.  How will I spend the rest of my time?  We can have a good desire to follow Jesus but be derailed by the threat of suffering.  Suffering can dissuade us from following Jesus.

Peter speaks of not living for the “lusts of men.”  It means the lusts that are common to men.  Of course, the strong desires of our flesh can be different from one person to another.  I need to particularly avoid and reject the lusts of my own flesh so that I can live for the will of God.

The will of God may lead us down a path that has suffering on it.  We can complain about it, but we lose sight of the fact that God has something good in it for you.  First, He intends to accomplish some things through the work that you do.  Second, He intends also to accomplish some things through the things you suffer.  We can forget that God is working to draw people to Christ through the things we suffer.  When wicked people persecute us for doing what is good, there is always something in the back of their head that they have to avoid or silence in order to keep going.  This is the mercy of God working to bring them back from the edge of a moral cliff.

We may want to avoid suffering.  We may even pray for God to take us to heaven.  However, who is going to influence your children, grandchildren, etc.?  Maybe you don’t have such relationships.  Regardless, our only ability to affect this world is while we are in these bodies.  Jesus is asking us to use our mortal life in order to help people come back to what we were made to do.  We were made to image God in relationship with Him.  Jesus has made that possible for those who will turn away from sin and follow him.

Listen, Jesus isn’t in heaven having a party while we suffer down here.  He is pouring out the Spirit into our lives as we seek him.  The Spirit of God is helping us to go to war against what the devil has done in people’s lives.  He is telling us today, “Pick up your cross.  If you do that, then I will fill you with the Holy Spirit, and He will help you do some powerful things.  It will have some suffering in it, but O the glory!”

Even if you don’t get to see the fruit of your suffering, that isn’t the point.  The point is that you laid down your life like a seed into their life.  I may not see it in this life, but God will keep using it in their heart and mind through the rest of their life.

Adding to this argument, Peter tells us that we have spent enough of our past life pursuing the “will of the Gentiles.”  There were Gentiles who knew God, but this is being used of the Gentiles as a whole.  They were separated and foreigners to God.  They only knew the false religions of Satan and his angels. 

What is the will of the Gentiles?  Peter gives us a partial list of such things.  Sensuality or lewdness has the sense of a person with no restraint.  That can be in speech, dress, or activity.  Lust is basically strong desires of our flesh.  Drunkenness is literally excess wine.  When we imbibe too much alcohol, it leads to sin.  The next two words go together, carousing (revelry) and drinking parties.  If you can imagine people eating and drinking to the point that everyone is drunk and then going out into the streets to do whatever comes to your pickled mind, this is what these things describe.  Finally, Peter lists abominable idolatries.  Abominable means hated which is true of idolatry.  God hates it.  However, he literally writes “lawless idolatries.”

This list is not 100% of the things we need to avoid.  In fact, many of these are easy to quit doing.  Many people can “clean up their life” and make the outside look good, but these things beg the question of why we choose them.  What is going on inside of my heart that I keep choosing to go after these things?  Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount does this with murder.  It should be easy to cut off contemplating murder.  But it is much harder to cut off the anger that leads to murder.  The harder things to cut off in our lives are things like anger, jealousy, selfish ambition and slander.  This is what James is talking about in chapter four of his letter.  Jesus is leading us away from these things and towards the will of God.

The world around you thinks you are strange for not joining them in this pursuit of pleasure.  The excess of dissipation is an overflowing of unsaved living, unhealthy, unspiritual living.  Like a flood of water surging down the course of a canyon, they can’t imagine doing anything else.  The Christian is the fish who is swimming up stream while the world around them plunges along with the water downstream.

And thus, we end up back at suffering.  Because you are strange to them, then you are viewed as a threat or a source of guilt.  You are viewed as someone who can’t be manipulated and therefore can’t be trusted.  This leads to those who will malign you for following Jesus instead of the world.  Some “Christians” may even malign you for following Jesus instead of their traditions about Jesus.  Regardless, the word for “malign” is literally to blaspheme.  We are used to that being used about God, but we can blaspheme one another when we say things that are not true about one another.  It may stop there, but maligning people opens the door to abusing them further.  People are first called evil and then it is okay to persecute, even to kill, them.  The malign statements, the blasphemies against Christians, then become justification for more sinful actions that cause suffering for God’s people.

Let us remember that Jesus faced such men, and he put his trust in the Father’s will in the moment and in His purpose through it, even though it led to his death.

