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Hope

1 Peter 1:3-12

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Hope from 1 Peter 1:3-12


“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Let us pray.

And now may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Through Jesus Christ, the Lord, amen.

Consider Ian’s mother. Ian was my age, a boy of about 10 in my class at school. We were friends, probably because we were both nerds. Then, Ian fell ill with cancer. Eventually, he dropped out of school. I used to go and see him, his body distorted by that mysterious combination of disease and drugs.

Ian’s mother was a fine woman, a religious person. She used to sing on a local radio station that produced an interfaith religious service. When Ian was deathly ill, she sang on the radio, a song of hope.

Soft as the voice of an angel,

Breathing a message unheard,

Hope with its gentle persuasion

Whispers its comforting word:

 

Wait till the darkness is over,

Wait till the tempest is done,

Look for the sunrise tomorrow,

After the showers have gone.

 

Whispering hope, oh, how gentle thy voice,

Making my heart in its sorrow rejoice.

A courageous woman, this. But Ian died. Consider the brutalizing conditions of the worst concentration camps, the worst GULAGs, the most inhumane maximum-security prisons. One of the most terrible of the cruelties they can impose is the destruction of hope. Viktor Frankl wrote his important book, Man’s Search for Meaning, out of his experiences as a prisoner in one of the Nazi camps.

He became a psychiatrist after the war, and he wrote, “The prisoner who had lost his faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual health and hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly, in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate.”

“Usually it began with a prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash or to go out on the parade grounds. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect. He just lay there, hardly moving. If this crisis was brought about by an illness, he refused to be taken to the sick-bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up. There he remained, lying in his own excreta, and nothing bothered him anymore.”

Our lives are filled with hope. The hope of seeing Johnny on the playground in kindergarten, of being asked out on a date, of achieving certain grades in class. Maybe hope that your complexion will clear up, or that you’ll get a good church appointment, that the church won’t split, or that your marriage will hold together.

What happens when hopes die? Well, usually other hopes replace them eventually. And when there is no hope? We say of such people, “They’ve given up hope.” Sometimes we say that when people die. Physically, they could hang on a lot longer, but they’ve given up hope and they just … die. Hope is something necessary for our well-being. It looks to the future.

It gives a reason for living. It makes actions and choices significant. It adds zest and focus. This is true even when the hope is not realized, for as long as the forward-looking anticipation that we call hope survives. And hell is where there is no more hope. None. Dante was not wrong in his depiction of hell. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

Now when the New Testament speaks of hope, there are a couple of wrinkles in the expression that are not quite the same as in English. When I say, “I hope to finish a manuscript I’m working on by the end of next week,” implicit in my statement is a question mark. I hope to, but I may not. I may have, once again, miscalculated how long something will take, or there may be something that intrudes into my life and I just may not finish it, but I hope to.

In the Bible, hope has the same anticipatory function as the word has in English, but without any necessary correlation with certainty or doubt. So some hopes in the Bible are uncertain. The context demonstrates that. But the Bible is quite prepared to talk about certain hope, which in English just doesn’t make any sense.

We sometimes include that, however, in our hymns. “We have a hope that is steadfast and certain, gone through the curtain, touching the throne.” You see, in that sense we have this anticipation of the future. It’s still hope, but it is as certain as Christ’s tearing down the veil and entering into the very presence of God, and being accepted by him and all of his life and death on our behalf.

Now this is the kind of hope Paul includes in what we today call the Pauline triad: faith, hope, and love. My suspicion is that in many churches we talk quite a bit about faith and we talk quite a bit about love. We don’t talk very much about hope. In this passage, Peter establishes four important dimensions of hope.

1. This hope God has established by the resurrection of Jesus.

Verse 3: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Now the form of this praise, “Praise be to God” or “Blessed be God” is standard in a lot of Jewish liturgies.

Listen to this one from the so-called Eighteen Benedictions, some of which went back to Peter’s day. It has a bearing on what we read here. “Speedily cause the offspring of David, thy servant, to flourish, and let his horn be exalted …” Horn is a standard symbol for kingly rule or authority, of reign. “… let his horn be exalted by thy salvation, because we wait for thy salvation all the day.”

