foreknown indeed before [the] foundation of [the] world, but who has been manifested at the end of times for your sakes,
God's plan to redeem was not a rescue improvised after things went wrong. Peter reaches back behind creation itself. The Lamb whose blood bought his readers was already in God's mind before the world existed. Then He came into view at a set moment in time — and He came for them.
The verse steadies believers who might think the gospel is something recent:
The apostle now takes up a comforting truth that steadies the believer. The gospel may have been new to them. But it was all settled in God's mind and counsel before man fell — yes, before creation. Redemption was no afterthought to repair the damage. Of course the Lord God implied it in the sentence He passed on the serpent in paradise, and every sacrifice afterwards pictured it.
Another writer draws out what this says about God when evil entered His creation:
If the "Lamb without blemish and without spot" was "foreordained before the foundation of the world," then redemption must certainly have been in God's mind that far back. The Blessed One did not have to pause and invent a plan to repair the terrible evil the enemy had brought into His fair creation. No, He had only to bring out the truth about the spotless Lamb from the unexplored treasury of His precious counsels.
Next to a law centuries old, the gospel could look like the newcomer. This verse turns that around:
It was no new thought. Though only newly brought out, it was in fact the oldest of all purposes. Did they boast about their law? The apostle can answer that Christianity was in God's mind before the foundation of the world. It is the present blessed revelation of grace in Christ. Therefore there could be no comparison on that score, not even for a Jew.
The verse says "before" the foundation of the world, not "from" it. One writer holds that the difference matters:
"From" the world's founding does not carry the same meaning as "before" it. Let us respect and learn from the very words of God… A Christian finds it easy to understand that Christ was foreknown before time began. But how wonderful the grace that God chose us for such an association, and for such a purpose! He was known before creation, since He had a glory of His own above it. We by grace are the objects of God's counsel, and His work matched it. So we may enjoy everything where He is, and with Him.
One writer links that earlier date to who is being blessed:
The introduction of the Lamb of God was no afterthought with God. He was pre-ordained before the foundation of the world. Why before the foundation of the world? Because the blessing of the heavenly saints — the church — was thought of before the foundation of the world.
Being foreknown was not enough; the Lamb also had to appear. The moment was chosen, not random:
"Foreknown" could not be enough. Christ was "manifested" in due time, and the due time was "at the close of the times." God's patience had been long. He dealt with man in many ways, governing him, to see if in some way there might be fruit from man that He could accept. The fall happened in one man, but it belonged to the whole race. And the sample of that race under God's special care proved the tree worthless.
He came to do more than redeem. He also showed us who God is:
The Lamb of God was ordained in eternity, but manifested in time… and that not only as the Redeemer but as the Revealer. God was perfectly revealed in Him, so that it is by Him that we believe in God. We do not come to believe in God through the wonders of creation, or through the law given by Moses, or through visions of angels. We believe through Christ — once dead, now risen and in glory.
The eternal plan ends up addressing the reader directly:
This Lamb — the Lamb of God — has been entirely of God's providing. He was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you. God had thought of His people from all eternity, and had told out all His heart for them in the gift of His beloved Son.
- Before — the Lamb was foreknown before creation, so redemption was never a repair job God improvised after the fall.
- Older — the plan came before the world, so the gospel is not the newcomer. It is the oldest purpose God has, older than the law men boasted in.
- Higher — "before" the foundation is not the same as "from" it. That earlier word marks out heavenly blessing, and grace puts believers inside it.
- Then — God made Him manifest at the end of the times, once His long testing had proved that man produced no fruit He could accept.
- Yours — the whole line of eternal counsel ends in two small words: "for you." There God tells out His whole heart in the gift of His Son.
who by him do believe on God, who has raised him from among [the] dead and given him glory, that your faith and hope should be in God.
Peter has been writing about Christ, the Lamb who bore our sins. Now he tells his readers where that leaves them. They are not only forgiven; they are brought to trust God Himself. The verse turns on three things. Our believing comes through Christ. God raised Him and gave Him glory. And the result is faith and hope resting in God.
The phrase "through him" rules out every other route to God. It points to one.
God had appointed the Lamb in His own purpose before the world was made. But He was revealed in the last days for believers. And here believers are presented as they truly are: they believe in God through Jesus — through this Lamb. They do not believe because of creation. Creation does testify to His glory, but it gives the conscience no rest, and it says nothing of a place in heaven. They do not believe because of providence. Providence directs all things, yet it still leaves God's government in deep darkness. Nor do they believe because of the way God revealed Himself on Mount Sinai, under the name Jehovah, with the terror that goes with a broken law. We believe through Jesus, the Lamb of God. And notice: it does not say we believe in Him, but "through Him" in God.
Notice where faith looks. It does not look at the believer's own state. It looks at something God did outside of him.
Faith does not rest on my being risen. It rests on Christ having been raised. That difference matters a great deal. Many a sincere soul keeps turning inward, trying to find out whether it is risen. But that is not the faith that God Himself works. … My confidence is this: God raised Christ from the dead, when Christ was there for me.
Peter's readers were in a hard situation. The verse answers a practical question for them: what is this God like?
Through Him, through Christ the lamb, they now believed in God. And that is the point made here: what God did they believe in? How did they know that they could trust Him, especially in their difficult situation? The answer lies in the verse quoted above: They believed in a God who raised Christ from the dead and gave Him glory. He had not left Christ in the grave. By raising Him from the dead, He had put on record that Christ had all His good pleasure. On top of that, He rewarded Him richly and "gave him glory".
How can we know God is for us? One writer answers with two facts and one question: where are our sins now?
The resurrection of Christ from among the dead, and the glory given to Him on high, are God's mighty and clear evidence. They prove that He is for the believer completely and for ever. If anything could have made this doubtful, it was our sins. But they were laid on another — yes, God laid on Christ the iniquity of us all. Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree. Where are they now? After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Not one sin did God leave on the believer; not one did Christ carry into heaven.
The same writer draws out what this removes from the believer's mind: Christ's resurrection "is to give him faith and hope toward God, delivered from all fear of judgment."
Faith and hope are not two words for the same thing. One looks at now. The other looks ahead.
For He shows us the very heart of God, and through Him faith and hope in God become fully real. Faith is present confidence of heart in His faithfulness. Hope is the precious expectation of future glory in His presence.
Peter puts our faith and hope in God Himself, not in anything else. One writer says that is why such faith cannot fail. He also thinks it is rarer than we assume.
What a blessed rest in Himself has God presented for our faith and hope! And surely nothing less than having them in God Himself will do. Everything outside of God changes and is uncertain. But He does not change. Faith and hope that rest in Him cannot fail or come to an end. I do think, in our own day, there is very little of faith and hope in God.
- Through Him — not creation, not providence, not Sinai. Christ is the one road by which a conscience comes to rest in God.
- In God — Christ is the means; God Himself is the object. Faith goes through Christ and rests in God.
- Raised — faith looks at what God did to Christ, not at what the believer feels has happened in himself.
- Given glory — the Son's reward is God's open proof that the sin question is closed. God left no sin on the believer, and Christ carried none into heaven.
- So that — here is the aim. Confidence now in God's faithfulness. Expectation of glory with Him later. Both rest on the One who never changes.