1 Peter 4:2

4:1-6 The strongest and best arguments against sin, are taken from the sufferings of Christ. He died to destroy sin; and though he cheerfully submitted to the worst sufferings, yet he never gave way to the least sin. Temptations could not prevail, were it not for man's own corruption; but true Christians make the will of God, not their own lust or desires, the rule of their lives and actions. And true conversion makes a marvellous change in the heart and life. It alters the mind, judgment, affections, and conversation. When a man is truly converted, it is very grievous to him to think how the time past of his life has been spent. One sin draws on another. Six sins are here mentioned which have dependence one upon another. It is a Christian's duty, not only to keep from gross wickedness, but also from things that lead to sin, or appear evil. The gospel had been preached to those since dead, who by the proud and carnal judgment of wicked men were condemned as evil-doers, some even suffering death. But being quickened to Divine life by the Holy Spirit, they lived to God as his devoted servants. Let not believers care, though the world scorns and reproaches them.

1 Peter 4:2 . Εἰς τὸ , that he may live ) for it is connected with the words, He has obtained cessation . There is a connection between the word in the flesh , 1 Peter 4:1 , and in the flesh , 1 Peter 4:2 . Sin , 1 Peter 4:1 , shows itself in the desires [lusts], and suffering in the flesh reminds the man that the rest of his time in the flesh is at length about to have an end.— ἀνθρώπων , of men ) those of yourselves and others.— ἐπιθυμίαις , lusts or desires ) of various kinds: but the will of God is perfect. There is the same antithesis, 1 John 2:17 .— βιῶσαι ) to live . An appropriate word. It is not used of the brute creation.

In the flesh; i.e. in the body, meaning his natural life: flesh is here taken in a third sense, different from the two former: so Galatians 2:20 Philippians 1:22 . By the lusts of men, he means the corrupt desires and sinful ways of carnal men, to which they were not to conform themselves, or make them the rule of their living, Romans 12:2 1 Corinthians 3:3 Colossians 2:8 Titus 1:14 . But to the will of God; the holy will of God revealed to us in his law, (which is the rule by which we are to walk), in opposition to the lusts of men; we are to live not as men would have us, but as God commands us.

1 Peter 4:2 . Christians who were baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection ( Romans 6:2-11 ) are not taken out of the world at once ( John 17:15 ); they have to live in the flesh but not to the flesh, because they have been born not of the will of the flesh nor of man but of God ( John 1:13 ). Their duty is to their new Father.— εἰς τό … gives the result of ὅτι κ . τ . λ . which must be achieved by, and is therefore also the object of, the required ornament.

2. That he, &c.—"That he (the believer, who has once for all obtained cessation from sin by suffering, in the person of Christ, namely, in virtue of his union with the crucified Christ) should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God" as his rule. "Rest of his time in the flesh" (the Greek has the preposition "in" here, not in 1Pe 4:1 as to Christ) proves that the reference is here not to Christ, but to the believer, whose remaining time for glorifying God is short (1Pe 4:3). "Live" in the truest sense, for heretofore he was dead. Not as Alford, "Arm yourselves … with a view no longer to live the rest of your time."

2 . that he no longer should live the rest of his time ] The Greek form of the sentence points rather to the result than to the purpose of sufferings so borne, but the result in this case was one which implied a divine purpose. The “lusts” or “desires” of men are pointedly contrasted with “the will of God,” the wild restless cravings with the calm and fixed purpose. It is not without significance to remember that St Paul, in an Epistle which St Peter had clearly seen, had written “This is the will of God, even our sanctification” ( 1 Thessalonians 4:3 ), and that St Peter himself teaches “He is not willing that any should perish” ( 2 Peter 3:9 ).

Verse 2. - That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh. On the whole, it seems better to connect this clause with the imperative: "Arm yourselves with the same mind, that ye no longer should live the rest of your time;" rather than with the clause immediately preceding: "He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live," etc.; though both connections give a good sense. The Greek word for "live" ( βιῶσαι ) occurs only here in the New Testament. Bengel says, "Aptum verbum, non die fur de brutis.' "In the flesh " here means simply "in the body," in this mortal life. " The rest of your time" suggests the solemn thought of the shortness of our earthly pilgrimage: bye for eternity. To the lusts of men, but to the will of God. The datives are normal; they express the pattern or rule according to which our life ought to be fashioned. God's will is our sanctification ( 1 Thessalonians 4:3 ). That will is ever the same, a fixed, unchanging rule; the lusts of men are shifting, uncertain, restless. 1 Peter 4:2

Ecclesiastes THE PAST AND THE FUTUREEcclesiastes 1:9 . - 1 Peter 4:2 - 1 Peter 4:3 . If you will look at these two passages carefully you will, I think, see that they imply two different, and in some respects contradictory, thoughts about the future in its relation to the past. The first of them is the somewhat exaggerated utterance of a dreary and depressing philosophy, which tells us that, as in the outer world, so in regard to man’s life, there is an enormous activity and no advance, that it is all moving round like the scenes in some circular panorama, that after it has gone the round back it comes again, that it is the same thing over and over again, that life is a treadmill, so to speak, with an immense deal of working of muscles; but it all comes to nothing over again. ‘The rivers run into the sea and the sea is not full, and where the rivers come from they go back to; and the wind goes to the south, turns to the north, and whirls about continually.

Everything is full of labour, and it has all been done before, and there is nothing fresh; everything is flat, stale, and unprofitable.’ Well that is not true altogether, but though it be not true altogether-though it be an exaggeration, and though the inference that is built upon it is not altogether satisfactory and profound-yet the thought itself is one that has a great deal in it that is true and important, and may be very helpful and profitable to us now; for there is a religious way, as well as an irreligious way, of saying there is nothing new under the sun. It may be the utterance of a material, blase , unprofitable, spurious philosophy, or it may be the utterance of the profoundest, and the happiest, and the most peaceful religious trust and confidence. The other passage implies the opposite notion of man’s life, that however much in my future may be just the same as what my past has been, there is a region in which it is quite possible to make to-morrow unlike to-day, and so to resolve and so to work as that ‘the time past of our lives’ may be different from ‘the rest of our time in the flesh’; that a great revolution may come upon a man, and that whilst the outward life is continuous and the same, and the tasks to be done are the same, and the joys the same, there may be such a profound and radical difference in the spirit and motive in which they are done as that the thing that has been is not that which shall be, and for us there may be a new thing under the sun