1 Peter 4:17

For the time is come. — The “for” (literally, because) seems to substantiate the whole of the former part of the section, from 1 Peter 4:12 onwards, but with special reference to the injunction to glorify God on the ground of bearing the name of Christians, upon which it follows in much the same way as “for the spirit of glory” followed upon “if ye be reproached... happy are ye.” The judgment is just about to begin, and all those who bear the name of Christians may well be thankful that they do.

That judgment. — It should be, that the judgment — i.e., the great judgment which we all expect. The word “begin,” however, shows that in St. Peter’s mind it would be a long process; and he probably does not distinguish in his mind between the “burning which is befalling for a trial” and the final judgment, except that that “burning” is but the beginning. (Comp. 1 Peter 4:5.)

Begin at the house of God. — The phrase contains an obvious reference to Ezekiel 9:6 (comp. also Jeremiah 25:29). Who are meant by the “house of God” is clear, not only from such passages as 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:4, but also from the immediate addition, “and if first at us.” We who are Chrestiani, who bear the mark of the Christ’s shame upon our foreheads, and are not ashamed of it, are quite safe in this judgment: “come not near any man upon whom is the mark.” The sense is a little closely packed. It seems as if St. Peter meant at first only to say, “Thank God that you are ‘Christians,’ for the judgment is just about to begin,” as something which only concerns the unbelievers; then, as an afterthought, he adds, “and begin, too, at the house of God,” by way of making the believers also feel the need of care.

And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be...? — It is more expressive to omit, with St. Peter, the verb “begin “: and if first at us. The argument is: “If we, who are the very household of God, must undergo this searching investigation first, what will happen, as the judgment nears its climax, to those who,” &c.? When he says “the end of those that obey not,” he does not mean exactly “the final doom of those that obey not,” as contrasted with “the end” of those that obey, or as contrasted with their own earlier opportunities: rather, “the end” is the end of the great process of judgment, as contrasted with the “beginning first at us.” The judging of the house of God has now gone on for eighteen hundred years, but it has not yet touched those who are without.

That obey not the gospel of God? — Rather, that disobey the gospel of God?. The word is the same which we have noticed several times (see Note on 1 Peter 3:1) as being peculiarly applied to the Jews. Now the object of this mysterious threat (which is made more terrible by being thrown into the form of a question) is not only to solace the persecuted by the thought of God being their avenger, but to warn them against slipping into the position of those thus threatened. The recipients of the Letter, we must recollect, were Jewish Christians, who were in a two-fold danger — either of relapsing sullenly into Judaism, or of plunging into heathen excesses, like the Nicolaitan school, under the notion that such things could not hurt the spiritually-minded. To meet these two forms of danger, the Apostle hints darkly at the punishment of the two classes in this phrase and in the verse following, precisely as St. Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 1:8 (see Note there), divides the wicked to be punished into Jew and Gentile, or, in Romans 2:9, still more particularly. And that he is thinking specially of unbelieving Jews in this place appears from the context in Ezekiel 9:6 (especially 1 Peter 4:9), where the separation to be effected is not between Jew and Gentile, but between Jew and Jew — those “that sigh and that cry for all the abominations” committed by Israel, and those that commit the abominations. As Bengel remarks, “The persecution of Nero was but a few years before the catastrophe of the Jews.”