This is such a rich passage and there is so much to say here. But I want to keep current with where we are in our Sunday class. So at some point in the near future I will return to this post and add some thoughts on this section of Peter’s epistle.
For now, let me point out the three main thoughts of this passage:
1. He has caused us to be born again (1.3) The object of our new birth, or what were we have been born again to, is described as a “living hope” and an “inheritance.” Clearly the concepts of hope and inheritance would bring to mind the idea of the promisesmade to Abraham. The essence of this passage is Peter’s introduction to the real reason why his readers could endure suffering and difficulty. Namely, that God was fulfilling the promises he made to Abraham and his seed (which is Christ – Gal 3.16). We are the children of promise if we are by faith connected to Christ. Our new birth, that God sovereignly and monergistically brought about, was the means of fulfilling these promises.
2. In this we rejoice (1.6) In the face of trials and difficulties we rejoice because we know our inheritance is secured in heaven. Even though we do not now see Him, we believe and love Him and therefore rejoice in the certain outcome of our faith (1.9)
3. Concerning this inheritance (1.10) Even the prophets of old searched their own prophecies in a desire to better understand what would be revealed to us – on this side of the cross. They understood to some degree that their message would be fulfilled not in a political nation or ethnic people, but for those in the New Covenant, those in Christ, the Children of Promise
In other words, Peter introduces this message of Hope by reminding his readers that God promised our victory long ago through Father Abraham and was in the processing of fulfilling that promise in them. As he will soon elaborate on, they are a royal nation and a holy priesthood and belong to God Himself (2.4-5). The trials they are experiencing will pass and God will restore, confirm strengthen and establish them. There was so much reason for them to Hope and Rejoice.
We too must remind ourselves that we have been called to suffer for the cause of Christ… to take up our cross. When things get difficult, when trials come – even though we do not see Him – we have hope in the promise that our inheritance is eternal and established in heaven. God is working out his eternal covenant by causing us to be born again. Preach the gospel to yourself every day. It keeps our focus on the big picture of building the Kingdom for His glory.
What to think?
Grace to you,
7 comments:
Considering this idea of the Christian hope and the significance the apostle ascribes to it I noticed that the hope of which the text speaks is not a general sort of hopefulness–the expectation of future blessedness in an indefinite sense. It is true the Christian is a man of hope so far as his outlook upon the future as such, be it near or remote, is bright and cheerful. But what Peter means is something different from this, something far more specific. The hope he refers to is the hope of the future kingdom of God, the final state of blessedness, the hope of heaven, as we would call it. This is stated in so many words; for the apostle after having first said that we were begotten again unto a living hope, goes on to substitute for the conception of hope that of the inheritance reserved in heaven for us. And adds still further that while this is reserved for us, we are also guarded for it as for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. The Christian is a man, according to Peter, who lives with his heavenly destiny ever in full view. His outlook is not bounded by the present life and the present world. He sees that which is and that which is to come in their true proportions and in their proper perspective. The center of gravity of his consciousness lies not in the present but in the future. Hope, not possession, is that which gives tone and color to his life. His is the frame of mind of the heir who knows himself entitled to large treasures upon which he will enter at a definite point of time; treasures which will first enable him to become a man and develop his powers to their full capacity, and every one of whose thoughts therefore projects itself into the period when he shall have become of age and enjoy the fruition of his hope.
Hello Pilgrim
Great thoughts! You are spot on! Te hope to which Peter directs us is very definite and certain. He uses "hope" and "inheritance" as synonyms - referring to the same thing. Clearly the inheritance is the fulfilled promiss made to Abraham and his seed - which is Christ. And we are the children or promise if we are "in Christ". So the hope / inheritance to which Peter directs our attention is the fulfillment of the new covenant. A new heart. Christ in us, the hope of glory. The promised spirit. This is why we approach the trials and tribulations of this life differently than those without that hope. We are children of promise!!
Thanks for stopping by.
