We all know Peter, the disciple with the big mouth. The impulsive one. The one who made grandiose claims about his own loyalty, but hours later panicked and denied the Lord. The one who went out and wept bitterly. 

But Jesus is not like Peter. Days later, after cooking breakfast for his disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (Jn 21.12), Jesus takes Peter aside for a walk on the beach (Jn 21.20) and redirects him from failure and shame to ministry. As Peter had denied him three times, Jesus tells him three times to “feed my sheep” (Jn 21.15-17). 

And boy, does he. He pronounces Jesus’ victory at Pentecost (Ac 2.14-36), and days later he faces down the Jewish Supreme Court, accusing them of having crucified the Messiah (Ac 4.5-12). And so begins a life of productive ministry. 

Decades later, as an old man about to face his own crucifixion for his faith, Peter writes a couple letters to churches in what we now call Turkey (1P 1.1). I’d like to take a few posts to work through what he says in the first one. 

He opens by attributing the work of our salvation to all three persons in the Triune God (1P 1.2)—and then, logically, turns to detail that astonishing work. 

He first exults in the greatness of its goal: “the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1P 1.9). We have received a confident anticipation, an expectation (KJV “a lively hope”), of good things to come: first, an inheritance, a future gift, that is “incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading” (1P 1.4). This promised inheritance will not—cannot—decay, become soiled, or lose its shine. It’s not fragile, like a rose. It will be there for us. 

But will we be there for it? Peter now describes a second good thing to come: protection, or preservation, or endurance. He says we “are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1P 1.5). This fact he has already implied in verse 4: our inheritance is “reserved in heaven for” us. 

Yes, we’ll make it. 

My Dad presented with dementia at age 85, and I was his caregiver for the last (almost) six years of his life. I watched his memory recede, decade by decade, until he no longer remembered even being in combat in World War II. He even regressed to before the time he was converted in his 40s; he started swearing again. That got me thinking. 

At his graveside service, I came to this passage. We are kept, Peter says, not by our own desperate grip on the Father, but by his almighty power, which is strong enough to preserve, protect, and defend us through whatever trials and obstacles we may face (1P 1.6-9). 

Now Peter turns to exult in the greatness of salvation’s source. He picks up his earlier reference to the Triune God and specifies the part each Person of the Godhead plays, beginning with the Spirit, who empowered the Hebrew prophets to predict a phenomenon they couldn’t understand even as they wrote about it: that the Son would suffer—and die—before he was glorified as Savior and King (1P 1.10-12). Then he praises the Father, the Judge, who planned our redemption (1P 1.17-18) and resurrected and glorified the Son (1P 1.21), and the Son, who accomplished it (1P 1.18-20). 

All of this empowers and motivates us to respond in holiness and obedience (1P 1.13-16, 22). We are infinitely out of our depth. 

Peter exults in another source: the Word of God, his communication to us through the inspiring work of the Spirit. This Word, like our inheritance, is “incorruptible” (1P 1.23) and unfading (1P 1.24). It, too, is not like the fragile rose. 

So here we stand, informed by the Word of God, and saved and kept by the power of God. 

Yes, indeed, we’ll make it. 

Next time: we, too, like Peter, are radically redirected. 

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Part 1: The Greatest Cause | Part 2: The Greatest Consequences | Part 3: Another Greatest Consequence | Part 4: The Greatest Cost

Paying a price in suffering for belonging to Jesus is to be expected, and it’s well worth it, for multiple reasons.

So how do we proceed? How do we prepare for the hardships that will likely come along the way?

There are two sections of this passage that address this question. The first is in verses 13 through 17; the second is in verse 22. This is where the passage becomes largely imperative. How does Peter command us to prepare for the opposition and suffering that so often come to God’s people?

