Audio Transcript
If you’ve been reading your Bible for some time, you know there are Bible texts that seem simple and straightforward until you begin to study the details. And then what you thought it meant isn’t so clear. We arrive at such a Bible text in 1 Peter as we read this epistle together in the second half of October in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan. Peter tells us that “whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” And that raises one obvious question. Today on Ask Pastor John: Can my pain kill my sins?
It’s a question from a pastor who writes this: “Dear Pastor John, in counseling church members who are enduring fiery trials, I frequently turn to 1 Peter to help them navigate their pain. Whenever I come to 1 Peter 4:1, ‘Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,’ I am perplexed. This seems like a very precious promise for learning how to win the victory over our own sin. Perhaps the pain we feel is killing the sin within us? How would you preach and apply this text — this truth — to your church?”
I have at least two friends who have written commentaries on 1 Peter who take a viewpoint on 1 Peter 4:1 that I have tried and tried to agree with. My respect for these men is super high, but I stumble every time I try to get on board with this interpretation, and I respect these brothers so highly I don’t take their interpretations lightly. They may be right. So, I’m going to tell you what they think and then give you another possibility that I’m more inclined to.
In the end, they both come out to the same kind of Christian commitment and behavior, but the way they get there — the way we get there using the verse — is pretty different. Neither is theologically false, but the question is, “What’s the immediate context doing?”
Maligned for Godliness
First Peter 4:1 says, “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” So, the questions are these:
- What does it mean when he says Christians have “suffered in the flesh” like Jesus?
- And what does it mean that, because of that, they have “ceased from sin”?
The view that I have trouble agreeing with sees suffering in the flesh as persecution from unbelievers because we have stopped following them into paths of sin. So, our persecution or suffering in the flesh becomes evidence that we have ceased from sin. That makes sense. Here’s an actual quote from one of the commentaries that I like very much; I’d go to it in a minute for help. It says, “They should prepare themselves to suffer, seeing the commitment to suffer as evidence that they have broken with a life of sin” (1 & 2 Peter and Jude, 201).
And the basis for that understanding is in verse 4, which says, “With respect to this” — maybe this new lifestyle of godliness that you have as a Christian — “[unbelievers] are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you” (1 Peter 4:4). So, that maligning is seen as the suffering that is the evidence of the Christians now having broken with sin. They have ceased from sin, and that’s why they’re being maligned. They no longer join the unbelievers in the flood of debauchery.
So, the words in verse 1, “Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,” are taken to mean “Whoever is willing to be maligned for godliness gives evidence of having ceased from sin.”
It may well be that’s right — maybe so. Certainly, there’s nothing theologically wrong about it. But I want to suggest another interpretation that I think fits the wording of 1 Peter better.
Dying to Sin
I want to suggest that the words “Christ suffered in the flesh” from verse 1 refer to his death, and our suffering in the flesh, therefore, refers to our dying with Christ in his death so that we die to sin or cease from sin in that way. And here’s my rationale.
Four verses before this, in 1 Peter 3:18, Peter says, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” So, Christ’s suffering once for sins and his being put to death in the flesh are the same. When 1 Peter 4:1 says that “Christ suffered in the flesh,” it very likely means he died. The phrase “put to death in the flesh” in 3:18 sounds very similar to the phrase “suffered in the flesh” in 4:1.
What we’re dealing with here in 4:1 is not only suffering but death — Christ’s death and our death. “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh [that is, he died], arm yourselves with the same way of thinking [namely, that you too die with him and in him], for whoever has suffered in the flesh [that is, died with him] has ceased from sin.” The power of sin has been broken. We have died decisively to sin. It doesn’t have dominion over us anymore.
“The power of sin has been broken. We have died decisively to sin. It doesn’t have dominion over us anymore.”
Then — I mean, this is what swings it for me — the amazing confirmation that this may well be the way Peter is thinking in 1 Peter 2:24: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” So, when Christ suffered and died on the cross, we died in union with him, and the explicit link Peter makes is the same as in 4:1. If we suffer with Christ this way — namely, in his death — then we die to sin, and that death to sin leads to real triumph over sin’s dominion, so we live a life of righteousness.
Join Christ
Here’s my understanding of 1 Peter 4:1. The first part of the verse says, “Christ suffered in the flesh.” I take that to mean he died, and 2:24 and 3:18 make clear he died for our sin. He died to take away sin, both its guilt and its practice.
Then the last part of verse 1 says, “Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” I take that to refer to our dying with Christ and the fact that the guilt and the power of our sin has been broken. It ceased, and we now live in God’s favor and walk in righteousness. The link between the first part of verse 1 and the last part of verse 1 is, “Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking,” which I take to mean, “Join Christ in his mindset to die to sin and to be done with it, because you have died with him.”
One of the criticisms of this interpretation is that it looks like a subtle way of smuggling Paul’s theology into Peter, because this is exactly the way Paul talks. Here’s Romans 6:6: “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
Now, I think that’s exactly what Peter meant, and I don’t say that because I want Peter to say what Paul said. I say it because 1 Peter 3:18 and 1 Peter 2:24 seemed to me to illuminate 1 Peter 4:1 exactly the way Paul would illuminate it.
So, my interpretive paraphrase of 1 Peter 4:1 goes like this: Since Christ suffered and died in his body to overcome the guilt and power of sin in his people, take heart and arm yourself with the reminder that he died for you and you died with him to sin, because whoever has suffered in the flesh — that is, whoever has died with Christ — has in fact been set free from the guilt of sin and has ceased to be dominated by its power.
