Salutation

Roger gave us a lovely introduction last week, and you selected verses to kind of establish this whole view of the book, the First Epistle of Peter. And without going into too much detail, I thought I'd summarize it pretty briefly. And kind of the purpose of this first epistle, which is somewhat different than his second letter, was to encourage believers all around Asia Minor to stand firm in the persecution they were suffering, largely in a non-Christian world.

So this kind of summarizes the entire book. And you know, you wax and wane through this as the purpose. But I think overall, as a one-sentence or one-phrase description of this book, I think it's probably realistic. All right. Let's, in fact, I think let's read the first five chapters. Miles, you're on. First five verses of the first chapter. Well, there are five chapters.

So anyway, my bad. To those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who are chosen, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood, may grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Okay, thank you, Miles. Boy, stacked with important doctrine and application. Okay, first verse.

Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ of the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So ultimately, that kind of reminds me of what John had written in the first chapter in terms of recruiting his disciples at that time. And just to read that, just to document the importance of Peter in the age of the disciple, and now he's called an apostle.

And he brought him to Jesus. Now, when Jesus looked at him, he said, you are Simon, the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas. which is ultimately translated stone. And, you know, how you interpret the stone could be variable based on what kind of faith background you have, but all that aside, I think, you know, Peter obviously was recognized by the Lord Jesus Christ as being the only Peter that's mentioned in scripture. So, and this is the stone. So ultimately, and that stone really is an important theme that relates to Peter's apostleship going forward and this epistle which we're currently studying. All right.

So ultimately, we says, apostolos is from apo, off, and stela to send, which is a technical word used of one sent from someone else with credentials on a mission. I think Stanford really goes into a little bit more detail. In Christian theology, the term apostle comes from the Greek apostolos, which means one who is sent or messenger, and in the New Testament refers to someone commissioned by Christ or the early church to proclaim the gospel, often with divine authority and a specific mission.

The original apostles were the 12, chosen by Jesus, who accompanied him and learned from him and were sent to preach and perform miracles. But outside the 12, figures like Paul were also recognized as apostles because they received direct commission from Christ, for instance, in the book of Acts, chapter 9. So the apostles are few. They're a limited number. And also some people can broadly interpret the term apostle as a teacher also.

But I think in general, we think we should restrict our interpretation to those who are experiencing Christ's earthly teaching and those like Paul who were called in a very special calling to him to add to the 12 in the absence of Judas Iscariot. So we're talking about a very special group of men who were responsible for the foundation of the early church. And Peter is a major player in that whole task. And if you remember, the early church, Peter had the major role to play in the early church before Paul was actually even saved.

All right. Good. All right. So let's begin with a straightforward question for the class. You kids, pay attention to this one, OK? Because you have a chance to get this one correct, too. What books have the most and the second most references to apostles? We need some outward performance here. And I looked across all the books and so there is a succinct answer and there's no debate in terms of the number of times. So just think, where would apostles be most likely to be? Acts. Okay, the class gets a gold ribbon for that one.

And what about the second? What do you think? Is it going to be Peter? That's incorrect. We have a black ribbon for that one. How about the Gospels? No. Oh, 1 Corinthians. Acts 30 times used in the book of Acts, and 10 times in Paul's letter to the church at Corinth. In our home study, we're getting into the book, Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth. So we'll see how often that comes up. Now, I was a little surprised at this. Of course, if you go to Strong's, it lists all the various listings of the term.

But there's not even a close third. What, Miles? Well, it makes sense, because he's defending his apostleship. Right. And that's important to that church because, boy, that's a complicated group of people at Corinth in terms of to whom he's speaking. All right, good. There'll be no other hard questions going forward. All right, to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And there's the map. We just finished the book, The Galatians.

But do you think, actually, that there's any order to this? Is the order important here? Well, it kind of geographically is. So I don't know. My point of work here? Pontus is toward the north, right? Yeah, Pontus to the north, and then Galatia due south, Cappadocia to the east, and then Asia is really kind of to the west, but Asia Minor includes all of these, and Bithynia is to the south. So anyway, it's probably some order.

