“But they will have to give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”

Of the waves of persecuted believers down through the ages, this group was undoubtedly the first.  With no generation to look back on for comfort or example, they were in need of encouragement to hang tough, to run toward the battle, to keep their eyes on the Lord.

It is quite likely that Peter sent his first letter to believers he knew in Rome who fled after Nero began blaming them and rounding them up for the catastrophic fire that burned to the ground 10 of the city’s 14 districts.  On the run with nothing but the clothes on their backs, they had scattered throughout Asia Minor (1:1).  They would have jumped for a letter from Peter and read it voraciously.  His theme?  Suffering.  No coincidence here.

In chapter 4 Peter describes the Lord in a way I see nowhere else in Scripture: ready (v. 5).  No doubt what follows affects his readiness: “to judge the living and the dead.”  But we’ll get to that shortly. At this point, suffice it to say that the Bible never describes him as being ready to do any other thing.

In the Greek the word ready means, “prepared, fit, and even eager.”  That God is prepared for what he does shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows him or reads his Book.  Knowing the future before it happens, God always takes the steps necessary to accomplish his plans.  His nature and will are perfectly consonant with his intentions.

Not so with human beings.  Think of the five virgins of Matthew 25.  Eager to join the wedding festivities like five others, they took lamps but with insufficient oil.  When the bridegroom ran late, these five ran out of oil because they weren’t prepared, weren’t ready.  They had to go buy more oil while the five that were prepared joined the wedding feast.  Jesus called the five unprepared virgins “foolish” (v. 2).  Since the context of this parable is the Lord’s return, there is no excuse for or recovery from not being ready.  The Boy Scout motto comes in really handy here.  Short, sweet, and to the point: “Be prepared!”

Peter’s description of the lifestyle of our persecuted brothers and sisters of old sounds much like life on the typical American university campus: “living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry” (v. 4).  Or at least that of the main characters on TV these days.  But Peter’s audience hadn’t succumbed to that: “They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.”  Ever been there?  Ever get dumped on because you were close enough to party-time pagans in your friendship, but had to draw a line that you didn’t, couldn’t and wouldn’t cross?  If so, good for you!  That’s the way our lives first, and then our words speak to the party crowd.  Friendships, sure; but frolicking?  No.

Peter then gets to the core of his encouragement: “But they will have to give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (v. 5).  The phrase “the living and the dead” could refer to either all those who ever lived, some alive now while others are physically dead.  Or it could describe the conditions of people: spiritually dead or alive.  One 19^th Century writer described self-centered pleasure seekers this way: “The body of a sensualist is the coffin of a dead soul.”  That kind of dead.

Now we get to why Peter says Jesus is actually eager — ready — to judge the living and the dead.  Is he eager to condemn the sinner?  No, he would write later (2 Peter 3:9) that he wants “everyone to come to repentance.”  Then why eager?  Let’s step away from the immediate judgment.  What happens to sin, suffering, corruption, evil, wickedness, iniquity and pain at judgment time?  It’s gone…forever!  Those “alive” go into his kingdom full of light, righteousness, holiness, love, etc.  Unbelievers simply obtain the fullness of what they have embraced their whole lives: living apart from God, rejecting all the light they ever had.  Jesus is eager to right the wrongs, to fulfill all his promises to us. Romans 8:20-24 finally begins.

Peter also told them to be “prepared” (ready) to give an answer” to pagans when they asked (3:15).  Jesus is eager/ready to judge, restore and renew.  Are you as eager/ready to see the dead become alive?