Peter is concerned with our perspective; do we seek pleasure in the flesh, to our destruction, or do we endure hardship in the flesh, to our eternal satisfaction?

For 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, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

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, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.

1 Peter 3:18-4:3

Time’s up! No more time for self-indulgence and debauchery, but the Christian now lives according to the Spirit. Not as a powerless person who self-righteously hands over pleasure to gain some recognition for his suffering, but as an associate of the one who now sits in Heaven with all Spiritual authority under his command. Having foregone the temporary and destructive “pleasures” of this life, we gain the eternal life of that Jesus purchased for us, a life of safety, glory and true satisfaction.

Ethan Kirl