God will judge those who malign you (v. 5-6)

Verse five reminds us that those who persecute us will not get away with it.  They will be judged.  All people will be brought before Christ and give an account for their life.  I do not suspect there will be much speaking on their behalf.  The emphasis is more on being held accountable for one’s life.  Those who have rejected his salvation and persecuted his followers will be found guilty on that day.  It may not look like this is the case, but this is God’s promise, warning, to humanity.

When a person is going through suffering, this may not seem very comforting.  We want God to stop it now or even before it happens.  Regardless, we are called to have faith in God.  The example of Jesus and God’s answer of resurrection makes this a well-founded hope.

By the way, Peter doesn’t explicitly say that Jesus is this one who will judge, but this is the clear teaching of the apostles and Jesus.  See John 5:22-23, Acts 17:31, Romans 2:16, among many others.

Christ is “ready” to judge the living and the dead.  This may sound like it is about to happen in a matter of days.  But the meaning is more that Christ has been given the place and authority of judging those who are alive and those who are dead.  He is ready to judge whenever the Father chooses.  Jesus was ready to sacrifice his life on day one of his ministry.  However, it was the Father’s will that this did not happen until three and a half years of ministry had occurred.  Similarly, Jesus is ready to judge now, but will not do so until the Father says it is time.

Let us remember that this is true for us as a world and for us as individuals.  When we lay down our mortal bodies in death, our judgment before Christ will be evident.

Why does the Father delay?  Particularly, why does He delay while I am suffering?  This ties into God’s purpose to send the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  This is a period of time in which the nations are given grace through Jesus.  The way that we suffer (like Jesus did) is one of the goads that God uses to prick the conscience of lost people.  If they repent, then they become a brother or sister in the Lord.  We should forgive them and love them.  If they do not repent, then they will be held accountable by Jesus. 

If you had been ripped off by a big corporation and sued them, how would you feel if you went into court and found out that the judge owned a similar big corporation?  The opposite is true with Jesus.  The One who will judge humanity on that day is One who was unjustly and wickedly treated by people.  He is not on the side of the elite.  However, he will not pervert justice for the poor.  Jesus will judge in absolute truth.  This is a sobering thought.

This brings us to one of the most disputed verses in this letter.  Peter turns from the readiness of Christ to judge the living and the dead and states that this is why the Gospel “has been preached” to the dead.  Most translations have interpretations affecting their end result.  It literally says, “For this purpose even the dead were evangelized (given the Gospel).”  It begs the question of when the evangelizing occurred.  Was it while they are alive, being dead now or was it while they were in the grave?

We will come back to this question.  Let’s continue the flow of Peter’s argument.  The coming judgment of Christ is the purpose, or reason, for this evangelizing.  Yet, Peter states that this evangelizing was done so that something else might happen.  This is what the second half of verse 6 reveals.  Let’s look at the statement first and then come back to how this all fits together with evangelizing even the dead.

The second half of verse 6 has a clear symmetry that contrasts the first clause with the second one.  It uses the phrase “on one hand” there is this bad thing, “but on the other hand,” there is this good thing.  These clauses are in the subjunctive mood which emphasizes that this is God’s desire or purpose, whether men cooperate with it or not.  Let me lay out verse 6 in a clumsy literal interpretation.

“For this reason, even the dead were evangelized in order that, on one hand, they may have been judged according to men in flesh, but on the other hand, they may be living according to God in spirit.”

God’s purpose in this evangelization is to overcome the judgments of men in this world that have sent many to the realm of the dead.  They may have been put to death in their flesh according to the judgments of men, but God intends to make them alive in spirit.  This is some of the same verbiage that was used of Jesus in 1 Peter 3:18. Jesus was put to death in his flesh but made alive in spirit.  God does not always stop persecution.  However, He always overturns it.

We can understand that God’s purpose is to change a person’s destiny any time the Gospel is preached to them.  Instead of removing death from our experience, He makes possible a greater life following that death for those who trust in Jesus the Christ.

So what is this evangelizing even the dead?  There are really two good ways to interpret this, though I know there are endless variations in them.

