READINGS ON PETER'S FIRST EPISTILE - 1 PETER 1
READINGS ON PETER’S FIRST EPISTILE - 1 PETER 1
It was remarked at our last reading that the people of God, as under His government, necessarily suffer from the result of Adam’s sin; for certain governmental consequences have come down to us which we cannot ignore; also the building of Babel, and the consequent division of the nations, we suffer from that too; and then the failure of the assembly, as a public body, has entailed suffering that we cannot avoid.
This epistle contemplates those addressed as “of the dispersion”, 1 Peter 1:1, which was also governmental; they were outside of their own land and city. They were in circumstances not primarily intended, which were the result of the sin of the Jewish nation; and although converted and now God’s people, nevertheless they were suffering under the government of God. This epistle shows how that whilst sufferings are indeed the consequences of sin in these various forms, yet the government of God was in their favour, as in ours.
These “sojourners of the dispersion” were not suffering on account of assembly failure as we are today, yet they suffered in a threefold way as we do. They suffered from the failure of the nation of Israel; we suffer from the sin of the assembly as a public body. This book teaches us that in all these things the government of God is in our favour; things are modified and turned into good for us.
This chapter would divert us from earth. There is [p. 397] thus an outlet from the consequences of sin into the heavenly portion. In Genesis 1 it is said that God created the heavens and the earth. But when dealing with the chaotic conditions later, it does not say that the heavens were “without form and void” Genesis 1: 2; it was the earth that was so described. The heavens here are viewed as a place in which the saints have their inheritance reserved. It is beyond the reach of the consequences of sin “reserved in the heavens for you”. 1 Peter 1: 4.
The gospel was preached unto these dispersed ones “by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven”. 1 Peter 1: 12. It is well to notice the distinctive place that heaven has. From the outset, as in Genesis 1, it is regarded as a place where things are reserved. There is another heaven spoken of in that chapter, which is brought into being in connection with the earth, called “the expanse” Genesis 1: 6 (New Trans.). God called it heavens; it was above the waters. There are several heavens, but the heaven that God primarily created seems to have remained as it was; it is that place into which Jesus has gone. In the gospel of Matthew, which is the gospel that treats of the government of God, the word is generally used in the plural; for all the heavens are involved in the government of God. In Psalm 115:16 it says, “The heavens are the heavens of Jehovah, but the earth hath he given to the children of men”, as indicating the sphere where heaven’s rule is exercised. The Spirit of God speaks about three heavens in 2 Corinthians 12. In Ephesians 4 we get the word ‘all’; Jesus has ascended up above all the heavens.
The tabernacle contained three spheres. The innermost would correspond to the third heaven. As contemplated here, heaven is a sphere in which things are reserved. The earthly inheritance was lost, but this one is reserved in the heavens and so could not be lost. So in Acts 3:21 it says, “Whom heaven indeed must receive”, that is, Christ is there, beyond the reach of things here, until the times of the restoring of all things. Heaven is to be regarded in that light.
The principle of government must be in heaven, for the angels are subject. Matthew emphasises the fact that the heavens rule, which modern democratic principles disregard. Here the inheritance is in the heavens; it is therefore beyond the reach of the corrupting influences of this world.
These believing Jews were suffering as the consequence of the position of the Jewish nation governmentally. We require spiritual understanding to see how this epistle applies to us; the principles it contains are general in their application. We are not suffering as Jews from the result of the sin of the Jewish nation, but as connected with our assembly position, for the professing thing has failed, as Israel failed, so that we are in a corresponding position. But we have an outlet from that, as this epistle teaches us, a portion in heaven beyond the reach of evil.
The salvation ready to be revealed is what comes in at the coming of the Lord to reign. Our position is pretty much like that of these Jewish Christians; the assembly having publicly failed, our only hope is in what will come out at the return of the Lord. So that the Philadelphian phase is the result of the other phases of the assembly. From Thyatira onward, the coming of the Lord was the great event looked for. There is no thought of setting up anything here after Thyatira. What is to take the place of the assembly as having failed is the Lord Himself coming in, and these Jewish Christians are to know that they have an inheritance in heaven, and are kept guarded by the power of God for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. They would be looking, therefore, for the coming of the Lord, but were kept guarded in the meantime by the power of God.