Can you think of anywhere else in scripture where the order important which I think doesn't document that the order is important here but I think it makes sense. Where else in scripture can anybody think of a series of places that exist in the order of ultimately the spread of the Word of God? Well Acts 1-8 when they're told to start in Jerusalem and then it pans out. That's not what I I didn't carefully look back at that. How about the book of Revelation?

I think that's another example of the order has some relevance in terms of the nature of the churches, in terms of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and the prophecies to follow for each of the churches. All right. Good. All right. That's the question I just posed. All right.

From where else are they, these we strangers? Can you think of another sequence? We did that. So pilgrims are one who sojourns on earth. It's also translated as strangers or aliens. And that sets up the next slide at the top. From where else can we think of them as strangers or even ourselves as strangers and aliens? Where else? Well, let's think about... well it's interesting i mean you reside as aliens is the uh... nsb translation and then he was all of their uh... localities so you've got people Essentially, you're a foreigner living, you know, you're an alien living in that country. But what's interesting is that from an earthly perspective, that's their native home, right? So, I mean, as Canadians, we're aliens here, but as Americans, you're also aliens here because this is your home. Well, that's the diaspora.

We'll come to that in a second, of the dispersion. So we'll talk about that in a moment. But I think maybe overly spiritualizing this is something one of the commentators did, and I liked it a lot. And that relates to the verse in Hebrews 11, 13, where it says, and the earth. And let's personalize that a little bit.

Where's our citizenship? It's in heaven, isn't it? And aren't we strangers and pilgrims here? I mean, it reminds me of Peter's mother, ultimately had a sign on the refrigerator, you know, heaven is my home, but earth is just my business address. You know, in a sense, that's kind of an interesting way of thinking. In addition, what it does is re-substantiate our position. I'm not sure Peter, when he was writing this epistle, was recognizing that. He may have, but in fact that's not clear here. But I think it's neat for us to think of, we're pilgrims and strangers in the earth, are we not? This is not our home. our home is at the right hand.

And that's where God sees us as righteous, and that's the way we conform our walk by faith in that righteous position in which we stand. Anyway, I like that kind of application of this verse to us. And I think having that perspective on our earthly existence does a lot for the way in which we walk and operate in this world, because it detaches us from the things of the earth, right? You know, if you were a soft pillow for a tired head, you know, when I fell short, which I think we all do all the time, I mean, you preached that last week, you know, there's nothing about us that's pleasing to God.

It's this new creation in Christ Jesus, it's Holy Spirit sanctified as we walk or set apart to glorify Him. He sees that, and when we fall short, we return, we fellowship with him by confessing, get back in our positional truth of who he sees us as. He's not going to get back on the cross again for us. It's that once and for all deal here. And Peter will mention that here going forward.

Other thoughts about positional truth? Maybe a little bit over-spiritualizing this, but I don't think so. I think it really, we are all strangers and pilgrims here. All right, of the dispersion, or it's a scattering, a diaspora of Jewish Christians among the Gentiles in Asia Minor. Again, I think Asia Minor reflects this whole area of Turkey, really, is what we're talking about. that was an important part of the diaspora. So we see this reference in other places.

In John 7.35, then the Jews said among themselves, where does he intend to go that we shall not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion? among the Greeks and to teach the Greeks. Okay, so Christ already recognized that the Jewish nation had spread into Gentile areas.

And then secondly, in James 1.1, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered, abroad. So same term, okay, so the Jewish people had left Palestine to a large extent and I think it's kind of interesting that Weiss makes a comment here, the great majority of the Jews living outside of Palestine in the first century and before AD 70 when the temple was destroyed were living where they were by their own choice. And the chief reason being the opportunity for business activities, which the Gentile centers of population afforded. There they were when the Christian missionaries contacted them. So isn't it interesting?

You hate to overly generalize, but do you, Peter, in the business world, you think about the Jewish community is very business oriented, aren't they? I mean, it's really... Again, that's a generalization, but I don't think it's... It's a personal aspect.

I grew up in Miami, Florida. And I had over a third of our classmates were Jewish in our high school. So I got, you know... In general, I liked them. They were good guys. I wasn't a believer at the time, but it was okay. Well, Margaret and I have crossed paths with a lot of Jewish people. Some of them are very good friends.

