Just recently stumbled across this passage, which on the surface would appear to go against UR. Thoughts?
Ah; thanks.
I certainly don’t mind people adding to it, here or there. (But if here, I hope they’ll add a link over there back to here for future reference. 
…I’m almost certain the grammar of that sentence added up… Anyway I’m trying to collect commentaries.)
Hi Melch
I found Jason’s thoughts amazing and informative.
I would like to come at this from an entirely different perspective. My thoughts concern the word ‘saved’ and its possible meanings. I am convinced that, in our modern western culture, we have an entirely different meaning (or baggage) placed on that word which can completely distort the message of the text. You may yourself have come across the idea of ‘three-fold salvation’ in which the NT scriptures refer to salvation of the body quite separately to that of the soul (mind) and again to that of the spirit (heart). If the tenses of the verbs are examined, it seems that, for the NT disciples, the past tense is used for salvation of the spirit (being ‘born again’ is how some would refer to this), the present tense is used for the mind (a continuing process) and the future tense is used for the body (we await the redemption of the body). Obviously this aligns with justification, sanctification and glorification.
So let’s look at this particular section of scripture.
The context of chapter 4 and 5 is the present-day earthly suffering of the church. It is my contention that if we rid ourselves of our modern western view of that word ‘saved’ (which, to our mind must always refer to the here-after and heaven and hell) and examine what it refers to in the context of Peter’s epistle and the on-going suffering to which Peter was alluding in these verses, then it seems to me that he is talking about ‘shalom’ or ‘well-being’ or ‘peace of mind’ or ‘the peace which passes all understanding’ which can be ours in the midst of our present-day turmoils.
In 1 Peter 4v18 (and in the light of the preceding verses) it seems to me that Peter is contrasting the ‘shalom’ that God can give to those who are suffering through no fault of their own (ie for the cause of Christ) with the difficulty of finding ‘shalom’ for those who have brought the suffering on themselves through their own mis-deeds.
When I re-read ch4 and ch5 with this in mind, it all seems to make much more sense and is something that I can relate to personally. I can put myself in both categories in that there are times when my suffering is undeserved and other times when my suffering is deserved. I think I can more easily receive God’s sweet sleep of the ‘saved and the blessed’ when my suffering is for a good cause.
For me, the context and meaning is all about the here-and-now, and nothing to do with the here-after.
On e-sword, Matthew Henry says this:
(my bold)
I hope this may be of some further help.
[PS Jason, Im not very good with links so I’ll copy but please amend as fitting]
Good point Pilgrim, thanks for reminding me of that.
Incidentally, I had an opportunity to pick up a single and a six-volume set of Henry’s commentary for nothing today, which I can probably still do; would you recommend that, Pilgrim? (Sister-in-law’s parents were moving; the father owns a ton of commentaries; was hoping to find a set of Barclay’s, for obvious reasons. Did find a Jerusalem Bible with commentary – I don’t have many Roman Catholic commentaries yet, so that was a nifty loot. 
)
Meanwhile, I kind of like having your comments in both threads it’s archived on the other thread for safekeeping this way. Thanks for the contribution! (I may add a link to the tail of your post over there pointing back here in case there’s subsequent discussion here.)
Follow-up, got to go eat in a few minutes, but while I don’t hold to much if any distinction anymore (biblically) between justification and sanctification (although I do much appreciate the standard distinctions–just that I don’t find the scriptures to distinguish the terms per se by usage, but rather the authors treat them as synonyms), I thought your exposition was fascinating and well worth adding! 
I’ll want to chew over that three-mode salvation usage a bit more and see if I can apply it to other areas, but it looks very fruitful.
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I think Matthew Henry has a lot of good things to say, along with the somewhat misogynistic things. There are a lot of things I disagree with and if I had limited space his work wouldn’t take precedence over some other commentaries. That said, it’s interesting to see his take on things.
I’m actually quite ignorant of Henry’s work so I can’t recommend, it just happened to be open on e-sword and I glanced at it. I have more info on the three-fold salvation (I think my source was Derek Walker?) but I’m away for a couple of days so hopefully I’ll look to it when I get back.