1 Peter 4:6

This V. refers back to 1 Peter 3:19. The dead are the same persons in each place. Judgment does not mean punishment, but separation, and man, by choosing His side, cooperates with God's judgment. This choice and separation could not, St. Peter considers, be made until the gospel had been heard. Thus the judgment of these dead men did not take place till Christ preached in the spirit to them. Then they could choose their side, for or against Him. St. Peter, however, does not claim to penetrate the depths of the mystery of judgment, and leaves the subject with a statement containing, like that of St. Paul in Philippians 2:12., two parts which we cannot reconcile, but which he assures us will be reconciled—they must be judged as all men must, in the flesh, i.e. by what they did in their earthly life, and yet they may live, as God lives, in the spirit, i.e. by the choice they make in their disembodied state.

D. 1 Peter 4:7. 'But all these present judgments are about to be completed by that great judgment which is the end of the whole present order of things. Be then sober, diligent, devout, aiming in all things at God's glory through Jesus Christ.' With this paragraph cp. Romans 12:3.