1 Peter 4:5

who shall give account The phrase is one of the many echoes in this Epistle of our Lord's teaching (Luke 16:2). The thought of the Final Judgment from which there will be no appeal is made here, as in 1 Corinthians 4:5, a motive for patience and courage under the false accusations and unjust judgments of men. They who now demand an account (chap. 1 Peter 3:15) will one day have to render it. Christ holds Himself in readiness to judge both the living and the dead. There is nothing in the context to lead us to any other than a literal interpretation of the familiar phraseology. Commentators who have taken the words of those who are spiritually living and spiritually dead have been led, for the most part, by their unwillingness to accept the natural meaning of the words that follow.