As Peter begins again to deal with his main theme, he picks up the thought left at 3:18, and urges Christians to live in the light and the power of the victory of Christ over sin and death.

v.1 The sense seems to be this. Just as Christ suffered and died for sin when he was on the earth and so will never have to deal with sin again, so Christians must suffer now in this life, while they are in the body, so that they may have the same final victory over sin. As Christ's death emancipated them from the rule of sin, so now it is theirs to live in that freedom from sin. Throughout the section of the letter leading up to this point, Peter has been comparing the situation of these Christians to that of their Savior and have been urging upon them an imitation of him and a life lived in the victory that he won for them.

v.3 A clear indication that these Christians were formerly Gentiles, not Jews.

v.4 It has long been observed that the lives of righteous people are an affront to the unrighteous because they amount to an unspoken criticism and judgment, the proof that men and women can live as they should live. Men know down deep how they ought to live, but they do not wish to live that way. They love their sins. So when someone comes along who rejects the sinful life and lives righteously he pricks the conscience of the sinful and makes them feel guilty and then angry because this man who lives righteously has made them to feel bad about themselves. He's to blame. By refusing to participate in their behavior he has as much as called them to account for it.

I'm using the terms "sinful" and "righteous", of course, in a definite sense. "Sinful" doesn't mean "as bad a possible" and "righteous" doesn't mean perfect. The terms refer to the fundamental orientation of one's life -- either toward or away from sin -- and the visible if not complete manifestation of that orientation in one's behavior. Righteous people still commit many sins, of course; and sinful people do some things that are, in and of themselves, good. But the difference between them is so profound the Bible is willing to speak of them in these categorical terms: "sinners" and "righteous."

v.5 They enjoy their sins, but they will pay for them in the end. "There are no greater miseries than false joys." Bernard. [A principle built into the very fabric of life. "The deceitful pleasures…"]

v.6 The reference is to the Christians in these churches who have already died. But because they believed the gospel and lived according to it, because they put off their sins in Christ's name while they were alive in the world, we can be sure of their salvation and eventual resurrection to eternal life. The "live to God in the spirit" is like the "made alive in the spirit" in 3:18, which is a reference to Christ's resurrection.

To the casual observer it may seem that the gospel had no effect. Christians die just like other people. And from a human viewpoint, they may not even be popular in the world because of their lifestyle. But the gospel is a message of final victory over sin and death and of eternal life in a spiritual world, that is eternal and sinless world of glory.

Just as Christ was judged and condemned by men, but rose to everlasting life, so Christians may have to suffer as he did, but they will also share in his triumph!

* * * * *

Now, there is nothing particularly difficult in the teaching of these six verses. I mean, we have no difficulties of interpretation such as we had to face in 3:19-20 or difficulties of application, such as we faced with a phrase like "baptism saves you" in 3:21. In fact, Peter's argument in the opening verses of chapter 4 is quite conventional. That is, it is very much like quite a number of other passages in the New Testament. They have this same character about them: "you were once a pagan, living according to sinful desires, but now that you have found Christ, you have both the power and the freedom to live a holy life, and Christ will not fail to smile on your effort to do so."

Even the details are conventional. For example, the catalog of sins mentioned in 4:3 is very similar to the lists given in Romans 13:13 and Galatians 5:19-21. In all three cases sexual sins and drunkenness are front and center and both Galatians and 1 Peter mention idolatry. Many of the Greek words are the same.

So the trick for us here, as usually in the Bible, is not to figure out what Peter means. That is plain enough. Our task is to realize in a new and fresh and lasting way how impressive and wonderful and life-changing and terribly demanding this "ordinary" New Testament teaching is. We know that Christians are saved to live their lives for God. We know that Christ redeemed us that we should be holy people, eager to do what is good. We know that he gives us, by his Spirit, power to resist the desires of this world and live according to the will of God. We also know that that resistance is no small matter, but takes a great deal out of us. So much, in fact, that sometimes we grow tired of constantly having to stand against sinful desires and give in to them almost completely. But we know that when we stand before the Lord we are going to want, very much want, want more than we have wanted anything in all our lives, to have lived worthy of the grace and salvation we have received, to have lived our lives, as Paul says, "making the teaching about God our Savior attractive" by the faithfulness, the purity, and the love with which we lived for him in the world. We will then regret, if we do not regret it enough now, every failure to keep the commandments of our loving heavenly Father, every failure to reject evil human desires so as to live for the will of God.

We know all of that, or we should. We certainly know it to some degree if we are real Christians. But how to bring it home to the heart? How to make this pure theology, this pure doctrine, this truth as it is in Jesus Christ, live in our consciences and direct and govern our lives? That is the question.

And Peter's answer seems to be: by candor in speaking of sin and righteousness, refusing to allow these great and terrible issues to be dulled and muted by polite speech and words that sound spiritual but have no bite.

