Judgment to Come

This article appeared in the April 1, 1971 edition of "The Bible Herald", published by the Bible Herald Corporation in Parkersburg, West Virginia. It was written by Gene West.

The passage with which we shall deal in this article is I Peter 4:3-5. "For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you; who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead."

Before a discussion of the verses aforementioned, it is necessary to ask the question, to whom was the epistle written? Peter himself says that he was addressing, "...the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." The student of Bible geography knows that places mentioned in I Peter 1:1 were all provinces of Asia Minor, or what we today call the country of Turkey. We must now ask, who were the "strangers scattered throughout" these provinces? There can be only two possible answers: (1) Christian Jews scattered within this area or (2) Christians generally living within these provinces.

Which of these is more probable? We answer, unhesitatingly, the second answer is. Why? Firstly, because from the book of Acts we learn that the churches in the provinces mentioned were predominately Gentile, and it seems unlikely that Peter would address two epistles of such importance to a minority of Jewish Christians. Secondly, the reference to the background of these people in I Peter 1:14; 2:10; 4:3 demands that they were not Jews who had lived according to the law of Moses, but Gentiles who had "wrought the will of the Gentiles" walking in the path of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. Thirdly, in I Peter 3:6 Peter told these Christian women that they were Sarah's daughters as long as they did well. Jewish women would be Sarah's daughters after the flesh whether or not they did well in Christ's service. Fourthly, though many of the thoughts in the epistle are Jewish in background and though there are many quotations from the Old Testament, which would be only natural since a Jewish apostle was writing to them, there is not one reference to the law of Moses as such, and the word nomos which is the Greek word for law does not occur in the text.

Therefore, we must conclude that the letter was written to Christians, both Jew and Gentile, in the provinces mentioned and that the word "strangers" is used in a sense to designate believers in a world of non-believers, as it is used in I Peter 2:11 and in Hebrews 11:13. All of this is important because what a man says or writes is qualified by the persons to whom he speaks and the situation under which he speaks or writes. Now let us turn our attention back to the quoted text.

The verse that draws our particular attention is number five, "...who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." The antecedent of the pronoun "who" in this passage is "Gentiles" of verse three. The people who spoke evil of the Christians to whom Peter was writing were to give an account to Christ. Hence, the judgment specifically referred to here in the first part of the verse; i.e., the giving of account, was to come to the Gentiles after the flesh. The words "shall give" come from the Greek apodosousin which suggests nothing but a future giving of an account. It is the same word that is used in Romans 14:12.

But let us look at the last half of verse five for a moment. It tells us that Christ "is ready to judge the living and the dead." Those who might use this text to attempt to show that the judgment was near at hand when Peter wrote this letter (about A.D. 65) would like to make a play on the word "ready." They might say that ready means "near at hand." However, the word "ready" comes from the Greek word hetoimos which, according to Thayer, means "to be ready; prepared." The same word is used in II Corinthians 12:14 in which Paul said, "Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you..." Paul had been "ready" the first time, the second time and was still ready for the third time.

In Acts 21:13 Paul told the Christians to whom he was speaking that he was "ready" to be bound and to die in Jerusalem. Paul did not die in Jerusalem! He died not less than four years or more than eight years later in Rome. And when his time of departure came he was still "ready!" (See II Timothy 4:6-8) In I Peter 4:5 the word "ready" means, "to be prepared; having the ability" and not that the thing had to happen in the immediate future. Have you known of a time when God, or Christ, or the Holy Spirit were not ready to do the will of the Godhead?

The word "judge" in this passage is krino which means "of the judgment of God, or of Jesus the Messiah, deciding between the righteousness and unrighteousness of men." (Thayer)

Peter is saying that Christ is prepared to decide between the righteousness and unrighteousness of men. "Men" would include any men, and all men and so Peter asserts here by including both the living and the dead.

This passage must refer to a judgment yet future and cannot have any reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. They (those addressed) were not there! At the destruction of Jerusalem it was Jews who gave the account and it was Gentiles who were the instruments of God's condemning wrath.

If Peter was not speaking of a Christ who has the ability to judge the living and the dead at some time future both to Him and to us then language has no meaning. After searching many works, this writer finds that the only people who deny a future judgment on the basis of this passage are Reinhold Niehbuhr, a neo-orthodox and Karl Barth and Rudolph Bultmann, both of whom were rank modernists, and those advocates of Materialism such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Christian Scientist and the Radio Church of God whose chief spokesman is Garner Ted Armstrong.

By no stretch of the imagination can I Peter 4:5 be made to refer to a day to day judgment of the lives of men; because it was not something that Christ had done or was doing, but something that He was ready to do.

We close with this question. What possible consequences, either physical or spiritual could the destruction of Jerusalem have upon the minds and lives of either the Christians or the Gentiles of Asia Minor?