1 Peter 4:6 - For this Reason

“For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.”

Just so you know, today’s devotional will be a little longer than usual. This is a difficult passage and I’m using it as an example of how to dissect a passage of scripture for your personal study. I’ll take you through my thought process so you can see how I arrived at my conclusion and maybe it will help you as you work through challenging passages.

The first step when you encounter a challenging passage is to take the verse in context of the surrounding verses and the book as a whole. Peter wrote this book to encourage the persecuted church, or the church that was about to persecuted. Not that an author cannot change themes in the midst of a book, but it gives you a place to start.

Commentaries are a great help for this. I prefer to think and pray through the passage before I use outside help – the Holy Spirit teaching you in the best commentary. But reading the thoughts of Godly men and women who have spent their lives studying the bible is a very useful tool. Here are a few on-line resources for bible study: biblos.com, biblegateway.com, studylight.org, and bible.org. Each site is a little different and while I cannot vouch for every commentary, they seem solid at an initial glance. By the way, commentators are human, so don’t take what they say as the gospel truth – even the best scholars get things wrong.

Second, “For this is the reason…” is a good statement to begin with. Anytime a reason is explicitly stated, you have a great head start. The gospel was preached so that those who are now dead might be judged. 1 Peter 4:5 tells us that Jesus will judge the living and the dead. Have you thought about that? The reason the gospel is preached is so that we may all be judged in the light of God’s gospel. Those who believe will be judged righteous and have relationship with God. Those who refuse to believe will be judged accordingly.

Third, you have to decide if “preached to those who are now dead” means those who are dead physically or spiritually. Your answer to that question will take you down very different paths. Since Peter just finished talking about people who were physically dead, we can safely assume he is still talking about the physically dead.

Fourth, its time to tackle the big question. Did Jesus preach to the disembodied souls in Hades who died before having the opportunity to hear the gospel? It’s very possible. Peter just finished talking about preaching to the disobedient spirits from Noah’s time. Or is Peter talking about Christians who had died after hearing the gospel preached? The gospel was preached to them, they accepted it, and have since died.

Of the two, I lean toward the second statement simply because it fits with the theme of 1 Peter – encouragement to the persecuted church. This would be an encouraging message to people who could be facing death at any moment for their faith in Christ.

To finish out the verse, if you are “judged according to men in regards to the body”, or if non-believing men kill you for your faith, Christ, as your ultimate judge, will declare you righteous in regard to your eternal spirit. Those who have died bodily in the faith live on with God in Spirit. If you are killed bodily for your faith, you will live eternally with God in the Spirit. That is good news – especially for those who face persecution.

Am I 100% positive that is the proper interpretation for that passage? No. It could mean several other things. But this interpretation fits with the theme of 1 Peter and with the Bible as a whole. That brings me to the final thing to remember; hold your interpretation loosely because you might be wrong. It’s okay to be convinced and to stick to your guns, but you should never use your interpretation as a hammer to bludgeon others into submission. Humility is the best way to approach bible interpretation…

So what is the take away from this verse? Regardless of your interpretation, this truth remains. God is the God of the living and the dead. Once you die, you are not free of God’s dominion – is the God of everything, everywhere, and at every time. We will all be judged in the light of our response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. How will you be judged? How about your friends and family? Why not use this holiday season to find out…