We have already
seen that Peter, as the first of the twelve Apostles, represents
the link between the former Israel, which forfeited the Kingdom
of God, and the new Israel, which inherits the Kingdom. The Lord
Jesus said to the Israel of old, in the culmination of that
dispensation: "The kingdom of God shall be taken away
from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the
fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). Peter
represents that transition, and in a very real way is the link
between the two.
In turning to
Peter's first Letter we have begun to see something of what this
new Israel is: its nature, character, position, function and
vocation. All of these are so clearly set forth in Peter himself,
both as to his personal history and his ministry. We are not
going over the ground again which we have already covered, but
will just take the matter up where we left off.
The
Transition
I must, however,
repeat and re-emphasize one thing which must be kept very much to
the fore in our minds in this matter. It is how Peter himself in
his own life, in his being, through his experience and spiritual
history embodied all that which Jesus came to initiate: this new
heavenly and spiritual Israel. It is a matter that has impressed
me so greatly, and does so more and more as I read what Peter
wrote. At almost every point in his letter, not only in the
verses, but in the very clauses, there is something of what the
Lord Jesus intended by His teaching and His work, by His coming,
in relation to this new Israel. This is very impressive, and I do
want you to keep that in mind all the time, because, while it is
very interesting to know that one Israel belongs to a past
dispensation and another one has taken its place, the important
thing is that every one who belongs to this new heavenly nation,
this Israel of God, has to embody the truth of that Israel, for
that is the first and fundamental thing that Peter says. What
Peter went through in order to become a personal expression of
this great new dispensation reality! What pains the Lord took
with that man in order that he should pass from the realm of mere
teaching - though it were the teaching of the Lord Himself - into
being that teaching! So that is what we must underline to
begin with, and it is the thing that really concerns us. I think
you will see how real and true that is, both in Peter's case and
in ours, as we proceed.
We have read the
first verses of Peter's first Letter and noticed the beginning of
this wonderful changeover, this transition, this passage from the
old to the new. The wonderful thing, of course, which covers it
all, includes it all, is the change from the temporal to the
spiritual. It was at that point that Peter, with the others, had
his first battle. Don't fail to recognize that! It was just there
that the battle began and had to be won before he, and they,
could get any further.
You see, right up
to the point after the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead and
appeared to the disciples during those forty days, coming and
going and speaking the things of the Kingdom, their question was:
"Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to
Israel?" (Acts 1:6). Their Old Testament ideas about the
Messiah and what He would do are still there! They are still
there in their own hopes and in their own interpretation of the
kingdom, and what a battle it was for them, and no less a battle
for you and for me, to make that transition! The most difficult
thing for the believers of this dispensation is really to accept
and settle down on this: that everything now is spiritual and not
temporal.
This is where the
battle began. What were they expecting? What were they wanting,
hoping for? Just everything, again, in the temporal realm. The
temporal kingdom of Israel, an earthly world power - perhaps the
world power - with a temple, and everything else that
belonged to the old. But all that has gone. All that is finished
with, and now there is introduced something that is wholly
spiritual. That is one of Peter's words - "a spiritual house...
to offer up spiritual sacrifices" (1 Peter 2:5). We
read that, we quote it, we use it in our worship, and we know it,
but really it represents the battleground of our lives. The Lord
is not dealing with us, in the first place, on temporal grounds,
of things seen and things that we can handle. He is putting it
all away from that realm of our own ability to grasp, to have, to
hold, and to understand, and putting it in another realm
altogether.
This spiritual
life is a very difficult life! Is it not true that it tests us
every day? But it is the basic and inclusive thing about this
transition, and the marvellous thing that had happened in this
man Peter, who, perhaps more than all the others, was out for
this temporal kingdom of God. My, he had a great business in
letting it go! We will see that as we go on, but here that has
happened and he is now altogether occupied with the spiritual
side of everything in the Kingdom.
The transition,
then, is from the temporal to the spiritual. We noted that Peter
says: "God... begat us again unto a living hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an
inheritance". An inheritance! Think back again to the
saints of the Old Testament, and their whole mental hope and
complexion of their inheritance! A parcel of ground for each
tribe in the land of promise. Their inheritance was on the earth,
flowing with milk and honey, and every temporal and physical
benefit and blessing that heaven could give, and they were
saying: 'That is coming back again with the Messiah. That is
going to be ours when Messiah comes. That is what we are looking
for!'
Peter, however,
has gone through something that makes him say: "Unto an
inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not
away, reserved in heaven". It has gone from this
earth. It is somewhere else, and if you read through this Letter
you will not detect the slightest tone of remorse in Peter. There
is no sorrow about this. It is not: 'We have lost something'. Oh,
no! "Ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of
glory." That is the tone of this Letter. It is about the
gain of the heavenly, and how superior this inheritance reserved
in heaven is to all that the old Israel had.
