1 Peter 4:17

17. The time The season, the fit time, for God’s judicial dealings with a wicked and corrupt world. The apostle saw that the times were ripe for the stretching forth of the divine hand in terrible chastenings.

Judgment That severe trial which determines character through afflictions and distresses, purifying, as in a furnace, those who endure the test, and overwhelming the wicked with destruction. The apostle says, It is now the season of the beginning of this work at the house of God. The divine rule is to always begin his work of discipline and punishment with his own people. Isaiah 10:12-13; Ezekiel 9:6; Jeremiah 25:29; Jeremiah 49:12.

House of God The us in the next verse, the “spiritual house” of 1 Peter 2:5, the “Church of the living God” of 1 Timothy 3:15, and the “ whose house are we” of Hebrews 3:6. There appears no special reference to the Jewish temple or to the destruction of Jerusalem.

If it first begin at us The sufferings of the righteous proceed from God’s judgment, for the purpose of chastening, (Hebrews 12:6;) and they should, therefore, glorify God in them; but that judgment does not end with them, for it proceeds onward from them to the wicked. If he deal thus with his faithful people who obey his gospel, how terribly will he deal with them that obey it not, and scorn the Christ in whom it commands them to believe? It may be delayed; it may seem to be escaped; they may prosper and attain high honor and power by their iniquity, and die calmly in their beds; but the awful, overwhelming end will surely come.