a. You grow as Christians through joyful faith (1:3–12)
a. You grow as Christians through joyful faith (1:3–12)
1. Joy in future heavenly reward (1:3–5)
3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ echoes a frequent Old Testament word of praise to God (Gen. 14:20; 24:27; Ruth 4:14; 1 Sam. 25:32; 1 Kgs 1:48; Ps. 28:6; 31:21; 41:13) and changes it so as to praise God with a name he never revealed in the Old Testament, ‘Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’.
The term ‘Father’, as applied to the first person of the Trinity, signifies not that the Father in any way created the Son or caused him to exist (for the Son has always existed and was never created, John 1:1–3; 8:58; 17:5, 24; Rev. 22:13), but that he relates to the Son as a father relates to a son normally: the Father plans and directs, the Son responds and obeys; the Father ‘sends’, the Son comes from the Father (Gal. 4:4; John 3:16, 18; 5:19, 22, 26–27, 30). The Father creates ‘through’ the Son; all things come ‘from’ the Father ‘through’ the Son (John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2).
Peter encourages his readers to praise God, a helpful remedy for hearts weighed down with discouragement because of suffering. He then lists the reason for praise: By his great mercy we have been born anew. The word for ‘born anew’ (anagennaō) has a more active sense than our translation (RSV) indicates, for the root word (gennaō) often refers to a father’s role in the birth of a child (AV, ‘hath begotten us again’), either literally (Matt. 1:2–20) or figuratively, of spiritual birth (1 Cor. 4:15). ‘Begot’ is archaic, however, and he ‘has caused us to be born again’ (NASB) is probably best. In blessing God, Peter thinks first of the new spiritual life that God has given to his people.
This being born anew is by his great mercy, a phrase with the same preposition (kata) as ‘according to the foreknowledge’ (v. 2). No foreknowledge of the fact that we would believe, no foreseeing of any desirableness or merit on our part, is mentioned here or anywhere else in Scripture when indicating God’s ultimate reason for our salvation. It is simply ‘according to his great mercy’ that he gave us new life.
We have been born again, Peter says, to a living hope, or perhaps into (eis, into the sphere or realm of) ‘a living hope’. This hope is the eager, confident expectation of the life to come, which Peter describes in more detail in the next verse. It is ‘living’—by so describing it Peter indicates that it grows and increases in strength year by year. If such a growing hope is the expected result of being born again, then perhaps the degree to which believers have an intense, confident expectation of the life to come is one useful measure of progress toward spiritual maturity. It is not surprising that such a hope is particularly evident in many older Christians as they approach death.
God brought about this new birth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Grammatically this phrase could modify the participle ‘living’, indicating that hope is living ‘through (the power of) the resurrection’ (so Kelly, p. 48), but it is unlikely that this is the correct sense: (1) such a meaning would have been more clearly expressed if Peter had used a relative clause, ‘to a hope which is living through the resurrection’ (eis elpida hē zōsan di’anastaseōs), or even ‘on account of the resurrection’ (di’anastasin); (2) a closely parallel example of God acting through (dia) some other person or thing to give us new birth is found in verse 23: ‘You have been born anew … through (dia) the living and abiding word of God’; and (3) there is in Peter a common pattern of persons, especially God, doing something through or by means of (dia) someone or something else (1 Pet. 1:5, 12, 23; 2:5, 14(?); 3:1, 21; 4:11; 5:12; 2 Pet. 1:4).
The resurrection of Christ from the dead secures for his people both new resurrection bodies and new spiritual life. Christians do not in this age receive new bodies but God does grant, on the basis of Jesus’ resurrection, renewed spirits. Thus, spiritually, believers have been ‘raised with Christ’ (Col. 3:1; Eph. 2:6; cf. Rom. 6:4, 11).
4. Peter explains that the object of their ‘living hope’ is an inheritance, which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. The New Testament regularly uses ‘inheritance’ (klēronomia) to refer not only to an earthly inheritance but also to a believer’s ‘share’ in the heavenly kingdom, his or her future heavenly reward (Gal. 3:18; Eph. 1:14, 18; 5:5; Col. 3:24; Heb. 9:15). But the Old Testament spoke of the promised land of Canaan as Israel’s ‘inheritance’ (Num. 32:19; Deut. 2:12; 12:9; Josh. 11:23; Ps. 105:11; cf. Acts 7:5; Heb. 11:8), and frequently used ‘inheritance’ to refer to the portion of Canaan belonging to each tribe or family as its ‘share’: Num. 26:54; 27:7–11; 36:3–12; Josh. 13:14, 23, 28, etc.
The contrast is striking: the readers have been born anew, not to obtain a family inheritance in the earthly land of Canaan, but to obtain an inheritance in the eternal city of God (away from which they now live as sojourners, v. 1). The ‘inheritance’ is thus their portion in the new creation and all its blessings.
The word ‘to’ (eis) in the phrase ‘to an inheritance’ often takes the sense ‘into’, and here may well suggest some partial present enjoyment of that heavenly inheritance ‘into’ which, in the spiritual realm, the readers have been born.
