“A Faithful Creator” (Peter 4:12-19) – Words from Peter to the Pilgrim Church (Part Ten)
We should never glory in trials and persecutions, as though these were good things–they are not, especially when others commit acts of evil toward us, or belittle us because of our faith in Christ, or mock us because we refuse to indulge the sinful flesh as they do. Rather, in the midst of trials, we give glory to God, because Jesus has suffered for us and in our place to save us from our sins.
Peter’s Desire to Comfort His Readers
Peter’s purpose in writing this epistle is to comfort persecuted Christians in Asia Minor, many of whom who have been displaced from their homes because of a decree from the Roman emperor Claudius. Peter reminds them that despite their struggles, in God’s eyes, they are elect exiles, citizens of heaven, and when worshiping together they compose God’s spiritual house (the church), even as they sojourn upon the earth until the day of final judgment when God will dispense his covenant blessings and curses.
Through a lengthy series of imperatives (commands), Peter told these struggling Christians how they are to differentiate themselves from the Greco-Roman pagans around them–through their profession of faith in the Triune God who sent his Son to die for his people’s sins, and through their honorable conduct before the pagans. Christians are to think and live as God’s people. They must live a life of self control, in contrast to their pagan neighbors who live to indulge every urge of the sinful flesh.
But even if Christians do all of the things Peter exhorts them to do, they should not be surprised if their struggles continue and the persecution they face remains intense. As Peter has stated in verse 4 of chapter 4, the pagans “are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you.” Evil-doers want nothing more than for professing Christians to join them in their self-indulgence. Having made this point in the first part of the chapter, Peter describes their troubles as a fiery trial, and a time of judgment. Yet, this is also a time in which God’s purposes will be realized, and through which these struggling Christians will grow in their faith.
We Should Not be Surprised by Trials
We conclude our time in chapter 4, as Peter acknowledges that his readers and hearers have been through very difficult times. So much so, that in verse 12, Peter writes, “beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” Some commentators take Peter’s statement as a warning of an impending calamity, and that extending this warning is the reason why Peter sends this letter to Christians of the Diaspora in Asia Minor [1]. On this reading, for those hearing/reading Peter’s letter, things have been bad, but they are about to get a whole lot worse. Peter is understood to be writing to warn them in advance so that his readers and hearers can prepare themselves for what is about to come.
Most commentators take the view–I think correctly–that verse 12 of chapter 4 begins a new section of the letter in which Peter is not warning of an impending trial, but is instead making the point that Christians must realize that professing faith in Christ, as they have been doing in the midst of a pagan culture, is itself a fiery trial [2]. In fact, Peter made this point clear back in chapter 1 vv. 6-8 when he wrote, “for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.”
The Christians to whom Peter is writing are being put to the test. They are undergoing a fiery trial–yet a trial with an important purpose. The time of trial is difficult in itself, but such trials are much worse if they are random with no discernible purpose to them. Peter’s point is to remind the Christians of Asia Minor that the fiery trial they are currently experiencing has a purpose, and that keeping this in mind will help them endure their trying circumstances.
Trials Are Part of God’s Purpose for His People
Peter knows that Christians who expect the Christian life to be a bed of roses, and one in which everyone will love them and think it wonderful that they are believers in Jesus Christ, are being utterly naive. Being a Christian while living among the pagans is a fiery trial in its own right. As Peter has already stated, God allows these trials to test us, so as to refine our faith like a metal worker uses a furnace to purify and strengthen the metals with which he works. Therefore the trials facing the Christians of the Diaspora are not random acts of a universe out of control. Rather, these trials are sent by God (in the sense of God allowing them), to test these Christian’s faith, and to refine them to even greater purity (holiness). Christians should keep in mind that all such trials have a purpose.
This is why Peter can tell his readers that Christians should “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” There is no prosperity gospel taught by the Apostle Peter. Peter is convinced of the reality that suffering and trials are often part of life in a fallen world. As our Savior endured his trial, so must we.
