Judgment begins with the household of God

Ben Nasmith

Published in

Meta-Theology Quarterly

15 min readJun 1, 2016

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Sermon - 15 May 2016

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Introduction

The book of First Peter has a troubling verse that I’d like to read and dwell on today.

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Pet 4:17 NRSV)

Why is this verse troubling? I can think of at least two reasons.

First, I find it troubling because it doesn’t fit with one typical understanding of the Christian good news or gospel. Speaking for myself, I was under the impression for much of my Christian life that the main benefit of becoming a Christian was to escape the judgment of God. But according to this verse, as a Christian and a member of the household of God, I am actually first in line for judgment. Elsewhere in the letter Peter reminds us that God is an impartial judge. He writes,

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile (1 Pet 1:17).

This idea that God is an impartial judge is actually quite common in the New Testament. Paul says something similar. He writes,

For God shows no partiality. . . . For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified (Rom 2:11, 13).

Elsewhere Paul appeals to the principle that God shows no partiality while addressing household masters and Christian leaders. Bottom line, God shows no partiality in judgment. It doesn’t matter whether you are among God’s chosen people, a rich person, or even a Christian leader. God judges us all with impartiality. In fact, judgment begins with the household of God.

Second, this verse in First Peter talks about the household of God as those who obey the gospel of God. Specifically, he asks what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel. If judgment begins with us, those who obey the gospel, what will be the end of those who do not obey it?

Again, it was my impression for much of my Christian life that my main job was to believe the gospel. I didn’t understand the gospel as something to be obeyed. The gospel was a message that I was supposed to believe. It was a set of important beliefs embedded within a larger Christian worldview. When I believed the gospel, I received its benefits — namely escape from judgment and eternal life with God.

This verse calls my old framework into question, or at least gives it a good shake. It challenges my prior understanding of the Christian gospel. Specifically, this verse claims that:

The people of God are first in line for God’s impartial judgment
The gospel is something to be obeyed.

My aim today is to wrestle with these two troubling claims. To understand them, we need to talk about God’s judgment and salvation from a new perspective. That perspective is a perspective informed by a clarified understanding of God’s holiness.

We tend to speak freely of the love of God but do so freely about God as a holy, God as a consuming fire. As such we forget that God’s love is a holy love. The love of God for us is a holy love for us. It is the love of a holy God. Peter has something to say about holiness in his first chapter. He writes,

Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet 1:14–16).

I suspect that holiness is the key to unlock our troublesome verse about judgment and the gospel. I want to suggest that we cannot understand God’s judgment upon the world and its sin without understanding the holiness of God. Neither can we fully understand the gospel or good news unless we understand the holiness of God.

Holiness

Let’s talk about holiness. Holiness is perhaps the most fruitful concept we can use as we try to think about God. When I was younger, if you had asked me to explain what I mean by God I probably would have replied that God is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscience being. But today I would say that God is the holy one. Holiness is far more important in the Bible than most other traditional attributes of God.

It is easy for us, I suspect, to confuse holiness with cleanliness or purity. But that isn’t really what the biblical language of holiness generally aims at. Jesus, for example, was holy yet got his hands dirty touching lepers. He was holy but he compromised his purity by eating with outcasts like tax collectors and other sinners.

We need to remember that holiness is something different than cleanliness and purity. This is important as we try to become holy ourselves. Holiness has nothing to do with shunning impure people or keeping things tidy. It has more to do with loving your enemy as children of the holy one.

The person who has probably helped me understand holiness the most is a theologian named Peter Forsyth. He claims that holiness is to theology what the uniformity of nature is to physics. Sounds like holiness is pretty important. So what is it? What is holiness?

The first thing to remember is that holiness is an answer to the question of who God is rather than what God is. To put it another way, holiness is personal. Holiness is God’s personal identity. This is why the Bible so often speaks of God’s name being holy. Indeed, our first concern as Christians in prayer to God is that God’s name would be hallowed, that God’s name would be treated as holy.

The next thing about holiness is that holiness is an answer to the question of what God is doing in the world. God reveals his identity to humans through his action in history. Therefore God’s identity as holy is bound up in what God does. You may notice that the Bible is all about God’s actions — what God has done, what God is doing, and what God ultimately will do. Very little time is spent explaining precisely what God is.

Taken together, holiness is inextricable from God’s personal identity and historic deeds. With that in mind, I think it is helpful to think of holiness as God’s intrinsic worth or perhaps as God’s worthiness of worship (see this book for more on this theme).

To say that God is holy is to say that God is uniquely and supremely valuable. It is to say that God is worthy of our unqualified and unlimited trust, obedience, and adoration. God has and will continue to demonstrate this worthiness in the lives of his people.

