1 Peter 1:3-9 Commentary

Jesus’ resurrection, as we noted last week, changes everything. It even changes the way people God has raised to life with him see things. The Spirit equips God’s adopted children to, among other things, love and believe in the Jesus whom we can’t yet see with our eyes. By God’s amazing grace, we trust in the Jesus whom we can now see only with the “eyes of faith.”

This, however, of course, seems like so much nonsense to a large part of at least western culture. Our contemporaries struggle to believe that what’s accessible neither to our senses nor to some kind of scientific proof is real. Quite simply, much of society has embraced a kind of materialism that insists if we can’t see Jesus or somehow prove he exists, he doesn’t exist.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson reminds Jesus’ friends Peter sees things very differently. “Though you have not seen [ouk idontes*]” Jesus Christ, he reminds his readers in verse 8, “you love [agapate] him; and even though you do not see [horontes] him now, you believe [pisteuontes] in him and are filled with an inexpressible [aneklaleto] joy [chara].”

The apostle is, of course, writing to Jesus’ scattered friends as many as 30 years after Christ ascended to the heavenly realm. So it’s very likely that few if any of them actually idontes (“saw”) the incarnate Son of God during his earthly life and ministry. While the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples, the apostle’s readers were probably not eyewitnesses to Jesus.

Yet, marvels Peter, his scattered readers agapate (“love”) the One they’ve never seen. Jesus’ dispersed followers have given their whole selves to loving our adopted Elder Brother by serving and following him. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we don’t have to have seen Jesus to find their deepest joy and pleasure in him. We might even say that for God’s dearly beloved people, believing is seeing.

What’s more, Christians have not just failed to see Christ in the past. We also continue to fail to see him now. While Jesus’ disciples were witnesses to his resurrected person, Jesus has returned to the heavenly realm where even his closest earthbound followers are now unable to see him. Yet we’ve received the grace of God with our faith that sees the now-invisible Christ as the one who lived, suffered, died and rose again from the dead for us.

However, God’s adopted children remember that while Peter doesn’t specifically mention it, we see the risen and ascended Christ only because the Holy Spirit gives us the eyes of faith. We don’t muster this sight by trying harder to see Jesus. The Holy Spirit empowers God’s people to see Jesus.

Someday soon, however, Peter insists in verse 8, not just Christians’ but every eye will see Jesus Christ. Someday soon, after all, he will be “revealed [apokalypsei].” This revelation may, in fact, have at least two aspects. At his return to judge the living and the dead, the Jesus who no living creature yet sees will be visible to every last eye. His friends will finally see the one we’ve loved and believed in but have not yet seen.

What’s more, however, Jesus Christ’s true identity will be revealed to everyone at his return. People will finally see him for who he really is: not the religious fraud the Romans and religious leaders believed him to be, but the Savior of the whole world. When Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, every eye will see exactly who he is.

Yet God’s adopted children already now experience the benefits of seeing him with the eyes of faith. Peter insists this One in whom we believe fills us with “an inexpressible [aneklaleto] and glorious [dedoxasmene] joy” because we “are receiving [komizomenoi] the end result [telos] of” our “faith, the salvation [soterian] of our souls [psychon]” (8b-9).

Knowing that the risen and ascended Jesus is Christians’ Savior and Lord fills us with a nearly indescribable joy. The Spirit fills God’s dearly beloved people with what The Message paraphrases as a “trust” that’s marked by “laughter and singing.” Our faith in Jesus Christ is a matter not of drudgery and reluctance, but of glad recognition of who he is.

Jesus’ followers might even think of this great joy as a wonderful product of our soterian psychon (“salvation of our souls”). God has graciously saved us from a blindness to Jesus and who he truly is. God has, what’s more, saved us from a sinful refusal to believe in and love Jesus. God is also rescuing not just our souls but also our whole selves from our natural determination to eternally separate ourselves from God. On top of all that God is rescuing us from our despair and dread.

But Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t just change the way God’s dearly beloved people see Jesus. It also changes the way we “see” our heavenly “inheritance” [kleronomian] (4). It, Peter goes on to write, “can never perish [aphtharton], spoil [amianton] or fade [amaranton]. This inheritance is kept [teteremenen] in heaven for” us “who through faith are shielded [phrouroumenous] by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed [apokalypthenai] in the last time [kairo eschato].”

Preachers might note a couple of things about this dramatic profession. Peter certainly seems to make a point of emphasis the hiddenness not just of Jesus and his true identity (7), but also of his adopted siblings’ heavenly inheritance. Even those who see Jesus with the eyes of faith only see with the eyes of faith what God has in store for us when Christ returns. People whom God raised to life with Jesus can only see with the eyes of faith at what God will someday reveal to us.

What’s more, Peter spends a lot of time at least alluding to the difference between God’s adopted children’s earthly and heavenly inheritances. The American stock market’s recent roller coaster ride has reminded us that material inheritances can perish, spoil and fade. They can disappear in the blink of markets’ eyes. The space God has reserved in the new earth and heaven can never disappear.

Jesus’ resurrection also changes the way his followers see our suffering. “In all this” glorious seeing, Peter adds in verses 6-7, “you greatly rejoice [agalliasthe], though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief [lypethentes] all kinds of trials [peirasmos]. These have come so that the proven genuineness [dokimion] of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Preachers want to handle this counterintuitive way of seeing suffering in a pastoral way. After all, some of the people to whom we preach have suffered and are perhaps still suffering. Jesus’ friends who are preachers want to be very careful not to sound callous or cliched about that misery. We may even want to admit that Peter and preachers’ messages sometimes sound almost trite to people who are suffering.

God’s adopted children remember and remind each other that Christians who are suffering don’t rejoice because of our suffering. God fills us with joy in spite of them. Suffering sometimes makes it hard for Jesus’ followers to be happy. But we are profoundly thankful for God’s unswerving presence even in the midst of them.

What’s more, we rejoice greatly because God is somehow using our suffering to deepen and purify our faith. In ways we may never fully understand, God is somehow using God’s adopted children’s suffering to prove our faith’s genuineness. Seeing, loving and believing in the risen and ascended Christ doesn’t depend on our circumstances. It depends, instead, on God’s great faithfulness and complete reliability.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

Some of Jesus’ friends continue to long to see proof of Jesus. Chanan Tigray’s The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible quotes University of Iowa archaeologist Robert Carillo as suggesting people search for biblical relics because “in a world increasingly reliant upon evidence and verifiable data, relics offer a form of spiritual ‘evidence’ that confirms one’s beliefs. Relics allow Christians to touch what they believe to be evidence of Jesus, thereby confirming their faith.”

Later in his book, Tigray adds, “Antiques dealers, archaeologists, and other connoisseurs who trade in hard evidence of the ancient past thrive because humans are by nature proof seekers. Faith goes far but without tangible evidence for ones beliefs (the nails of the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, Noah’s Ark), a great chasm emerges that can flood with doubt.

“These history merchants provide links to glorious pasts, commoditizing authenticity. Sometimes they do one better and offer confirmation for deeply held convictions. In searching for [the now-deceased archaeologist Ben] Shapira’s scrolls [that disappeared with his death], I suppose I was looking for something similar.”