Tom Lowe
4/2/2021
Text: 1 Peter, Chapter 1 (KJV)
1Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and a sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and 1Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and a sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 8Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: 9Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
10Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 11Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 12Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to investigate.
Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 14As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
17And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: 18Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
22Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
24For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
25But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
Introduction
Peter’s first epistle is addressed to Gentile believers among the dispersed (the scattered) of Israel. They have been released from the futile way of life they learned from their ancestors (1:18). Those who were at one time, not a people, had become nothing less than the people of God (2:10). (In Peter’s time, the dispersed are found in those provinces of Asia Minor named in the first verse. The second epistle declares itself to be a second addressed to the same persons, and it was destined for the Jews of Asia Minor (that is, to those among them who had the same precious faith as the apostle).
The first epistle is based on the doctrine of the heavenly calling (I do not say the assembly on Earth, [see footnote #1] which is not brought before us here) in contrast with the portion of the Jews on the planet. It presents Christians, and in particular Christians among the Jews, as pilgrims and strangers on Earth. The conduct suited to such is more largely developed than the doctrine. The Lord Jesus, who was himself a pilgrim and a stranger here, is presented as a pattern in more than one aspect. Both epistles pursue the righteous government of God from the beginning to the consummation of all things, in which the elements melt with fervent heat, and there are new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
As we begin our study of 1 Peter, I must inform you that we have two wonderful “assistants” to help us, the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The same truth that we trusted and obeyed to become God’s children also nurtures and empowers us. It is impossible to love the truth and hate the brethren. The Spirit of God produces the “fruit of the Spirit” in our lives, and the first of these is love (Gal. 5:22-23). If our minds are filled with the Word of God (Col. 3:16) and the Spirit of God (Eph. 5:18), we will manifest the love of God in our daily experiences. Once, it had been said that God only loved Israel of all nations upon the Earth. But now, the mercy, the privileges, and the grace of God have gone out to all the world and all people, even to those who could never have expected them.
But the nation of Israel failed in the purposes of God, for when He sent His Son into the world, they rejected and crucified Him. When he told the wicked tenants’ parable, He said that Israel’s inheritance was to be taken from them and given to others (Matt. 21:41; Mark 12:9; Luke 20:16). All the privileges that once belonged to Israel now belonged to the Christian Church. The mercy of God has gone out to the ends of the Earth, and all nations had seen the glory and had experienced the grace of God.
Commentary
Greetings from Peter
1Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
In the Old Testament, Israel had been promised a Land as their inheritance (Joshua 11:23). However, through their rebellion, the land became defiled (Jeremiah 2:7), so God scattered them abroad (Ezekiel 36:16-21). All Israel became exiles in a foreign land. Nevertheless, through the prophets, God offered the hope that He would restore His people and bring them back to their inheritance (vv. 22-38). The prophets announced that God would raise a king from David’s line to regather God’s people back to the place of God’s presence based on a new covenant (vv. 24-28). They would still enjoy it. They would still want their inheritance one day.
There is a word here which once belonged exclusively to Israel. The address (greeting), reads “. . . to the elect strangers of the Diaspora throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Diaspora, the dispersion was the technical name for the Jews scattered in exile in all the countries outside the bounds of Palestine. Sometimes in their troubled history, the Jews had been forcibly deported. Those exiled Jews were called the Diaspora. The real Diaspora is not the Jewish nation; it is the Christian Church scattered abroad throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire and the world’s countries.
We have just been saying that the two great titles* we have been thinking about belong to us who are Christians.
1) We are the chosen people of God*. Something is uplifting here. Surely there can be no greater compliment and privilege in all the world than to be chosen by God.
2) We are the exiles of eternity*. We must at the same time be both in the world and not of it. Wherever the exiled Jews settled, their eyes were always towards Jerusalem.
In verse 2, we are confronted with the three great facts of the Christian life.
1) The Christian is chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.
2) The Christian is chosen to be consecrated by the Spirit.
3) The Christian is chosen for obedience and sprinkling by the blood of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, there are three occasions when sprinkling with blood is mentioned.
1. When a leper had been healed, he was sprinkled with the blood of a bird (Lev. 14:1-7).
2. Sprinkling with blood was part of the ritual of setting apart Aaron and the priests (Ex, 29:20-21; Lev. 8:30).
3. The remarkable picture of the sprinkling comes from the covenant relationship between Israel and God.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
It will take us a long time to fully understand the riches of this passage, for there are few passages in the New Testament where more of the grand fundamental Christian ideas come together.
