The Message of First Peter

Peter’s Readers

In the first book that carries his name, Peter writes as an apostle of Jesus Christ and he writes to believers who have been scattered all over the Roman Empire by persecution. When you read all of the names of the places where these churches existed, it reminds you of Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2, where there were Jews from all over the Roman world visiting Jerusalem for the Passover. The same names of these places are mentioned in Acts 2 and some of the 3,000 saved that day went back home and took the gospel with them, starting churches. It is to these pilgrims, chosen by God that he writes to help them understand some important issues of the Christian experience. These believers were suffering the severe adversities foretold by Jesus (Jn16:33) and some of them were very discouraged because they didn’t understand why God was allowing such intense and difficult circumstances to challenge their faith. Peter writes to explain what was going on in their lives.

You might also be suffering with tremendous adversities in your life and wondering what good purpose God might have for allowing these things to occur. Read on as we follow Peter’s discussion and explanation of the eternal plan of God.

Three Important Issues

Peter writes to these suffering believers to discuss three important ideas that he has learned from walking with Jesus in His earthly ministry and then later from walking with the Spirit in his daily life. Peter has experienced his own suffering and intense adversities and he writes to share what he has learned.

The first issue he writes about is the foreknowledge of God that chose them in Christ and was aware of their suffering. The foreknowledge of God takes us all the way back into eternity past where God issued His divine decrees. The second important concept is the sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit. From our new birth until we are transferred into eternity with God, we are involved with the sanctifying process that God uses to purify us from our old life and initiate us into our new life in Christ. The third issue is the fruit of sanctification, our obedience to the Lord and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ that cleanses us on a daily basis.

In this article, we want to discuss the first important issue, the foreknowledge and eternal plan of God.

The Foreknowledge of God

God is the most amazing person in the universe. As part of His essence, He is eternal life meaning that God has always existed, forever and ever as we think of time. For all eternity God has existed in three persons, Father, Son and Spirit and all three have lived in perfect harmony, with perfect knowledge and with a perfect plan.

The Plan of God

In eternity past, God-Father devised a plan to share their glory and character with creatures that they would create. First they would create angels, allow 1/3 of them to fall through Lucifer’s leadership, bring them under judgment and then allow Satan to appeal the judgment. Then God would create mankind, allow them to fall in the same way and then use man to demonstrate all the issues of the appeal. Satan would be allowed to present his arguments by influencing man to follow his philosophies and showing that any creature would rebel if treated as unfairly as God treated him. God would present His side of the appeal by showing that some men, born as sinners would choose to humble themselves by accepting His grace gifts and that the fallen angels could have done the same. God’s plan foresaw every detail of both angelic and human history before any of it happened, but His foreknowledge did not force any creature’s volition to choose any specific course of action. One of the great mysteries of God’s plan is that He foreknows everything, maintains Sovereign control of everything and yet allows every creature to make his/her own choices. The following discussion about God’s knowledge will help us understand how He could do this.

Omniscience, Divine Decrees & Foreknowledge

God’s knowledge exists in two categories, Omniscience which is God’s knowledge of everything both actual and possible and foreknowledge which is limited to only actual future history. The Divine Decrees is God choosing to make what was only possible to become the actual history we are now living. Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Omniscience

God’s Omniscience knows everything, the possible and the actual. He was able to examine every variable of every possible way that He could devise creation. He knew that if He changed only one variable how it would have changed every other variable that would have resulted from it. He saw that any change, every change would have resulted in a totally different scenario of events unfolding and therefore a different angelic and human history. Using His Omniscience, He examined every possible scenario of every possible historical result and when He saw the history that is actually unfolding, He chose it and decreed that it would become actual history. Before God chose to create anything, He visualized every possible history and then chose the one He wanted to happen.

Divine Decrees

After God had eliminated all other possible scenarios and decided on the chain of events we are now experiencing, He declared that this actual history would come to be. God is Sovereign, meaning that at all times, in every circumstance, God remains in total control of everything. His Sovereignty, based on His Omniscience, decreed the angelic and human history He wanted and His decree makes this chain of events certain to happen.

Foreknowledge

God’s omniscience knows everything while His foreknowledge knows only what is going to actually happen. His Foreknowledge looks at His decree and simply acknowledges every detail of the decree as future history. When Peter speaks of God’s foreknowledge, he is referencing God’s perfect plan that He decreed in eternity past and that is unfolding every day in our experience. Foreknowledge is knowledge of future history.

Foreknowledge Knows Everything about Us.

When Peter tells his readers that they are chosen according to God’s foreknowledge, he is reminding them that God knows everything they are going through and has made perfect provision for their circumstances. His letter is written to inform them about God’s plan and encourage them to trust Him through the adverse circumstances they are suffering.

Peter wants them to remember that God knows what they need financially, what they need physically, what they need relationally and we could go on. He knows everything about your life, every detail and He has gone ahead and set in place every provision needed to take care of us and to glorify Him in every circumstance. There is never any reason to be afraid because our God who loves us is never taken by surprise by our adversities. In fact, He knew about all of our circumstances long before they happened and His sovereignty is in complete control. He only allows the events of our life to go so far and then only under His control. God is in control!

In the coming verses, Peter will explain what God is doing in our lives and why He allows adversity to come our way. His explanation will arm us so that we can use our adversities for growth and glory.

In our next article we will discuss the sanctification process of God-Holy Spirit.