GOD'S GOVERNMENT AND SERVICE

GOD’S GOVERNMENT AND SERVICE

1 Peter 1: 1 - 9; 1 Peter 2: 4 - 12

JT We may be helped in enquiry into this epistle in the light of God’s government and service at the present time, for there has been much pressure. The apostle has in mind that the persons addressed were in like circumstances, contrary circumstances to what they might have wished or expected. The government of God lies in that, that circumstances are different from what we may expect. This epistle teaches us that the circumstances according to the will of God are perfect, and to be accepted. In the acceptance of them God does His best for us, that is from His point of view, which we would all recognise to be the best. The persons addressed are regarded as of the dispersion. Some other will than their own had acted; they were dispersed. But whatever the will was that was immediately acting, the point is to bow to the will of God. God being behind the circumstances has something in view. His best, what His love designs for us. In Jeremiah’s time some were similarly dispersed, and Jeremiah wrote to them to stay where they were, and to multiply, and not to be diminished (Jeremiah 29: 6, 7). It requires faith to stay in these circumstances, but as a result we see how God does His best for us. They are in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. James speaks of the twelve tribes of the dispersion, but there the condition is more general. When conditions are more general they are easier to accept, even if they are adverse. But here it is more acute; but they are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”.

^[p. 2] That is the divine standard of those facing these apparently adverse circumstances.

Rem For those to whom Jeremiah wrote safety lay in accepting their circumstances.

JT The refusal to bow to divine ordering means that we shall come under divine judgment. The judgment of God is a wide subject and dates back to the deluge. Certain racial conduct, for us gentiles, and certain conduct in the history of the church have occasioned divine action, for which we are externally suffering.

Rem Is the confusion of tongues an example?

JT All who travel know something of that. We may not notice the things, but if we travel with God we shall know them and feel them. We are in circumstances religiously that we would never have desired. Our position is abnormal; we are outside, and not only in the world but in the profession. The subject is wide, and it is really essential that we should understand the circumstances and the government of God. But He does not alter; what He was, He is. And so these of the dispersion come in for better things than those lost through unfaithfulness. In these circumstances we belong to the elect of God. The elect come into the best. Jesus, God’s elect, was in like circumstances, and on Him the Father opens the heavens and expresses His delight. Here we are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit”. We are reminded of the positive side, and as of the dispersion this is the act of the Spirit, bringing us into accord with Christ: as it says, “unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”.

Ques Would the end of Matthew 11 bear on this?

JT That sets it out. The Lord was suffering rejection, but He rejoiced in the Father, the sovereign Ruler of heaven and earth. God would do something better for Him than if His ministry had been accepted ^[p. 3] by Israel. The first eleven chapters have Israel in view; but God has better things in view, things to be revealed to babes, but leading up to the assembly. It is a question of our sanctification. The standard is not lowered by the change of circumstances. Moreover the sprinkling of blood is a basis for a new order things to God’s glory.

Ques Is it an allusion to the whole tabernacle being sprinkled?

JT The thought is well known in the Old Testament, and Hebrews brings out the basis on which the system is set, in contrast to the types. The thought goes back to Exodus 12, and then in Exodus 24 is the establishment of the covenant, and the sprinkling of the altar, the book and the people. In Leviticus 16 and other places is seen the import of the sprinkling. Here it is the “sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”. It is set over against the blood previously sprinkled.

Ques How does the sprinkling relate to what follows?

JT It is the solemn footing we are on before God. The government of God cannot be fruitful save as we are on a righteous basis before Him. The believer is not shaken. Peter traces government from the angels that fell, right on to the new heavens and the new earth. He links up the saints with it by the Spirit, links them up with what is past and what is future.

Ques Is the obedience spoken of here like that of the Lord Jesus?

JT Yes. He brought in this kind of obedience; it is how He obeyed. The circumstances put all this to the test. They were really like the Lord’s circumstances. The government of God in Peter and Jude covers all God’s dealings known. They begin with angels; the disobedient angels are cast down. He takes up the world that was, the present world, and ^[p. 4] the world to come. Circumstances arise contrary to what we might wish. In their acceptance we prove what God can be to us. When the Lord came there was the greatest adversity; the people were scattered and under Roman rule. Messiah was refused, but He was perfect in all that, and He faced the whole matter. He died under the Romans, but He went beyond all that and faced the whole matter to God’s glory. He met the whole question that had brought in God’s judicial ways, and He left God free to work out His own thoughts; our safety lies in submission to Jesus. All this is worked out in those who accept the circumstances. The standard has been brought in by Christ. There is a lever in the light that comes into our souls as being elect, elect “by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”. It is “unto”. The sanctification of the Spirit has in view this obedience.

Rem Obedience with the Lord Jesus was an attitude of heart, “He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”.

