Humble Peace

1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

6 Ταπεινώθητε οὖν ὑπὸ τὴν κραταιὰν χεῖρα τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα ὑμᾶς ὑψώσῃ ἐν καιρῷ, 7  πᾶσαν τὴν μέριμναν ὑμῶν ἐπιρίψαντες ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν, ὅτι αὐτῷ μέλει περὶ ὑμῶν.

The end of this book contains some quick proverbial commands and sayings that we would do well to hold on to.  This is one of the big ones.  Peter has just finished giving commands both to elders and younger people.  Basically, younger people are to submit to their elders.  However, elders are not to rule like despots either.  All of this is bathed in the grace of God.

Here Peter puts together two really powerful verses.  First, he tells his readers that they are to Ταπεινώθητε.  This is an aorist imperative passive.  It means that they are to humble themselves, or be humbled.  Of course, it's pretty easy to be humbled when you consider τὴν κραταιὰν χεῖρα τοῦ θεοῦ.  What other reaction is there to God's powerful and mighty hand?  As I've written many times before, I don't understand how you can truly have an encounter with the living God and not be humbled.

Verse 7 is where I really want to focus though.  Continuing the imperative command starting this sentence, we see that we are to πᾶσαν τὴν μέριμναν ὑμῶν ἐπιρίψαντες ἐπ᾽ αὐτόν.  This is also in the aorist, but it is an active participle.  Basically, I see this as giving further explanation of what we are to as we humble ourselves.  How does this fit together?

As soon as we realize that God is in charge and we are not then we have no cause to be anxious.  I get anxious when I feel like there is something I need to do, but I can't do it.  Or maybe there is a situation that I want to control, but can't.  For example, relational pressures can make me quite anxious.  But the anxiety wanes as soon as I realize that I am not in control.  I can't change anyone.  Only God can.  And in fact, it reminds me that I need to pray for my own attitude and behavior since I can't control anyone else's.

The bigger we think we are then the more anxious we will feel.  We think that we need to do so much, but God is in charge.  Christ is on His throne and He has things under control.  They may not go the way we think that they should, but if we really apply this passage we will realize that God has a better plan than we do, whether we believe it or not.  This was a huge comfort to me when we went through the disappointment of the molar pregnancy between Lily and Noah.

As the song says, God is God and I am not.  The more deeply I realize that the more easily I can cast my anxieties on Him.  What a blessed peace that brings!

Bringing Us to God

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

18 ὅτι καὶ Χριστὸς ἅπαξ περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἔπαθεν, δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, ἵνα ὑμᾶς προσαγάγῃ τῷ θεῷ θανατωθεὶς μὲν σαρκὶ ζῳοποιηθεὶς δὲ πνεύματι·

It is tempting to try to deal with the next verse, but I think that leads to a rather esoteric discussion that brings little value.  Instead, I would like to focus on this one.  Peter is telling us about how it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.  After all, if we suffer for doing evil we simply get what we have coming to us.  But if we suffer for doing good then we have problems with injustice in this world.  Peter gives us the example of Christ.

Christ suffered in His flesh.  He died an excruciating and humiliating death on a cross.  This was the ultimate human injustice because the man who never sinned died like a sinner.  Why would He do such a thing?

Ask an American Christian why Christ died and you are likely to hear something about hell.  Their concept of the cross is that Christ bought our pardon from God's wrath.  That is certainly true, but it leaves out the whole picture.  Christ died  ἵνα ὑμᾶς προσαγάγῃ τῷ θεῷ.  In other words, Christ died for the purpose that He might take us to God.  In other words, we get to avoid hell, but more importantly, we get God.

God must be the ultimate goal.  It is so easy to lose sight of this truth.  This is why I am blessed by the ministry of John Piper.  He bangs this drum over and over again.  The goal of life is not to avoid being bad.  It's not even to be good.  Salvation is not about avoiding hell.  It is about receiving the most incredible gift imaginable -- God Himself.

Is that enough for you?  Are you satisfied in Him?  If not, what else is there to satisfy you?

By His Wounds

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

24 ὃς τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν αὐτὸς ἀνήνεγκεν ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον, ἵνα ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἀπογενόμενοι τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ ζήσωμεν, οὗ τῷ μώλωπι ἰάθητε.

Sorry for the delay in posting, but it's been a busy week or so.  I couldn't very well post whilst camping, so now that we're back in the groove I hope to be back to regular posting.

This is one of those verses that I love to repeat when I do my weekly review of 1 Peter.  I just can't get enough of this one.  There are a lot of rich verses in this chapter, but this one seems to stand above the rest.  What more is there to say?

There are those who think of the idea of penal substitutionary atonement as barbaric.  They see it as a form of "cosmic child abuse."  But what those folks fail to realize is that God does not grade on a curve.  God is love, but God is also just.  Since He is just there needs to be a payment for the sin in the world.  Jesus was that perfect sacrifice.

Note to whom this is written. The book is written to saints.  Whose sins did Jesus bear on the cross (tree)?  It was τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν.  Not the sins of everyone who has ever lived, but the sins of the saints.  This is yet another argument for the idea of particular redemption.  Why does this matter?  It gets into the nature of God.  Did Jesus die for the sins of every person and then not save all of those people?  That's a pretty impotent view of God if that is true.  I think it is much more biblically (and philosophically) accurate to take a low view of man and a higher view of God.

Either way, I know that οὗ τῷ μώλωπι ἰάθητε.  It is difficult to succinctly unpack this Greek, but basically it is saying what is translated in the ESV.  I certainly enjoy knowing that I was healed, amen?