Although no one wants to suffer–and Peter is not teaching a form of masochism (finding joy in pain and suffering), or the Eastern Orthodox notion that we are saved from our sins to the degree we suffer and are purified from them in this life (as in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov)–suffering is one of the means God uses to strengthen our faith. Let me put it this way. Do you tend to seek God more when times are good, or when things go bad? Do you tend to pray more during times of trial or uncertainty, or in good times? God is not being mean to us, or punishing us, when he allows us to suffer and endure trials. Because God is with us in such trials, he uses them to draw us to himself, and so that we learn over the course of our lives to trust him more and more for those promises which we cannot see. The consequence from enduring these trials is that we will appreciate the good times and blessings and give thanks for them with the same fervor with which we seek God when things go wrong. This is how trials strengthen faith and draw us close to God.
Peter is not alone in using language of fiery trial. John warns of the fiery trials to come upon Babylon (Rome) in Revelation 18. There the image of a fiery trial is one of God’s judgment upon unbelievers. But Peter instead is using the metaphor as in Proverbs 27:21, where we read, “the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.” The refining fire draws out the dross and purifies us from the guilt and power of sin. This process increases our praise for God. The trials these Christians were experiencing were a refining process which reveals the genuineness of their faith and should not be seen as something unexpected. Christians know that such things will come because we live in a fallen world, and we should prepare for them well in advance.
Sharing in Christ’s Suffering
There is also another consequence of such trials. As Charles Cranfield reminds us, “those whose Christianity is not real vanish from the ranks at the approach of danger.”[3] This fact, no doubt, explains the decline in the vitality, numbers, and theological commitment among American evangelicals, now that American culture is increasingly secularized and Christians are losing some of our privileged status. Those who identify themselves as Christians, but who are truly not, will drop out quickly when they first encounter even a hint of persecution, or when someone criticizes them for their Christian beliefs.
But since Christians are believers in Jesus, who himself experienced suffering unto death upon the cross before being raised to glory on Easter Sunday, Christians cannot expect to follow a different path from that of their master. What is more, the degree to which we share in his suffering, is the degree to which he shares in ours [4]. This is why Peter can exhort his readers in verse 13, “but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” Here, the critical question is, “what does it mean to share in Christ’s suffering?” Throughout the New Testament, the phrase the “sufferings of Christ” refers to Jesus’ entire life–from the moment of his miraculous conception in the womb of the virgin until the moment of his death upon the cross. Because it is Jesus’ suffering which saves us from the guilt and power of sin, his suffering is said to be once for all. This is what theologians mean when speaking of Christ’s state of humiliation. Of course, we do not share in Christ’s redemptive work, except in the sense that because we are in union with Christ through faith, we share in the sense of receiving all of his saving benefits.
But there is a profound sense then that we share in Christ’s suffering because we share in his humiliation. If Jesus was hated because he was without sin in a world of sinners, we can expect the same treatment when we profess Jesus as Lord and trust in his suffering to save us from our sins. The irony is that Jesus encountered far more opposition at first from the self-righteous Jewish religious leaders than he did from the Jewish people. Yet, many of the people too eventually turned on Jesus when they realized that he had not come to deliver them from their hated Roman occupiers, whose soldiers were billeted adjacent to the Jerusalem temple and were constantly seen throughout the city and the nation.
Caesar Is Not A God
In the situation in which Peter’s audience finds itself–Greco-Roman paganism of Asia Minor–Christians are distrusted by the political authorities because they would not worship Caesar as a god, nor would they participate in the worship of the pantheon of gods, which dominated Greco-Roman life.
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Wisdom: Knowing When to Speak
Christ spoke with righteous anger to the Pharisees and to those making a mockery of the temple. There is a place for strong words and rebuke. The truth is important and shouldn’t be withheld, but the manner in which it is spoken can be the difference between war and peace. Next time we open our mouths to speak or move our fingers to tweet, an honest evaluation of our own heart and the possible outcomes should be our opening move.
It’s doubtfully a surprise to anyone to say that we live in an age of increasing division and polarization. This fact seems to accentuate the need for each of us to use wisdom in how we speak and engage with one another. It’s likely that each of us can look back at times in our lives when, in hindsight, we realize we should have kept our mouth shut, or perhaps we should have spoken up instead of remaining silent. This will probably be a lifelong struggle for many of us, but God has not left us to our own devices, trying to figure it out on our own. As with all the important aspects of life, He’s given us instruction in His Word, and in this specific case, true and perfect wisdom which we can utilize to tread this thorny path.
