Shielded

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER OF PETER

SHIELDED

1 Peter 1:3-6

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, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you, 5 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.

NIV

There is so much in these words, it is difficult to know where to begin. It does seem strange that Peter would consider God the Father, the God of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would Peter not include Jesus as God? True, God is the Father and Jesus is the Son, but both the Father and Jesus are also God. Nevertheless, it may be that this is the way Peter is revealing the relationship between the Father and the Son. Paul uses this same phrase in his letter to the Corinthians and so it may be the only way in which they can explain the Father. Peter only knew the care and compassion of Jesus as he walked with him for those years of Christ’s ministry. Peter was the one who answered the question Jesus asked while in Caesarea Philippi, “Who do you say I am”, by saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. So Peter knew full well who Jesus is, and here he simply defines who the Father is as well. He is giving the praise and honor to the Father for his mercy to us, by sending Jesus to be the method by which he gave us a new birth. Because these words are inspired by the Spirit, we might understand this new birth as meaning in two ways. First God the Father and the Son along with the Spirit created us in their image, which could imply our first birth, our first breath, as human beings, having breath because of the breath of God. Still, we also might consider our natural birth as human beings through the method God determined man and woman would multiply and fill the earth. This would be our first birth which will inevitably end in death, at least of the body, for we are, in truth, a spirit who has a personality and lives in a body. That is the triune image of God of which we were created. So we have this hope of a new birth, a rebirth of our spirit as Jesus explained to Nicodemus. Because of our sinful nature, and before we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we were missing part of who we are, our spirit, as it was dead, so to speak. It was not actually dead, as that is who we actually are, but it was considered as good as dead because we were doomed for destruction, the second death. That is the wages of sin, death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Peter is saying. We have life because Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and He is the firstborn from among the dead. We were dead in our sin, but now we have been resurrected into a new life, an eternal life in Christ. We have been born again. Because of our first birth in this body, we were born into that which would perish and fade. But because we have been born again, in our spirit, we are now born into a life that will never perish or fade, or spoil, it will be eternal, having no end, ever. Everything else in this world will perish, it will spoil and it will fade, but we are shielded by God’s power and are no longer subject to the way or the end of this world. We are already being kept in heaven, or at least our inheritance is. It is ours because we are in Christ and He is in us. We are shielded.