Dave,
I can agree with you as regards the promise made to Abraham and his seed and its connection to the elect, however I do not see this connection here in Peter, or as you stated, "Clearly the inheritance is the fulfilled promise made to Abraham and his seed...", but rather the Apostle clearly associates this inheritance through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
When a man becomes conscious of his being in Christ, there takes place such a transformation of his spiritual environment that it may be fitly compared to the great world-change that shall take place before our eyes when the new heavens and the new earth appear at the end of time. These two regenerations resemble each other in their pervasive, comprehensive character.
Now in this sense also, I take it, Peter affirms that believers have been begotten again unto a living hope. In all probability the representation, while applicable to all believers, was influenced to some extent by the apostle's memory of his own experience. There had been a moment in his previous life when all at once in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, he had been thus translated from a world of despair into a world of hope. It was when the fact of the resurrection of Christ flashed upon him. Under the two-fold bitterness of his denial of the Lord and of the tragedy of the cross, utter darkness had settled down upon his soul. Everything he expected from the future in connection with Jesus had been completely blotted out. Perhaps he had been even in danger of losing the old hope which as a pious Israelite he cherished before he knew the Lord. And then suddenly, the whole aspect of things had been changed. The risen Christ appeared to him and by his appearance the resurrection of everything that had gone down with him into the grave. There was far more here for Peter than a mere resurrection of what he had hoped in before. It was the birth of something new that now for the first time disclosed itself to his perception. His hope was not given back to him in its old form. It was regenerated in the act of restoration. Previously it had been dim, undefined, subject to fluctuations–sometimes eager and enthusiastic, sometimes cast down and languishing; in many respects earthly and carnal, very incompletely spiritualized and, apart from all these defects, a bare hope which could only sustain itself by projection into the future, but lacked that vital support and nourishment in a present substantial reality without which no religious hope can permanently subsist.
Through the resurrection of Christ, all these faults were corrected; all these deficiencies supplied. For Peter looked upon the risen Christ as the beginning, the first fruits of that new world of God in which the believer's hope is anchored. Jesus did not rise as he had been before, but transformed, glorified, eternalized, the possessor and author of a transcendent heavenly life at one and the same time, the revealer, the sample and the pledge of the future realization of the true kingdom of God. No prolonged course of training could have been more effective for purifying and spiritualizing the apostle's hope than this single, instantaneous experience; this bursting upon him of a new form of eternal life, concrete and yet all-comprehensive in its prophetic significance. Well might the apostle say that he himself had been begotten again unto a new hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And, of course, what was true of him was even more emphatically true of the readers of his epistle, who, if they were believers from the Gentiles, previously to their conversion had lived entirely without hope and without God in the world.
Blessings,
A Pilgrim
Boy, I sure wish I knew with whom I was conversing :)
I agree with most of what you have said. Remember the summary that I posted was a study that took us about 8 weeks to cover in Sunday school. So what you are reading is a very brief summary. I do believe that the inheritance is obviously a reference to the promises to Abraham. But not just from the immediate text (though I think the concept of inheritance would certainly bring to the mind of the reader the abrahamic promises). But it the flow and declaration of the entire Epistle. He is making the case that his hearers were a Holy nation, royal priesthood, people for God's own possession. By quoting Hosea and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Leviticus, Peter is clearly making the connection that the prophecies of old that seemed to be directed to OT Israel were presently being fulfilled in his readers, who were part of the new covenant, the church. This is the nature of the hope we have - the new heart, the new covenant, the promised spirit, Christ in me the hope of glory.
Dave
You have presented your case well and have provided myself with some food for thought. For one to have a blog of this nature he needs to be an apologist otherwise he is just presenting his views or opinions without substance. You, unlike so many other blogs I have encountered apologetically present your case from the text of Scripture and this is refreshing. On another note, in your first reply to me you said, "You are spot on!" I am unfamiliar with this expression and was hoping you could enlighten me as to its meaning.
Blessings
"spot on" means you nailed it, you got it right.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for your kind words!
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