📖 1 Peter Intensive — Unit 11: The Fiery Trial

Text: 1 Peter 4:12-19

Do Not Think the Fiery Trial Strange

Peter now returns to the great theme of the whole letter — suffering — and addresses it head-on. He calls his readers beloved, for he is about to speak tenderly to people in pain. "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you" (1 Peter 4:12). The first lesson is simply this: do not be surprised. The Christians receiving this letter were tempted to think that their suffering meant something had gone terribly wrong, that perhaps God had forsaken them. Peter corrects that at once. Suffering is not strange for the followers of a crucified Lord; it is the normal road. The word he uses, fiery trial, pictures suffering as a furnace. As we saw earlier in this letter, fire does not come to destroy the believer's faith but to test and refine it, as a refiner's fire purifies gold. The fire is real and hot, but it is not pointless, and it is not a sign of God's absence.

Then Peter says something the world can never understand. "But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy" (1 Peter 4:13). He does not merely tell them to endure; he tells them to rejoice. The reason is that in their suffering they are partaking of Christ's own sufferings, sharing in some small measure what their Lord endured for them. And there is a glory coming: when Christ's glory is revealed at His appearing, those who shared His sufferings will be glad with exceeding joy. So present pain and future joy are bound tightly together. The trial is not strange, not meaningless, and not the end of the story; it is a fellowship with Christ that leads to glory.

This was hard-won wisdom for the early church. These scattered believers had perhaps expected that coming to Christ would make life easier, and instead they found themselves slandered, shut out, and in some places in danger of their very lives. Peter does not pretend the fire is not real, nor does he tell them to go looking for suffering; the Christian never courts persecution for its own sake. But when the fire comes, as it will, he is not to be thrown into confusion as though God had lost control. The same Lord who walked the road of the cross told His people plainly that the servant is not greater than his Master, and that if the world hated Him, it will hate those who are His. And there is comfort here: a trial expected is a trial already half-borne, for it cannot take the believer by surprise or drive him to despair.

Blessed When Reproached for the Name

"If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified" (1 Peter 4:14). To be reproached is to be insulted, mocked, and slandered. The believers were being shamed simply because they bore the name of Christ. Peter's response turns the world's verdict upside down: such a one is not disgraced but blessed. The reason is staggering: the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon the one who suffers for Christ's name. The very presence of God attends those who bear reproach for Him, as the cloud of glory once rested upon the tabernacle. And notice the two sides of the same name: on the part of the mockers, the name of Christ is blasphemed; but on the part of the suffering believer, that same name is glorified. What the enemy means as an insult, God receives as glory.

Suffer as a Christian, Not as an Evildoer

Peter now adds a careful and necessary distinction. "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter" (1 Peter 4:15-16). Not all suffering is honorable. If a believer suffers because he has committed murder or theft, or done evil, or even because he has been a meddling busybody prying into other people's affairs, that suffering is deserved and brings no honor at all. The believer must make sure that when he suffers, it is never for wrongdoing. But there is another kind of suffering entirely: to suffer as a Christian, simply for belonging to Christ. Of this the believer is never to be ashamed; rather, he is to glorify God in that very name. The word Christian was often flung as an insult in those days, a term of contempt for the followers of Jesus. Peter takes that insult and makes it a badge of honor. To be called a Christian, and to suffer for it, is not shame but glory, a name in which to praise God.

Judgment Begins at the House of God

Peter now sets the believers' suffering in a larger and more solemn frame. "For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now 'If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?'" (1 Peter 4:17-18). There is a sense in which the very trials of God's people are the beginning of God's judging, refining work, and it begins not with the world but with His own household. God purifies His people first, putting them through the fire to make them holy. This is not His rejection of them but His fatherly purifying of them. Yet Peter reasons from this to a sobering warning. If judgment begins with God's own children, and if even the righteous are saved only as through fire, scarcely and with difficulty, then what will become of those who do not obey the gospel? Where will the ungodly and the sinner finally appear? The suffering of the saints is severe, but it ends in salvation and glory; the end of the disobedient is far more fearful. The thought both steadies the believer and warns the lost.

Commit Your Soul to a Faithful Creator

Having said all this, Peter draws it together into one grand command. "Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator" (1 Peter 4:19). Here is the whole response of the believer to suffering, gathered into a single sentence. Those who suffer according to the will of God — for it is sometimes God's will that His people suffer — are to do two things. First, they are to commit their souls to God, handing themselves over entirely to His safekeeping rather than trusting to their own defense or seeking their own revenge. The word pictures a deposit placed in trusted hands. Second, they are to keep doing good, continuing to live rightly and lovingly even in the middle of their pain, never letting suffering turn them bitter or sinful. And the ground of this whole trust is the character of the One they trust: He is a faithful Creator. The God who made them will not fail them or forsake them; He keeps what is committed to Him. So the suffering believer places his very soul into the hands of a Creator who is utterly faithful, and goes on quietly doing good, certain that he is safe.

It is fitting that this great section on suffering ends with the word Creator. The God who is able to keep the believer’s soul is the very One who made him, and nothing in all creation is beyond the reach or the care of the One who made it. The believer entrusts himself, then, not to fate, not to luck, not even merely to a kind friend, but to the almighty and faithful Maker of heaven and earth, who has never once failed a soul that was placed in His hands. Here is the quiet confidence that has carried God’s people through the fire in every century: come what may, the soul committed to a faithful Creator is utterly safe, and the believer is set free to go on doing good without fear.

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