Then, this: “Blessed art thou, O Lord, who causest the horn of salvation to flourish.” Of course, that was uttered in a kind of poignant anticipation of what still had to come. When that was written, the Jews who wrote it did not believe the Messiah had come. But, “Blessed art thou, O Lord, who causest the horn of salvation to flourish.”

By contrast, Peter says in verse 3 that the Messiah has come. “Blessed be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has already given us new birth into this living hope.” This hope is as secure as the facticity of Jesus’ resurrection. Of course, even at the existential level, Peter’s own experience testifies to this hope.

When Jesus died on the cross, where was Peter existentially? Where was Peter emotionally? He was a man without hope. He was full of bitter sorrow, the memory of his own infidelity, of his own curses and disavows cascaded over him. Then the first reports came in from the women, to the effect that Jesus was alive.

The race to the tomb, a private appearing to Peter before appearing to the Eleven. The scene in John 21. Hope sparked into life. A living hope, grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But of course, there are more massive dimensions to this hope. Jesus is the God-man who died and rose again, and by his death and resurrection, establishes forgiveness of sins.

The kingdom dawns, eternal life comes to us already, and we anticipate resurrection bodies, a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So we live in hope, because Christ’s resurrection is the down payment of the fullness of what will one day be ours. Already we participate in this by the new birth. That’s why the new birth theme recurs at the end of the chapter.

Verse 23: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.’ And this is the word that was preached to you.” So Peter offers praise to God for this hope. Hope that God has established by the resurrection of Jesus.

2. This hope God sustains by faith.

Now you need to see here a certain kind of parallelism between verse 3 and verse 4. In English, in most of our Bibles, it’s hinted at by the little word into. Verse 3: “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope …” Verse 4: “… and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

In other words, verse 3 says that we have received new birth into this living hope, and verse 4 unpacks this hope in terms of its object, what this hope is looking for, looking toward. It’s an inheritance, kept in heaven for us, while we are kept for it. We are shielded, we’re told, by God’s power, until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Now we need to unpack this argument just a wee bit. We have moved from hope to hope’s object, namely inheritance. A certain inheritance reserved, we’re told, in heaven. The Old Testament background of this notion, of course, is of enormous importance if we’re to understand what the apostle is saying. In the Old Testament, the Israelites’ inheritance was first and foremost the land, given not only to the Israelites as a whole but parceled out to each clan with lasting rights of ownership.

The Old Testament people of God were aliens and pilgrims until they entered into the Promised Land. Of course, later on in the Old Testament, we discover that even after they’ve entered into the Promised Land, in some sense they’re still aliens and must still enter into the promised rest of God. That’s a slightly different issue.

Here, however, as they were waiting to enter into this inheritance.… It did not mean that they were necessarily destitute. Abraham was not exactly a pauper. But the inheritance was theirs by right even if they did not yet possess it. All of Peter’s description of our inheritance emerges from this God-ordained Old Testament model. We too are aliens and pilgrims, which is the way Peter addresses the believers in the first two verses. We too are temporaries, as it were.

But there is contrast also with the Old Testament inheritance. Our inheritance, we’re told, can never perish, spoil, or fade (verse 4). Well, the land couldn’t perish exactly, and yet Peter elsewhere reminds us that the very elements themselves will burn up. This world, this land, is not final.

I remember when I was a boy and we had those absolutely ridiculous drills that people of my age remember, in the threat of possible nuclear holocaust. At the bell, we all hid under our desks. There were people wandering around advising us to build year-long protection in underground atom-blast security chambers in our backyard. I remember asking my dad if we should consider doing this.

My father, an old-fashioned Baptist church planter with a slight fundamentalist streak said, “When Jesus comes, the very elements will burn up with a fervent heat. Until then, we can trust him.” And that was the end of the discussion. The land, you see, itself is not finally stable. It is not an enduring hope. And moreover, the Old Testament could speak of the land being defiled or polluted by the sins of the people, but this inheritance can never spoil.

