Book of 1 Peter - Bible Survey

When Peter wrote this Epistle he fulfilled the request of the Lord, when he told them "when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren." They needed strengthening and comfort for they were passing through all kinds of persecutions; their faith was being severely tested. As believers they were pilgrims and strangers on earth, their portion and calling was different from the unbelieving Jews about them, among whom they suffered. The Lord Jesus Christ who suffered in their behalf is repeatedly presented as a pattern for them in their persecutions, and blessed exhortations are linked with the Person and holy character of our Lord. The Epistle is not doctrinal, though the great doctrines of Christianity are in view throughout the Epistle. It is, like the Epistle of James, a practical Epistle, abounding in exhortations and references to Old Testament history suited to believing Jews in their trials. The keynote is "Suffering and Glory. The words suffering and suffer occur fifteen times and the word glory ten times.

The theme of Peter's epistle is the path through the world of those who, as partakers of the heavenly calling, are strangers and pilgrims in it. Addressed to the believers among the Jews of the dispersion, he brings out the contrast between their Jewish hopes and those to which they had been now begotten by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Already they had received the salvation of their souls, being redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and born again of the incorruptible Word, and were a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. As children of God, they were the subjects of His holy government, under the discipline. of a sorrow which He made fruitful, passing through a world through which Christ had passed, adverse to His as to Him. To do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently was their lot, having Him for their example, and the glory into which He had already entered their eternal rest.

It is well known that the First Epistle of Peter, from which the above is a quotation, deals more especially with that aspect of Christianity which has to do with this present world. It is true it looks on to the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the grace which will be brought to us then, but still the main subject is the Christian's pathway here, and in connection therewith the consequent suffering on the one hand, and God's overruling government on the other.

Peter is only laying the foundation here; you do not get anything of the proper subject of his Epistle until "Dearly beloved, I beseech you," in chapter 2. In each Epistle he lays the foundation of redemption. They give the government of God that the Jews were put under. "He that will love life and see good days," that is not redemption for heavenly glory. Or, again, "The eyes of Jehovah are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers." As far as I have seen, the first Epistle is government in favour of saints, telling them they will suffer, and so on; and the second is government in respect of the wicked. In this chapter he tells first of redemption, and then how judgment begins at the house of God. And it is very instructive as to the order of the revelations and dealings of God. It is addressed to the scattered Jews through Pontus, etc.: "sojourners of the dispersion" it really is. "Will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles?" is the same. They are Christians, converted Jews, though scattered, before the destruction of Jerusalem. Peter was put to death before Jerusalem was destroyed, according to common chronology. You never find anything about the church as a body in Peter, but as a house. Paul alone speaks of it as the body of Christ; this was his special ministry. Peter does address them in their new standing, but it is individually in accomplished redemption, not as in the one body united to Christ.

Fourthly, to encourage us in view of the suffering we shall have to meet as we pass through this world. In 1 Peter 1 the suffering is from trials allowed of God for the testing of our faith (6, 7); in 1 Peter 2 the suffering is for conscience' sake toward God (19); in 1 Peter 3 the suffering is for righteousness' sake (14); in 1 Peter 4 the suffering is for the Name of Christ (12-14); in 1 Peter 5 the suffering arises from the opposition of the devil (8-10).

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His great mercy, hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead." This is the doxology. It declares the new relationship into which they had been brought; for these Jewish believers it is no longer the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." They were begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead. It is a joyful song of the better hope. We may think of what it meant to Peter, as well as to the other disciples. They had believed on Jesus as their promised, national Messiah. Their hope was in Him. As the two said on the way to Emmaus, "we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." They hoped He would be King and take the throne of His father David. Then He who was their hope died on the shameful cross, and hope died. But the third day came and Christ arose from among the dead. Hope revived, yea, they were begotten again unto a living hope. His resurrection was a begetting again to a living hope, no longer the hope of the earthly kingdom but a living hope "unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away." And this living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead, the hope which centers in Him as the living, risen and glorified One, is the hope of all His people.

Verse 3 opens the apostle's message in striking a note of praise to God, now revealed as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, since He has begotten us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As belonging to the commonwealth of Israel they had formerly had national hopes which centred in a Messiah upon earth, but the light of those hopes was quenched in their hearts when He died rejected, crucified between two thieves. The story of the two going to Emmaus, as told in Luke 24, is a telling illustration of this; but, when those two had their eyes opened and beheld Him risen, a new hope dawned in their hearts which nothing on earth could quench. It was a living hope because centred in a Saviour living beyond the power of death. How aptly the very words of verse 3 would have sprung from their lips as they entered the upper room in Jerusalem to tell the news to the rest after their return journey of three-score furlongs! They were like men who had been born again into a new world of hope and expectation, in the great mercy of God.

(Vv. 3, 4). The first two verses view the believer as a stranger on earth, set apart from the world according to the election of the Father, the work of the Spirit, and the work of Jesus Christ. Now we learn that the believer's home is in heaven. The hope of the Jew was earthly and, for the time, was closed by the death of Christ. The nation had crucified their Messiah, and thus forfeited their earthly blessing. Nevertheless, in the abundant mercy of God, these believers had been begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead. Every hope of the believer rests upon Christ risen. Our hope is a sure and certain hope because He is risen. It is a living hope because Christ is living. This heavenly inheritance, in contrast to the earthly, is incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading; and is reserved for the believer.

The power of God keeps us and not our fidelity, yet God's power works through faith. Faith is our side of the matter. God is sovereign in exercising His power, and we are responsible as to the exercise of faith. Many are puzzled as to how to put these two things, God's sovereignty and man's responsibility together, and regard them as quite incompatible and irreconcilable. Yet here, in this fifth verse, they are found going hand in hand, preserving the believer to the salvation that awaits him in the last time. The salvation mentioned here is future. It is the final deliverance that awaits the believer at the coming of the Lord. That final deliverance is a certainty before us; yet we cannot await it with self-confidence, for nothing short of the power of God is needed to keep us, nor can we await it with carelessness, for God's power is effective through faith, on our side. How then do we await it? Why, with exultation, yet tempered with the heaviness of many trials, as verse 6 declares. The coming glory shone brightly before the faith of these early Christians and filled them with great rejoicing, so that they were like ships with sails set and filled with heaven's breezes. On the other hand they had plenty of ballast in the shape of heavy trials. These trials are permitted in love, for they only come "if need be." In one way or another we all do need them. If we try to rejoice in the world and its pleasures we need trials to dislodge us from the world by stirring up the comfortable nest we would fain build below. If we are exulting in the coming glory we need them as sobering and steadying ballast, lest our exulting should overbalance us.

(Vv. 18-20). Christian servants are first addressed. The Greek word, we are told, implies household servants, though not necessarily slaves. All Christians have already been exhorted to be in subjection to every human institution. Now the Christian servant is exhorted to be subject, as later subjection is pressed upon the Christian wife, the younger brethren, and finally upon us all in relation to one other. Evidently, as one has said, subjection “is the very quality that suits strangers. If I am a king in my kingdom, I may exercise authority and dominion; but if I am a cast-out stranger, the temper that suits me is a spirit of subjection all my life through. Put the stranger in company with what relationship you please, the Spirit of God expects this spirit of subjection”.