Peter’s Pen 1st Peter 1:2

(1Pe 1:2)  according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

You’ve heard the saying, “He said a mouthful.”  Well, Peter says several mouths-full in this verse.

Peter gives us a box in which we can see something about our lives in Jesus.  Our lives in Christ are:

1     1.  according to the foreknowledge of God the Father

2     2.  in the sanctification of the Spirit

3     3.  or obedience to Jesus Christ

4     4.  or sprinkling with his blood

Look at each point this way:

1     1.  You are His and that is no surprise to God He knew it and if He knew it He brought it to pass.

2     2.  You are His inside and out, over and under and His “seal” of the relationship, the Spirit, is in you an        

             upon you – and that Spirit works in you making you like Him.

3     3.  We couldn’t and wouldn’t obey without 1 and 2.  Now we can and do.  Don’t go all legalistic on me 

            now - !

4     4.  Huh?  This means you are His forever.  His blood has cleansed you and made you His dear child – and 

            this blood will always have its effect. 

I would love to launch into a lot of information about the broad and deep meaning of this passage but I won’t.  What Peter is telling you and I is that we are His – period – not questions on His part and that ought to help us when we question it on our part.  He did it – it is done!

One little – kool beans part.  Notice that Peter tells us 1 and 2 were done for obedience and then he mentions the sprinkling of the blood.  For me that’s a comfort.

When I read “for obedience,” my flesh is very quick to tell me how poorly I obey.  I get this big spreadsheet of all the rebellious and unthinking ways I disobey.  I’m sure Peter knew all about this.  I wonder how often his flesh reminded him of his sins (see Peter in the Gospels). 

So knowing that we would iinstantly default to our weak and struggling obedience Peter with the Spirit’s guidance brings up the blood of Jesus which cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

This knee jerk to our weakness/sin is what I call a “Romans 7 moment.”  Get your Bible and read Romans 7.  Ouch!  But please do not skip verse 25!!!!! 

From there Paul writes:

There is therefore now

no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus.(Rom 8:1)

There we are – this are us.  This is YOU!

Brothers and sisters, “in Christ,” no failure is ever final.  No one and nothing can undo what God has done.  Our hope here and our hope for heaven is secured by Him – not by us.

“Walk behind Him leaning forward.  If you fall, fall in His direction.  If you smack the ground, crawl towards Him.” MS

Peter's Pen 1 Peter 1:1

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,   (1Pe 1:1)

OK, think about this.  Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, wrote this to you and me.  So, in some way his address to them back then must apply to us now (and tomorrow).

We, believers, are “those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.”  Peter uses a phraseology more familiar to Jewish folks than to Gentile so his original audience was probably a mixture of Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus.  Two words are important for us (ok - not just two but I’m focused on two).

Elect and Exiles

What’s up with this “elect” thing?  Well, take a look at this –

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.   (Eph 1:3-6)

Now how that works, I’m not sure.  Can I “explain” it?  Probably not well.  But Paul writes it as fact – not fantasy or fiction, not metaphor or hyperbole, a fact.

So instead of worrying about “how,” what if we just accept it as the truth?  No bells, no whistles, just a truth.

“Us” of course refers to believers and Paul writes that believers were chosen before the foundation of the world.

OK – a little thought on “time.”  With God there is no before or after.  With God there is no yesterday, today or tomorrow.  “Time” is a part of His creation intended to aid us – not Him.  We see time progressively.  God isn’t limited to that – as He says, He Is.  So when Paul refers to, “the foundation of the world,” it is to help us understand God’s sovereignty as well as the assurance we have in Him.

If being “in Him” was dependent upon me – I’d be in real trouble.

Yes, this idea of “the elect,” is a tough one to chew on.  Thousands of books, sermons, lessons, etc. have been produced addressing it, and appropriately so.  But even though I’ve heard them and read them (just some), I still come back to, “God said that through Paul to me.”  What a blessed assurance!

We can struggle in this verse by asking, “Why me?” or “Why not xxxx?”  Well, I may have assurance of my faith but it isn’t for me to have assurance of someone else’s.  Not that the spiritual condition of another is of no consequence but rather that leads me to questions in which I can get lost.  When, in the last chapter of John’s gospel, Peter asks Jesus about John's future, Jesus basically tells Peter that John is not his (Peter’s) concern rather Peter has a calling he is to fulfill as John has his.

“Why” is not a question for which we always find an answer and that can really obsess us.  The danger there is that we become so focused on the whys we get unfocused on our calling and growth. 

A couple of good works to address this issue are:

Chosen By God by R.C. Sproul

Election and Free Will: God's Gracious Choice and Our Responsibility by Robert A. Peterson

Next we will explore the idea of “exiles.”