The Old Testament land could fade, all right, under drought, under the drought, for example of Elijah’s day, perhaps brought even by judgment, but this inheritance will never fade away. It will never perish, spoil, or fade. And this inheritance is kept in heaven for us, and we (verse 5) are kept for it. Do you hear that?

“… who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” This is God’s means of keeping us. So God prepares this inheritance for which we hope, which we long for, and he preserves us in perseverance in faith. He actually shields us, such that we exercise our faith in his Word, in his promise, and so we persevere, as it were, in hope, because we believe that is coming. Which is precisely why there’s not much hope where there’s not much faith.

I know that there are Christians who are terribly worried that we can be so heavenly minded we are no earthly good. I haven’t met any. I’ve met a lot of Christians who are so earthly minded they’re good for neither heaven nor earth. But it seems to me that the Bible says if we’re genuinely heavenly minded, we will be good for heaven and earth.

In other words, the prospect there leads us to persevere in faith now, and thus, in hope, right through the vicissitudes of life, including the most appalling suffering brought about by persecution. We live in hope. Because we have faith that the same God who raised Jesus from the dead will also bring us with him on the last day. We live in the light of eternity. So this hope, then, God sustains by faith.

3. This hope God nourishes until the consummation.

Verses 6 to 9. We might like to imagine that the hopeful person is the optimist. In my family, my wife tends to see the glass half empty. I tend to see the glass half full. I don’t think one of us is more virtuous than the other. I’m sure it has to do with our background, our genes, and our strange makeup, and together we would probably get it about right. It’s just half full. That’s it. But I tend to be the optimist. What can I say?

Does this mean, therefore, I am a more hopeful person in a biblical sense? If we start thinking that the person who lives above the hassles of the Word in the perennial pleasure of imagining that things are going to get better, this person is exercising Christian hope. But Peter places hope, in these verses, in the context of suffering.

Verse 6: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” And in the broader context of 1 Peter, most, if not all, of these are trails brought about because of the confession of their faith. Peter’s analysis of the situation says that hope, as it were, has only now been introduced.

That is, both the anticipation of what is coming has been introduced, and the substance, the goal, the object of this hope, the thing hoped for, has only been introduced. But more is coming. Though you have not seen him yet, you love him and he is coming. And yes, your faith, now, is operative and it’s of greater worth than gold, which perishes, but what is coming is praise, glory, and honor.

In other words, in these verses Peter provides several reasons why Christians actually rejoice in this hope that God has introduced to them, even though they find themselves facing grief and trials of various kinds. What are the reasons for such rejoicing and hope? I’ll mention just three of them.

The first is intrinsic. The suffering is temporary and transient. Did you see the language of verse 6? “… though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” Of course, our perspective of time means that “a little while” means maybe this afternoon, or conceivably a month or two, but the apostle imagines, rather, all of your life here.

But 50 billion years from now, if I may speak of eternity in the categories of time, our 3 score years and 10 will seem like a little while. In other words, if we really have the faith to see the dimensions, the dimensionlessness of the inheritance that is going to be ours, then whatever sufferings we may have to face here seem temporary, transient. Paul understood this.

You recall his long list of beatings and sufferings given in 2 Corinthians 11, but he’s already said in 2 Corinthians 4 that he views these things as light and momentary afflictions which cannot be compared with the eternal weight of glory to come. Brothers and sisters in Christ, our vision, our horizon is so small. It’s the eyes of faith that enable us to see into eternity and exercise hope.

The second reason for rejoicing in trials is that the tension between present pressures and the ultimate glory to come is precisely what strengthens our faith. In other words, this tension produces endurance. It demonstrates that our faith is genuine. It deepens our faith. It tests it. It stretches us. We can speak quite glibly of faith when things are going well. Get knocked about a bit and you discover whether your faith has roots.

In fact, it’s that very being knocked about that gradually puts some fiber into your faith. James makes the same point in his first chapter. So there is reason for great rejoicing here: faith prepares us to live in hope, and hope, which keeps us pushing on toward the future even when we go through suffering, deepens our faith. Do you see? The action is not just one way. It’s both ways.