Not so the Bible and not so Peter here. He tells Christians not to live in debauchery, lust and drunkenness, not to go to orgies or spend their time carousing or in detestable idolatry. The last may be less a reference to one more vice than to the social context in which the other evils often took place -- religious rites where drinking and sexual license abounded. Feasts with religious overtones often degenerated into drinking parties which then degenerated into orgies.

We are almost mildly offended that Peter should speak that way. "Of course we are not going to do that! We are Christians!" Many today might wonder why Peter didn't address himself to more sweeping evils, particularly evils by which the poor and defenseless were disadvantaged. Why not abortion or hard-bargaining in a business, or dishonest and unethical dealing? Or, still more, why not the great social issues that stained the public life of the world of that day -- slavery, the treatment of women, the huge disparity between the poor and the rich, unjust government, punitive taxation, and the like?

After all, we also live in such an just society today. No one has ever lived in a society so much like that of the Roman world in the first century as we do in the Western world today. We are coming to the end of the 20th century in which, on a scale hitherto unknown in human history, men perpetrated massive injustices on mankind, supposedly seeking to use the power of the state to improve the world. The Nazis planned to cleanse the human race by eugenics, eliminating Jews, gypsies, slavs, and other "Untermenschen", while the Communists intended to eliminate, for the sake of the world, the exploiters among the bourgeoisie, and introduce a new man without acquisitive and selfish instincts. Both involved mega-murder and both brought down upon the head of mankind more suffering and a more exquisite cruelty than it had ever seen before. Men were determined to make up their own laws and rule by their own principles, rejecting what they contemptuously saw as the out-moded and oppressive law of God.

But the new century and the new millennium face a similar threat. Not now, not at this moment, the all-powerful state being manipulated on behalf of some grand eschatology, some vision of the future, but rather innovators who plan to use new technologies to improve the human condition. These people think in much the same way as the Nazis and the Communists did: they have a contempt for absolutes in truth or in morals, they believe that all ethics should be relative and that they should be free to foist on mankind their vision of the future. All kinds of fundamental certainties will come under attack in the coming years -- the special nature and value of human life, the respect that every human being owes to every other, the evil of making use of another human being to promote one's own socio-political agenda and on and on. Fringe groups some years ago are now moving into the mainstream: advocates of euthanasia, for example, or the cloning of human beings for spare parts, or animal rights advocates who do not see any significant difference between animals and human beings, or any transcendent character at all to human life.

For example, you read in your newspaper yesterday that Ingrid Newkirk, the Founder of PETA ("People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals"), an organization that nowadays is being mentioned regularly in the news and often favorably, has said, "Six million Jews died in concentration camps but six billion broiler chicken will die this year in slaughterhouses." The one thing is the same as the other, if the case of the chickens is not worse!

Are not those the greater sins of our day? Are not those the real threats to human life and society? Why didn't Peter address all of that? Instead he orders us not to be drunks or to engage in sexual license.

Well, the Bible has a great deal to say about heretical ideas and grand injustices of all kinds and can speak as frankly, as bluntly about those sins as about these. But Peter is hitting these folk where they live every day. They are not slave holders and they are not power brokers in the empire. The Christian life always begins in the personal, private dimension of life and moves outward toward society from there. And they have appetites and desires that are sometimes very difficult to hold in check, even though as Christians they know they should and that the Lord Christ expects them to! And those particular appetites are being whetted all the time by the speech and the behavior of people all around them every day. They lived in a radioactively sensual and pleasure oriented culture, as we do today.

Peter makes no bones about the fact that their life must be very different, so different indeed, that it will inevitably prove offensive to people around them. "What, our life isn't good enough for you?" "You think you are so much better than we are?" "These things we do, these things everybody does in our world, are beneath you?" Like the men of Sodom when Lot refused to participate with them in their evil, "This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge." All Lot had done was to refuse to have a part in their evil, but they saw it, as people always will, as a condemnation of them and their life style -- as, indeed, it is.

Christian preaching has very often through the ages held the attention of Christians and helped them with their temptations and strengthened them to answer Christ's summons to holiness and purity of life precisely by being as candid as the Bible and as straightforward and as particular about sin and temptation and the way in which righteousness must work itself out in a Christian's own personal life, and the way in which that righteousness must set the followers of Christ over against their society, their culture. One of Alexander Whyte's favorite phrases was "generalia non pungunt", that is, "generalities don't penetrate, they don't prick the conscience." Herod heard John the Baptist gladly until the great preacher descended to particulars and began to deal with Herod's having married his brother's wife. Then he wanted John's head.

Peter is descending to particulars here himself. The famous John Chrysostom, perhaps the greatest preacher of early Christianity, sometimes embarrassed his huge congregations by the frankness with which he spoke about their moral lives. Here he is, in a sermon preached on July 13, A.D. 399, dealing with the sexual temptations that Christian people subject themselves to in the theater. We would speak of television and movies today, movies seen in theaters and movies watched at home.