It begins with a doxology, a hymn of praise, to God—but a doxology with a difference. For a Jew, the most common of all beginnings to prayer was: “Blessed are you, O God.” Christians take over that prayer—but with a difference. Their prayer: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They are not praying to a distant, unknown God; they are praying to the God who is like Jesus and to whom, through Jesus Christ, they may come with childlike confidence.
This passage begins with the idea of rebirth; Christians are men and women who have been reborn; they have been given new birth by God to a new kind of life. Whatever else this means, it means that, when people become Christians, there comes into their lives a change so radical that the only thing that can be said is that life has begun all over again for them. This idea of rebirth runs all through the New Testament. Let us try to collect what it says about it.
1) Christian rebirth happens by the will and God’s act (John 1:13; James 1:18). It is not something which we achieve any more than we achieve our physical birth.
2) Another way to put that is to say that this rebirth is the work of the Spirit (John 3:1-15). It happens to people, not by their own effort, but when they give themselves up to be possessed and re-created by the Spirit within them.
3) It happens by the word of truth (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1). In the beginning, it was the word of God that created heaven and Earth and all that is in them. God spoke, and the chaos became a world, and the world was equipped with and for life. It is the creative Word of God in Jesus Christ that brings about this rebirth in our lives.
4) The result of this rebirth is that those who are reborn become the first fruits of a new creation (James 1:18). It lifts them out of this world of space and time, of change and decay, sin and defeat, and brings them here and now into touch with eternity and eternal life.
5) When we are reborn, it is to a living hope (1Peter 1:3). Paul describes the world without Christ as being without hope (Ephesians 2:12). Sophocles wrote: ‘not to be born at all’— that is by far the best fortune; the second best is as soon as one is born with all speed to return to where one has come from. ‘To the Gentiles, the world was a place where all things faded and decayed; it might be pleasant enough in itself, but it was leading out into nothing but an endless dark. To the ancient world, the Christian characteristic was hope. That hope came from two things, (a) Christians felt that they had been born not of perishable but of imperishable seed (1Peter 1:23). They had something of the very seed of God in them and, therefore, had in them a life which neither time nor eternity could destroy. (b) It came from the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1: 3). Christians always had beside them—even more, were one with—this Jesus Christ who had conquered even death, and therefore there was nothing of which they needed to be afraid.
6) Christians’ rebirth is a rebirth to righteousness (John 2:29, 3:9, 5:18). In this rebirth, they are cleansed from themselves, the sins which shackled them, and the habits which bind them; and they are given a power that enables them to walk in righteousness. That is not to say that those reborn will never sin, but it is to say that they will be given the power and the grace to rise again every time they fall.
7) The rebirth of Christians is a rebirth to love (1 John 4:7). Because the life of God is in them, they are cleansed from the essential unforgiving bitterness of the self-centered life, and there is in them something of the forgiving and sacrificial love of God.
8) Finally, the rebirth of Christians is rebirth to victory (1 John 5: 4). Life ceases to be defeat and begins to be victory over self and sin and circumstances. Because the life of God is in them, Christians have learned the secret of victorious living.
Further, Christians have entered into a great inheritance. Not only are we promised a future resurrection, but also a future inheritance. Peter tells us that we will live beyond death and what kind of life that will be. Here is a word with history, for it is the word which is regularly used in the Greek Old Testament for the inheritance of Canaan, the Promised Land. Again and again, the Old Testament speaks of the land which God had given His people for an inheritance to possess (Deuteronomy15:4, 19:10). To us, inheritance tends to mean something we shall have in the future; but as the Bible uses the word, it means secure possession. To the Jews, the great settled possession was the Promised Land.
But the Christian inheritance is even greater. Peter uses three words with three pictures behind them to describe it. It is imperishable. The word does mean imperishable, but it can also mean unravaged by an invading army. Time after time, Palestine had been ravaged by the armies of other nations; it had been fought over and destroyed. But Christians possess a feeling of peace and joy, which no invading army can ravage and destroy. It is undefilable. Time after time, Palestine had been rendered impure by the false worship of false gods (Jeremiah 2:7, 2:23, 3:2.; Ezekiel. 20:43). The defyling things had often left their touch and their mark even on the Promise Land, but Christians have a purity which the world’s sin cannot infect. It is unfading. In the Promised Land, in any land, even the loveliest flower fades. And the most beautiful blossom dies. But Christians are lifted into a world where there is no change and decay and where their peace and joy are untouched by the chances and changes of life.
