Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining us today. We start this new week with an email from a listener named Shannon. Shannon is wondering if personal suffering is paradoxical for those of us who put so much stress on joy, for us Christian hedonists. Here's her email. Pastor John, hello, and thank you for the APJ podcast.

My question is about 1 Peter 4, verses 1 to 2. There appears to be a point of arrival when we no longer live for human passions but for God's will. As a Christian hedonist, do you see an irony that my sinfulness will cease only after I have suffered for a certain amount of time, thus showing my life is not to live for my own sinful pleasure but to pursue God as my greatest treasure?

Is suffering a paradox for Christian hedonists? Okay, there are two, at least I hear, two distinct issues to deal with here. One is whether Shannon is interpreting 1 Peter 4, verse 1 correctly, and the other is whether suffering is indeed appointed by God as a means by which sin is rooted out of our lives and is therefore a means by which we come to enjoy Christ more, more fully, as our supreme treasure.

That's the kind of paradox she's saying. If that's true, then we're going to embrace suffering as Christian hedonists, and she regards that as kind of paradoxical. So let me try to take those one at a time because they really are separate issues. First, a few words about the meaning of 1 Peter 4, verse 1, where Peter says, so this is a quote from 4, verse 1, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." Now, I have good friends, and name them, a lot of our listeners would know who they're talking about.

They're pretty famous folks. I have good friends who interpret this verse differently than I do, and they've both written commentaries and they've studied this more than I have. And I'm not infallible, as everybody knows. They say that arming yourself with the same way of thinking as Christ, who suffered, means that you resolve not to sin, even if it costs you suffering.

And if you do that, it is evidence that you have in principle ceased from sin and are willing to endure the maligning referred to in verse 4, something like that. It's kind of complicated. But I have a hard time laying that interpretation on the text and seeing it clearly.

Here's what I think Peter meant, and the folks will have to study this out for themselves. The criticism that my interpretation usually gets is that it looks like I've just taken it over from the Apostle Paul. And that's not fair. That's cheating. You can't run over to Romans 6 and grab an interpretation and come squish it into 1 Peter.

I get that, but I don't think so. If I thought that's what I was doing, I would back down. Paul says in Romans 6—I'll give you the parallel that is so remarkable. Romans 6.6, he says, "We know that our old self was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for the one who has died has been set free from sin." That's Paul's quote.

That's very close to Peter saying, "Whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." So, Paul is saying that when Christ suffered and died, we Christians, by union with him through faith, also suffered and died, and that this death with Christ was a decisive death blow to our life of sinning.

We are an essentially new person in Christ, and the mark of the newness is that we hate our sin and we make war on it and we put it to death by the Spirit. Now that's essentially what I think Peter means in 1 Peter 4.1, but not because Paul said it so well, but because Peter's context points in this direction.

In 1 Peter 3.18, just a few verses earlier, he says, "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit." So, Christ's suffering, which 1 Peter 4.1 refers to, Christ's suffering in this verse is his death.

He suffered unto death. He suffered once, that is, he was put to death in the flesh. So when 1 Peter 4.1 says, "Christ suffered in the flesh, so whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin," the natural meaning is Christ died. So whoever has died with him, I interpret, has ceased from sin.

Now what makes that connection even more plain, I think, is chapter 2, verse 24, where Peter says, "He," that is, Christ, "bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin." That's a really amazing parallel to Paul and to chapter 4, verse 1 in 1 Peter, to die to sin and to live to righteousness.

Christ died for our sins, that we might experience his death as our death, and thus die to our sins, that is, be set free from the dominion of sinning. So I don't think it's unique to Paul at all to say, as Peter does in 4.1, paraphrasing 2.24, "Christ suffered," that is, he died, therefore, have that mindset because you died with him and the effect of that death with him was that your old sin-loving self died and now you have ceased from your bondage to sin and are launched into a life of warfare in which sin will not have dominion over you.

I don't think Shannon is right, therefore, to say that 1 Peter 4.1 teaches—this is a quote from her question—"My sinfulness will cease only after I have suffered for a certain amount of time." I think the point is, my bent towards sinning received a mortal blow when Christ died for my sin and I died with him.

So I don't think she set things up correctly, but now we turn to the second issue where she's on track. That happens a lot of times, right? You see something in a text, you don't get the text quite right, but the conclusion you draw is pretty good. So here's the second issue, namely, whether suffering is indeed appointed by God as a means by which sin is rooted out of our lives and is therefore a means by which I come to enjoy Christ more fully as my supreme treasure.

Now that's a different issue, and Shannon's way of saying it is that this would be a paradox for a Christian hedonist, that is, somebody like me who believes that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. She thinks that would be a paradox, namely, since sin diminishes our greatest and longest joy, yes it does, joy in Christ as our supreme treasure, that's the greatest and longest joy, therefore Christian hedonists should welcome God-appointed suffering as a means of killing the very thing, sin, that robs us of our greatest joy, namely sin.

That's the paradox, and I think that's right. I think that's basically right. She's onto something there. One of the reasons God appoints suffering for his children is to wean us off of reliance upon the world whose pleasures are deceitful, and they rob us of the greatest pleasures at God's right hand.

And we could show this from a lot of places in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 1, 8, 9, 2 Corinthians 12, 7 to 10, but let me just glance briefly at Hebrews 12, 6 to 11. So it says, "The Lord disciplines the one he loves." That's like a spanking, it's like suffering he brings into our lives.

"The Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons, loved sons. So God brings suffering into the lives of his children, and it is a sign of his love, not his wrath.

It's for our good, our joy, our holiness. So the writer goes on. Here's verse 10 of Hebrews 12. "He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment, all discipline seems painful." Yes, it does, rather than pleasant. But later, "it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." So he contrasts the painful, unpleasant experience of suffering—that's the discipline of the Father—with the peaceful and pleasant fruit of righteousness.

So yes, Shannon is right in principle. I don't think this is the point of 1 Peter 4:1, but it is the point of many texts in the Bible. God loves his children, and he knows better than any human physician what measures of displeasure are needed to kill the sins that rob us of the greatest pleasures, namely the ones in God's presence, with Jesus as our greatest treasure.

So good. Yeah, the Christian hedonist welcomes God-appointed suffering as a means of killing the very thing, the sin, that robs us of our greatest joy in God. That is so good, so important. Thank you, Pastor John. Thank you for joining us today. If you have a question for us, like Shannon did today, email us.

Do it from our online home at AskPastorJohn.com. And speaking of Paul on suffering, Philippians 3 verses 1 to 14 comes to my mind when it comes to preparing for personal suffering. I know that's a text that you have explained before, Pastor John, and we're going to look at that text next time when we return.

What is step one in preparing for suffering? I'm your host Tony Rehnke. We'll see you back here on Wednesday. See you then. 1. What is step one in preparing for suffering? 2. What is the most important thing that God has given you? 3. What is the most important thing that God has given you?

4. What is the most important thing that God has given you? 5.