1 Peter 1
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 2nd 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. “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (vs. 1). They were believing Jews, who had been scattered abroad, through the persecution that arose after the death of Stephen. Peter takes up here, 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 have seen in 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 put into Peter’s hands that which He loves best, thus showing the confidence of His heart. 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 was 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 his brethren 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 them.
When Peter writes, everything Jewish was under sentence of judgment, and he unfolds to those who had been linked up with the Judaism, the heavenly calling of the believer, in place of the national earthly calling which had been set aside. The heavenly calling is a more general thing than the Church. Abraham, for instance, though not in the Church, was a partaker of the heavenly calling; “for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”
It is good to see 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” (vs. 2). He opens with beautiful testimony as to the place in which the grace of God had set 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 we 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, “it is 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,” possibly a sister there, or the brotherhood. The Church in not in view till Christ is dead and risen (except as “the mystery which hath been hid in God from the beginning of the world”), whereas the election of the individual 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 the door of a certain place, where peace and plenty reign, and joy and happiness fill the hearts of all the dwellers therein. On the door I find written, “Whosoever will may enter in.” That is the gospel: I enter, and on the other side of the door I find written, “Whosoever gets in here will never get out I.” That is my security, the fruit of election. There is nothing to trouble a soul in election, but contrariwise, much to comfort. God has chosen you, if a believer 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 Father 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 Father 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 in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:4848Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)).
It is a wonderful thing for my soul to get the sense of God being my Father; and to know that, through the work of the Son of God, I am put into His relationship, as Man, with the Father. Jesus, when risen said “I ascend unto my Father and your Father.” Is this the way, beloved friend, in which you know God as your Father?
We have hero first, the election of God the Father, and then the sanctification of the Spirits. Many would have supposed that the blood of Jesus would be 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 in the believer, 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 began to work in you; and what is the first thing He did? He set 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 generally find that 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 said, “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 got the knowledge of forgiveness. This is the way God usually 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 faith in 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. Here all is 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 its 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 deified, to know that you are called to a scene which is incorruptible, which nothing can defile, and which lasts eternally? Further, 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, and at the same time 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 wrote that, his heart was turning 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. Nor is it only that we are kept for a time, but “unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” Peter has always got his eye on the glory beyond, and salvation is, with him (save in verse 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, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations (trials).” Peter, so to speak, says: If you are thinking of the scene where Christ is, and where you will be with Him, if your hearts are dwelling on the thought of that inheritance which He is keeping for you, and of the home which you will 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. But the “heaviness” here is not what we often speak of as heaviness — namely, a soul being dull, and heavy because out of communion with the Lord. Here it is the soul being under pressure, the Lord seeing the needs be, for the “manifold trials.”
“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 he gets older.
The Lord makes no mistakes. Whatever comes to us, then, let our hearts just revert to the Father, with this thought, “There is a needs be.” Moreover, these trials are not always chastisement, they are His training of His children. There is such a thing as 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,” and so forth, and He takes His own way to produce these lovely fruits.
Look at 2 Corinthians 9:10-1110Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) 11Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. (2 Corinthians 9:10‑11). 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 as it is only for “a season,” and is not to last forever, this sustains the heart.
It is a great thing for our souls always to seek to find the bright side of every trial, and 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, 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. That was the wonderful result of their bleeding wounded backs; that hitherto godless, and apparently unreachable soul was saved! Tribulation will come in various ways, but we must make up our 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)).
But the pathway of trial has a very bright end. “That 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 honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ” (vs. 7). Faith’s sphere is on earth, and God tries it. He never gives faith that He does not prove it; and this brings forth the fruit that will appear by-and-bye, when everything is made manifest, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
I believe the trying “by fire,” spoken of in this verse, is a beautiful allusion to the three Hebrew servants who were tried by fire, whom, as you remember, Nebuchadnezzar cast into the furnace (Dan. 3:12-3012There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. 13Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king. 14Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? 15Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? 16Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. 17If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 18But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. 19Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: therefore he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated. 20And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. 21Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. 22Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. 23And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. 24Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. 25He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. 26Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire. 27And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. 28Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. 29Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort. 30Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon. (Daniel 3:12‑30)). What was the effect of the fire in their case? It only burnt off their bonds, and set them free. The Lord lets us get into the fire oftentimes, and the effect of it is to burn off the cords that bind us — in our case often self-imposed cords — and we come out free. But what have we had in the fire? A sense of the presence and company of the Lord, such as we never had before. So with the Hebrew servants, One walked with them in the furnace, and the form of that One was “like unto the Son of God.”
“Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (vs. 8). There cannot be a saint of God, who does not love the Lord. You do not love Him as you would like to do, nor as He deserves to be loved. Quite true; nor do I; but when God writes to His people, He says, I know you love My Son. To me there is a lovely connection between this verse, “Whom having not seen ye love,” and the fourth verse of Revelation 22, “They shall see His face.” There is nothing which so touches my heart, and softens my spirit as this, I shall see His face. Oh beloved, do you not long to see His face, to gaze on Jesus, your Lord, to be in His own very presence, to see Him with these very eyes, and to be in the intimate enjoyment of His love for evermore? What will it be to see His face? That face once was “marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men,” for He gave His back to the miters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and it was for our sakes that His face was marred! What will it be to gaze on that face? No tongue can tell the deep and boundless joy of that moment.
“Believing ye rejoice,” says Peter. Your trials and troubles will all turn to praise and honor, he says, at the Lord’s appearing, and meantime faith must be in exercise, and you rejoice with joy unspeakable. I should like this to be more true of us, beloved. I do not think that there is among the dear children of God this daily rejoicing and exulting, of which this scripture speaks. It is in a Person they are to joy and exult, not in what He has done for them — that comes next.
“Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (vs. 9). Believing in Him, what have you received? Not salvation in the full sense of Peter’s epistle, but the salvation of the soul. In the 5th verse you are kept “through faith unto salvation,” a thing you have not yet, but will get through faith. In the 9th verse, salvation is the salvation of our souls, which we have now. You have not seen the Lord yet, but the moment you rest on Him by faith, you get your soul saved.
Three things come out in the following three verses (9-11): the testimony of the prophets; the preaching of the Holy Spirit; and the coming of the Lord — His appearing in glory. When the prophets had written their prophecies, they sat down and studied them, for though it was the tale of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glories that should follow, which God revealed to them, it was not for themselves, but for us Christians, that they wrote.
“Which things the angels desire to look into” (vs. 12). Though we are often so negligent about the study of Scripture, and, alas! there is but little desire in our hearts to penetrate into its hidden depths of meaning, the angels desire to look into them. Angels never knew God, or saw God, till they saw the babe Jesus in Bethlehem; for there was no revelation of God till then. Angels beheld God for the first time when they saw that wonderful Babe. At His birth there was a movement of the heavenly host. A multitude comes with the angel that announces His birth, and they sing praises to God. All heaven is occupied with what is taking place on earth, for the Son of God is in this world of ours. Angels minister to Him when “he was an hungered” in the wilderness after dismissing Satan; and in the garden, in His agony, angels come and minister to Him, and strengthen Him. Angels have a wonderful interest in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus; all “which things the angels desire to look into,” and yet He did not come for angels. They sang at His birth, but we do not hear of them singing at His resurrection. Why? Then they seem to say, Here we stand aside and leave the note of praise for those whom it most nearly concerns. They leave it for you and me. We are the ones for whom He died. Angels say, We love to trace His pathway in this world; love to look into His tomb; but we have no fitting note to suit His resurrection, for He did not die for us, He died for sinners.
“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind” (vs. 13). This is a figure that would be well known in the East. There they wore the flowing robe, and it would need to be girded up for a man at work to make any great progress. The loins are the secret of strength. There must be the steady application of your soul constantly to these things, Peter says; and Paul says, “Set your mind on things above, where Christ sitteth” (Col. 3:1212Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; (Colossians 3:12)): not only your affections. People often say they must have something for their minds. Paul says, I will give you something for your minds, but it will be in heaven.
“Hope to the end,” You have in this chapter faith in the Lord, love towards Him, and then this hope. You will find in New Testament Scripture faith, hope, and love written of as going together often times. You have faith in a Person, you love a Person, and you hope for a Person. All is bound up in a Person — “the Person of Christ.”
“For the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” What grace is this? The grace of being taken straight into His presence, to be with the Lord, and like Him, forever. Jude says, “Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life,” and what mercy could be greater than for the Lord just to come, and lift us up out of this scene of sorrow, and trial, and distress, and weeping and death, and place us in His own bright presence forever and ever? What Jude calls mercy, Peter calls grace, and what could be greater grace?
