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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Saved by Judgment
"If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. (I Peter 4:18,19—NIV)
When we first receive Christ we have worldliness, various lusts and passions, and self-will in our personality. God's judgment rests on these compulsions because no behavior of this kind is permitted in the Kingdom of God.
After we are saved and filled with the Spirit, God begins to judge the spiritual evil that is in us. Oftentimes the judgment involves a stern chastening of us.
The fiery trials we endure are judgment on the sin in our personality. The purpose of the judgment is to drive the sin from us. It is a baptism of fire that saves us from sin, although with difficulty.
In order to be totally saved we must be forgiven the guilt of our sin and then delivered from the sinful aspects of our personality.
The fourth chapter of First Peter primarily is about salvation by judgment. We are saved as God judges the worldliness, the passions and lusts, and the self-will of our personality. The judgment in this case is not on the guilt of our sin but on the presence of sin in us.
It is hard for the righteous to be saved. The righteous individual is saved with difficulty. Why is this?
The righteous person is saved with difficulty because of the sin remaining in his or her personality. God wants all the sin removed. Therefore He sends fiery trials on us to get at the sin in us. The reason it is hard for us to be saved from our sins is that we do not like to make the choices God is requiring.
Sometimes we do not know what those choices are. But as we experience Divinely ordained suffering, the chastening hand of the Lord on us, we hopefully respond by going to God in prayer rather than reacting with anger toward the tools God is using. Also we should not waste our time and strength rebuking the devil.
Even though Paul's thorn in the flesh was the work of Satan, Paul did not address Satan but God. And it was God who supplied the answer and the wisdom of how Paul was to regard his suffering.
Notice how the fourth chapter of First Peter commences:
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. (I Peter 4:1,2—NIV)
Think carefully about the above passage. It is telling us that the purpose of suffering is to remove sin from us. Suffering saves us from sin. Suffering is a judgment on our sin, therefore we are saved by judgment.
The suffering, the chastening of us, is so we will not live our life according to evil human desires but for God's will. This is why we enter the Kingdom of God through much tribulation.
To be continued.