JT That is good. The law was in His heart.

Ques Shall we suffer outwardly?

Rem But bowing to that the Lord opens the door of privilege.

JT Indeed. They come into something better. They had been dispersed; they had not moved to make money. Some of the Jews may have moved for that reason, but they had moved otherwise. The disciples were to be men of portent; they were to be like Him. God has brought in, in Him, the standard of obedience; so He has brought in what is new. Here they are “sojourners of the dispersion”, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”.

^[p. 5] Rem Only that kind of obedience will do; there is no other thought.

JT The highest order of obedience would be seen in John’s gospel, “As the Father gave me commandment”.

Ques Would Aquila and Priscilla illustrate this?

JT They were in a dual position. They were christians, treated as Jews. They accepted it, and they are found at Corinth, and without pretending anything, or claiming anything, either as Jews or christians, they are working; they are artisans, tentmakers. Paul would have no aspirations, either as tent-maker or at any work, but he is there with them. What did Paul mind as to the thought of the authorities about him? He had the light of God in his soul, and it is on those lines that he is working. So he would be subject to every authority for the Lord’s sake (see 1 Peter 2: 13).

Ques What are the better things you referred to?

JT “Blessed be the God and Father ... receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (verses 3 - 9). There you have a lot of precious things put together, reminding you in their fulness of Paul’s condensation of what is so blessed in Ephesians. How much these people had already! But only in acceptance of their then present circumstances, the second chapter we have, “To whom coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious, yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”. That is far beyond anything that Solomon had.

Rem And the Lord would use all the pressure to give us experience with Himself.

JT There is a remarkable condition now in the world, dating back to 1914. The people of God have come under these conditions. What is there in them ^[p. 6] for us? God is working out the end, perfecting His work in us. They are the occasion of our coming into these most blessed things. God is using all these things for the good of His people now. We might aspire to getting on in this world. God gives us the opportunity to have better things. The value of a man is more precious than gold. The Lord Jesus is God’s standard.

Ques Should not exultation mark us?

JT It would arise from the knowledge that Peter’s epistle gives to us. Believers are linked up with the whole history of God’s ways. The Spirit of Christ was in the prophets. The Old Testament prophets who suffered had to accept that the things they spoke of were not for them, but these great things are for us. It says that the angels desire to look into them. Think of that! They would not desire to know what statesmen were doing; but these things are so great that they desire to look into them. We find that the Lord Jesus Himself has suffered, “being put to death in flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which also going he preached to the spirits which are in prison, heretofore disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing”. He went back beyond the flood and He preached Himself. We are linked up with all that. The gospel has been preached to those that are dead. How faithful God has been; His love has been active all the time by the Spirit of Christ, “To whom coming” involves committal, and then there is the actual structure going on. There is a basis for the new system. Then there is the living condition of things, actual living stones; and then the holy priesthood. We are brought into the best, but God has His part in it, His own part.

Rem This would be offering “an oblation in righteousness”, Malachi 3: ^[p. 7] 3.

JT Yes, it would; and all the preciousness of Christ is our portion. We were looking last night at Matthew 9. What a thought of Christ! The Bridegroom; a bridegroom is a man at his best. So it is all His preciousness. You would turn from all else; Peter is already there, so he says, “To whom coming”. Pressure is in view of enlargement, and all these meetings show that God is turning things to account. What are we coming to? The “living stone” is the positive thing before God. “To whom coming”. That is the positive side; the blood is to deal with what is negative, so to speak, but here is the positive thing.

“But ye are a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light; who once were not a people, but now God’s people; who were not enjoying mercy, but now have found mercy”. All this is very stimulating. It is what we are; not what Christ is only, but what we are. Whatever the world thinks, that is what the saints are. We begin to feel we are of value; the saints are a possession. Stephen corresponded with the Lord. All was allowed. Today many are suffering seriously, but the government of God makes a way for the testimony. At Shinar God scattered men over the face of the earth, but then the Spirit of God records again the posterity of Shem. It is given again. The tower would block the line of the testimony. The more concentration there is in the world the harder it is for the testimony, but God makes a way through. So in Jeremiah 29, they are to stay and build houses. It is the ordering of God, and then in seventy years He will act. They have to accept the captivity.

Rem We have received good at the hands of the Lord, and shall we not accept the evil?

JT “For thus saith Jehovah: When seventy years shall be accomplished for Babylon I will visit ^[p. 8] you, and perform my good word toward you, in bringing you back to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Jehovah, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you in your latter end a hope. And ye shall call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you; and ye shall seek me and find me, for ye shall search for me, with all your heart, and I will be found of you, saith Jehovah. And I will turn your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith Jehovah; and I will bring you again into the place whence I have caused you to be carried away captive”, Jeremiah 29: 10 - 14.