Then, having taken us on to the end, Peter brings us back again, and says this is how you are to walk meanwhile, “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (vss. 14-16). Not doing what you like, but what your Father tells you; and He looks for practical holiness from you.
“And 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” (vs. 17). This is not the judgment-seat of Christ, but the Father keeping His eye on each child every day, watching what we do: and as we sow, so we reap. The obedient child says: I should like that there might be nothing in my path, day by day, that my Father would not be pleased to see. He is looking on, is coming in, too, in restraining grace, and in chastening likewise, oftentimes. This is how the Father judgeth, and that judgment is good and wholesome for our souls.
It is a great mistake to suppose, because the testimony of God in the present day, in the light of Christianity, is different from a former day under Judaism, that therefore the principles of the moral government of God have in anywise changed.
The moral government of God over His people is exactly the same today as in bye-gone days, and neither you nor I can traverse the word, or ways of God, without suffering for it, though we are under grace, any more than those who were distinctly under law. Hence the exhortation here to “Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear,” which Peter adds. This is not at all the fear that genders bondage; not fear as to redemption, or acceptance or relationship, because the next thing we read is, “Forasmuch as ye know.” Why, then, am I to fear? Because I know certain things. The knowledge of redemption, and the enjoyment of the blessed place God’s grace gives me in Christianity, are to make my pathway characterized by fear, and there would be far less sorrow, far less dealing of the Lord, in our day, if we had more of this fear. The moment we cease to have this fear is the moment we fall; so long as we fear we are preserved, and kept; the hour we cease to fear, is the time we fall.
This verse speaks of the daily government of God over His children; not the judgment of the great white throne, nor the judgment-seat of Christ for the saints, but the fact that the Father has His eye on me today, and He will deal with me today or tomorrow according to what His eye has seen. “The Father judgeth according to every man’s work,” hence I am to fear, lest in any way I miss His mind, err from His path, or grieve His Spirit. It is filial fear of offending a loving, but ever-watchful Father.
“Forasmuch 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; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (vss. 18-19).
Two things come out very clearly in this part of our chapter, namely, redemption by blood, and renewal — being born again by the Word of God. You have been redeemed, Peter says, by this precious blood, how then can you go on in the ways of the old man?
If you have been touched by this wondrous love of God, and have been redeemed completely from under the bondage of Satan, what kind of conversation will yours be now? It was “vain conversation” before, but now you are redeemed, not merely purchased, it is to be “good conversation.”
Redemption and purchase are two very different things. Redemption is the slave being set free from his condition as a slave, and being brought into liberty. Mere purchase leaves him a slave still, though the master be different. Every unconverted soul belongs to the Lord. Peter speaks of “the Lord that bought them” in his second epistle. He bought “the field,” — that is, the world, and every inhabitant of it belongs to Him; and deny Him though men may, and do now, the day is fast approaching when they will have to own Him Lord.
But, if a believer, you are redeemed, and are set free to serve Him with purpose of heart. There is not an element of bondage left now for the children of God. He has brought them into a place of perfect liberty: not liberty for the flesh, but for the enjoyment of that into which His grace has brought them.
The apostle, you must remember, is speaking to those who had Jewish thoughts and minds, which makes his language the more forcible. In referring to the blood of the lamb, what would that say to an Israelite? It would speak to him of that night in Egypt when the blood of the slain lamb, sprinkled on the door-posts, kept God out, when He passed by in judgment. It would speak to him, too, of how that blood maintained their place before God in the wilderness. When the Spirit of God said through Balsam, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel,” was there none? Yes, plenty, but He saw none. Is there not iniquity and perverseness too in us? Yes, but God sees none. He sees that blood which has brought us into His own presence, in peace, and in blessing. You never can get beyond it, even in glory. There the theme of everlasting praise is “the Lamb slain.”
Note, it is “the precious blood of Christ.” Scripture does not often use adjectives, specially so when speaking of the Lord Himself, but here the Spirit of God does use an adjective, “the precious blood.” That is God’s estimate of it” precious.” It avails to cleanse from every sin, and its efficacy is still fresh before God.
These words, “the precious blood of Christ,” fell with sweetness on believers’ ears eighteen hundred years ago, when Peter first penned the words; they fall with equal sweetness on believers’ ears today, because it is this precious blood that gives us a place before God. You may fail, and I may fail, but that precious blood of Christ can never fail.
“Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (vs. 20). The introduction of the Lamb of God was no after-thought with God, He was pre-ordained before the foundation of the world. Why before the foundation of the world? Because the blessing of the heavenly saints — the Church — was thought of before the foundation of the world.
If you get an earthly people spoken of, “from the foundation of the world” is the word used; but if it be the present moment of the richest display of the grace of God, and the Church comes in, you get “before” the foundation of the world. (Compare Eph. 1:44According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4); Titus 1:22In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; (Titus 1:2); and 1 Peter 1:2020Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, (1 Peter 1:20) with Matt. 25:3434Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (Matthew 25:34); Rev. 13:88And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8), and 17:8.)
The moment the world came in, God said, I am going to have a people in the world (the Jews), but the Church does not belong to the world at all; the Church is a heavenly thing, was thought of in eternity, and belongs to eternity.
(Verse 21) “Who 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.” It is not by creation man knows God. Man seeks to know God by creation, but he does not thus know Him; nor does he find Him out by His providential dealings up to Moses’ time, nor by His revelations from Sinai, for man could not come near Him: if but a beast touched the mountain, it was to be stoned, or thrust through with a dart. God dwelt in thick darkness, which no one could approach unto. It is neither by creation, nor by providence, nor by law, that man knows God, but by the One who came down, and walked this earth as a man, and revealed the heart of God towards man, and then who died for man, and who has gone up again to the glory above — the Lamb of God.
Do you believe in God? I ask you. Are you thoroughly at home with God? Are you happy with God? “Christ once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” It is of the deepest importance to the soul to get hold of this, that the man Christ Jesus was the expression of the heart of God.
Perhaps in your mind you have a little different thought of God, from that which the name, and life of Jesus present to you. Tell me, is Jesus, the Man of sorrows who once walked this earth as a blessed compassionate Man, is that One your thought of God? Any thought of God that is not the perfect counterpart of what Jesus was, is an idol; hence, says John, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” So Peter says, you have every reason for the fullest hope, and no reason for distrust of God, but, on the contrary, ground for the most perfect confidence in Him. There should be no diffidence about the future, but the most blessed assurance that He who has raised up from the dead the Lord Jesus, will raise you up also in like manner. Nothing but the knowledge of God, in the face of Jesus, could give the soul this blessed peace and hope, a hope that maketh not ashamed. The Lord give us to know Him better, and delight in Him more as we travel on from day to day.
(Verse 22) “Seeing 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.” Your soul has been practically purified from its old thoughts and wishes, and now what comes out instead? “Unfeigned love of the brethren.” You had been wandering through the world restless and unhappy, perhaps, and the grace of God came and worked in your heart, and you woke up to find yourself among your brethren. Now, he says, “See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.” It is very easy to love lovable people, nothing is easier, but that is not “love out of a pure heart.” Love out of a pure heart is a love that loves, not because the object is deserving, but when it is the reverse; it is like the love of God, who loved us when there was nothing about us to love.
In Romans 5 the Apostle Paul says, “Scarcely for a righteous man will one die.” A righteous man is a hard kind of man, who pays every one, and expects everyone to pay him, but does not win much love, and scarcely for such a one will one die. “Yet, peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.” For a Howard, or a Peabody, or a philanthropist whose life was spent in benefiting others, for such, the apostle says, “peradventure some would even dare to die.” He is not sure about it.
But when we were destitute of righteousness, and stripped of goodness, that was the very moment when God loved us. That was “love out of a pure heart,” and that is the kind of love the Lord would stir us up to.
It is a very poor thing when people complain of want of love. I believe when we got to this state that we fail to find people loving us, we may lay it down as an axiom that we are not loving them.
You may say, “It is impossible to love some people.” Peter says otherwise. You ought to love them, he says, because they are redeemed, and you have the capacity to love them because you are renewed. They are redeemed by the blood of Christ; there is your motive for loving them, and you are born again by the word of God; there is your capacity. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever” (vs. 23).
(Verses 24-25) “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away: but the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” This quotation from Isaiah 40 is very remarkable. Do you think you have a better nature than your neighbor, or your neighbor than you? God says all flesh is grass, and He says this when comforting His people. It is not the way you and I would comfort each other, to tell each other that we are utterly worthless. That is the way, however, that God takes to comfort a repentant people. It is an immense comfort to discover that God knows I am worthless, and that He expects no good out of me.