• Get serious (1P 1.13a). Peter’s metaphor, “gird up the loins of your mind,” means simply to get ready to get to work. And with that comes the command to “be sober,” or serious. This is serious business; we don’t approach it as something trivial or a sideline issue. This is focused on the coming “revelation” of Jesus Christ himself. The New Bible Commentary comments, “This phrase pictures not so much the return of one who is absent as the unveiling of one who has been with us all the time” (p 1375). As Daniel’s three friends can testify, God is with us in the fire. We face it with serious determination.
• Take the long view (1P 1.13b). To “hope to the end” is to be focused on a confident expectation of a positive outcome, and an endurance until it comes. This means, of course, that you focus not on the trial, but on Christ, who has sent the trial and who is using it to accomplish his good purposes. As they say, keep your eyes on the prize.
• Reject the past (1P 1.14). You’ve already turned away from the sins that defined your life before salvation; now don’t go back. Remember Lot’s wife.
• Cross the line (1P 1.15-16). You’ve left those old ways to join a new team—or to put it more bluntly and biblically, to become God’s servant and son or daughter. You’ve changed sides; you’re over here now, and you’re not going back; so identify clearly and publicly with your new Master, and take whatever hardship comes.
• Stay serious (1P 1.17). This is a new life, and a lifelong commitment. You’re in for the long haul. So plan to stay on this path, in this relationship, committed to the lifestyle, all the way to the end. Peter says to pass the time “in fear.” Not cowering, defensive, expecting blows and punishment from a master who despises and abuses you—that was the old master, not this one. But rather reverently, delighted with God’s awesomeness, and determined not to think, do, or say anything that that would disappoint or misrepresent him.
• Live out love (1P 1.22). Your new relationship involves more than just God—though he would be more than enough. He has placed you into the body of Christ, the church. And bodies have multiple parts, useful for different purposes, which all work together to accomplish the goals of the head. We’re teammates in the largest project ever conceived. So we cherish one another, help one another, encourage one another, support one another. Peter will develop this concept more in the next paragraph, which is also the next chapter and thus a different series. Which you can read here.

Maybe we’ll face persecution like that faced by the ancient saints, and by our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. Maybe we won’t. But we’re not promised immunity, and we should be prepared should it come. We make that preparation now, before the time. And as we prepare we determine, with absolute certainty, that whatever hardships may come, the cause is Worth It.

Photo by Jose P. Ortiz on Unsplash

Part 1: The Greatest Cause | Part 2: The Greatest Consequences | Part 3: Another Greatest Consequence

Peter now takes some time to develop the concept of the price paid to rescue us from our sin and to secure us as the Father’s particular people.

He begins with a surprising fact: the suffering and then the exaltation of the Christ is so profound, and so incomprehensible, that the prophets themselves didn’t understand what they were writing:

¹⁰ Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: ¹¹ Searching 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 (1P 1.10-11).

They wrote what the Spirit drove them to write, but they didn’t understand it—what Christ’s suffering and consequent glory were accomplishing, and when those things would be accomplished. We see an example of that in Daniel, where the prophet expresses his puzzlement, asks for an explanation, and is told to stop asking questions (Da 12.4, 8-9).

It is indeed an enormously incomprehensible thing, calling to mind the words of Charles Wesley:

Amazing love! How can it be
That thou my God shouldst die for me!

Peter may well be thinking of Daniel’s experience when he writes,

Unto 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 look into (1P 1.12).

This is the kind of thing that can’t be comprehended ahead of time; we can make sense of it only in retrospect. The plan of God is like that.

And what is at the center of this great plan?

A sacrifice of infinite worth: the sin offering of the Son himself.

Not temporal, corruptible things like silver and gold (1P 1.18). Not the blood of an earthly lamb, however hale and healthy and perfect.

Not the blood of a fallen human, even an unusually good and kind one—for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Ro 3.23).

The blood of Christ, the Lamb of God (1P 1.19).

The blood of a perfect human, who is perfect only because he is also God himself. Divine blood.

We’re well beyond our depth here, speaking of things internal to the Godhead, the mysterious triunity of God. If you think you understand it, there’s something you haven’t included in your model. It’s utterly beyond us.

I don’t know how God could become man, and neither do you. Nor did the church fathers, some of the smartest people in history, who wrestled with this question for four centuries and finally chose to state what happened without explaining it, in what’s called the Creed of Chalcedon.

Peter notes one more fact. This plan, this commitment to rescue, was hatched “from the foundation of the world” (1P 1.20). God did not avoid creating us, though he knew what the cost of rescuing us from our eventual rebellion would be. He did not hesitate. He was all in, from the very beginning.

What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross!
(Stuart Townend)

This cost should give us some sense of the weight of our sin.

I see “deconstructionists” today criticizing the atonement as unnecessary, especially unnecessarily violent. In making that charge they demonstrate their complete lack of understanding of the sinfulness of sin, of the holiness of God, and most especially of the love of God, that he would pay such a price to redeem those who had declared themselves, starkly and viciously and repeatedly, to be his enemies. They blame the only person in the entire picture who is completely not to blame.

And, I add, it is for such people that Christ chose to die.

Peter has one more point to make.

Next time.

Part 5: Making It Worth It

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Part 1: The Greatest Cause | Part 2: The Greatest Consequences

So far in the passage Peter has presented four great consequences of God’s work in us: great mercy, great confidence, a great inheritance, and great protection. But as I noted in the previous post, he’s just getting started.

Joy—in Trial

In the next verse he identifies another consequence, one that should not surprise us, at least initially: Wherein ye greatly rejoice (1P 1.6).

In what? In the salvation mentioned in verse 5—the certain, final salvation toward which God’s protection is ultimately keeping us. That’s certainly something in which we can rejoice.