What, then, is this wonderful inheritance which reborn Christians possess? There may be many secondary answers to that question, but there is only one immediate answer. The legacy of Christians is God himself. The psalmist said, “The Lord is my chosen portion . . .I have a goodly heritage.” (Psalm 16:5-6). God is his portion forever (Psalm 73:23-6). “The Lord,” said the prophet, “is my portion . . . therefore, I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:24 ). Christians possess God and are owned by God so that they may have the inheritance that is imperishable and undefilable, which can never fade away.
The inheritance of Christians, the complete joy of God, is waiting for them in heaven; and Peter has two great things to say.
1. On our journey through this world to eternity, we are protected by the power of God through faith. Those who have faith never doubt that God is standing within the shadows keeping watch over his own, even when they cannot see him.
2. The final salvation will be revealed at the last time. Here we have two concepts that are at the very basis of New Testament thought.
The New Testament frequently speaks of the last day or days or the last time. Behind this is how the Jews divide all time into two stages—the present age, which is wholly under the domination of evil, and the age to come, which will be the golden age of God. In between came the day of the Lord, during which the world would be destroyed and remade, and judgment would come. It is this in-between time, which is the last days or the last time, that time when the world, as we know it, will come to an end.
It is not given to us to know when that time will come nor what will happen then. But we can gather together what the New Testament says about these last days.
1) The Christians believed that they were already living in the last days. As the first Christians saw it, God had already invaded time, and the end was hastening on.
2) The Christians believed the last times were to be a time of the pouring out of God’s Spirit upon all people (Acts 2:17).
3) The early Christians’ conviction was that, before the end, the powers of evil would make a final assault and that all kinds of false teachers would arise (2 Timothy 3:1; John 2:18; Jude 18).
4) The dead would be raised. Jesus promises that at the last time, he will raise his own. (John 6.39-40, 6:44, 6:54, 11:24).
5) Inevitably, it would be a time of judgment. When God’s justice would be exercised, and his enemies would find their just condemnation and punishment (John 12:48).
For many people, such a time will be a time of terror; for Christians, there is not terror but deliverance. Salvation is a many-sided thing. In it, there is deliverance from danger, deliverance from disease, deliverance from condemnation, and deliverance from sin. And it is that, and nothing less than that, to which Christians can look forward to at the end.
6Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: 7That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
Peter comes to the actual situation in life in which his readers found themselves. Their Christianity had always made them unpopular, but now they were facing almost certain persecution. Soon the storm was going to break, and life was going to be an agonizing experience. Faced with that threatening situation, Peter, in effect, reminds them of three reasons why. They can stand anything that may come upon them.
1) They can stand anything because of what they can look forward to. In the end, there is for them the magnificent inheritance, life with God.
2) In any event, the ultimate meaning is the same. For Christians, persecution and trouble are not the end; beyond lies the glory and the hope of that glory. They can endure anything that life brings to them.
3) They can stand anything because, at the end of it, when Jesus Christ appears, they will receive from him praise and glory and honor. Christians know that if they endure, they will, in the end, hear the Master say, “Well done!”
8Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: 9Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
Peter is drawing a contrast between himself and his readers. It was his great privilege to have known Jesus in his days on Earth. His readers had not had that joy, but although they never knew Jesus on Earth, they love him. ; And, although they do not actually see him, they believe.
There are four stages in our understanding and knowledge of Christ.
1) The first is the stage of hope and desire, the stage of those who, throughout the ages, dreamed of the coming of the King.
2) The second stage came to those who knew Christ on Earth. That is what Peter is thinking about here.
3) There are those in every nation and time who see Jesus with the eye of faith. Jesus said to Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29).
4) There is the heavenly vision. It was John’s confidence, that we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
10Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: 11Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 12Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to investigate.
Here again, we have a rich passage. The wonder of the salvation which was to come to men and women in Christ was such that the prophets searched and inquired about it. Even the angels were eager to catch a glimpse of it—few passages have more to tell us about how the prophets wrote and about how they were inspired.
