1 Peter 1

Nobody makes “What would Peter do” bracelets. Peter's confusion and misplaced boldness are well-known. After all, he confessed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Son of the living God, and almost immediately he spoke out against the Lord's revelation of His coming cross, saying “May it never be!” Even several years after the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, Paul writes for all the church to read that he had to oppose Peter to his face because of his duplicitous behavior concerning Gentiles. Under some pressure from outsiders, Peter seemed to forget yet again that Gentile believers were fully accepted in Christ, and therefore worthy of table fellowship with Jewish Christians.

Yet throughout the history of the church, many would want to trace their spiritual lineage somehow to this one apostle. Though people use Peter's name as their justification for any number of practices, few have bothered to study his two letters contained in the New Testament. Instead of “What would Peter do” trinkets, perhaps we should promote a new slogan: “What did Peter write?”

The apostle begins his first letter by using Jewish terminology to refer to the whole church of both Jewish and Gentile believers. In this inspired letter the church is said to be the new chosen people of God. They are scattered across several provinces of the Roman empire, but they are all God's children. God knew them long before they were born, He declared them to be clean through the work of the Holy Spirit, and He destined them to a life of heavenly obedience as those who have been marked as set apart from the world. They are sanctified through the blood of the One Sacrifice which has cleansed us from our sins.

The church should always be full of praise for the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have received amazing mercy through the work of our Lord. That mercy includes not only a declaration of our hope, but something more: a happy invasion of living hope into our current lives, since we have received a new birth from above by the Holy Spirit. The experience that we have of heavenly life now is intimately connected to the fact of Jesus' resurrection life in that blessed place where our future inheritance is entirely secure.

Even here on earth, this world of obvious danger and opportunity, God is guarding us and keeping us in the life of faith as we move toward the ultimate Promised Land. By this living hope we experience a surprisingly robust spiritual joy, despite the fact that in the mysterious providence of Almighty God, we must for a little while face a measure of suffering.

The trials that we experience here have a purpose, though those who pretend they understand all of God's mysteries at the present are really only guessing. We can say this: The testing of our faith is connected to events that will be more finally revealed at the grand finale of God's eternal purpose in the revelation of Jesus and His church at His second coming. Wait for it... It is going to be worth it, and God will get all the glory. Keep on loving the Jesus of the Scriptures, though you have not yet seen Him. Keep on believing in Him, and keep on rejoicing with whatever measure of joy you have been given.

Isn't it wonderful enough that our lives have been saved for an eternal and bountiful existence with God? This is what the prophets were writing about, and we who have believed, Jews and Gentiles, have become partakers of a new world that we will certainly enter into more fully in just a little while. Now we can listen to the prophets and we read of a coming Suffering Servant of God. But we also hear of a life that does not fit the history of Israel or the story of the New Testament church. It is too big, too good, too uncompromising, and too heavenly.

This was hard for the prophets themselves to understand, though they inquired carefully concerning the person who would be the key figure of our salvation, and the timing of the events that would come. It was revealed to them that these blessings were not just for the faithful remnant of the Israelites or for the whole Jewish nation. The resurrection age that has already begun in Christ was for those who would be united in faith from all the nations of the world through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now we enjoy truths that even angels want to know more about.

We have been granted an amazing clarity in the revelation of Jesus, His death, His resurrection, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit through the writings and preaching of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament era. Since, by the precious blood of Christ, we have this clarity of hope guaranteed for us in the perfect work of Christ, there is no good excuse for us to continue in a pattern of life from our former days of ignorance. It is time to be holy, different from the world. The One that the prophets longed for has come. He has redeemed us by His blood, and He is risen.

The good Word of Christ has now been preached to us, and we have heard it and embraced it. This truth of grace can be obeyed. We need not wait to leave this earth in order to begin to live the heavenly life more fully. The imperishable seed of God has been planted within us. That seed will live forever, and it will most certainly grow and bear good fruit for eternity.