1 Peter 4:17:
general suffering or Investigative Judgment?
This year 2017 had the Sabbath school
quarterly on 1 Peter and 2 Peter coming from the hand of an Australian
professor at Avondale College.
The lessons are sometimes crispy and
well presented. It fits very well in with explanations of the way Adventism has
presented itself on the issues of sanctification and other matters.
There is one downside that should be
listed and mentioned. It is the author’s dealing with 1 Peter 4:17-18.
He seems to bring in the idea that a
general suffering of all good people is in mind here and that is where one
will get started on understanding the phrase “judgment will start with the
house of God”.
In the SS lesson on 1 Peter on June 16th
1923 at page 28 4. "In the typical service; only those who had come
before God with confession and repentance, and whose sins, through- the blood of the sin offering, were transferred
to the sanctuary, had a part in the service of the day of, atonement. So in the great day of final atonement and investigative judgment, the only cases considered are those of the
professed people of God. The judgment of the wicked is a distinct and separate work, and takes place at a later period. `Judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not
the gospel?' "-"Great
Controversy," p. 480.
Our 2017 Australian professor did not bring out this connection in his
dealing with the word Judgment of the People of God since he linked it to the
ongoing suffering of God’s people from Adam to the Eschaton.
An interesting phenomenon here in South Korea is, that even though
Goldstein et al left the SS as it is untouched or unimproved? the Korean
edition updated it by revising it and placed the Investigative Judgment
significance in for their readers in South Korea!