In fact, one of them, unfortunately, was just in New York where I was a week ago diagnosed with having pancreatic cancer, a really dear friend. So anyway, all that aside, but the Jewish community has always been kind of known for their wisdom and their business orientation, right? And many major businesses, I think, are owned by Jews, right? Well, we're also very involved in the health care system. Very much so.

All over the world. And then in Constable, this is doubly quoted here by a guy named Hort and then, but in this quotation, Peter Davids, another quotation, I mean you see all these footnotes, the footnote to one guy and a footnote to another guy. Anyway, Peter Davids estimated that when Peter wrote this epistle about a million Jews lived in Palestine And 2 to 4 million lived outside of Palestine in Asia Minor. They were the third largest concentration of diaspora Jews after Babylon and Egypt. Now, what this data is, are, data is plural, data are for that, it's not so clear to me.

But anyway, I'm just quoting what somebody's perspective was in terms of the diaspora. So I think we've kind of milked verse one for all we can get here. We've got the Jewish community that's largely out of Palestine. They're living in a Gentile world. Business, perhaps, is an important reason they're there. But that's where missionaries are going.

And that's to whom Peter's letter is written. to all of these areas in which the Jewish community had left. Now, how many of those Jews had migrated into Gentile world systems came to the Lord? We don't know. We don't have any numbers. But that's Peter's big concern about his own community, I think. All right, moving on.

Verse 2, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. All right, this is kind of fun here. And ultimately, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit.

And I'm going to make a fairly bold statement. How about this for a comprehensive package of truth? We could have a whole summer on this verse. I mean, seriously, if you look at the components of this verse, how much more could you put in one verse that relates to our faith? Look at this.

For knowledge, God, the Father, sanctification, the Holy Spirit. And, of course, Jesus Christ is to follow that. We're not even to Him yet. So, you know, I'm going to go here in terms of the elect. The elect are to obtain salvation through Christ, if you will, the chosen ones of God, according to Strong. That's his definition of the elect. Now, here's something that's coming up here.

Oh, no, not this God's choosing versus our own will issue before us again. Look at the little icon I'm sharing there. Oh, not again. Well, we're not going to go there again, but I'm going to succinctly deal with this subject by two sets of bullet points. The first is a series of verses.

John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 1.16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Romans 10.13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

First Timothy 2.4, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

And Titus 2.11, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

Does that have anything to do with our decision? We have a will to be saved or not. So how do we summarize this whole Arminian Calvinistic story? I think McGee does it really well. J. Vera McGee. I'm reading up here because that's my visual disturbance is probably best met. God sees the believer in Christ and he accepts the believer just as he receives his own son. That's wonderful. That's the only basis on which I'll be in heaven. I can't stand there on the merit of Erna McGee. I'm accepted only in the beloved.

God loves the just and he loves Christ because I'm in Christ. Isn't that kind of the way to bring this all? He sees us in Christ. That's the elect as the believer who comes to be saved by his own decision and ultimately that's the way the elect is identified by God. I think that's a good balance between this whole God chooses us versus our own free will. We have a free will but once we're saved the elect he sees us in Christ.

And so you know that doesn't solve all the questions perhaps but I think it deals with a major source of this big controversy. And so I don't want to get back into where we were about a month and a half ago back in Galicia. Any comments? Go ahead, Roger. I was just going to say, Miles and I have talked about this a few times, Mike and I too, but we have two parallel truths. we choose and God elects. They seem like they are at odds to one another.

But God consistently says, for unbelievers, whosoever will may come. He never varies in name. So we can never say we have to choose him. But after we choose him, we say, oh by the way, you were chosen me before the foundation of the world to my mind that as a short circuit but I'm not God so I have to accept I have to accept both truths if I don't I'm foolish he says both are true they're parallel truths and I tried to provide substantial evidence that God calls all to himself right there's no usage of the word chosen or elect in the New Testament referring to unbelievers because when you go The Calvinistic road is that they want to say, well, there are those in the world who are chosen, and there are those who are not. The Bible never talks like that. It only ever says that the gospel goes to all people, and whoever receives it receives eternal life. And he says he's not willing that any should perish.

