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1 Peter

About this book
Chapter 4

1 So, since Christ suffered in the flesh, you also arm yourselves with the same attitude because the one who has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin, 2 in that he spends the rest of his time on earth concerned about the will of God and not human desires. 3 For the time that has passed was sufficient for you to do what the non-Christians desire. You lived then in debauchery, evil desires, drunkenness, carousing, drinking bouts, and wanton idolatries.⁠ 4 So they are astonished when you do not rush with them into the same flood of wickedness, and they vilify you. 5 They will face a reckoning before Jesus Christ who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 Now it was for this very purpose that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that though they were judged in the flesh by human standards they may live spiritually by God’s standards.⁠ 7 For the culmination of all things is near. So be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of prayer. 8 Above all keep your love for one another fervent because love covers a multitude of sins.⁠ 9 Show hospitality to one another without complaining. 10 Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God. 11 Whoever speaks, let it be with God’s words. Whoever serves, do so with the strength that God supplies, so that in everything God will be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. 12 Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice in the degree that you have shared in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory, who is the Spirit of God, rests on you.⁠ 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or thief or criminal or as a troublemaker. 16 But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear such a name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin, starting with the house of God. And if it starts with us, what will be the fate of those who are disobedient to the gospel of God? 18 And if the righteous are barely saved, what will become of the ungodly and sinners?⁠ 19 So then let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator as they do good.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Peter 4:6 and Tertullian, Concerning the Soul 55:3

New Testament · Early Christian

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Summary

1 Peter says the gospel was proclaimed to the dead, suggesting that hope continues after life. The Christian theologian Tertullian develops this, using it to address the question of how people could be redeemed before Jesus was born.

Passages

1 Peter 4:6

New Testament
4 So they are astonished when you do not rush with them into the same flood of wickedness, and they vilify you. 5 They will face a reckoning before Jesus Christ who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 Now it was for this very purpose that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that though they were judged in the flesh by human standards they may live spiritually by God’s standards. 7 For the culmination of all things is near. So be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of prayer. 8 Above all keep your love for one another fervent because love covers a multitude of sins.
80–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Peter

Tertullian, Concerning the Soul 55:3

Early Christian
For us the underworld is not believed to be a bare cavity, nor some sewer of the world under the open sky, but a vastness in the pit of the earth and in its depths, a hidden profundity in its innermost parts; since we read that Christ spent the three days of his death in the heart of the earth, that is, in the inmost and internal recess, covered by the earth itself and shut within it, and built over still lower abysses. But if Christ, God because also man, dead according to the Scriptures and buried according to the same, also satisfied this law, fulfilling the form of human death in the underworld, and did not ascend into the heights of heaven before he descended into the depths of the earth, so that the patriarchs and prophets there could share in him—you have reason both to believe the region of the underworld subterranean and to push aside those who, proudly enough, do not think the souls of the faithful worthy of the underworld: servants above their lord and disciples above their master, scorning, if you please, to receive in Abraham's bosom the comfort of awaiting the resurrection.
198–200 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tertullian, Concerning the Soul

References

"... 1 Peter 4:6 uses the passive voice to describe proclaiming the gospel to the dead (thus making the agent of the preaching unclear). There are two ways to interpret this proclamation. (1) Those who demonstrated faith in God prior to the advent of Jesus are now saved through the same gospel so that they too might live in the spirit (Horrell 2003; compare Hebrews 11:39–40). (2) Those who accepted the gospel but have passed away before Jesus’ glorious return still live in the spirit (Dalton 1965; compare 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18) ..."
Brian Han Gregg, “1 Peter,” in The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament, ed. David E. Aune, The Blackwell Companions to Religion (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 591.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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1 Peter 4:6 and Tertullian, Concerning the Soul 55:3

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