But the verse doesn’t end there, and what it says next surprises us:

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations (1P 1.6).

At the moment, Peter says, we’re “in heaviness” (“you have been distressed” NASB; “you suffer grief” CSB // ESV NIV). Now, who on earth would rejoice under those circumstances? Has Peter lost his mind? Does he really mean that we can rejoice in the midst of trials? Especially trials such as Peter will describe in this epistle: “suffering wrongfully” (1P 2.19), suffering as Christ our example did (1P 2.21), suffering “evil” and “railing” (1P 3.9), suffering “for righteousness’ sake” in “terror” (1P 3.14), when “they speak evil of you, as of evildoers” (1P 3.16), suffering a “fiery trial” (1P 4.12), being “reproached for the name of Christ” (1P 4.14)?

How can he say this?

I note that Peter is in a position to speak knowledgeably about this; he is “a witness of the sufferings of Christ”(1P 5.1), and he knows that suffering awaits him at the end as well (Jn 21.18-19).

In an act of grace, Peter doesn’t leave us in the dark; he tells us why we can rejoice in suffering:

• First, these hardships are temporary; they are “for a season” (1P 1.6).
• Second, they are necessary—“if need be” (1P 1.6). That is, they are not random or purposeless; they are accomplishing something in us; specifically,
  • They test the quality of our faith (1P 1.7); they show us how we’re doing in the trust department. I’m sure that you occasionally are completely surprised by some reactive word or action that you demonstrate under stress. I am, and I’ve written about that before. We need those experiences to direct our growth; if we don’t know we’re sick, we’re not likely to buy the prescription.
  • They purify that faith, the way a fire purifies molten metal (1P 1.7). As the weaknesses and imperfections are brought to the surface, they can be dealt with and removed. To put it bluntly, the trial makes us a better product.
  • Because the trials are more than we can deal with naturally, they drive us to Christ for grace and strength, thereby demonstrating our faith in him and strengthening in us the habit of seeking him first (1P 1.8). In so doing, they demonstrate the genuineness of our faith and thereby strengthen it. In truth, then, the trials aren’t the direct cause of our rejoicing; our rejoicing is in Christ, and our trials, by driving us to him, drive us to the source of our joy.
  • Let’s not pass over an important phrase in this passage: Whom having not seen, ye love (1P 1.8). Underlying our reaction to our trials—our rejoicing in our trials—is the world-changing fact of a loving relationship. Another accomplishment of trials is that they reinforce the solidity of our relationship with Christ, just as a difficult experience in a marriage—injury, illness, death of a family member—can strengthen the marriage bond well beyond that experienced by those with light, easy lives.

We rejoice when we are in the embrace of Christ. It should be no surprise, then, that we can rejoice when trials come. As Spurgeon supposedly* said,

“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.”

* I have been unable to find this quotation in Spurgeon’s writings. If any reader can, I’d be delighted to know where it is.

Part 4: The Greatest Cost | Part 5: Making It Worth It

Photo by Jose P. Ortiz on Unsplash

Part 1: The Greatest Cause

It shouldn’t surprise us that a plan devised by the triune Godhead should have unequaled consequences. Peter lays out a series of these in the ensuing verses in 1Peter 1.

Great Mercy

Blessed 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 (1P 1.3).

Peter’s opening salvo is that the Father has, and has demonstrated, “abundant mercy.” In biblical terms, mercy is typically the withholding of deserved punishment. In the face of our brokenness and consequent rebellion, God has chosen not to demand from us the negative consequences that our rebellion so richly deserves. Instead of death—the appropriate consequence of sin—God has opted to give us life, new life, abundant life, eternal life. He has called out to millions of long-dead and putrid Lazaruses, “Come forth!”—and we have been born again, able to see and hear and taste and smell and touch the spiritual realities with which we have always been surrounded but to which we were completely insensitive. This is a great mercy indeed.

Great Confidence

The same verse identifies the next consequence: hope. As Bible teachers have often said, biblical hope is not a feeble, unfounded wish; it is the confident anticipation of something that is certainly coming. By raising his Son from the dead, the Father has demonstrated the certainty of our resurrection as well, giving us firm confidence in his promise and joyous anticipation of its coming.

And what a day that will be, when millions of the dead are reunited with their reconstituted bodies and raised, never to die again.

Great Inheritance

To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you (1P 1.4).

To our astonishment God has not only withheld deserved punishment (mercy); he has poured out undeserved blessings and benefits (grace). Not only have we been delivered from hell, but we have been promised an inheritance—unimagined wealth from our infinitely wealthy Father.

Peter uses three adjectives to describe this inheritance, all of them negations: incorruptible, undefiled, unfading. An inheritance that’s incorruptible can’t die or decay; one that’s undefiled can’t be soiled; one that’s unfading can’t wilt like a cut flower. This inheritance is for good, in every sense of the word.