The third reason for rejoicing is the greatest of all: the rewards are spectacular, and they begin now. Verse 7: “These trials have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine …” That’s the first blessing. “… and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Now I know the commentaries here are a bit divided. Some think this is praise, glory, and honor that will come to us Christians when Christ is revealed, and there is a legitimate theme along those lines in Scripture. On the last day, we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” even though we’ve done it all by grace. But for various reasons, I suspect instead that what is meant here is glory, praise, and honor for Christ himself. It’s a recurring theme in this book.

For example, chapter 2, verse 9: “… you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Or in 4:11: “If anyone speaks, he should do so as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and power for ever and ever.”

This summer, I was speaking at a conference preaching through 2 Thessalonians and was reminded of a spectacular verse in the first chapter, verses 9 and 10. “They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people …” Listen. “… and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.”

What happens when Jesus comes back? He’ll be marveled at. He will receive praise and glory. He will be marveled at. This text says that it is the very preservation of our faith which results in praise and glory to God through Jesus Christ on the last day. One of the things that will bring praise and glory to God on the last day is our enduring hope, grounded in faith, which shields us and makes us press on and prove faithful.

When you are going through a really horrible time (and if you haven’t been through one yet, cheer up, sooner or later you will), and your faith is teetering, and there is at least one voice in the background saying, “Curse God and die,” and yet you wonder how you can survive, one of the things you must remember is the very preservation of your faith results in Christ being marveled at on the last day.

You are building up glory for God through Jesus Christ on the last day. It’s a kind of universal cosmic effect that you find in the book of Job, where God himself lays down the gauntlet to Satan and says, “Have you seen my servant, Job?” and the very grace that preserves Job all the way to the end, however flickering here and there, however faulty, nevertheless brings praise and glory to God on the last day.

So that even all of God’s preservation of his grace in our lives so that we persevere, all of the grace that teaches us already to love him though we do not see him, is in anticipation of the praise and glory to God in Jesus Christ that will be poured out upon them in part because by his grace we have persevered. It’s spectacular.

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

4. This hope God has long planned for our delight and our good.

I wish I had time to unpack verses 10 to 12 in detail. Let me, nevertheless, point out in broad outline how this hope had been predicted by God through the Old Testament prophets with three elements in particular that need to be clarified.

First, the Old Testament prophets did not always grasp very clearly the facts or the time of this remarkable sequence. First the sufferings and then the glory that would follow. They understood quite a lot, but there is no irrefutable evidence that any Jewish authority in the first century really understand that the Messiah would have to come and suffer first. Even Jesus’ own disciples didn’t get that all the way to the cross.

When Jesus is in the tomb, the disciples are not in an upstairs room saying, “Yes! I can hardly wait until Sunday.” They haven’t got it figured out at all. They have not seen, even on the base of Scriptures that we now take to be pretty obvious, first the suffering and then the glory. They hadn’t seen it.

That’s what the text says. “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.” They didn’t see it. But we live this side of the cross. We not only see it, we know that it’s also a model for us. If we suffer with him, we will reign with him.

Secondly, though the Old Testament prophets did not always grasp this sequence, suffering and hope, we are without excuse. It’s not that the prophets understood nothing, but we, for our part, now live in the light of this, for it is written: “It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you …” That is, the suffering and triumph of Christ. “… by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.”

Finally, the last clause, “Even angels long to look into these things,” is immensely suggestive. Do you realize that there has arisen a Redeemer for fallen human beings but not for fallen angels? Angels look at the salvation that we’ve received and marvel, probe, and wonder. Small wonder the Old Testament prophets had a hard job sorting it all out.

We have become heirs of this salvation and live in the light of the consummation still to come and cry with the church in every generation. “Yes. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” We persevere in faith and live in hope. Let us pray.

Grant us, merciful God, the grace to walk by faith, to live in hope. Hope, not so much for an easy set of circumstances in this life, but hope that is, on the one hand, anchored in the triumph of Christ, and on the other, anticipates the glory still to come. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.