Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I ask for your continued prayers. There are a lot of changes going on around here and a lot of things that I have to work through. I also would like pray for some financial concerns that I have at the moment. There are numerous requests that I wish to have remain confidential, but we all know that God knows what is on my heart and the best way to work with that. Of course, there is no need to keep confidential my continual prayer for Christlikeness. We are going to move to the text for now and start 1 Peter and we’re going to look at the first two verses.
1Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:
Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
One aspect of the New Testament that I have spoken of is Trinitarian passages. These are passages where all three persons of the Trinity are referred to. Peter, the apostle who seemed to take the lead in the group the most, is the one who is giving this greeting, so let us see the understanding of the one who walked so closely with the Lord.
Let’s look at this one. The first aspect that we have is the foreknowledge of God. The foreknowledge of God is shown in places in Isaiah especially where he is said to tell what will happen proving that he already knows what will take place. This is also important for realizing the truth of Bible prophecy. (I am in no way an open theist after all.) Once again however, I will leave it for the people of different perspectives on foreknowledge and free will to work that out for themselves.
The next activity mentioned is sanctification and that was done through the Holy Spirit. This is a consistent theme in the New Testament and is what is really spoken of when the text speaks of being led by the Spirit. The Spirit is what encourages us to be like Christ and develops the fruit of the Spirit in us that is in keeping with the truth of the gospel. Once again, the Spirit plays an essential role in the gospel as the whole of the Trinity does.
This is done for obedience to Jesus Christ by the sprinkling of his blood. The sprinkling would bring to mind purification rituals in the OT done with blood. One would not be baptized in blood of course, but one would have blood sprinkled that would purify them and set them apart for service to God. This is also then pointing to the concept of the priesthood that is seen in 2 Peter. Thus, God has the foreknowledge and the Spirit purifies so that we may live in obedience to Christ. A Trinitarian passage all throughout that teaches us the truth of the gospel.
We shall continue 1 Peter tomorrow.
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