You add an inheritance like that to the confidence that it will certainly come, and you really have something significant.

Great Protection

Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1P 1.5).

Now Peter adds to the certainty by noting that we are being looked after by God himself, infinitely powerful, to ensure that we arrive at this inheritance. This word “kept” is a military word, used of a watchguard, a group of soldiers assigned to keep something secure. Paul uses it of the guard that was placed on Damascus to keep him from escaping (2Co 11.32). As we know, he did escape, being lowered over the wall in a basket in the middle of the night (2Co 11.33). Soldiers are not omniscient, and they don’t see everything. But God is not like that; he knows, he sees, and so he protects perfectly. If you are a believer, my friend, you will be kept; you will receive your inheritance when the earthly journey is complete.

It’s worth noting that in the previous verse Peter has told us that our inheritance is “reserved in heaven for [us].” That means that our Father, whose power is infinite, is watching both ends of this situation; he’s guarding the inheritance that’s waiting for us, and he’s guarding us as well, to see that we get where we’re going. This calls for great confidence.

Peter’s just getting started. More on this next time.

Part 3: Another Greatest Consequence | Part 4: The Greatest Cost | Part 5: Making It Worth It

Photo by Jose P. Ortiz on Unsplash

Life can be hard.

It’s harder for some people than for others, of course. I’ve been privileged to grow up in a country that’s relatively free, in areas of that country (the Northwest, New England, and post-Jim Crow South Carolina) that have been untouched by violent upheaval. My early years were in the middle class—lower middle class, certainly, but we always had a place to live and food to eat and clothes to wear.

David expressed frustration that “the wicked” seemed to have easier lives than God’s people (Ps 37, 73). I wonder whether he was just noticing those “wicked” who indeed had easier lives, and not taking into account the many “wicked” whose lives were utterly miserable.

In our day, and particularly in the US, it’s hard to make the case that believers as a group have a harder go of it than non-Christians do. I’ve written on that before.

But it’s also true that following Jesus does cost something; Jesus taught that principle himself (Lk 14.25-33). Of the biblical passages that address the problem of “suffering for Jesus,” none is more explicit or encouraging than Peter’s first epistle. Though I’ve written a series on a portion of that book as well, I’d like to look at a different portion and talk about a different lesson from the letter.

The pervading theme of 1 Peter is suffering, and specifically suffering because of one’s obedience to Jesus. Peter matter-of-factly reports the fact of suffering and then applies it in the three institutional spheres of life: the state (1P 2.13-20), the home (1P 3.1-12), and the church (1P 5.1-11).

In the first chapter he spells out the reasons why this hardship is worth it. He begins with the primary cause of the suffering: we as God’s people have been called to live for him (1P 1.2).

• We have been chosen by the foreknowledge (or, more likely, foreordination; the same Greek word occurs in 1P 1.20) of God the Father—which choosing occurred, Paul tells us elsewhere, even before the foundation of the world (Ep 1.4).
• We have been set apart by the Holy Spirit as God’s own special people, what Peter calls in the next chapter (1P 2.9) God’s “peculiar people” (KJV) or “a people for [God’s] own possession” (NASB // ESV).
• We have been sprinkled—cleansed—with the very blood of Christ, at the cost of his own life. Peter’s use of the term “sprinkling” is theologically and culturally significant; the Mosaic Covenant was ratified with Israel by the sprinkling of the blood of the burnt offerings on the altar and then on the people themselves, as evidence that they were part of the Covenant (Ex 24.3-8). Peter, then, is clearly tying the death of Christ to the Mosaic Covenant and identifying his audience as participants in the New Covenant.

We are the objects, then, of the greatest work possible: a united and certain plan of the entire Godhead to form a covenant relationship with his people. This is much greater than my life circumstances, or yours, or those of all of us put together, and it is a worthy investment of our time and resources, regardless of the personal cost to us.

And that is not abusive, because it is consensual. We come to Christ willingly, and we determine that the cost of discipleship is a price worth paying.

Let me spend a few lines on a related issue.

We do not come to Christ simply because it’s a wise investment for us, because the payback is so much greater than the cost—and it truly is. If this is our primary motivation, then we are worshiping ourselves and not God; we are transacting business with God because it’s in our own best interests.

No.

We come to God because we should, because he is our Creator, because he is our Redeemer, because he is our Life and our Hope and our Goal. We live for him because he deserves it. We live for him as an acknowledgement of his greatness, his glory, and his right.

Next time, we’ll look further into Peter’s reasons that suffering for Christ is worth it.

Part 2: The Greatest Consequences | Part 3: Another Greatest Consequence | Part 4: The Greatest Cost | Part 5: Making It Worth It

Photo by Jose P. Ortiz on Unsplash