Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect ‘exiles of the dispersion’—in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia—·according to the foreknowledge [Gr. pro-gnosin] of God the Father: in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to YOU.[i] ·Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy he has caused us to be [begotten] again [Gr. ana-genneesas] {into} a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—·{into} an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for YOU ·who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time... ·… at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ·Though (YOU) have not seen him, YOU love him. Though YOU do not now see him, YOU believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ·{for YOU are receiving} the outcome of YOUR faith, the salvation of YOUR souls. (1 Peter 1:1-5,7b-9 ESV {NIV} [KJV])

The prophets…prophesied about the grace that was to be YOURS… ·…serving not themselves but YOU, in the things that have now been announced to YOU…, the Good News…[in] the Holy Spirit…— things into which angels long to look. ·...Do not be conformed to the passions of YOUR former ignorance… ·YOU were ransomed from the futile ways {handed down by} YOUR forefathers, not with perishable things… ·but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ·He was foreknown [Gr. pro-egnosmenon]) before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in {these} last times for YOUR sake, ·who through him are believers in God—who raised him from the dead and gave him glory... ·YOU have been [begotten] again [Gr. ana-genneemenoi], not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God. (1 Pet.1:10,12,14,18-21,23 ESV {NIV} [YLT])

YOU are “a chosen race” [Dt.10:15], a “royal priesthood, a holy nation” [Gr. ethnos][Ex.19:6], a people {towards the possessing}, that YOU may proclaim the excellencies of him who called YOU out of “darkness” into his marvelous “light”. ·Once YOU were “not a people”, but now YOU are “God's people”; once YOU had “not received mercy”, but now YOU “have received mercy”[Hos.2:23]… ·Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death… ·The time that is past suffices for doing what the nations [Gr. ethnen] want to do—living in {debauchery, lust}, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties and lawless idolatry. ·...They are surprised when YOU do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign YOU... (1 Pet.2:9-10; 3:18; 4:3-4 ESV {own translation})

God is the ‘Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’. Yet he is also our ‘Father God’[ii]: first, because he foreknew us; and second, because of how, in his mercy, he has conferred on us an inheritance through Jesus' resurrection.

To better understand Peter's first points, we need to identify whom he is writing to. At first glance, he seems to be writing to Diaspora Jews, since he addresses them: as ‘elect’, a ‘chosen race’, a ‘royal priesthood’, a ‘holy nation’ and God's ‘possession’. Yet a more careful second look reveals that he is actually writing to non-Jews[iii]—to 'peoples' coming to the 'light' having once lived in ‘darkness’ [Isa.60:1-3] and in the ‘ignorance’ of reproducing the ‘futile ways handed down… from their forefathers’, like ‘debauchery’, ‘orgies’ and ‘lawless idolatry’. Also, if Peter's readers were Jews, it seems highly unlikely that ‘the nations’  [Gr. ethnen], their neighbors, would act surprised that these believers no longer join in such un-Jewish activities. Further, Peter applies two scripture texts to his non-Jewish audience that were originally addressed to the people of Israel.[iv]

It was only during our first multi-cultural worship conference in Amsterdam that I discovered why Peter might be addressing these non-Jewish believers with biblical terms usually reserved for Jews. At the end of the week, Armando—our new YWAM director, from Venezuela and also a Jew—was speaking about how people from all nations and ethnic groups in the Church want to be accepted, but don't always experience that. After showing us some poison darts, and a bow with arrows from one of the tribes indigenous to his country, he also brought out his Jewish kippah (skullcap) and tallit (prayer shawl). Then he invited our two Maori guests from New Zealand to stand, asking them if they could accept him as a Venezuelan and a Jew. When they said yes, he sang to them in Hebrew the Shema, but in a new way: ‘Hear, o Maori, the Lord YOUR God, the Lord is one!’ To one he then gave his kippah and his tallit, and to the other his Venezuelan treasures. They responded in turn by blessing all of us with an intense Maori haka. Watching this, I suddenly grasped what Peter was doing in his letter. For I had just been meditating on his words as the text for the sermon I was to deliver that Sunday.

Peter is not teaching that the Church has become a new ‘holy nation’ that somehow replaces Israel. Instead, he is sharing his nation's treasures—the words of Israel's covenant[i]—with his brothers and sisters in Christ from other nations. God had chosen Israel and had set them apart as a holy nation of priests to other nations—through circumcision, obedience to God's ‘words and laws’ and by the sprinkling of blood (Ex.24:3-8 NIV). Thus, long before Jesus came, Israel had been ‘foreknown’ [Gr. pro-egno] (Rom.11:2) by the Father (Med.#C). And this treasure too, Peter now shares with his non-Jewish brothers and sisters. For by their obedience to Jesus, through sprinkling by his blood and the sanctification by the Spirit, they now enjoy a relationship with God as a Father who ‘foreknew’ them too.

