“Is 1 Peter 4:5-6 Jesus telling the lost at the Great White Throne why they are condemned?”
“Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit” (1 Pet. 4:5-6).
In verses 3-4, Peter reminded his believing countrymen that, after they were saved and no longer behaved as the world, the world thought them to be “strange” and mad, and then spoke “evil of you” (v. 4). Peter assures us that the unbelievers who did so would answer to God for every sinful word and deed, and would “give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead” (v. 5), Who is the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31).
In verse 5, Peter pointed out that the unsaved will one day be judged for how they treated believers, and then in verse 6, he vindicates and defends the saved. He stated that the gospel of the kingdom was “preached also to them that are dead,” meaning “to them that are [now] dead,” that is, to people who were alive, but later died. At the time when Peter wrote this, they were dead as far as their physical bodies were concerned.
When they were still living, these people had responded to the gospel of the kingdom, believed in the Lord, and were saved. They were saved, Peter wrote, “that they might be judged according to men in the flesh,” as believers are often judged as strange and spoken evil of (v. 4) by men after they “find religion” and take a stand for what is right and live separate from the world. Because the application of this passage will be in the future Tribulation period, it refers to the mocking, suffering, and, in many cases, the martyrdom of future kingdom believers (Rev. 6:9-11; 20:4) who will reject the Anti-Christ as a fraud and stand for the truth that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah.