AND IF IT IS
WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED:
kai ei o dikaios molis sozetai (3SPPI): (1
Peter
5:8;
Pr 11:31;
Jer 25:29;
Ezek 18:24;
Zech 13:9;
Mt 24:22-24;
Mk 13:20-22;
Lu 23:31;
Acts 14:22;
27:24,31, 42-44;
1Co 10:12;
Heb 4:1;
10:38,39)
John Wesley
once referred to himself as “a brand plucked from the burning,” and
that is true of most of us. J Vernon McGee goes on to tell the story
of the difficulty that led to Wesley's being plucked from the
burning...
When John Wesley came to America,
he was not saved, he was not a Christian. He made this statement, “I
came to America to convert Indians, but who is going to convert John
Wesley?” His biographer tells us that at the governor’s court in
Georgia he met one of the noblemen of Great Britain who had been sent
over to administer that area. He was a very wealthy man with a name,
and he had married a beautiful, young wife. That young woman and John
Wesley began to eye each other, and evidently John Wesley fell in love
with her. He asked her to leave and go with him to live among the
Indians. And he thought he was a Christian and a missionary! But she
sent him back to England, saying, “John, this won’t work. I love you,
and I’ll always love you, but God has called you to do something for
Him.” She evidently was a Christian, and so she sent him back to
England. It is said that three times he started up the gangplank, and
three times he started to walk back. But she motioned him to go, and
he went back to England. One night walking down Aldersgate, he went
upstairs and heard a man speaking on Galatians. Later, he could write
in his journal, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did
trust Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation, and there was given to
me an assurance that He had forgiven me of my sins.”
Now if the righteous scarcely be
saved, if they be but brands plucked from the burning, “where shall
the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Peter asks. My friend, if you are
not a Christian, and if Vernon McGee just barely made it and made it
only by trusting Christ, how do you think you are going to make it?
There is not but one hope—there is only one way of salvation. The Lord
Jesus said, “I am the way” (see John 14:6). (McGee,
J V: Thru the Bible Commentary: Thomas Nelson
or
Logos)
(Or listen to the Mp3 of
1 Peter 4:18)
Peter is quoting
from the
Septuagint (LXX)
of OT to support the
previous thought. Here he offers another rhetorical question, the
answer of which is not in doubt. His point is that if the sinner who
is declared righteous by faith is saved only with great difficulty
(including unjust suffering, divine purging, and the Father's
discipline - see notes
Hebrews 12:7;
8),
what will be the end of the ungodly?
If the righteous will be rewarded
in the earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner! (Pr 11:31)
Difficulty
(3433)
(molis from molos = labor pains) means hardly, barely,
scarcely, not easily, i.e. scarcely, very rarely.
J. Schneider
in TDNT has this comment on molis...
1 Peter 4:18 is a quotation from
Pr 11:31
LXX:
In the Hebrew the saying applies to recompense in this life,
but the author uses it of recompense in the last judgment The
reference of the section in which 1 Peter 4:18 stands is to the
sufferings of Christians, which are regarded as the fiery glow and
beginning of judgment. They make great demands on Christians and above
all represent a great temptation. Only with great difficulty will
Christians pass through this hard time and stand in the divine
judgment. The author wants to spur his readers on to faithfulness and
to show them the seriousness of their responsibility.
(Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., &
Bromiley, G. W.
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.
Eerdmans)
In the Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus alludes to this "difficulty" when He explains that
the way that leads to eternal life is "narrow", where "narrow" is
thlibo which means to suffer affliction, be troubled by sufferings due
to the pressure of circumstances or the antagonism of people. BDAG says that thlibo
is used
Of a road, a
narrow, confined road and
therefore a source of trouble or difficulty to those using it (Arndt,
W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. A Greek-English Lexicon of the
New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature)
The Geneva Study Bible
commenting on Jesus' words writes
that...
Presenting a rosy
picture of the Christian
life and minimizing that it is filled with trouble does not follow the
lead of our Lord
In sum combining the various
definitions, we see that the true way is not only narrow but
also difficult. Jesus was saying that the narrow restricting
way
has connections with persecution, a major theme in Matthew’s Gospel (cf.
Matthew 5:10-12 notes,
Mt 5:44; 10:16-39; 11:11-12; 24:4-13; Acts 14:22) The upshot is that
if the road you are on has a gate that is easy and well traveled,
you do well to reconsider your journey through this life while you still
have breath! The true way to God is narrow, difficult and
demanding and has relatively few pilgrim travelers. In contrast the
false way is broad, easy and permissive and has many lost souls
traveling on it. (see discussion of these 2 gates and 2 ways in
Matthew 7:13-14)
As Ryrie puts it
"Because of suffering (1Peter 4:16)
and discipline (1Peter 4:17), the righteous work out their salvation
(see
Philippians 2:12-13 note) with difficulty."
(The
Ryrie Study Bible: New American Standard Translation: 1995. Moody
Publishers)
Believer's
Study Bible comments that...
Modern society expresses amazement that God could condemn anyone. The
biblical perspective is reflected, however, in this declaration. The
point of amazement and astonishment is that the righteous are
saved. If the righteous "scarcely" are saved, prospects for the
unconverted sinner are hopeless indeed.