1) We are told two things about the prophets. First, they searched and inquired about the salvation which was to come. Second, the Spirit of Christ told them about Christ. Here we have a great truth: inspiration depends on two things—the searching human mind and the revealing Spirit of God. Furthermore, the passage tells us that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, was always at work in this world. Never has there been any time in any nation when the Spirit of Christ was not moving men and women to seek God and guiding them to find him.
2) Such passages tell us that the Prophets spoke of the sufferings and the glory of Christ—such passages as Psalms 22 and Isaiah 52:13-53:12, found their consummation and fulfillment in the sufferings of Christ. Such passages as Psalms 2, Psalms 16:8-11, and Psalm 1:10 found their fulfillment in the glory and the triumph of Christ. We need not think that the prophets foresaw the actual man, Jesus. They did foresee that someday there would come one in whom their dreams and visions will all be fulfilled.
3) This passage tells us for whom the Prophets spoke. It was the message of the glorious deliverance of God that they brought to the people.
13 Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Peter has been talking about the greatness and the glory to which Christians may look forward; Christians can never be lost in dreams of the future; they must always be strong and powerful in the present battle. So, Peter throws out three challenges to his people.
1. He tells them to gird up the loins of their mind. The phrase’s English equivalent would be to roll up one’s sleeves or take off one’s jacket. Peter is telling his people that they must be ready for the most strenuous mental endeavor. They must never be content with a flappy and unexamined faith. They must learn to think things through after praying about it.
2. He tells them to be sober. The Greek word, like the English, can have two meanings. It can mean that they must refrain from drunkenness in the literal sense of the term, and it can also mean that they must be steady in their minds. They must become intoxicated, neither with intoxicating liquor nor with intoxicating thoughts.
3. He tells them to set their hope on the grace that will be given to them when Jesus Christ comes. It is the great characteristic of Christians that they live in hope, and because they live in hope, they can endure the trials of the present. For Christians, the best is always still to come. They can live with gratitude for all the mercies of the past, with a resolution to meet the challenges of the present, and with the sure hope that in Christ, the best is yet to come.
Peter wrote this letter to believers in five different Provinces, yet he said they all belonged to one “spiritual house.” We belong to each other because we belong to Christ. This means that we must not let our differences destroy the spiritual unity we have in Christ. We ought to be mature enough to disagree without in any sense becoming disagreeable.
The apostle presents as the fruit of His grace a hope beyond this world. Not the inheritance of Canaan, appropriate for a man living on the Earth, which was the hope of Israel, and is still the hope of that unbelieving nation. The mercy of God had begotten them again for a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from out of the dead. This resurrection showed them a portion of another world and the power which brought man into it. Although he had been subjected to death: he would enter it by resurrection, through the glorious triumph of the savior, to share an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. The apostle is not speaking of our resurrection with Christ; he views the Christian as a pilgrim here, encouraged by the triumph of Christ in the resurrection, which animated Him by the consciousness that there was a world of light and happiness before him, and a power which would bring him into this world.
Consequently, the inheritance is spoken of as “reserved in heaven.” In Ephesians, we are seated in the heavenlies in Christ, and the inheritance is all things of which Christ is the heir. But the Christian is also, in fact, a pilgrim and a stranger on the Earth. It is a strong consolation for us, in our pilgrimage, to see this heavenly inheritance before us as a sure pledge of our entrance into it.
Another inestimable consolation is added. If the inheritance is preserved in heaven for us, we are kept by the power of God all through our pilgrimage that we may enjoy it at the end. Sweet thought! —we are held here through all our dangers and difficulties and, on the other hand, the inheritance is there, where there is no heresy or possibility of decay.
14As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: 15But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 17And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: 18Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. 22Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 25But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the Word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
This passage has great things to say about our Redeemer and Lord.
1) Jesus Christ is the Liberator who comes through men and women delivered from the penalty and destruction of sin and death; he is the Lamb without blemish and spot. No matter how we interpret it, it cost the life and death of Jesus Christ to free us from our bondage to sin and death.