The
Salvation of our Souls
"Who by the
power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready
to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice,
though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to
grief in manifold temptations, that the proof of your faith,
being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved
by fire, might be found unto praise and glory and honour at the
revelation of Jesus Christ: whom not having seen ye love; on
whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice
greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end
of your faith, even the salvation of your souls" (1
Peter 1:5-9).
The end, the
culmination, the consummation, is "the salvation of your
souls". That end is reached through manifold trials, but it
is the explanation of the trials, the defining why the trials,
and the nature of the trials - "the salvation of your souls".
What has Peter in
mind? What is behind this? As we have said, all the way through
this Letter, in almost every sentence, there is some reference to
something in the past, the old dispensation, which has now been
taken over. That is the background.
Look at Hebrews
4:12: "For the word of God is living, and active, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the
dividing of soul and spirit..." Do you notice that that
verse begins with the word "for"? It is a conjunction
and links with what has gone before. And what is that? "If
Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of
another day. There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the
people of God." And that throws back to, what? The
wilderness, and the intended rest of the land. It is saying: 'In
the wilderness the whole nature of things was manifold trials.'
Was that true? There were indeed manifold trials in the
wilderness, and how many those trials were! They were supremely
trials of faith every time. If you saw that wilderness you would
understand that from the sheer physical side it could well be a
place of manifold trials. I have crossed it quite a number of
times by air, and have looked down and said: 'My word, forty
years in that!' That could put you to the test even physically,
and to be tried in relation to God in an arid, desolate desert
like that for forty years was something! But what was happening?
It was a battle with their souls through the trials. You know
what the soul is! It was a battle with their minds; their minds
about God, their thoughts, their ideas, their reasoning, their
judgments, and all that goes on in the mind. It was a battle with
their feelings, and there is plenty of ground for feelings to
have a very large place there! It was a battle with their
choices: what they would choose. How truly it was a soul
battle; whether their souls were going to be saved, that is,
delivered, brought out from all this, or whether through their
souls they were going to be defeated and lost. And so it proved
for that generation - their souls were lost in that wilderness,
and not saved.
Peter is referring
to this when he says that 'the end of your faith, through
manifold trials, is the salvation of your souls.'
Now, you need not
go back to Peter, nor to the old Israel, nor to the wilderness.
Come back here into yourself. Is it not true, dear friends, that
the whole battleground of the spiritual life is here in our
minds, in our feelings, and in our choices? Is it not a battle
between ours and God's? "My thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the
Lord" (Isaiah 55:8). There is a vast expanse between God's
thoughts and ours! "For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts." There are two kingdoms, the earthly and the
heavenly, and naturally we belong to the earthly. And I say that
on this side is the mentality that is ours - and that is only
another word for one of the three aspects of our souls: the
mentality, the thought realm, the reasoning realm, the way we
judge things, we interpret things mentally. That alone is a
battleground through all trial. Get into trial, be put to it, and
see what a battle you are precipitated into as to how you look at
it, how you judge it, how you explain it! In the end you simply
have to throw it on one side and say: 'If I lean to my own
understanding I am lost, for I cannot. I have no understanding
here to lean to. I am lost, but either I go out with my inability
to understand God's ways with me at this time, or I believe God.
I have faith in God where I cannot understand.' Is that easy? Is
that a battle? You know it is if you are put in manifold trials!
It is the same
over our feelings when we are in the trials. How they get worked
up! What we feel about it, about God's ways and dealings with us,
and what we would do, how we would exercise our power of choice
and volition if it were left with us. Oh, we would quit this to
start with, and then we would do a lot of other things rather
than this. That is the soul! And Peter says here: 'The end of the
manifold trials is the salvation of your souls.'
We must understand
this, though it is very difficult. But I am saying this out of a
little experience - it is not just theory.
The soul has been
the seat of all the trouble since Adam capitulated his soul to
Satan. All the way through, in human life and in human nature,
the soul has been the seat of all the trouble since the
beginning, when Satan made his focused attack upon the soul, the
reasoning, the thinking power, and drew Adam out in his mind and
upon his desires, his feelings. 'It is good. It will be good for
you.' And then, of course, his act, when he captured Adam's soul.
Adam capitulated his soul into the power of Satan, and the soul
has been under that power ever since and always is in
unregenerate humanity. In the believer; the regenerate humanity,
the discipline begins here in the soul. The change-over begins
here by manifold trials.
The soul is just
our selfhood. That is a big word! Selfhood - self-interest... a
thousand 'selfs' all in one. Our minds, our feelings, our actions
all being governed, controlled by a principle in our human nature
which is self.
