Seeds for 04/17/2024 - 1 Peter 1:20
Scripture:
Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
Observation:
There are long-range plans, and then there are long-range plans.
Peter affirms here a declaration that what has recently happened in Jesus is not God the Father scrambling for a plan e, f, or g. God the Son “was chosen” from the very beginning to be the full revelation of the character of God from inside God’s creation.
Jesus is not only a human being who lived an exemplary life and therefore serves as a moral inspiration. Rather, He is the perfect lamb of God, chosen before the beginning of the world for the redemptive purposes of God the Father.
Jesus is both the God of redeeming grace and the redeeming grace of God in one.
I love that in this verse, we see that the portion of God’s plan we observe now has been part of God’s purpose all along. In other words, when we see the work of God unfold in Jesus, it’s the outworking of the larger purposes of God that have been in motion. Yes, Jesus burst on the scene so surprisingly and remarkably that our calendars are calibrated around His birth. But that wasn’t the genesis of God’s saving work, it was the apex piercing the veil and allowing us to taste, see, and experience the fruition of God’s plan of redemption.
One more thing is the personal touch that Peter communicates: “was revealed in these last times for your sake” (emphasis mine). Jesus came from the Father because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”
The Nicene Creed (AD 325) twice expresses God’s motivation of love for the human race, declaring that it was “for us” and “for our sake” that He chose and sent Jesus, God the Son, into the world.
“For us and for our salvation He came down from heaven…”
“For our sake He was crucified…”
Jesus came “for our sake.” Are we paying attention to God’s purpose, His self-revelation in Jesus? Such is the generous heart of God, that He revealed Himself fully in Christ, not for His own amusement, but for the sake of lost sinners—“for our sake.”
Application:
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for purposing your redemption from the beginning and providing a savior for my sake at just the right time. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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