First Epistle of Peter
A GREAT DOXOLOGY
Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 1:3 (KJV)
Here we have the apostle bursting forth into a doxology of praise to God. How easily all the New Testament writers could do this. We seldom hear this today. Could it be that our spirituality is on a lower plane than theirs?
"Blessed"
The word translated "blessed" is the word from which we get our English words eulogy and eulogize. A eulogy is a word spoken in praise of one. So the apostle wants the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be praised. We often hear a father praising his children, but not so often a child praising his father. It is music to a father's ear when a child speaks well of him.
"Father"
A young preacher gave this illustration:"Years ago, I had a friend in whose home I enjoyed visiting. Before being saved he habitually cursed God and Christ unmercifully. Now it is a great pleasure to hear him talk of his Father whom he seems to know very intimately and love very ardently."
In verse 2, we have the trinity. Then in verses 3 to 12, we have the trinity again. Verses 3 to 5 are of the Father, 6 to 9 of the Son; 10 to 12 of the Spirit. In our verse 3 the Father is called "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but He is also our God and Father. In John 20:17, the Lord Jesus says to Mary Magdalene, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God, and your God." How wonderful to realize that our Father is God? How proud we would be if our father was a mayor of a great city, or a congressman, or president, or a king. How much happier we should be knowing that our Father is God – how we should praise and extol Him to everyone.
Children in this world are often very much like their fathers, both in looks and actions. How much are we like our Father in Heaven? The world judges a father by his children. What impression do unbelievers have when they see us – children of God?
"Our Lord Jesus Christ"
Here the apostle uses the full title, "our Lord Jesus Christ". In the gospels He is nearly always called "Jesus;" but reading the epistles, we very seldom find Him called by this alone. He is nearly always "the Lord Jesus", or "Jesus Christ," and often, as here, "the Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus was His earthly name, and as such He was usually called when here. However, after His resurrection and ascension, in Acts 2:36, Peter says: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." From then on, they seldom use the one name alone. Often speakers and writers use the name Jesus over and over. Some may be thinking of Him as just a man who lived over 2,000 years ago. But, when they use the full title, it makes one feel more confident that they are thinking of Him as the divine one – the Messiah of Israel.
The word "Lord" has degenerated in our time to nothing more than a title. Some men in England with that title have neither riches nor authority. But originally it meant one with almost absolute authority. Formerly lords lived in castles, and the peasants living round about were considered their servants or slaves. Many had the power of life and death over their subjects. This is the sense of "Lord" in the Scriptures. If we are not obedient to Christ, we are not really owning Him as Lord, even though with the lips we might give Him that title. "And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" (Luke 6:46). If we own Him as Lord – He who lived here so long ago – we are thereby confessing that He is more than man. "He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him" (Ps. 45:11).
There is also much significance in the name "Jesus." It is composed of two Hebrew words: "Jell" or "Jah," which is the abbreviated form for Jehovah. "Sus" means "saves." So it literally means "God saves." He was purposely given this name before His birth, because of who He was and the work He was to do. The angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph and said, "And she shall. bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21).
If one should read this who is not saved; we commend this Savior to you. "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). He came to save you, He died to save you. His very name means "God saves."
"Christ" is the same as the Hebrew word "Messiah." All the Jews knew there was a Messiah coming. The word literally means "Anointed." They anointed those who were officially prophets, priests or kings. They thought the Messiah was to be one anointed by God, to be their great king, who was to relieve them from all oppression and to make them the greatest nation in the world. They did not understand though, that He was first to be anointed as prophet, and then as priest, before He was anointed as King. He first lived here as a prophet, then as priest, He made the great sacrifice for our sins on the cross. Some day He is coming back, and He will be "King of Kings", and "Lord of Lords." As we read the New Testament, we sometimes see the use of the word "Messiah," instead of "Christ." When the apostles used this term it must have stunned the unbelieving Jews; but cheered the hearts of those who believed.