(Criswell,
W A. Believer's Study Bible: New King James Version. 1991. Thomas Nelson)
Jesus
explains how difficult it is to enter the Kingdom of Heaven
declaring...
For I say to you, that unless your
righteousness surpasses (superabounds past) that of the scribes and
Pharisees, you shall not (double negative - absolutely no way) enter
the kingdom of heaven. (See note
Matthew 5:20)
Believers pass through the testing fire of God's judgment -- not
because He hates us, but because He loves us and wills our purity. God
hates sin so much and loves his children so much that He will spare us
no pain to rid us of what He hates. So suffering is not surprising; it
is planned. It is a testing. It is purifying fire. It proves and
strengthens real faith, and it consumes "performance faith."
In Psalm 26 we
read of David's desire for God to put him in the fiery trial
(he uses 3 Hebrew words for refining and purifying!)...could it be this
has something to do with David being called a man after God's own
heart?
Examine (Heb = bachan =
focuses attention on an examination to prove the existence of some
spiritual quality, such as integrity) me, O LORD, and try (Heb
= nacah = test the quality through adversity or hardship to show what
someone is really like) me. Test (Heb = “to refine,” usually
indicating the purifying result of divine judgment) my mind and my
heart. (Psalm 26:2)
Let us not fear or shy from fires of persecution for His name
for the end result will be beyond our wildest imagination. Instead let
us beseech the Lord to search us & try us (Ps 139:23,24).
Saved
(4982)
(sozo)
(Click
study of
sozo)
has the basic meaning of rescuing one from great peril. Additional
nuances include to protect, keep alive, preserve life, deliver, heal,
be made whole. Sozo is used of physical
deliverance from danger of perishing (see
Mt 8:25;
Mt 14:30;
Lu 23:35;
Acts
27:20
27:31 hold pointer over for popup
verse), physical healing from sickness (Mt
9:21-22;
Mk 5:23,
Acts 4:9), and deliverance
from demonic possession (Lu
8:36). More often sozo is used as in the present
context to refer to salvation in a spiritual sense.
WHAT WILL
BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER: o asebes kai hamartolos pou
phaneitai (3SFMI): (Ps 1:4,5;
Ro 1:18;
5:6;
2 Pe 2:5,6;
3:7;
Jude 1:15)
(Ge 13:13;
1 Sa 15:18;
Lu 15:1;
Ro 5:8)
"What will become" is
literally "where shall he appear".
Become (appear) (5316)
(phaino from phos = light) means to give light,
illuminate, shine or give light, shine forth as a luminous body. In
the
middle voice as in this verse,
phaino means to appear, be conspicuous, become visible, shine.
Godless
(765) (asebes
from a = without + sébomai = worship, venerate) means a lack of interest in the things of God and a
behavior and lifestyle consistent with such an irreverent attitude.
Click study of
asebes
and the related word
ungodliness - asebeia).
Asebes pictures one lacking proper respect of God and/or living as if
He did not exist with no fear of Him or His just punishment of
ungodliness. Read
Psalm 1, an excellent summary of the
righteous versus the ungodly (wicked).
The ungodly
man or woman is the one who has little or no time for God in their life.
They have deceived themselves into believing that they can rule God out
of their affairs and their thinking even though God is the greatest
Being in the universe, the One Who makes sense out of life, the One
around Whom all of life revolves and without Whom no creature could even
take a breath. To eliminate such a Glorious Being from one's thinking is
what it means to be
ungodly.
Paul draws the
distinction between the earthly sufferings of the saints and the endless
punishment of the lost explaining that persecution (of believers now)...
is a plain indication of God’s
righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom
of God, for which indeed you are suffering. For after all it is only
just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you (the
godless man and the sinner), and to give relief to you (believers)
who are afflicted and to us (Paul, Silas, Timothy) as well when the Lord
Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming
fire (cp Matthew 24:30, see notes
Revelation 19:11;
19:12;
19:13;
19:14;
19:15;
19:16), dealing out retribution (repay harm w harm on
assumption that initial harm was unjustified) to those who do not know
God (not that do not "know" about Him but do not know Him - see Jesus'
stern warning ) and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord
Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction (not
annihilation but unavoidable distress & torment), away from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of His power. (2 Thess 1:5-9)
Dr Constable
explains that...
In this verse Peter contrasted the
intensity of the two experiences of suffering, by disciples now and by
unbelievers in the future. It is with difficulty that righteous people
pass through this phase of our existence into the next phase because
this phase involves suffering for us.
“Saved” (Gr. sozetai)
here means delivered in the sense of being delivered from this life
into the next. Yet it will be even more difficult for godless people
to pass from this phase of their lives to the next because they will
have to undergo God’s judgment. Their future sufferings will be more
intense than our present sufferings.
The purpose of Peter’s quoting
Proverbs 11:18 freely was to show that the Old Testament also taught
that both the righteous and the wicked will receive from the Lord. The
point in the proverb is that the wicked will receive even more
punishment than the righteous will receive reward. If God disciplines
His own children, how much more severely will He deal with those who
are not His children. Our sufferings are light compared with those the
ungodly will experience in the future. (Thomas
Constable's Expository Notes on the Bible)