"Even in the street a man's self-control can be knocked off balance when he passes a pretty woman, but in the theatre his eyes are fixed on a slut shamelessly parading her charms, singing lewd songs, making suggestive movements and gestures. Of course he falls under her spell, for his body is only flesh and blood, and in his imagination he slips into having sex with her. Nor is that all: when the theatre shuts its doors and he returns home, he in effect takes her with him, for he cannot get her glances, the swaying of her body, her provocative poses out of her mind. So besotted is he with these sexual fantasies that his wife and family seem dull and commonplace by comparison and, as the blaze the temptress has kindled spreads, the stability of his home and the happiness of his marriage go up in smoke." [Kelly, Golden Mouth, 135]

Chrysostom was even more frank when speaking about the sexual relationship that should characterize the love of a husband and a wife and how the pleasure of that act, as he says in one sermon, "fusing and commingling their two bodies just as when we pour myrrh into olive oil," accomplishes their union and welds the two spouses together. "There is no need," he said, "to blush when talking openly about marriage which is an honorable estate and an image of the presence of Christ." [134-135] I remember years ago being under a minister who was magnificently straightforward and direct in applying the Bible to certain areas of life, but not here. He would skip over parts of the Song of Songs as he read the book from the pulpit because he thought them too explicit and too sensual. No, that was not right. The Bible deals with life explicitly and honestly and so it deals with sex directly, and speaks about it as explicitly and as powerfully as it must to bring home the truth of God's goodness and holiness to this so powerful part of life.

The Bible is full of the sins of drunkenness and of sexual unchastity. And it is full of the proper enjoyment of wine and of the importance of a sexually fulfilling marriage. If we are followers of Christ, if our lives are to reflect his holiness and goodness, if we are to imitate him in living for the will of God, we will have to do it here, in these ways of moderation and chastity, in sobriety and in a sexual life, rich and full of pleasure, but confined to our marriage.

Now, see, all of you are paying attention! Isn't that interesting! You always do when I speak from Holy Scripture about drinking and about sex. God knows that; Peter knew that! This is where human beings live. It has so much to do with their happiness and the fruitfulness of their lives. And it has so much to do with the divide that separates Christians from non-Christians. It certainly does in our society and increasingly so.

Sexual chastity outside of marriage, a sexual life strictly limited to hetero-sexual marriage are increasingly bizarre notions in our culture. Every TV show, every movie simply now assumes that normal human beings will give expression to their sexual desires in sexual relationships with others and that it is right for them to do so. It is considered cruel oppression to demand that people suppress these desires. And what shall we say of the penchant of our culture for drunkenness, either that brought about by drinking or that by drugs.

But not so Christians. No one should enjoy God's gifts more than his own people. Whether that gift is the pleasure of sexual love -- of which the Bible itself speaks in the most rapturous terms in Proverbs and in the Song of Songs and elsewhere -- or of the taste and effect of good food and drink. But, Christians, followers of Christ, participants in his victory over sin and death, those who love God and aspire to do his will, to live in a way that pleases him and mirrors his beautiful holiness, I say, Christians must stand completely apart from the misuse and the corruption of these good gifts which is everywhere the way of our culture. We must resist the enticements of a world that loves pleasure but not God, a world that has no thought for the judgment day, a world that does not recognize the true nature of sin or of God's holiness, of the true evil and corrupting power of sin or the goodness and blessedness and happiness and wholeness of life that comes from doing the will of God.

So great is this divide, that when Christians live pure and holy lives in respect to drinking and sex, lives that will have the approval of a God who looks upon the heart! -- I say, when Christians enjoy God's gifts without abusing them, when they are a sober but a happy people who take the good and do not corrupt it, when Christians obviously are in love with their spouses in a wonderfully happy and powerful way -- the way that sexual pleasure is designed by God to foster and preserve -- when

Christians practice with cheerfulness and fulfillment of life a sexual life that is confined to marriage alone, to the union of husband and wife alone, and obviously get the good and the pleasure and the happiness of that -- they will be a people apart. As much as they were in Peter's day, so in ours they will be, you will be a people apart.

It isn't the whole of the Christian life, of course. Peter knows that. He is going on, in the next verses, to speak of many other ways that Christians are to seek the will of God in their lives, many other parts of the obedience and service they owe to God. In those ways too their lives will move apart from the lives of those who do not know God. But these two ways, with which Peter begins, were then and are now two extraordinarily important parts of that godliness that not only distinguishes Christians in the world, but forces non-Christians to reckon with the difference. Often they will not like it and will criticize Christians for it. But they will someday have to give an account, and, in the meantime, we will prove to them that God's way is always the happiest, the most fruitful, the most fulfilling way.

I don't say it is easy to live for God's will. It is not. It was not for Christ and it will not be for us. But that it is right, and that the man or woman will be blessed who seeks God's will above all -- of that there can be no doubt.

I worship Thee, sweet will of God!
    And all thy ways adore,
And every day I live, I seem
    To love thee more and more.

Thou wert the end, the blessed rule
    Of Jesus' toils and tears;
Thou wert the passion of his heart
    Those three and thirty years.

He always wins who sides with God,
    To him no chance is lost;
God's will is sweetest to him when
    It triumphs at his cost.