Now look at what
Peter is saying! Does this represent a big conversion in the case
of this man? Jesus said to him: "When once thou art
converted" (Luke 22:32) - and what a conversion of a
disciple who had had all the teaching, and seen all the works of
Jesus, but who had not yet been converted in the real sense. The
translation says: "When once thou hast turned again",
but that is the same word. It is conversion, and a tremendous
conversion had taken place in this man. Now he is on the other
side of it, but he is still in the battle and is telling the
believers that this is the nature, the meaning of the manifold
trials. What is it? Every trial in some way raises this selfhood,
this 'I' of ourselves, and it takes so long for us to get to the
point where in trial, under the testing, we can really say: 'It
does not matter to me. It is not what I feel about it at all, but
what the Lord is after.' That is growing in grace, as we shall
see. 'It is not what I think about this at all. The Lord has
another mind altogether from mine. It is not what I would do or
will. The Lord is after something else in this trial.' I say that
it takes a long time to get there, but, you see, that is the
nature of things, and that is what is meant by the salvation of
the soul, because in every one of the manifold trials, in some
way, this selfhood gets up. It is a battle again: 'Not my will,
but thine. Not my way, but thine. Not my thoughts, but thine.'
That is the battle all the time in any time of trial.
Now you see that
Peter says that this is the deepest, the profoundest work of
salvation, the salvation of the soul. How does he say that?
"Which things angels desire to look into" (verse 12).
Angels are not human beings, and they do not understand what is
the salvation of the soul because they are not soul beings. But
they are able to discern, as spiritual beings, that there is
something here which embraces all between that first act of
capitulation to Satan and this last act of the salvation of every
human soul in Christ, that right down deep there in human nature
something is going on. They cannot enter into it in experience,
but it is something immense which even "angels desire to
look into". It is something beyond them, for it is so deep.
The deepest, profoundest work of salvation relates to this
recovery of the soul entirely and finally, and this salvation of
human nature and for human nature is the battleground between
heaven and hell. There is no doubt about that. That is where all
the battle rages: around our souls.
Well, that is why
Satan attacked the soul of the Lord Jesus, and Peter has come to
understand something about that. Oh, it is impossible to say it
all, but listen:
A little later on
(in chapter 5:8) Peter says to these believers: "Your
adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking
whom he may devour", and he has preceded that statement by
saying: "Be sober, be watchful!" Peter, where did you
learn that? Where did you get that from? Listen to a voice coming
from afar: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you,
that he might sift you as wheat." Why? Because of Peter's
soul! 'No, I will not forsake Thee. Though all the others forsake
Thee, I will not. I will go with Thee to death.' This was the
asserting of Peter's own self-hood, his self-confidence, his
self-assurance, his self-sufficiency. Right in the face of that
outburst of that man's soul Jesus said: "Simon, Simon,
behold, Satan asked to have you" ... (literally that is:
'Satan hath obtained you by asking') ... "that he might sift
you as wheat." And so Peter says: "Be sober". He
has learned his lesson! 'Be sober, be watchful... be careful
about this self-sufficiency, this self-strength, this
self-assertiveness. Be sober. Don't get exalted ideas of yourself
and what you can do. Be sober, be watchful!' And he is only
saying - as he could have said in more words - 'I have been
through this and am saying to you something that brought
devastation to my soul. Satan was allowed to sift me as wheat
because of my selfhood, but I have come through. But you be
watchful against any strength of selfhood of any kind, the rising
up, the asserting itself of human nature. That happens in the
time of trial, of manifold trials.'
Now I said that
the trials explain the salvation, define the salvation. Why are
they? What are the trials for? Well, on the one side they do
precipitate this whole question of whether we are going to stand
on our own ground and have it our own way, or whether we are
going to let go our souls, deny ourselves and stand on the ground
of the Lord's will and thoughts.
You see by this
what a tremendous thing had happened to this man! What a
tremendous thing had been done in him! There is more to see yet,
but here is this and our point, dear friends, is just this: that
Peter is Number One in the new heavenly Israel. He is the most
prominent of the twelve who are the foundation of the Kingdom,
which is what the new Israel is. It is not a temporal thing, but
a spiritual thing, and we are tested all the time by the
spiritual nature. Oh, if only we could let ourselves go and fight
back all the opposition, fight back in the flesh, using carnal
weapons, we think that perhaps we would come out on top. At least
we would die in the effort! But the Lord says: 'Not a bit of
it!', and Peter says: 'You will be treated wrongfully. Your
reactions must not be: Wrong for wrong, and flesh for flesh. No!
Take it patiently.' That is something for our human nature, is it
not? When we are being thoroughly wronged our human nature does
not take it patiently!
May the Lord give
us understanding.