2) Jesus Christ is the eternal purpose of God. Before the creation of the world, He was predestined for the work which was given to him to do. Peter has a connection of thought which is universal in the New Testament. Jesus Christ is not only the lamb who was slain; He is the resurrected and triumphant One, to whom God gave glory. There is only one Savior, Jesus Christ, and only one spiritual building, the church. Jesus Christ is the church’s chief cornerstone (Eph. 2:20 [3]), binding the building together. Whether we agree with each other or not, all true Christians belong to each other as stones in God’s building. [1} Peter is the living stone, the Father’s chosen stone, and He is precious. Also, Jesus is a living stone because he was raised from the dead in victory. Though selected by God, men rejected him. He was not the kind of Messiah they expected, so they stumbled (did not recognize Him when He was here) over Him.
3) The New Testament thinkers seldom separate the cross and the resurrection; they rarely think of the sacrifice of Christ without thinking of his death. Through his death and His resurrection, Jesus freed men and women from their bondage and slavery to sin. He gives them a life that is as glorious and indestructible as his own. Through his triumphant resurrection, we have faith and hope in God (verse 21).
Peter picks out three characteristics of the Christian’s life.
1) It is the life of ignorance. The unknown ability of God always haunted the Gentile world.
2) It is the life dominated by desire (verse 14). It was a world ruled by desire, whose aim was to find newer and wilder ways of gratifying its lusts.
3) It was a life characterized by futility. Its essential trouble was that it was not going anywhere. The Roman poet wrote, “Life was a futile business with a few brief years in the light of the Sun. And then an eternal nothing. There was nothing to live for and nothing to die for. Life is always futile when there is nothing on the other side of death.
Peter finds three characteristics. Of the Christ-filled life, and for each he finds compelling reasons.
a) The Christ-filled life is the life of obedience and holiness. (verses 14- 16). To be chosen by God is to enter into great privilege, but also great responsibility. It was God’s insistence that his people must be holy because he was holy (Leviticus 11:44). Christians are God’s people. By God’s choice. They are chosen for a task in the world and destiny in eternity.
b) The Christ-filled life is the life of reverence. (verses 17-21). Reverence is the attitude of mind of those who are always aware that they are in the presence of God.
c) Christians must live a life of reverence because it cost so much—nothing less than the life and death of Jesus Christ.
d) The Christ-filled life is a life of mutual love. It must be visible in a love for others that is sincere and heartfelt, and steadfast.
Christians are people who live the Christ-filled life, the life that is different and never forgets the eternal nature of its obligation and is made beautiful by the love of the God who gave it birth.
But it is by moral means that this power preserves us (and it is in this way that Peter always speaks) by the operation in us of grace, which fixes the heart on objects that keep it connected with God and with His promise. (compare 2 Peter 1:4.) The power of God keeps us through faith. God be praised, the power of God acts by sustaining trust in the heart, maintaining it despite all temptations above all the world’s defilement, and filling the affections with heavenly things. Peter, however, constantly occupied with the ways of God respecting this world, only looks at the share that believers will have in this salvation, this heavenly glory, when it shall be manifested; when God will, by this glory, establish His authority in blessing on the Earth. It is indeed the heavenly glory, but the divine glory manifested as the means of showing God’s supreme government on Earth for His glory and the blessing of the whole world.
It is salvation ready to be revealed in the last times. The word “ready” is essential. Our apostle also says that the judgment is ready to be told. Christ is glorified personally, for He has conquered all His enemies and has accomplished redemption. He only waits for one thing, namely, that God should make his enemies his footstool. He has taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high because he has accomplished everything to glorify God where sin was. It is the actual salvation of souls—the gathering together of His own, which is not yet finished (2 Peter. 3:9 & 15). But when once all they who are to share it are brought in, there is nothing to wait for regarding salvation, that is to say, the glory in which the redeemed will appear; [see footnote #2] nor consequently as regards the judgment of the wicked on Earth which the manifestation of Christ will consummate.[see footnote #3] all is ready. This thought is sweet for us in our days of patience but full of seriousness when we reflect upon the judgment. Yes, as the apostle says, we rejoice in this salvation, which is ready to be revealed in the last times. We are waiting for it. It is a time of rest, of the Earth’s blessing, of the full manifestation of His glory which is worthy of it who was humbled and who suffered for us; the time when the light and the glory of God in Christ will illuminate the world and first bind and then chase away all its evil. Abundant joy is our portion: great joy in the salvation about to be revealed and in which we may always rejoice; although, if it is needed for our good, we may be in sorrow through various temptations. But it is only for a very little while-only a light affliction which passes away and which only comes upon us if it is needful so that the precious trial of faith may have its result in praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ for whom we are waiting. That is the end of all our sorrows and trials, transitory and light as they are in comparison with the vast result of the excellent and eternal glory towards which they are leading us according to the wisdom of God and the need of our souls. The heart attaches itself to Jesus: he will appear.