Thank you, Bobby. And that's why I think Jay Vernon hit the nail on the head. God sees a believer in Christ and accepts a believer just as a receipt. And that's the identification, isn't it? So God knows the elect. But he's given us an ability to get saved or not accept the truth of the word of God.

So, anyway, that's all we need to say, but I think that's one of the best quotations for this. And Roger's description was excellent. Well, actually, here's another one I like, too. He says, when I graduated from seminary, I could explain the difference between... He could resolve that conflict. I could do that. He said, now I'm a little bit smarter. He does say that. He says, now I'm a little smart, I realize they're both true and I don't know how that works.

Well, the other thing that McGee said, this is kind of a rabbit trail for a second, but he said, what's the best way to come to God's truth? Do you form a committee to make that decision? No. Let the word of God speak for itself, right? And that's a one-person interpretation. Okay, let's keep moving. We don't want to get bogged down here. I promise we wouldn't. Okay.

So foreknowledge, or interestingly, medically, prognosis. That means for Kathy, what's her prognosis? Well, I don't want to go there, but you know, she's got issues before her that relate to her cancer and beyond. So the prognosis is the outcome. What are we thinking about? the future of a medical illness, but here it's used in context.

It's used in Acts as a verb with a unequivocal certainty in chapter one. So let's look at those two verses. Acts 2.23, Him, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye've taken by wicked hands and have crucified and slain. foreknowledge that Christ and I think that's where in Peter he reiterates this and this is prognosco which has knowledge experiential knowledge that when who verily was foreordained prognosco before the foundational world but was manifest in these last times for you." So this foreknowledge thing is not used very often, but when it is used, it's pretty definitive.

And I think both Acts 2.23 and 1 Peter 1.20 reflect the eternal covenant between the Lord God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And ultimately, that was planned from eternity way back when, when this whole plan for the universe was being formed by God and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and spirit-directed, I'm sure, in terms of the sequence of events. So, foreknowledge clearly related mostly, if not entirely, to the cross and what was to be accomplished there. sanctification of the Spirit, consecration or purification, being set apart for growth, and notice here it's by the power of and the Holy Spirit and His role.

I think this is a process that is a continued outcome of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection. which the second part of the verse I think gets us to, and Hebrews 10.10, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. So it's interesting that Peter here brings us back in the verse to the cross. elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

So this is all kind of crucifixion focused. Oops, my bad. Okay, so let's see. Okay, now, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So our obedience, what's our obedience to? A set of laws? No, I don't think so. The obedience is to the faith and the pathway for growth or the sprinkling of blood takes us back to the cross.

So the penalty of sins and the power of the sin nature have both been taken care of. Now, you know, as Miles so beautifully taught last week, I mean, the old nature never changes. And I think that's one of the important things that we teach here, that ultimately most people who don't look at the identification truths and the exchange life and positional truth think that somehow the old guy gets better as we continue to worship God. Well, no, that's never going to be true.

And so here we're talking about The fact that we're returning to the cross and the obedience is to the faith in everything the cross represents and the pathway for growth is based on the crucifixion, if you will. And I think, as summarized really neatly here, I think God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. because we've been crucified in it so we covered that in Galatians not too long ago actually in terms of a very important verse that reflects to whom we should glory. I think Constable really summarized this quite well when he said obedience is our responsibility, and that obedience isn't to the Ten Commandments or a series of Jewish-based laws. The obedience is to the faith, which in fact is what God has called us to, to live by faith. And how does one define faith?

In terms of our spiritual knowledge and growth, Thank you. You sound like Schofield, but this is excellent, I think. Believing what God has revealed. That's the simple... I mean, we all quote Hebrews 11.1 as to what faith is, which is nice. But I think believing what God has revealed was true for Adam, was true for Elijah, was true for John the Baptist, and is true for us today. All through the history, God had revealed the amount of truth that was appropriate for the age in which he revealed it.

And now we have the written word. So our obedience is to the faith. And the sprinkling is our privilege. I thought that was an interesting summary of this particular verse. Obedience is our responsibility and sprinkling is our privilege. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. Grace, all of God, none of us. We could spend another month or two just talking about grace, which we do a lot here, but we can't really define it very well. Mike often says that grace is the most poorly understood word by the world system and also, I think, by the believer. We touch it. We try to understand it. And there's all kind of acronyms to kind of utilize for that, but grace is all of God and not of us.

