1st Peter 1:1-6.
The great truth brought out in Peter’s 1st Epistle, is the government of God in relation to His own people—the righteous; while that same government, in view of the wicked, is the burden of his 2d Epistle.
That which is especially noticeable, however, in this chapter is the way the grace of God works now towards us, to sustain us in our pathway down here, in temptation and in trial of various kinds, and to give us needed encouragement. Chapter 1 gives us specially the trials of the Christian, and how he is sustained in them, while chap. 2 brings out the privileges of the Christian. You will notice who they are, to whom Peter is writing, namely, the “strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,” &c. They were believing Jews, who were scattered abroad, through the persecution that arose after the death of Stephen. Peter takes up, as it were, the charge committed to him by the Lord at his public restoration, in John 21, “Feed my sheep.” I say his public restoration, for there had been a private meeting between the Lord and Peter before this, as we see from Luke 24:3434Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. (Luke 24:34), “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”; at that private meeting between the Lord and Peter, when no one else was near, no doubt everything as to his fall, and what led to it, had come out, though the details of what passed between them then we know not, but at the public restoration the Lord puts into Peter’s hands that which he loves best, thus showing the confidence of His heart: for how could I most prove my confidence in a friend if I were going away? Surely it would not be by going to that one and telling him I had confidence in him, but by committing to his charge the person or the thing I loved most.
This then is the way grace restored the one who had so terribly broken down and failed. Three times Peter had denied that he knew his Master; three charges that Master gives him, concerning those He loves best. Peter had denied his Lord when he trusted himself—for self-confidence is at the root of all our failures—now it is beautiful to see how the Lord trusts him. Over what took place when they met alone, the Lord has drawn a veil, but before all the Lord, as it were, gives him back his place when he puts into his hands His sheep and His lambs to shepherd and to feed.
When Peter writes, everything Jewish was under sentence of judgment, and he unfolds to those who had been linked up with Judaism the heavenly calling, in place of the earthly calling which had been set aside. The heavenly calling is a more general thing than the Church. Abraham, though not in the Church, had the heavenly calling; “for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” It is remarkable how the Spirit of God by the pen of the apostle of the circumcision writes to call the hearts of these scattered ones to heaven.
He begins by assuring them they are “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit; unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” He opens with the beautiful testimony of the place in which the grace of God had put them, and in this verse we have the blessed Trinity brought in. There are very few verses in Scripture in which we have the Trinity. In this second verse I have the election of the Father, the sanctification of the Spirit, and the blood of the Son. If I think of the Father, He chooses me. Election is an individual thing before the foundation of the world. You never find the Church called elect in Scripture. “But,” you may say, “is it not so called in the 13th verse of the 5th chapter of this very epistle?” Not at all—the word church is put in there, it simply is “She at Babylon,” no doubt a sister there, no church at all. The Church is not viewed till Christ is dead and risen, (except as “the mystery which hath been hid in God from the beginning of the world”), whereas election is before the foundation of the world.
Let no one be troubled by this matter of election. It is a family secret. I would not preach election to the world. Election goes before all. I come to a certain door and I find written over it, “Whoever will may enter in,” that is the Gospel: I enter, and on the other side of the door what do I find written “Whosoever gets in here will never get out!” that is my security, the fruit of election. There is nothing to trouble a soul in election, but contrariwise, much to comfort. “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,” the things which are in heaven God is going to keep for you, and He is going to keep you for them.
This 2nd verse is in direct contrast with Judaism, for rather is the peculiar name of Christianity. El Shaddai had been the name by which God revealed himself to Abraham, and Abraham’s perfection was to walk before the “Almighty God” as a pilgrim in dependence on Him. (Gen. 17:11And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. (Genesis 17:1).) Jehovah was the name by which He was known to His people Israel, and their perfection was obedience to His commandments (Deut. 18:1313Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. (Deuteronomy 18:13)); but rather is the name by which He has revealed Himself to us, and our perfection is to be like our Father, “BE ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is it Heaven is perfect,” Matthew 5:4848Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48).
It is a wonderful thing for a soul to get the sense of God as his Father, to know this, that, through the work of the Son of God, I am put into relationship with the Father, so that He can say, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father.” Is this the way, beloved friend, in which you know God as your Father?