We love Him, although we have never seen Him. In him, though now we see him not, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. This decides and forms the heart, which fixes it and fills it with joy. However, it may be with us in this life. To our hearts, it is He who serves all the glory. By grace I shall be glorified, I shall have the glory; but I love Jesus, my heart pants for His presence-desires to see him.
Moreover, we shall be like him, and he perfectly glorified. The apostle may well say “unspeakable and full of glory.” the heart can desire nothing else: and if some light afflictions are needful for us, we shall endure them gladly since they are a means of forming us for the glory. And we can rejoice at the thought of Christ’s appearing; for in receiving Him unseen into our heart, we welcome the salvation of our soul. This is the object and the end of faith, far more precious than the temporal deliverances that Israel enjoyed, although the latter were tokens of God’s favor.
The apostle goes on to develop the three successive steps of the revelation of this grace of salvation—the complete and entire deliverance from the consequences, the fruits, and the misery of sin: the prophecies; the testimony of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; the manifestation of Jesus Christ himself when the deliverance that had been already announced should be fully accomplished.
According to Jewish hopes, it is interesting to see how the Messiah’s rejection, already anticipated and announced in the prophets, necessarily made way for salvation that brought the soul with it. Jesus was no more seen; his first coming did not realize the earthly portion; salvation was to be revealed in the last times. Thus, the soul’s salvation has unfolded the whole extent of which would be realized in the glory about to be revealed. It was the spiritual joy of the soul in a heavenly Jesus who was not seen and who in his death had accomplished repentance for sin and in His resurrection, according to the power of the life of the son of God, had begotten again to a living hope. By faith, then, this salvation was received—this is true deliverance. It was not yet the (glory and the outward rest; that redemption would indeed take place when Jesus appeared but meantime the soul already enjoyed by faith this perfect rest, and in hope even the glory itself.
Now the prophets had announced God’s grace, which was to be accomplished for believers and even now imparts to the soul the enjoyment of that salvation. They had searched into their prophecies which they had received by inspiration from God, seeking to understand what time, and what manner of time, the Spirit indicated when he testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. For the Spirit spoke of them both by the prophets and signified more than a temporal deliverance in Israel; for the Messiah was to suffer. And they discovered that it was not for themselves nor for their times that the Spirit of Christ announced these truths concerning the Messiah, but for Christians. While receiving the salvation of the soul by the revelation of a Christ seated in heaven after his sufferings and coming again in glory, Christians have not received those glories that were revealed to the prophets. These things have been reported with remarkable and divine plainness by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven after the death of Jesus: but the Spirit does not bestow the glory itself in which the Lord will appear; he has only declared it. Christians have therefore to gird up the loins of their mind, to be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that (in effect) will be brought to them at the revelation of Jesus Christ; such are the three successive steps in God’s dealings: the prediction of the events relating to Christ, which went altogether beyond Jewish blessings; the things reported by the Spirit; the accomplishment of the things promised when Christ is revealed.
That, then which the apostle presents, is a participation in the glory of Christ when he shall be revealed; that salvation, of which the prophets had spoken, which was to be displayed in the last days. But meantime God had begotten the believing Jews again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead; and utilizing his sufferings had made them comprehend that even now while waiting for the revelation of the glory, realizing it in the person of Jesus, they enjoyed salvation of the soul before which the deliverances of Israel faded away and might be forgotten. It was indeed the salvation “ready to be revealed” in all its fullness, but as yet, they only possessed it in respect of the soul. This salvation had a yet more spiritual character since being detached from the manifestation of the earthly glory. Therefore, they were to gird up their loins while waiting for the revelation of Jesus and to acknowledge with thanksgiving that they owned the end of their faith. They were in a relationship with God.
