1 Peter 4:6

1 Peter 4:6. For to this end was the gospel preached also to the dead, in order that they might be judged indeed according to men as regards the flesh, but live according to God as regards the spirit. There is much difference of opinion as to the sense of individual terms in this obscure passage. The main points in dispute, however, are the time, scene, and subjects of this preaching. The preaching itself can be understood only as an offer of grace. It is expressed by the well-known verb which always means to ‘bring good news,' to ‘publish the Gospel,' etc. Does the passage, then, speak of an offer of grace made to men after they have entered the world of the dead? Many of the most influential interpreters of the present day hold strongly that it does. Not a few affirm that only dogmatic prepossession can account for the contrary opinion. It must be admitted that the prevalent view fairly meets some of the most pressing requirements of the exegesis, and that it establishes an easy connection with the preceding verse. For the whole statement then takes this form ‘Christ is ready to judge quick and dead; and with justice shall the dead, no less than the living, be judged by Him; for His Gospel is preached to all, in the other world, if not in this.' This interpretation, nevertheless, is burdened with very serious difficulties. Either this preaching in Hades is identified with the preaching mentioned in 1 Peter 3:19; in which case it is open to the objections already taken to the theory of a presentation of the Gospel, by the disembodied or quickened Redeemer, to the souls of the disobedient of Noah's time in Hades. Or it is supposed that Peter now states the general truth, of which that was only a particular illustration, namely, that, through Christ's visit to Hades, the Gospel is proclaimed to all, and that upon this basis Christ can righteously judge all, whether dead or living. But there are various considerations which tell against this reading of the verse. It does injustice, for example, to the time to which the preaching is referred. It disposes of the historical tense ‘was preached' as if it were ‘is preached,' or ‘shall be preached,' and of a Gospel ministry which is distinctly described as past, as if it were a continuous process. It involves the assumptions that the term ‘dead' must mean all the dead, and that what is given as the statement of an already accomplished fact is the statement of a general principle. It overlooks the circumstance that the act of being ‘judged according to men' is represented as subsequent to the preaching. It introduces an irrelevant idea, when it introduces the idea of its being a righteous thing that all men should be judged by Christ because, in the other world, if not in this, the Gospel shall first have been preached to all. For Peter is not dealing with any such question as to how it shall stand with those who have not heard the Gospel in this world, but with a plain case where the Gospel is known, the case where Christians are slandered by their heathen neighbours for their fidelity to the Gospel. It is difficult, too, to see how the idea in question bears upon the exhortation which Peter is pointing. How should the mention of a Gospel preached to the dead in the under world bear upon the position of living Christians who are misrepresented by living detractors in the upper world? What encouragement to patient endurance of heathen slander should Christians find in the information that their heathen persecutors are assured of a new period of favour in the other world? Or how should the mention of Christ's graciousness towards the unrighteous dead incite the righteous living to a persevering separation from heathen impurity? These considerations, and others of like kind, render this popular view of the passage very doubtful indeed. On the other hand, it must be frankly confessed that it is far from easy to make out an entirely satisfactory interpretation. All would run smoothly, indeed, if we could follow Augustine in taking the ‘dead' here in the sense of the spiritually dead. But, in spite of the twofold use of the term by our Lord Himself in the saying, ‘Let the dead bury their dead' (Matthew 8:22), it is impossible to give it a different meaning in 1 Peter 4:6 from what it has in 1 Peter 4:5. The use of the word ‘judge' in the one clause, is also the natural key to its use in the other. This makes it unlikely that Peter's ‘judged according to men' is parallel in sense to Paul's ‘delivering men to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus' (1 Corinthians 5:5), and ‘when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world' (1 Corinthians 11:32). It is generally agreed, therefore, that the judgment spoken of must mean more than either the mortification of the flesh, or the chastening of God, and that what is referred to is physical death as the penalty of sin, the judgment from which none, not even the saved, are exempt. Subjection to this judgment, however, merely qualifies the proper object of the preaching. The two things have something like this relation to each other ‘in order that, though once judged indeed, as other men are, as regards the flesh, they might, as regards the spirit, have an enduring life such as God lives.' The terms ‘in the flesh,' ‘in the spirit,' are used here as in 1 Peter 3:19. Taking all this together we have to choose between two interpretations, of which the one regards the heathen, the other the Christians, as the parties first in view. On the former interpretation the argument becomes this ‘Be not disturbed or led astray by your revilers; they have their account to give to Christ Himself, all of them, whether they be dead or living when He comes; for the object with which the Gospel was preached to those now departed, as it is preached to those now living, was to lead them to the life of God; and if they frustrate this object, it will only make their condemnation surer.' On the latter it amounts to this, ‘Have done for ever with the vile, pagan life; the heathen will persecute you, and justify their persecutions by reviling your character; be not moved by that. Christ is Judge, and the cause of all is safe with Him, of those who die, not less than of those who survive. Your brethren who have died have their case, nevertheless, secure with Him; for the very object with which the Gospel was preached to them was that, though in their bodies they met the doom of death which is common to men, yet in their spirits they should have a life like God's; and, should you have to suffer even unto death, it will be with you as it is with them.' This latter interpretation is on the whole to be preferred. It fits in with the idea of the previous verse and the counsels of the whole section. It does justice to the prominence given to this ‘life according to God in the spirit' as the great aim of the Gospel. It also points to feelings which (as we gather from Romans 8:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, etc.) were apt to disquiet the first converts, kindling as they did with the prospect of Christ's speedy return, namely, the perplexity caused by the non-exemption of Christians from death, ‘the wages of sin,' and the fear that those who died before Christ's coming should somehow suffer loss.