All Articles For I Peter

For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. . . . I Pet. 8:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins! O, there can be no doubt about it, even though wo repeat it with fear and trembling, our Lord is not the only one, though He be the Chief, that suffered for sins. He suffered for sins also. . . . Our Lord may not be, He must not remain the sole sufferer for sins. Or rather: because He suffered for sins once, we, too, dare...

But the end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer. I Peter 4:7 To pilgrims this word is addressed. And from the viewpoint of a stranger, in the consciousness of your being a sojourner in the world you must hear it.

The undersigned intends to write a series of pop­ular expositions on the first epistle of Peter during the next few months. These articles do not intend to be technical exegesis; such is the task of the min­ister in his study. There will be as little of this “work­shop” in these articles as possible. Not that these art­icles are not based on as careful exegesis as this writ­er can perform, but these exegetical labors will not stand in the foreground.

In this passage we are told more about the grand and exalted “status quo” of the Church of Jesus Christ as she lives under the Spirit of sanctification. In our last essay on this chapter we noticed the church stands and praises God in the face of Jesus Christ, since He has begotten her unto a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is a fact, an accomplished fact, that the church, believers in Christ are a new creation in Christ.

In this passage we are told more about the grand and exalted “status quo” of the Church of Jesus Christ as she lives under the Spirit of sanctification. In our last essay on this Chapter we noticed the church stands and praises God in the face of Jesus Christ, since He has begotten her unto a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

We now stand before the task of inquiring into the meaning of the threefold qualification of this inheri­tance in heaven. Of his inheritance, kept in heaven, Peter tells us, that it is: incorruptible, undefilable and that it fades not away. Concerning each of these elements just a word.

Permit us a few remarks concerning the meaning of these verses as we have thus far considered them. In the first place, we have noticed that we have been born anew unto a living hope, through the re­surrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The power of our hope is the power of God manifested and wrought in His resurrection.

It is a wonderful fact, that salvation is immutably certain for the elect strangers scattered in the midst of this world, both in the days of Peter and in ours. We have only reason to rejoice in God, our Savior. In the death and resurrection of Christ He hath be­gotten us unto a lively hope. And, we may be cer­tain, this hope never puts us to shame, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through His Holy Spirit. Nothing will ever separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Once more we return to our exposition of the first epistle of Peter. In doing so it is important to bear in mind, that in these verses of the first chapter of Peter our attention is called to our new and exalted status quo before God, our new relationship to God by virtue of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have passed from death unto life in Him; a tran­sition has taken place whereby we have been taken, from the power of darkness and set in the Kingdom of God’s Son in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the next two articles we wish to give our atten­tion to an exposition of the verses 10-12 of this first Chapter of I Peter.