When announcing these things by the prophets’ ministry, God had Christians in view, but not the prophets themselves. This grace was in due time to be communicated to believers, but meantime, for faith and the soul, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven bore testimony to it. It was to be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, which was the guarantee of accomplishing all the promises and the power of life for their enjoyment, had begotten them again unto a living hope. Still, the right to enjoy the effect of the pledge was founded on another truth. To this, the appeals conduct us. They were to walk as obedient children, no longer following the lusts that had led them in the days of their ignorance. Called by Him who is holy, they were to be holy in all their conversation, as written moreover, if they called on the Father. The latter, regardless of man’s pretension to respect, judged according to everyone’s work, they were to pass the time of their sojourn here in fear.
Observe, here, that he is not speaking of the final judgment of the soul. In that sense, “the Father judgeth no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son.” The thing spoken of here is the daily judgment of God’s government in this world, exercised concerning His children. Accordingly, it says, “the time of your sojourn here.” it is a judgment applied to the Christian life. The fear spoken of is not uncertainty as to salvation and redemption. It is a fear founded on the certainty that one is redeemed. The immense price, the infinite value of the means employed for our redemption—namely, the blood of the Lamb, without blemish and spot is the motive for fearing God during our pilgrimage. We have been redeemed from our vain conversation at the cost of the blood of Jesus. Can we then still walk according to the principles from which we have been delivered? Such a price for our deliverance demands that we should walk with circumspection and gravity before the Father, with whom we desire to have intercourse both as a privilege and spiritual relationship.
The apostle then applies this truth to the Christians whom he was addressing. The Lamb had been ordained in the counsels of God before the world was made, but He was manifested in the last days for believers: and these are presented in their true character, they believe in God by faith in Jesus—by faith in this Lamb. It is not due to the creation that they believe: although creation is a solid testimony to His glory, it gives no rest to the conscience and does not tell of a place in heaven. It is not through providence, which leaves God’s government in such extreme darkness even while directing all things. Nor is it by means of God’s revelation on Mount Sinai under the name of Jehovah and the terror connected with a broken law. It is through Jesus, the Lamb of God, that we believe; observe that it is not said “in Him,” but by Him in God. We know God as the one who, when we were sinners and dead in our trespasses and sins, loved us and gave this precious savior to come down even into the death in which we were, to take part in our position of lying under this judgment, and then, to die as the Lamb of God. We believe in God who, by His power, when Jesus was there for us in our stead—raised him from the dead and gave Him glory. Therefore, it is in a savior-god, a God who exercises His power on our behalf, that we believe in Jesus so that our faith and our hope are in God. It does not say in something before God, but in God himself, where then shall any cause for fear or distrust arise about God if our faith and hope are in Him? This changes everything. The viewpoint from which we view God has been altered. This change is founded on that which establishes the righteousness of God in accepting us as cleansed from all sin, the love of God in blessing us perfectly in Jesus, whom His power has raised from the dead and glorified—the power according to which he blesses us. Our faith and our hope are in God Himself.
Our faith in God places us in the most intimate of relationships with the rest of the redeemed: objects of the same love, washed by the same precious blood, redeemed by the same Lamb, they become—to those whose hearts are purified by the reception of the truth through the Spirit—the objects of tender brotherly love. They are our brethren. Let us then love one another fervently with a pure heart. But this is based on another vital principle. It is a new nature that acts in this affection. If the precious blood of the Lamb redeems us without spot, we are born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. For the flesh is but grass, the glory of man as the flower of grass. “The grass withers, its flower falls, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. “This is the Word of the gospel which has been preached unto us. It is an eternal principle of blessing. The believer is not born after the flesh to enjoy temporary rights and blessings but of an incorruptible seed, a principle of life as unchangeable as the Word of God. The prophet had told them so when comforting the people of God; all flesh, the nation itself, was but withered grass. God was unchangeable. By its indisputable certainty, the Word secured divine blessings to the objects of God’s favor, wrought in the heart to spawn a life as immortal and incorruptible as the Word, which is its source.
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General Notes:
[1] I add “on earth” here because the assembly as built by Jesus is not yet finished but spoken of in chapter 2, where the living stones come to Christ.
[2] The doctrine of the gathering together of the saints to Jesus in the air, when they go to meet him forms no part of Peter’s teaching, any more than does that of the assembly on Earth with which it is connected. He speaks of the saints’ appearance in glory because he is occupied with God’s ways towards the Earth, although he is associated with Christianity.
[3] (Ephesians 2:20) “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone;”