In the New Testament, the Greek word pro-gnosis is sometimes used for fore-knowledge about something, a future event (e.g. 2 Pet.3:17). But more often it refers to a person having a prior relationship with someone long before a specific event. In our text, Peter speaks of Christ being ‘foreknown’ before creation. And Paul once reminded his Judean accusers that they had ‘foreknown’ him when he was a child (Act.26:4-6). Hence, the relationship a Father has with his child can be called ‘foreknowledge’ [pro-gnosis], since the main event in focus is the pre-destined relationship the Father will enjoy with his daughter or son after he or she comes of age as an adult (Med.#8), like God had with Israel before the coming of Jesus and the Spirit (Med.#4 and Med.#5). God's ‘foreknowledge’ is thus not something cold, smug, know-it-all, and deterministic; for it's primarily about people whom the Father foreknew as children, and not about things foreknown by a distant, all-powerful divinity.

Secondly, to highlight our coming of age as the main event, Peter uses the Greek word, ana-genneesas (meaning ‘begotten-again’ or ‘up-begotten’) to describe how the Father confers an inheritance on us through Jesus' resurrection. In a later meditation we will examine in greater depth the double meaning of this Greek word—as used in the story of Nicodemus (Med.#58)—either to bring about the 'birth', or to publicly identify someone as an heir. Initially, Peter clearly uses the word in the second sense, to talk about the inheritance—describing it as a ‘living hope’ because it is both something we already have come ‘into’ and enjoy, as well as ‘the possessing’ of something for both individuals and for nations[v] that is being ‘kept in heaven’ and yet ‘to be revealed’. When he uses this Greek word a second time, he does so more like Jesus did in his parable of the 'sower—also identifying God's living Word [Gr. logos] as a ‘seed’ [Gr. sporos] that is intended to take root in those who receive it, and then grow to maturity so as to produce much fruit (Lk.8:11-16). Yet all who become 'heirs of God' through Jesus and the Spirit (Med.#5) must first be 'ransomed' (or 'redeemed', Med.#4) through Jesus' sinless life and sacrificial death as a 'spotless' Passover 'Lamb' for all nations (Med.#E, Rev.5:6-9, Med.#91). So when we offer praise to our Father for making us his adult heirs through Jesus' resurrection, we all must also praise him for ‘his great mercy’ in making us alive again by the ‘precious’ and ‘imperishable’ blood of Jesus.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter already seemed to understand the first two themes of the Gospel: the Father's promised gift of the Spirit, and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus' death (Med.#49). But it took him some years to grasp the inclusive third theme of the 'Good News' for all nations  (Med.#8), something we will explore in the next meditation (Med.#46). Now, though, he can say: ‘hey, even the angels don't fully comprehend it yet.’ And how about you? Do Peter's words help you grasp how much your Father loves you—how he knew you long before you ever met Jesus? Can you also appreciate his great mercy in redeeming you—so he could place his Spirit in your heart, as a deposit on the inheritance he always planned to give you? And are you showing the same mercy and acceptance to people of other nations and ethnic groups?

We praise you Father for your great mercy--for causing ALL of us to be begotten from above, into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead—into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, which is being kept in heaven for us. 1 Peter 1:3-4)

And I praise you Father for ‘foreknowing’ me… My frame was not hidden from you when I was made; In my mother’s womb… your eyes saw my unformed body; How precious to me are your thoughts… You have searched me and have known me…even when the darkness hid me. (1 Pet.1:2; Psalm 139:15,13,16-17,1,11)

[i] When I put the 2^nd person in all caps (‘YOU’), it means that a group of people is being addresses (since the Greek pronoun is plural). The KJV is the only translation I know that distinguishes 2^nd person plural (you, ye, your, yours) and singular (thee, thou, thy, thine).

[ii] A more literal translation of the Greek, theou patros in 1 Pet.1:2 (see footnote [i] in Med.#9).

[iii] John Drane, Introducing the New Testament, Lion, 1986 p.434; William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter, 1976, p.145 ('The Recipients of the Letter'). See also footnote [iv].

[iv] Peter uses the Hosea text (Hos.1:6,7,9; 2:23 ESV) in much the same way that Paul does (Rom.9:25). And where God addresses Israel as a ‘special [Gr. periousios] people’ [Ex.19:5b LXX], Peter now identifies all disciples of Jesus (each group in the church?) as ‘a people towards the possessing [Gr. peripoyeesin],’ referring to their shared future destiny (2:9c). See note [v] for how Paul uses this word in Ephesians.

[v] Paul speaks of the redemption of the ‘possession’ [Gr. peripoyeesis] as a future receiving of ‘our (full) inheritance’ for which the Spirit is only the ‘deposit’ (Eph.1:13-14, Med.#8). For individuals, this will involve the ‘redemption’ of our body’ (Med.#5) when these are transformed at Jesus' return (Med.#94). Then too, the nations that received his ‘messengers’ will ‘inherit the kingdom’ the Father prepared for them at creation (Med.#89).