We have here first, the election of the Father, and then the sanctification of the Spirit. Many would rather have the blood of Jesus brought in before the sanctification of the Spirit, but that is not God’s way, and why Because it is a most beautiful thing to know that in your conversion you were under the direct action of the Spirit of God. Remember the action of the Spirit of God on a man and the indwelling of the Spirit of God are two very different things. The Father chooses according to His own blessed foreknowledge. In eternity the Father set His eye on you. In time the Spirit of God begins to work in you and what is the first thing He does? He sets you apart for God. Here is a striking contrast to Judaism. What separated Israel to God? External ordinances! How are you separated? By the real deep work of the Spirit of God in your soul, and “unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Would you like that sentence reversed? You will always find the soul passes this way before the sense of forgiveness through the blood becomes known. Take Saul of Tarsus, the pattern conversion in Scripture. When he called Jesus “Lord” the Spirit of God was working in him. Then he says, “What wilt thou have me to do?” There comes in obedience: he knew not the washing of the blood yet, but the will of the heart was broken; he was bent now on doing the will of God, but was in deep misery for three days: then Ananias comes to him and says, “Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord,” then he gets the knowledge of forgiveness. This is the way God works; the soul, under the gracious action of the Spirit of God, desires to obey the Word of the Lord, and then comes the knowledge of remission of sins by His blood.
Verses 3 and 4 present “a living hope,” and an unfading “inheritance.” Every Jewish hope was centered in the Messiah, but He had died, and therefore the hopes of the Jew were gone. This is all a contrast to Judaism, “A living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” The inheritance God brought His people into in olden days they corrupted, their own sins defiled it, and it faded away before their eyes when taken captive out of it. Oh, beloved, is it not sweet, in a world where everything fades away, and is corrupted and defiled, to know that you are called to a scene which is incorruptible, which nothing can defile and which lasts eternally, and the inheritance is kept for you and you are kept for the inheritance. The way the soul is kept is “by the power of God through faith.” We are kept morally through the energy of faith, the work of God’s Spirit, which He sustains by His own power and grace.
(Verse 5), “Kept by the power of God.” In Peter’s Epistles you scarcely find a verse that has not a tacit touching allusion to his own pathway. He had not been kept because of his own self-confidence, but God will keep you, he says, by his power through faith. I believe when he said that, his heart turned back to the moment when the Lord told him that He had prayed for him that his faith might not fail—to the moment when in self-confidence he had thought that he could keep himself. Not is it only that we are kept for a time but “unto salvation.” Peter has always got his eye on the glory beyond, and salvation is, with him (save in vs. 9), always the deliverance of the saint out of this scene entirely, spirit, soul, and body to be with Christ in glory: and this salvation, he says, is “ready to be revealed.”
(Verse 6), “Wherein ye greatly rejoice.”—This gives joy you will find. If you are thinking of the scene where Christ is, and where we shall be with Him, if your hearts are dwelling on the thought of that inheritance which He is keeping for us, of the home which we, shall share with Him, where all is unfading brightness, you will be rejoicing. What can you do else but rejoice with such a prospect? Then he drops down to earth again in this 6th verse, and says you may be “put to grief” by various trials, not in “heaviness” as we think of heaviness, a soul being dull and heavy because out of communion with the Lord, but, under pressure, the Lord seeing the needs be, for the “manifold temptations.”
“If need be.” The Lord knows what He is about. We do not like the yoke not one of us does. Scripture says, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Why? Because then he gets patient as lie gets older.
The Lord makes no mistakes. Whatever comes to us then, let our hearts just revert to the Father with the thought, “there is a needs be.” Moreover, these trials are not always chastisement, they are His training of His children. It is education, not instruction merely. He wants to draw out to develop, to make manifest that which is the result of His own grace working in our souls, that which is the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, long-suffering,” &c., and He must take His own way to do it.
Look at verse 10 and 11 of 2 Corinthians 4, there is a wonderful difference between the 10th and 11th verses. In the 10th we have Paul’s desire coming out that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in his body; in the 11th we have God saying, as it were, “Well, Paul, I shall put you into circumstances where you will get your desire, where you cannot live anything else but the life of Jesus.”
You and I may often not see the “needs be” for this or that trial, but what does our Father say? There is a needs be, and it is only for “a season,” it is not to last forever, and this sustains the heart.
It is a wonderful thing for our souls always to seek to find the bright side! To have beaming, radiant faces all the while we are in deep trouble! Look at Paul and Silas at Philippi. What could be more dismal? Thrust into the inner prison and their feet made fast in the stocks, and what do we find them doing? “They prayed and sang praises unto God.” They were exercising their holy and their royal priesthoods in that prison. When they sang praises they were holy priests; when they said to the terrified jailer, “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here,” they were royal priests. It is a charming picture! They are as full of joy as they can be, and they get that jailer converted! There was the wonderful result of their bleeding wounded backs, this soul was saved! Tribulation will come in various ways, but you must make up your minds to it while here, “Knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience experience; and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:3-53And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5:3‑5).)