Most of the New Testament epistles follow the accepted protocol for first century personal letters. They begin with the writer’s identity, address the recipient, and include a cordial personal greeting. In the New Testament epistles the writers typically include a reference to their own authority or position, a description of the common thread that unites them with the recipient. Normally that common thread in some way relates to their mutual identity with, and worship of, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many of the New Testament epistles contain a distinct focus. Biblical scholars refer to them as occasional letters. Some specific event or occasion prompted the writer to write the letter. They are not randomly written casual letters; they were written with purpose and with specific needs in the mind of the writer.

Encouragement of believers in the midst of persecution leads the thematic message of 1 Peter. Warren Wiersbe, a contemporary Christian writer, gives each of his New Testament commentaries a subtitle that begins with the verb “Be.” He entitled his 1 Peter commentary Be Hopeful. In the midst of suffering for your faith you have reason to live in hope, not fall into despair. Western twenty first century Christians cannot identify at all with the idea of persecution, of being subjected to torture or death for their faith. We have allowed the non-Christian forces within our culture to marginalize Christianity so effectively that it no longer views us as a force with which it must contend. Christian philosophers now describe contemporary American culture as post-Christian. We live in the memory of past Christian dominance of our culture, but we acknowledge that we no longer play a dominant role in our world. The Ten Commandments can no longer be displayed in public buildings. Christian students must exercise caution in the manner in which they pray or have faith-centered gatherings on campus. Then in the midst of major national catastrophe we gather and sing God Bless America. You can hardly miss the obvious contradiction.

If you want to study the doctrine of hell, the best place to look in Scripture is the gospels, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If you want to study the issues that relate to Christian suffering, the best place to study is 1 Peter. Peter could write of suffering for his faith from personal experience. After being beaten and threatened for preaching Jesus, Peter and those who stood with him left the Sanhedrin council, “…rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41).

An apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter claimed no special privilege above any of the other apostles. His sole authority in writing appealed to this relationship. Like the other men who had intimately followed Jesus, he wrote under Jesus’ authority, claiming no special authority for himself over other apostles.

The recipients of the letter lived in the northern region of modern Turkey. When Paul and those who joined him were traveling across the region of modern Turkey in a northwesterly direction, they considered going north to this same region, but the Holy Spirit refused to affirm that choice (Acts 16:6-7). The Holy Spirit directed Paul to the Greek peninsula, reserving this region for Peter’s ministry. Apparently he visited and preached here. Later he wrote this letter to affirm them in their faith and to encourage them in their persecution.

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father… Peter had no aversion to the doctrine of election. He joyfully embraced it and affirmed suffering saints in the foundational truth that their eternal security depended on God’s election, not on their good works. Some Bible teachers who reject this doctrine will attempt to evade its implications by saying that God merely foresaw the faith and obedience of Christians, electing them based on their foreseen faith and good works. They will frequently quote this verse as alleged proof of this idea. However, the passage rejects, rather than affirms, the idea.

According to Peter, these people were elected unto obedience, not because of it.

In the logical order of their election God’s choice preceded their obedience. Their obedience didn’t cause their election; their election caused their obedience.

Wayne Grudem offers a significant point that clarifies this idea.

The related verb ‘foreknow’ can refer not just to God’s knowing a fact (e.g. that Peter’s readers would be chosen sojourners in Asia Minor), but to his knowing people with a personal, loving, fatherly knowledge (Romans 8:29; 11:2; 1 Peter 1:20; cf. ‘know’ in Jn. 10:14; 1 Cor. 8:3; 2 Tim. 2:19). Thus ‘according to the foreknowledge’ suggests ‘according to God’s fatherly care for you before the world was made.’¹

Grudem sufficiently makes the obvious point. God’s foreknowledge involved these people personally, not simply what they would do. We cannot deny God’s omniscience, his all-knowing attribute. However, New Testament writers use this word frequently to refer to a special, loving knowledge that God took of his people from before creation, in eternity past. A people facing intense persecution that could easily end with their martyrdom would find great comfort in the assurance that God knew them lovingly in his eternal purpose of salvation, even before he created the material universe. The insecurities of life could not threaten the fortress of their salvation in Christ.

In this passage we see the integrated work of the Trinity in our salvation. God the Father elected through his foreknowledge, literally, his fore-love. Jesus Christ, the Son, shed his blood as the price of our redemption. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us, sets us apart for God through the power of Jesus’ shed blood.

…Sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. If we interpret the passage in terms of God’s eternal, electing purpose, we readily see the implications. The ultimate divine objective of election finds its fulfillment in the application of Jesus’ blood to our sins. The order of events in the passage imposes a certain tension onto this idea. Is Peter’s intent to remind us of the ultimate atonement made by Christ and applied to our sins at Calvary? Or is it to remind us of the practical implications of that once for all time work of justification? Old Testament worshippers were reminded by the sprinkling of the sacrificial animal blood that a life had been given for them. In the symbol of Levitical worship the person on whom the blood was sprinkled must consider that he lived because another died. Believers must never dismiss this central truth of the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has direct implications for a proper understanding of our salvation, but it also has equally weighty implications for our daily Christian conduct. As long as we live with the constant reminder that we live through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf, we will not fall prey to pride.

In addition to the various occasions in Old Testament worship when sacrificial blood was sprinkled on people, we should not overlook the informative ritual observed with the cleansing of the healed leper (Leviticus 14). The leper returned to society with the reminder that he lived and enjoyed restored fellowship with family and friends through the death of another. When Jesus reminded the disciples that a single sparrow doesn’t fall to the ground without the Father’s special notice, he likely was making reference to this event. A sparrow was killed and its blood collected in an earthen vessel along with fresh water. Then a living sparrow was dipped in the mixture of blood and water, and set free, symbolic that the cleansed leper was covered by the blood and cleansing of another. Jesus applied his eternally saving blood to us. Do we live so as to show its impact on us daily? Do we understand that we need it daily to gain the victory over sinful attitudes and habits that yet accompany our lives? Perhaps these dispersed believers in northern Turkey didn’t always respond with grace to their persecution. They must recall the centrality of the ongoing application of Jesus’ blood to their lives. May we too live in constant reverence for the price of our redemption.

Little Zion Primitive Baptist Church

16434 Woodruff

Bellflower, California

Worship service each Sunday 10:30 A. M.

Joseph R. Holder Pastor