When seeking practical instruction about various aspects of life, Proverbs is always a great place to begin. One of the more famous proverbs comes in chapter 26. In verse 4, Solomon says “do not answer a fool according to his folly.” In a beautiful twist, immediately afterward in verse 5 he says, “answer a fool according to his folly.” This is not Solomon contradicting himself, but rather he is showing the wonderful intricacies of life in a fallen world. There are times when wisdom dictates that we speak up, but there are also times when wisdom dictates that we remain silent. The role of godly wisdom is to know the difference between the two, to accurately evaluate the situation one finds themselves in and know which path is the right one. It’s not an easy task, to be sure. Solomon adds weight to the dilemma just two verses later when he says that even the right message delivered in the wrong way is like cutting off your own feet. It’s not only counterproductive, but harmful to oneself.
More could be gleaned from Proverbs, but perhaps the clearest instruction on our speech comes in James 3. It is in this famous chapter that the epistle writer and brother of Christ Himself tells us about the dangers of the tongue. James uses some vivid analogies to show not only the power of the tongue, but the danger of it as well.
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The Potter’s Right Over the Clay
Jeremiah uses the authority-of-the-potter-over-the-clay metaphor to explain that God himself may change course and treat his people differently than he had predicted if they either repent from, or turn toward, evil. This point is especially striking in the background of Romans 9, where, even after calling unbelieving Israelites “not my people” and “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,” Paul goes on to express his heart’s desire and his prayer to God that they might still be saved (Rom 10:1). In other words, though the Lord has promised to uproot Israel and remove its branch from his tree (Rom 11:11-24), as soon as they repent and set their hope in Jesus the Messiah, he stands more than ready to smush their clay and begin again with them as a clean and holy vessel.
Earlier this week, I completed my 2022 Bible readthrough, which was nothing short of a delightful romp through the Scriptures. I always appreciate seeing what new connections the Lord may bring to my attention as I read rapidly.
And one thing that especially struck me this year was the potter metaphor used of the Lord throughout the prophets. This may have been on my mind because my church small group recently studied Romans 9 and discussed the potter metaphor in Rom 9:20-21. I had not fully considered before how Paul draws this imagery from the Old Testament.
When Paul says “Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’” (Rom 9:20), he appears to be drawing directly on Isaiah 29:16: “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?” The context of Isaiah 29 is that of God’s people drawing near to him in their rituals while their hearts remain far from him, attempting to hide from their maker their dark deeds. Paul uses it to support his larger point that not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Just because God made some people ethnically Jewish, but still exerts his wrath on their unbelief, does not make him unjust.
The connection I found even more interesting is that with Jeremiah 18:1-12, which I will quote in full:
The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel.
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Unredacted Jesus
I wonder sometimes if we redact Jesus because we aren’t fully convinced of his goodness. If we’re not totally sold on the truth that he has come to bring life and life to that full. We think that there’s an alternative, or an amalgam of Jesus teaching and the world’s, that is somehow better.
When you read through the gospels it’s amazing how often people want to redact Jesus. People want to edit what he says; the Pharisees want him to edit what he says about the Sabbath or the kingdom or the errors in their religion. The disciples want him to stop talking about the cross and his impending death, and everyone wants him to stop talking about the things that make them uncomfortable – his views on marriage, divorce, money and discipleship. They want the miracles working good teacher full of grace who doesn’t make them uncomfortable or challenge them too much on their sin or their societies move away from God’s word.
How does Jesus respond? He keeps teaching with authority. At times he withdraws to pray. He keeps on performing miracles accrediting his teaching as the very word God from the Son of God. He rebukes his disciples. He confronts the Pharisees and Sadducees and confounds their questioning and attempts to discredit him. Jesus won’t be redacted. He won’t change his teaching, he won’t be silenced on the things the people don’t want teaching on or which confronts the respectable sins of the day.
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