A story is told of a young college man who was heard swearing, incessantly using the name "Jesus Christ." The dean called him aside and said, "Do you know that every time you use the name Jesus Christ you are preaching the gospel?" "Preaching the gospel? What do you mean?" came the reply. He received this explanation: "Every time you say Jesus Christ you are saying, 'God saves by His anointed.'" He was never heard using the Lord's name in blasphemy again. And, in a few years he become a preacher of the gospel.
"Which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again"
Here we have the Father as the One who has begotten us. He is the author of the new birth.
"Before being saved, as a young man, I was greatly confused by the new birth. I could in some measure, understand the Son dying on the cross that sinners might be saved, but what was this new birth? What did it mean? I remember that. I actually felt it was something to make salvation difficult. A humble man of God taught my father. sister and me all about it and brought us to the Lord Jesus Christ. He taught us that being born again is a new life spiritually – in the eternal world – like that moment when a new infant is born and we say there is new life in the world" (Dr. W. Harrison).
When one is born again spiritually, he walks a new life – a divine life as Paul teaches us in Romans.
Here we have the divine life received from the father. In John 1:11,12 we receive the divine life by receiving the Son. In John 3:5 to 8, we have the Spirit giving the divine life. Then in 1 Peter 1:23, we have "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God". Then Paul teaches in the 6th chapter of Romans that we are buried with Him in baptism, that just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too are raised to walk in newness of life. Thus, we are born again. Though probably a little confusing at first, it really isn't so difficult. All three persons of the trinity, plus the Word of God, work together to bring new life to the sinner. The Father planned it; the Son died to give a just basis for supplying it; and the Spirit is the one who actually imparts life into the one who believes and obeys Christ Jesus. Apart from the Word, we would know nothing about any of it.
This is obtained for us only because of the abundant mercy of the Father. Mercy implies guilt. Abundant mercy would imply abundant guilt. Man has been terribly guilty. He not only has lied and stolen and done many vile things, but he has been a rebel against God. The height of his hatred and rebellion is seen when they took the Son of God and nailed Him to the accursed cross. The abundance of God's mercy is also seen in that cross. One would have thought that God in His wrath would have stricken those murderers down to the ground and have consigned them to Hell. Instead we hear the Son say, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Then we see the Father making that very cross the ground for the salvation of the sinner. Now the very vilest sinner can obtain abundant mercy if he will but confess his sins and receive Christ as His Savior.
But you say, "I am not the worst sinner, maybe I do not need mercy". If you could but see yourself in the light of the glory and holiness of God, you would not so speak. Even God in speaking of Job to Satan, calls Job an upright man. Yet when Job gets into the presence of God and God shows him his sin, Job says, "Behold I am vile" (Job 40:4). Then in chapter 42, verses 5 and 6 he says, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." If any of us, the best as well as the worst, get to Heaven, it will be because of the abundant mercy of the Father.
"unto a lively [living] hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead"
Peter's letters have been called "the epistles of the living hope." Apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we would be without hope. In Ephesians 2:12, the apostle says of us as unsaved Gentiles; "Having no hope, and without God in the world." Then in 1 Corinthians 15:17 we read, "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins."
There are those who deny the bodily resurrection of Christ. The Scriptures everywhere testify that He did so rise, and tells us that apart from this resurrection, none could be saved. All through the Acts and all through the epistles, we have His resurrection emphasized equally with His crucifixion.
A man passing a church building, pointed to the cross on the steeple and said, "Look, those people worship a dead man". This would be literally true of all Christians if Christ did not rise. But as it is, we worship a Savior who was dead, but is alive for evermore.
This is what gives us this living hope. Because He lives, we know we shall live also. His resurrection guarantees ours. Our life is identical with His. Hope, in the Scriptures, usually has some reference to the second coming of Christ. We know He arose from the dead and we have the living assurance that some day He will come again and take us unto Himself.