The first is to see this as people who are now dead, but the evangelization happened while they were alive.  God’s purpose in the Gospel is not to make us invincible to the wicked in this life, but that when we die (whether naturally or at the hands of persecutors) this will not be the last word.  They live in spirit.  Unlike Jesus, believers do not immediately receive a spiritual body.  Their spirits are with Christ at the right hand of the Father awaiting the day of resurrection when they will obtain glorified, spiritual bodies like Jesus.  Even before the cross, righteous believers like Noah, Abraham, David, and all the rest, went into the good side of the Grave (Sheol/Hades) awaiting the day when Messiah would make it possible for them to be released into the presence of the Father.

One of the fears of early believers is mentioned by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4.  They worried that somehow believers who had died were going to miss out on the good things that were expected at the Second Coming of Jesus.  Paul explains that those who are dead will not miss out on God’s plan.

In this situation, it is speculated that Peter is encouraging them that, even though we may be put to death in flesh, we are alive in spirit.  God’s judgment makes the judgments of men irrelevant.  In fact, this being alive in spirit occurs while we are still in this mortal flesh.  This is generally what is meant by eternal life.  It is the life-giving-principle of Jesus Himself working within us, no matter what state we are in (mortal flesh, body dead but spirit with Jesus, and finally a glorified spiritual body).

This is a good, scriptural understanding.  However, Peter may have been saying something more than this.  The second interpretation actually sees this as an evangelization by Jesus after his death to those who are in the grave.  Some oppose this because it sounds like they are getting a second chance at salvation.  However, this is not necessarily the case.

Scripture does appear to be clear that we are given this mortal life to make and to demonstrate our choice regarding Jesus.  Once we die, we are held accountable to that choice.  Hebrews 9:27 states, “it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment…”  2 Corinthians 6:2 states, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”  Clearly, we are called to accept God while He has opened a door for salvation.  If we wait, the time may close and be missed.  Death is equated with facing our judgment, not an extension of a season of salvation.

That said, there is a plausible way to see this in the second sense (Jesus evangelizing the dead after his death) without teaching that people get a second chance in the Grave.

In 1 Peter 3:18, we saw that Jesus went into the Grave and then to Tartarus (a prison for rebellious angels/spirits).  There he proclaimed his victory to them and the finality of their defeat.  There is no sense in that passage that he “evangelized” them.  That word is not used.  Also, it is not hard to see that while he was in the Grave where the departed human spirits are held in two compartments, one good and one bad, Jesus may do some more declarations.  Thus, we can see Jesus proclaiming his victory to those “in torments in Hades,” which would accentuate that they had chosen the wrong side.  We could also see him sharing the good news (the real meaning of the word evangelize) of his victory and what it means for those human spirits in Abraham’s Bosom, or Paradise, which is the good side of the Grave.  He is not so much giving them an offer of salvation but explaining what has happened and how they have been saved.  This makes sense because though they had a sense of the good thing God was doing, they were just as much in the dark as the disciples were to how God was going to do this.

The foundations of the Gospel were laid down in Genesis three as God pronounces judgments on the serpent, Eve and Adam.  Notice that He promises that a Seed of the Woman would come forth to crush the Serpent’s head.  He would no longer have dominion over humanity.  This is a kind of proto-Gospel.  Through the Old Testament more and more definition is given to what and how God would save humanity.  We can imagine David coming into Abraham’s Bosom and sharing with those who were there all that God had revealed in his day.  Isaiah would enter one day and share what God had showed him.  Yet Jesus coming into Abraham’s Bosom would not just lead the spirits into heaven without some kind of explanation of what had happened.

The New Testament even speaks of Abraham and Israel having the Gospel preached to them in the sense of a proto-Gospel.  Galatians 3:8 says this about Abraham, and Hebrews 4:2 expresses this sense about Israel in the wilderness.

This second view sees that sharing good news with even the dead is not the only thing in view.  The whole dynamic of Jesus going into the grave in order to bring the righteous spirits held in the grave (awaiting the price to be paid for their sins and justification) and lead them into the presence of the Father is part of the purpose of God.

This faithfulness that has happened already is part of the confidence we can have in the midst of suffering.  God will not and has not left us at the mercy of wicked men, treated as lambs for the slaughter.  Instead, God wants to use our suffering and especially how we do it in order to make peace possible with his enemies, our enemies.

The spiritual life we have in Christ while we are in the flesh will not cease when our bodies die.  Our spirits will then live before the Father in heaven until the time of resurrection comes.  Then, we will have glorified, spiritual bodies in which we will be “like the angels.”  This is the sure, proven hope that believers have when facing suffering in this life.  May God strengthen us as we live for him in this lost world.

Our Witness 9 audio