Yesterday we covered the concept of fearing God in the verses below. If you would like to check out that study, please see: Fear: The Quest: Day 30.0. Today, I want to look into Peter’s reasoning. Why is it we should conduct ourselves in fear? What separates the believer from the unbeliever such that it should dictate their conduct? There is a lot about knowledge in these verses. Peter touches on our knowledge – what we know about our salvation. He also highlights the knowledge of God – what God knows and has known since the beginning of time. These two distinct sets of knowledge lead to something we have previously covered – something on which Peter means to double-down.
17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
1 Peter 1:17-21
A quick recap
Why should believers conduct themselves in the fear of God? We know from yesterday that one reason is that we will all be judged. (Again, there’s a link at the top if you want to explore that topic.) But, today we are focused on knowledge. What is it that Peter wants to remind us concerning knowledge? Peter says we conduct ourselves in fear because we know that we were ransomed from sin. For a thorough covering of the sin inferred from Peter’s futile ways inherited from your forefathers, please see Inordinate Desire: The Quest: Day 27.0. For an insight into what Peter is referring to when he writes, with the precious blood of Christ, please see Obedience and Blood: The Quest: Day 20.0.
Precious knowledge
So, we conduct ourselves in the fear of God because we know He will judge us and because we have been ransomed from sin. We were not ransomed with money. There was not an exchange of funds between God and the devil. God will not, and cannot go to the devil and ask for a refund. If my salvation were based on my own deeds, I have no doubt God would do just that. “I say, this believer seems to be defective. I’d like to return it, please.” Instead, salvation was purchased by the blood of our eternal High Priest. This ransom is imperishable. It will not be dissolved and it cannot be exchanged. This is precious knowledge.
Does our knowledge save us?
Is this knowledge – the knowledge that Christ has ransomed us with an eternal, imperishable sacrifice – the basis for our belief? We discovered this fact, and then we decided on our own that God’s side was the side we would choose? Oh, my dear reader, no. Please read the verses again. Our knowledge is in no way the basis for our salvation. Our knowledge is not even the basis for our belief!
The knowledge of God
What is the basis for our belief? Our belief is based on the knowledge of God. I should clarify that. By the knowledge of God, I do not mean what we know about God. I mean, God’s knowledge. What’s more, by God’s knowledge I do not mean what God knows about us. I mean, what God knows and has known about Himself and Christ from the dawn of creation. If you are struggling here, please see Called: The Quest: Day 18.0.
Peter makes it plain that we are believers in God through Christ. And this is not through our knowledge, but through God’s knowledge – even His foreknowledge. God had a plan. Before he laid the foundation of the cosmos he built a kingdom. He purposed that kingdom to be ruled by His son and to be peopled with the elect. This is not from Peter or Paul, but from Christ himself.
2 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Matthew 25:32-34
God’s knowledge and foreknowledge
Therefore, we are believers in God, through Christ who was foreknown before the foundation of the world. I want to repeat what I have said elsewhere. When it comes to salvation, it is God from start to finish. He is the great author who is writing a story for His own glory. We are just bit players, acting out the scenes He prepared for us from the beginning. God knows how the story ends because He wrote it. It is already written, regardless of our day-to-day experience of it. This is why we can confidently say that our salvation and our belief is through Christ, and that is from the knowledge of God.
A beautiful plan
God had a plan from the beginning. It involved Christ, and it involves Christians. I love how Paul writes it here. Paul describes God’s knowledge a beautiful plan through which we are predestined for adoption, holy, and blameless through Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
Ephesians 1:3-10
To the glory of God
Again, it was by God from first to last, and it is through Christ from creation to now. Why? We cannot know all the purposes of the mind of God. We can only get glimpses of the knowledge of God through the scripture. But we can know a little. And, what little we do know tells us that it is all for the glory of God
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Romans 11:33-36
Our knowledge
What of our knowledge? I said above that we can know a little. I want to finish up by pointing at what we can know, and how Peter doubles-down on a subject clearly dear to his own heart as regards our knowledge. But, first, as long as we are treading in these deep waters of pre-Creation and the knowledge of God, I wanted to think through something difficult.
Knowledge before Creation
Above, we read Matthew quoting Christ, saying the kingdom God established was prepared before the world. I think I’ve written this before, but the word world in that verse encompasses all creation. In Greek it is the word κόσμος, or kosmos, from which we get the word cosmos – meaning all of Creation with a capital C. That’s the same word Peter uses in 1 Peter 1:20 when he writes He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. It is also the same word Paul uses Ephesians 1:4. Now, let’s check out some verses that really hammer this idea home. Maybe we can increase our knowledge!
Knowledge before eternity?
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel
2 Timothy 1:8-10
The Greek for, before the ages began is πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων. That is pro chronōn aiōniōn, which reads literally, before time eternal. Just try wrapping your mind around that. What is before time? Eternity, I suppose. What is before eternity? That is difficult to figure out, and seems mathematically impossible.
I think we can wrap our minds around it, at least partially. If we think about the various references to God establishing an eternal kingdom, we can imagine a time before that kingdom was established. In that sense we can imagine God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit alone and planning the eternal kingdom, the plan of Creation, and the plan of salvation. Thinking this way makes it a little easier to conceive. Now, how’s that for some knowledge?
What good is our knowledge?
Finally, then, Peter drives home something he’s been driving at throughout 1 Peter 1. He writes that because of our knowledge of God’s ransoming us through Christ’s death and resurrection in glory, we have faith an hope in God. This is where our knowledge comes in. Our knowledge has not saved us. God saves us through Christ. But, we can have what Peter earlier called a living hope because of the knowledge of our salvation and of Christ’s resurrection and glory.