Yet another way to describe holiness is as concern for God’s name. As the Lord’s prayer suggests, holiness hallows God’s name. Holiness treats God as befits God’s worth. In this way creatures can also be holy as they demonstrate concern for God’s holy name.

Justice and Holiness

We’ve spoken about holiness, now we need to talk about doing justice to holiness.

Often the word “justice” easily gets bogged down by common sentiments about criminal justice. Some of us can’t think about justice without thinking about retribution or getting even. We may even have a mental picture of justice as balancing a set of scales — perhaps even with a blindfold on! If things are not balanced — an eye for an eye — then justice has not been done.

I think that this view of justice is both wrong and very common. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus rebukes the idea that justice is returning evil for evil. Even so, many of us just assume that that is what justice is. We assume justice is all about getting even. Many Christians assume this in their understanding of the gospel. This is a mistake. But what’s the alternative?

I learned a better biblical way to understand justice from a philosopher named Nicholas Wolterstorff. He points out that both the Old and New Testament teach that intrinsic worth of all people. They each bear the image of God. Justice among humans rests upon appreciation for that worth. Specifically, Wolterstorff argues, and I agree with him, that justice is seeing to it that people are treated as befits their worth.

In the Bible, God loves justice. This isn’t because God loves getting even. Not at all. Rather, God loves humans and God wants them to treat one another as befits their worth. So understood, love and justice are never at odds. Far from it. Instead, justice is an example of love. We want those we love to be treated justly. We want those we love to be treated as befits their worth. If we love them, we will try to set to it that they are in fact treated justly both ourselves and others.

This raises a troubling question. Do we treat God justly? Do we treat God as befits God’s supreme worth and worthiness of worship? Put another way, do we love God? The answer is no. We don’t. We don’t really love God. If we did, our lives would do justice to God. If we did we would see to it that we treat God as befits God’s worth, through our trust, obedience, and adoration. But generally speaking our lives don’t do justice to God.

Notice the tight connection between loving God and loving others here. We love God as we love others. Some might say that we love God by loving others. We also treat God justly as we treat others justly. Indeed, as Jesus says,

just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me (Matt 25:40).

This means that injustice upon the earth corresponds to injustice in heaven. You may notice that this is a major biblical theme.

Holiness and Action

This leads me to a very helpful analogy for holiness. Peter Forsyth writes,

In God’s holiness are perfectly balanced the two things which correspond to Egoism and Altruism in us.

Let’s think about this carefully. As the holy one, God is concerned for God’s holy name. This concern for God’s name corresponds to a so-called egoism. Notice, however, that since God is holy and therefore supremely worthy, God’s concern for God’s holy name is completely justified. Indeed, indifference toward God’s name on God’s part would be unholy. If God didn’t care how God name was treated, God would not be holy.

I’d go so far as to say that if God did not care for God’s holy name, all creation would cry out, like Abraham,

Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? (Gen 18:25).

In fact, that’s what we see happening in the Bible in many situations. God’s name is demeaned when the poor and vulnerable are downtrodden and cry out for justice. Biblical writers often cry out to God to make things right, for the sake of God’s name. A God of neglect and indifference simply cannot be a holy God. Such indifference would be unholy. If God is holy then God must respond to injustice upon the earth for the sake of God’s holy name.

This leads us to the so-called altruism of God. God’s deep concern for God’s holy name moves God to save. God saves so that his redeemed creatures might hallow God’s name. This explains why so often in scripture we read that God saves us not for our own sake but for the sake of his holy name. God isn’t content to simply blot out the wicked. Merely punishing sin doesn’t restore what sin destroys. Rather, God wants the very people who demean God’s name to hallow it as the people God has redeemed.

This places our salvation upon a solid rock. Our salvation has a purpose, that we might hallow God’s name and treat it as befits its worth. Peter says so himself. He writes of Jesus that,

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness (1 Pet 2:24).

Righteousness can also be translated as justice in the New Testament. We are redeemed for the purpose of doing justice to God’s holy name, and that means doing justice to one another — loving one another.

So long as God’s purpose remains then our salvation is secure. God’s concern for God’s holy name is therefore our greatest comfort in this world of sin. So long as God’s concern for God’s holy name remains, we who are redeemed to worship him have a secure salvation.

We don’t trust God to save us from our own ways simply because God is pure altruism. As a matter of fact God is not pure altruism. The God who is love is a God of holy love, and not love as we know it. Our salvation is for the sake of God’s holy name. Therefore any salvation that does not hallow God’s name is a counterfeit.