Nature is like grass, God says, but His Word is abiding and enduring forever, and God has put in your soul a principle of blessing that is immutable, and unchanging and eternal, for it is from Himself, and like Himself. I have told you what you are, Peter says; now I will tell you what God is. You are grass, whereas God is everlasting, and His Word endures forever, and He has put His Word in your heart, and now you have a nature like Himself.
How easy, if I only get this new life fed and nourished, for the child to be like the Father. There is no effort in love, it is like water finding its own level, and if we are in the enjoyment of the love of God, feeling its blessedness to us, it will come out from us to others. When we were utterly worthless there was something put into us by the love of God, His Word living and abiding, that enables the child to be like the Father, and to love out of a pure heart as He loves. You are redeemed and you are renewed, and in the energy of the new life, you desire to follow in the wake of your Father’s action. To please Him is to act like Him, you love the Father and you love the children.
Then having got this new life, Peter informs us that there are things to be laid aside which used to mark the old life. “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:1-31Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, 2As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (1 Peter 2:1‑3)). Guile is not liking to be read through: having something sinister behind. How beautiful is the Lord’s word about Nathanael, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile” (John 1:4747Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! (John 1:47)). Without guile is to be transparent. Was the Lord ever double? He was as transparent as the light, for He was “the light.”
“Hypocrisies” too are to be laid aside, that is, seeming to be what one is not, and hiding what one is “and envies and all evil speakings.” Scripture turns us inside out, and shows us what is in our hearts. There is no other book that reveals God, and no other book that so reveals man. If we were but subject to what we have enjoined on us in this second chapter, there would not spring up those weeds in the garden of the Lord, which alas! so often damage and disfigure it. It is very easy to pick a flaw in other people. Nothing is easier. It needs no microscope to see the defects in others, but is that the way to help them? If we began by correcting our own, it would be far better.
“As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby up to salvation” (vs. 2). These last three words should be inserted here; the Holy Spirit indicted them, but they have slipped out of our English version of the Bible.
In the first chapter you were born by the Word, here you get the food of the new life. The Word gave you life, the Word sustains and nourishes that life all along the way. You will never be a grown-up person till you reach the Lord in glory, all along the way you are to be in this character of a new-born babe. In proportion as we are feeding upon, and delighting in, the Word of the Lord, so our souls grow, and so are the things that are reprehended kept out. The Lord give us to love His Word, and delight in it more and more, and to walk more in simple obedience to it, till we see His face by-and-bye.
We are too apt to take what others think about the Word — that is, to take it adulterated. If we are going to be happy, we must get the Word for ourselves. If we give it up, we shall certainly lose everything else. If the sap of a tree is gone, so is the health and fruit bearing. The Word of God is everything to the soul. Do we, then, buy up the opportunities that are given us for the study of the Word? We may not all be able to give hours to it at one time, but do we use up our minutes? Is it our daily guide-book in the path of life?
Neither you nor I were ever caught by Satan and tripped up, we never made a mistake in our history, that it was not the direct result of neglect of some part of the Word of God.
The Lord answered and defeated Satan in the wilderness as the result of having lived by the Word of God, not because He Himself was God; and when we have been beaten by Satan, it was because we had not the Word of the Lord to go by. I believe there is in the Word, divine guidance for your soul and mine, for every step of our history from first to last. There are principles to be found in it that would guide us at all times, if we were only subject to it.
I would press upon you, my reader, more careful and prayerful, and constant study of the Word of the Lord, so as to get to know His mind. Comparatively speaking, the Bible is a small book: how is it that we know so little about it? I believe because there is a profundity in it, to begin with, that no other book has, and it must be read in dependence on God in order to be understood; but then too Satan does his very best to prevent our storing it up in our hearts, because he knows its value.
“He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them,” the Lord says, “he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him,” that is, I will pay him a visit, but “If any man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make our abode with him” (John 14:21-2321He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 22Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:21‑23)). In proportion as our souls heed the written Word, we shall find the Spirit of God giving has the enjoyment of Him who is the Living Word.
I do not wonder Peter commends them so earnestly to the Word of the Lord, even as he so often and so touchingly alludes to his own denial of Him. Had he remembered the word of the Lord to him, he would never have denied Him in Pilate’s hall.