It's our own faith that ultimately manifests the truth of what grace is. And by the way, the peace, this is not the peace we have with God, which is the peace of justification. When we get saved, we're justified, we have the peace with God. But now the Holy Spirit enables us to have the peace of God. and in these new creations we are in Christ Jesus.

So important differences, you know, in the Greek the prepositions are incredibly important. Of and ultimately with are two different prepositions that reflect the justification and ultimately the sanctification process that follows. And I think if, you know, as we think about this, ultimately the sprinkling is this ongoing activity that we call sanctification, that really is the power of the Holy Spirit, and that's stated in the verse.

Remember, I was saved July 14, 1978, for yours truly. I'm being saved. We're all in that process. And we came to Holly Hills because I wanted to find out how to be saved on an ongoing basis. And it wasn't by working harder for God. It's by faith and what God has done for me and in me. And finally, we will be saved. That glorification process we all look forward to.

I thought Weiss did a nice job of translating this whole section. Let me read the way he's put it. Chosen out ones, okay, the elect, if you will, this choice having been determined by the foreordination of God the Father, those chosen out to be recipients of the setting apart work of the Spirit, resulting in obedience of faith, and thus in the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, graced be to you and all heart peace be multiplied. I thought that was a nice, kind of refreshing way to put this particular verse. And I'm always, it seems like I'm done a little early, but maybe we can pause and kind of discuss this over the next five minutes. the sprinkling, who you quoted, the consul, he says, sprinkling is our privilege.

And that's the, you know, in Hebrews, there's a lot said about how, you know, he entered the heavenly tabernacle and sprinkled, you know, and that sprinkling with his blood is what gives us access. That's what, just like the Old Testament, Picture that, everything was sprinkled with blood. Everything involved in the tabernacle worship had to be sprinkled with blood. But we've been sprinkled with infinitely better sacrifice, which gives us direct access to God the Father.

You know, the interesting thing I see here, and I should have maybe raised this as a point for discussion, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. In other words, it's the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood. But that verse doesn't, it must assume the resurrection, right?

Because if, you know, Margaret's favorite verse, Galatians 2.21, what's it say, honey? Yeah, I mean if he's not resurrected, the crucifixion is of no value. Peter must assume that after the crucifixion that we have a new life. The Holy Spirit can only work through the new creations we are in Christ Jesus. So we must assume that although the obedience and sprinkling of the blood through the power of the Holy Spirit reflects the crucifixion, but yet the life comes buried with him in baptism unto death. and risen with him in newness of life. That's where the sprinkling of the blood continues to manifest itself in our day-in and day-out lives.

Hebrews 10.22 says, Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled with the clean from an evil conscience.

Thanks, Bob. Hey, Bob? Yes. Oh, hi, Roy. I enjoy what you said here, and I really wholeheartedly agree. There's another perspective, though, that I'd like to throw out there on this verse. Sure. If you look at this from the standpoint of Peter writing to these folks, he's talking about God's work more than our response to His work. And if you take it that way, we're talking about the obedience and the sprinkling that was done by Jesus Christ. He obeyed the Father and He sprinkled His blood. It's a perspective from God's view that maybe we're sort of overlooking when we read through this, because we want to take it personally, don't we, and apply it to ourselves. Well, that's so true, and I think, you know, Christ's obedience also.

I thought I alluded to that once in my presentation, but maybe not. But it's good, sure. And that's identification. Truth is it not? I think. Good. Thank you. Good. Thank you. So I think next week, three through five, is that what I have next week? Something like that. Roger, I think that's correct. Yeah, next full section, yep. So you've got to put up with me for one more week here. You have to play the piano, too. Bonnie will remind me of that soon, I'm sure.

So we don't let you, you know, you can't slack off, Bob. I'll say, Tim, where are you? Well, they won't be here next week. They won't be here. So you have to play. Well, we'll fly them in. Okay, well we're done a few minutes early. Peter, close us in prayer, would you please? Amen.