Verse 3 begins: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Peter 1: 3; not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as in the Old Testament. They were transferred from Jewish ground to Christian ground. There is a correspondence with the second book of Psalms. The remnant are viewed there as outside Jerusalem; hence the expression “As the hart panteth after the water-brooks”, etc., and “Why art thou cast down, my soul?” etc. (Psalm 42:1, 5.) That kind of exercise runs on to Psalm 45, when the Messiah is brought in; then it is: “My heart is welling forth with a good matter”, Psalm 45: 1 etc., and the sequence is great as seen in this psalm “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy sons; princes shalt thou make them in all the earth”. Psalm 45: 16. In 1 Peter God is known as Father, and the saints have an inheritance in heaven, as the earthly hopes are deferred. They are kept guarded by the power of God through faith. The thought of the inheritance is not developed. The point is rather where it is reserved. Ephesians tells us we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies; we are seated there.
We may see historically in the Acts how the gospel came to these believers; no doubt through Paul and Barnabas. They visited these districts, went into the synagogues and preached the gospel to them, so that a basis was laid for Peter’s epistle; hence the force of verse 12, “those who have declared to you the glad tidings by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven”. 1 Peter 1: 12. The bondman of Luke 14 was sent into the “ways and fences”; Paul and Barnabas fulfilled that passage in respect of the provinces named in our chapter. Peter in Babylon, amongst those of the dispersion there, doubtless found a sympathetic interest among them. “She that is elected with you in Babylon salutes you”, 1 Peter 5: 13 would be the suggestion of an assembly link between the east and the west. In that way the ministry of Peter was linking up the fragments [p. 400] of the Jews who had believed in assembly relations as outside of Jerusalem. This would greatly strengthen Paul’s work, which covered a still wider sphere.
“According as our beloved brother Paul has written to you” 2 Peter 3: 15: the two ministries run together and support each other, all tending to lift the saints outside the range of earthly things, and show how the government of God, although apparently against them, was really for them. The Book of Revelation shows that; in Thyatira the overcomer is encouraged with the place he is to have in the kingdom, and so in the three addresses after Thyatira there is encouragement to look for the coming of the Lord. Then chapter 4 opens up with John being taken up into heaven, which no doubt synchronises with our own place there, and the way we come into it. And then a throne is seen standing in the heaven, from which everything is adjusted. The outlet is into heaven, and the adjustment is from heaven, not through any elements on earth. The assembly knows that Christ has the means of adjustment. He is the Root and Offspring of David, so that the Revelation rightly understood enables the Christian to be restful as to everything. Finally, the city comes down from God out of heaven. We are already receiving the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls. The salvation that is to be revealed includes the body, that is salvation in its fullest sense; but soul salvation is already received. Soul salvation is in contrast to temporal deliverances of the Jew. We come into it in the light of Christ in heaven and the Holy Spirit on earth. All that remains is for the Spirit to complete the work of salvation in regard to the body, we are already “filled with the glory” or glorified; and it is thus we are in the assembly in restful enjoyment of soul salvation.
The Book of Ezekiel deals with this subject. The prophet is outside of Jerusalem among the captives [p. 401] by the river Chebar, in Chaldea, and in the visions of God he sees the means whereby God carries on His government outside of Jerusalem, and that it is in favour of God’s people. Whilst Jerusalem itself was the immediate object of government, its sphere was much wider. But the book goes on to show (Ezekiel 36) that God would sprinkle clean water on the house of Israel and give them a new heart. We have here (1 Peter 1: 23) that we are born again of incorruptible seed, by the living and abiding word of God. That is what really underlies the great subject we are dealing with. Ezekiel treats of the government of God administered through a Man. Everything is under the control of the Man in heaven, and that is really what you get in this epistle. Jesus has gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to Him; everything now is in our favour because it is under the control and direction of the Lord Jesus. Great prominence is given to heaven here. The Holy Spirit has come down from heaven, and brings its resources here. What we are enjoying spiritually now has thus come down. The prophets had spoken about it, but what was revealed to them was not for themselves; they ministered it unto us, and what they ministered is all embodied in the gospel, which has been announced by those who preach it by the Spirit come down from heaven.
