1 Peter 4:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Peter 4:13

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Christ suffered and died for sinners. He bore away the punishment of sin for all who are his. We cannot share those sufferings; not to the smallest extent can we share in the atoning death of Christ, and of course, his atoning sufferings are finished. But he has left a work for his people to do in the world, which will involve their suffering. The bringing of sinners to Christ will involve derision, scorn, attacks and suffering of various kinds to a differing degree throughout the history of the gospel age. When therefore we are persecuted, we are sharing that part of Christ’s sufferings, not the atoning part but the soul winning part. If I am scorned and belittled; if I am disadvantaged, or set aside in some way, then, by enduring that, I tell Christ I am his. I show him in a practical way that I love him and I will stand with him. I share his sufferings in the sense that I identify with him.Peter encourages believers by telling them that their sufferings give them fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ in sharing in his sufferings, who was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Not that Christ was without a deep underlying joy, for he said, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full’ (John 15:11). His joy came from obeying his Father and that joy was never taken from him whatever he had to suffer. But added to this joy and peace that protected his inner being was a great load of suffering. The extent to which we share in his suffering is in the hands of a sovereign God, but as the Lord told his disciples, ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you’ (John 15:18). It is impossible that the world which hates God should have a different attitude to his faithful disciples, for they remind the world too much of their master. We are bound to be scorned, set at nought, and rejected, because our very lives, and our testimony, and dependence upon the Lord are an offence to people who are in unbelief. Now that Christ is out of range, the devil directs his hatred towards believers who are still in the zone of temptation and suffering, but only until Christ returns.

Application

The fact that people are so against us means that our lives have said something, even if I feel guilty because I haven't actually witness to those people. I haven't said very much. I haven't served the Lord in that way. But the very fact that they are against me shows that they know I am his, and that I love him.

Like Paul, Peter exhorts us to rejoice at all times, even when we endure suffering. God never tells us to rejoice without good reason, for joy cannot be sustained without a cause, and Christians are to be realists. Our constitution will not allow us to fabricate joy, for if we try to form any emotion in our hearts without a solid basis, it will be like a bubble which reaches a certain size and then bursts leaving nothing behind. The emotions are a responding faculty of the soul; they should not lead, but follows the thoughts of the mind. They therefore need fuel in order to operate – truths that the mind can appreciate. But if God knows that joy can only arise from real perceived blessing, why does he command us to rejoice when things are at their worst? Because although the world cannot see it, there is great gain for the believer in passing through trials. This is the conclusion that this command in this particular situation allows us to draw. When the Lord returns, his children will have the joy of knowing that they have been faithful and have stood by him at the time of greatest difficulty. They will have no doubt about their own inner disposition. They will be able to look their Lord in the eye and to say that, although they were not free from sin, his Spirit so worked in their hearts that they put their Lord and his interests about their personal gain. They have exchanged things that were passing away anyway for things that will never pass away. The Christian to some extent lives in the future and borrows from the future, sharing his current experiences with his future self who will see them in a quite different light.

What a time is coming, ‘when Christ's glory is revealed’. What will it be like when Christ's glory is revealed? What does your mind go to? Do you try to imagine in terms of some of the biblical information? But they are only symbols. We read of the rainbow around the throne, and the lights, and the stones that glow. Do we try to imagine something like that: the glory of Christ? Let me suggest a different direction. When we see the glory of Christ, this is the kind of thing that will become real to us: we will see the praise of heaven and the angelic hosts, and all those who have gone before us, some of whom we have loved and known, some of whom are the distant figures of the Bible, and the great personalities of church history. What will come home to us so powerfully and so mightily is their love for him. He is the visible member of the Godhead in glorified human form, beyond our powers to understand and see now. But we will see that great wave of love and esteem that all have for him. We could never have taken it in on earth, but then we will have a sense of the price that he paid for us all. We will see and realise the power of Christ, the extent of the transformation he has accomplished within us and countless others. His glory will be the sum total of all his achievements, his power, his kindness, the sound of his voice, his holiness, all his eternal attributes, which we shall appreciate as never before.

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1 Peter 4:13 Commentary and Bible Study