This heavenly inheritance is ‘imperishable’, meaning that it is not subject to decay, unable to be worn out with the passage of time. The New Testament uses this word only of eternal heavenly realities, such as God himself (Rom. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:17), God’s word (1 Pet. 1:23), and our resurrection bodies (1 Cor. 15:52; cf. 1 Cor. 9:25; 1 Pet. 3:4). All earthly possessions will ultimately decay and be destroyed (Luke 12:33; Rom. 1:23; 2 Cor. 4:16; Col. 2:22; 1 Pet. 1:18), for the creation now is in ‘bondage to decay’ (Rom. 8:21).
This inheritance is also ‘undefiled’ (i.e. ‘unstained by sin’, Heb. 7:26; 13:4; Jas 1:27). The LXX frequently uses the related verb ‘defile’ to speak of ceremonial defilement which made a person or thing unfit to come before God in worship (Exod. 20:25; Lev. 11:24, 43, 44; 13:3, 8, 11; Num. 19:13, 20), and of moral defilement of the land by sin (Num. 35:34; Deut. 24:4; Jer. 2:7; 3:2; cf. Num. 5:13–29; Deut. 21:23; Hos. 5:3; 6:10). Peter invites contemplation of a heavenly inheritance unpolluted by sin and containing nothing unworthy of God’s full approval.
Furthermore, the inheritance is ‘unfading’. Unlike earthly wealth (Jas 1:11), it will never wither, grow dim, or lose its beauty or glory (cf. 1 Pet. 5:4).
Finally, the inheritance is kept in heaven for you. The form of the verb ‘kept’ (perfect passive participle) indicates a completed past activity (by God) with results that are still continuing in the present: God himself has ‘stored up’ or ‘reserved’ this inheritance in heaven for believers and it continues to be there, ‘still reserved’ for them. (Contrast the use of the same verb ‘kept’ in 2 Pet. 2:17; cf. Jude 13.)
It will never be denied to them, for Peter tells them that it has been kept ‘for you’. The surprising switch to ‘you’ instead of ‘us’ (this is the first time Peter has used the second person plural pronoun) makes the reservation of this inheritance much more personal.
The ‘inheritance’ of the New Covenant Christian is thus shown to be far superior to the earthly inheritance of the people of Israel in the land of Canaan. That earthly land was not ‘kept’ for them, but was taken from them in the exile, and later by Roman occupation. Even while they possessed the land, it produced rewards that decayed, rewards whose glory faded away. The beauty of the land’s holiness before God was repeatedly defiled by sin (Num. 35:34; Jer. 2:7; 3:2).
5. Peter’s readers may have been anxious about whether they would have strength to remain faithful to Christ if persecution or suffering became more intense. He assures them that they are people who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Guarded (phroureō) means ‘kept safe, carefully watched’, and is frequently used in military contexts: the people who agreed with the ten unfaithful spies decided that the treasures of Canaan were ‘so strongly guarded’ that they could not be taken away (Philo, Moses 1.235; cf. Judith 3:6; 1 Esdras 4:56; Wisdom 17:16). At Damascus, the governor ‘guarded’ the city in order to seize Paul (2 Cor. 11:32; the word is used metaphorically in Gal. 3:23; Phil. 4:7). The contexts above show that the word can mean both ‘kept from escaping’ and ‘protected from attack’, and perhaps both kinds of guarding are intended here: God is preserving believers from escaping out of his kingdom, and he is protecting them from external attacks. ‘Shielded’ (NIV) gives only half the sense.
The present participle, which Peter uses, gives the sense ‘you are continually being guarded’. He stresses that this is by God’s power. Yet God’s power does not work apart from the personal faith of those being guarded, but through their faith. (‘Faith’, pistis, is regularly a personal activity of individual believers in Peter: 1 Pet. 1:7, 9, 21; 5:9; 2 Pet. 1:1, 5; and commonly in the New Testament.) The parallel examples of God working ‘through’ someone or something in Peter’s writings (1 Pet. 1:3, 23; 2 Pet. 1:4, and probably also 1 Pet. 1:12; 2:14; 3:1) suggest that the believer’s personal faith or trust in God is the means God uses to guard his people. Thus we might give the sense of the verse by saying that ‘God is continually using his power to guard his people by means of their faith’, a statement which seems to imply that God’s power in fact energizes and continually sustains individual, personal faith.
This guarding is not for a temporary goal but for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Salvation is used here not of past justification or of present sanctification (speaking in theological categories) but of the future full possession of all the blessings of our redemption—of the final, complete fulfillment of our salvation (cf. Rom. 13:11; 1 Pet. 2:2). Though already ‘prepared’ or ready, it will not be revealed by God to mankind generally until the last time, the time of final judgment.
This last phrase makes it difficult if not impossible to see any end to God’s guarding activity. If God’s guarding has as its purpose the preservation of believers until they receive their full, heavenly salvation, then it is safe to conclude that God will accomplish that purpose and they will in fact attain that final salvation. Ultimately their attainment of final salvation depends on God’s power.
Nevertheless, God’s power continually works through their faith. Do they wish to know whether God is guarding them? If they continue to trust God through Christ, God is working and guarding them, and he should be thanked.