In Isaiah 6:3 one seraph called to another and said, “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts”. That is the seraphic character; but then His train filled the temple. In our chapter holiness is insisted on “But as he who has called you is holy, be ye also holy in all your conversation because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy”. 1 Peter 1: 15,16. God would have us pay attention to holiness. The seraph secures in the midst of all these things what is due to God in holiness. So that one of the seraphs flew to the man of unclean lips with a live coal from off the altar, making it [p. 402] touch his mouth. Isaiah is thus brought into accord with the holiness of God and is made suitable for the service of God. Righteousness deals with sin authoritatively and removes it but holiness shrinks from it. You recoil from sin in holiness. The principle of holiness is brought into the soul by the Holy Spirit indwelling us.
The girding up of the loins of the mind is most essential if we are to be in holiness, because we all know how easily our minds are caught by things that come under our notice — public occurrences, and what is announced in the newspapers, for example. We are very susceptible of being drawn away by these things. Our affections must be girded, and so are preserved from what defiles. Girding up is a well-known figure. The mind easily wanders unless on one’s guard; girding it means that you are not attracted or detained by what defiles, you turn away from it, as having something else. You are “sober and hope with perfect stedfastness in the grace which will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”. 1 Peter 1: 13.
The world is largely kept going today by what is represented under two headings: “The man that speaketh froward things” and “the strange woman ... which flattereth with her words”, Proverbs 2: 12, 16. The man provides material for the mind, but the woman provides the places of amusement. The world is largely kept going by what is found under these two heads, and the young are enjoined to avoid both. This epistle would help us, because if you gird up the loins of your mind, you do not listen to either the man or the woman. You are sober and look forward to what the Lord Jesus will bring in when manifested.
“Pass your time of sojourn in fear” 1 Peter 1: 17; it is a holy fear, similar to what is found in the Proverbs: “the fear of the Lord”. In the holiest — the presence of [p. 403] God — you are without fear, for perfect love casts out fear, but outside in the sphere of His government it is right to fear God. You need to have the fear of God before your eyes. You know what you are liable to do, and are fearful of this; it is wholesome fear.
We invoke God as Father. It does not go as far as to imply that the Father, as Father, judges; they invoked Him by the name of Father, but the One they invoked as Father is the One who judges, that is God. The God that the Jews would invoke is Jehovah. The Judge of all is the One that we invoke as Father; it is the same Person, but it is God that judges. The privilege is an incentive to holiness and fear, seeing that our whole course will come under the scrutiny of God, for we must not take advantage of the precious family relation to disregard His rights as God.
We have a thought here that is very suggestive and encouraging: God has raised Christ from the dead and given Him glory, that our faith and hope may be in God. The great fact of the resurrection and glorification of Christ induces faith and hope in God; for He has taken the One become Man, the Head of every man, and given Him glory. This should inspire every man with faith and hope; God is presented to us strikingly as having come in for us in raising Christ from the dead. God is to have man now in the One who has come in on man’s side and died; God has intervened in Him, and has raised and glorified Him. If God has done that, then I may have the most implicit confidence in Him by faith and hope.
These scattered ones had a sphere to which they could resort, and the corresponding position in ourselves makes it so interesting, because our outlet is on the same lines. We have an outlet from governmental conditions as having a place in heaven. We [p. 404] know the Father and are in the enjoyment of the Spirit, and what He has brought down, being of a new generation. Our relations are family ones, but in the sense of what the word of God produces, “the living and abiding word of God”. 1 Peter 1: 23. We are quickened by that which expresses the mind of God, and are loving one another out of a pure heart fervently, so that if two or three of those Jews had met the brethren in Antioch, for instance, they would have been talking about the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In other words, you have Christianity in the essence of it and not Judaism. “Being born again” implies that these believers were formed intelligently. It is not the initial idea of the things as in John 3, but “by the living and abiding word of God”. 1 Peter 1: 23.
“This is the word which in the glad tidings is preached to you” 1 Peter 1: 25; the gospel they heard gave character to them. In John 3: 6 it is, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh”, but here we are told what flesh is; it is as grass, and hence the necessity of new birth. The Jew would set forth that the flesh has glory. Saul of Tarsus would be an example of the full development of flesh; no one would represent the flesh more definitely than he. He gives an account of himself as after the flesh when converted and as having the Spirit.