Judgment and the Gospel

Let’s read our troublesome verse again,

For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; if it begins with us, what will be the end for those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Pet 4:17)

I identified two troubling aspects in this verse, namely:

The people of God are first in line for God’s impartial judgment
The gospel is something to be obeyed.

I have tried to paint for you a biblical portrait of God as holy, namely of God as worthy of worship. This is a portrait of a God who, out of concern for his holy name, redeems a people from his enemies who will share God’s concern for God’s name. This gospel of God therefore concerns a salvation that hallows God’s name. Any salvation that fails to hallow God’s name is a counterfeit.

From this vantage point, I think this verse makes complete sense. It makes complete sense that God would judge the people God redeems and that the gospel would be something that God’s people obey.

Any gospel compatible the holiness of God must involve both the rescue of sinners and the destruction of sin from the earth. No such rescue is possible without judgment upon sin and the defeat of sin in the transformed lives of the people being rescued. There can be no peace between God and sin. Peace with God means war with sin.

To see why, it helps to understand sin as the direct opposite of hallowing God’s name. We ought to define sin in terms of holiness rather than in terms of cleanliness or purity. Sin is personal. Sin is when we treat God in a way that does not befit God’s worth. Sin is when we are unjust toward God, perhaps by being unjust toward others. Sin is when we fail to love God and others as we ought to. Sin involves mistrust and disobedience. Whenever we demean God’s worth through our words and deeds we sin. Who among us is without sin?

Theologian Herbert Farmer observes (p. 126) that the worst consequence of sin “is that it very soon gets completely out of man’s control, so that he is impotent to redeem himself.” In short order, sin controls us and we are truly trapped — unable to trust, obey, and adore God.

This is part of God’s judgment upon sin. In God’s wisdom, God judges sin by handing us over to our sin for our own good. In fact, the wrath of God in the Bible is usually a matter of letting sin run its course. This may even involve hardening our hearts for a season so that having eyes we do not see and having ears we do not hear. And this isn’t simply an individual matter. Even the righteous live in a world subject to frustration and decay — sickness, violence, and injustice — so that in due course all the idols of humankind will fail to save us.

We sin because we trust something — anything — other than God to give us life. God’s judgment upon sin is to expose it for what it is and show us that it cannot sustain life. You might say that God gives sin and idols a fair chance to prove themselves to us. When they inevitably fail to deliver, we are shipwrecked without a hope in the world. We then face a moment of crisis — a moment when sin is exposed for what it is, a desolate broad highway to death and destruction rather than the narrow path to eternal life with God.

Let’s relate this to the obedient death of Jesus. In his death, Jesus reveals God’s judgment upon the world. We naturally think that we’d surely welcome God’s anointed one, or Messiah, if we saw him. Surely we’d obey God’s anointed one if he commanded us. Apparently not. Out of obedience to God his Father, Jesus provokes a final crisis with the sinful world. He challenges our idols — even our religious idols — such that within a week we, like the crowds in Jerusalem, would forget our songs of Hosanna and cry out as with one voice “Crucify Him!”

Horror of horrors, God in his judgment upon the world allows human sin to run its course even when that sin crucifies Jesus the Son of God, the person most concerned for God’s holy name.

Jesus struggled with his Father over what God required of him. The same one who taught his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done”, himself prayed “not what I want but what you want”, “your will be done.” He thereby demonstrated what it looks like to hallow God’s name. We hallow God’s name as we yield our will to God’s, even at the cost of our life. Jesus shows us what it looks like to treat God as worthy of worship, worthy of our unqualified trust, obedience, and adoration.

By his obedience unto death, Jesus declared that God is within his rights to allow evil men to crucify his anointed one, for the sake of his holy name. By his obedience unto death, Jesus hallows God’s name from the depths of a world under judgment. Our sin is defeated as we join Jesus in hallowing God’s name in word and deed. We agree with him that God’s judgment upon the world and its sin is just, even when we suffer for doing good as Peter teaches. By the power of God at work within us, we become a people who offer our obedience to God as a sacrifice worthy of God’s holy name, praying “Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed by they name, thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

From this perspective, the people of God are the people who agree with God’s judgment upon sin. Judgment begins in the household of God because judgment begins with those who, like Jesus, embrace God’s judgment upon sin. We welcome God’s judgment as the way of life, for each of us individually and also for our sinful world.

Furthermore, the people of God are the people who hallow God’s name. We are therefore surely a people bent on obedience to God. Our gospel is that we are redeemed from sin for God’s own sake, that we might worship him. Such a rescue is a rescue unto obedience or it is no rescue at all.

I think we ought to conclude together with the Lord’s prayer. Hopefully you can see something new in it today as we pray it together.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matt 6:9–13)