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First Peter, part 2

1 Peter 1:3 says,

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again [anagennēsas, “begotten again”] to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

The Greek word anagennēsas, is from ana (“again”) and gennao (“to beget/give birth,” according to the context). The -sas ending is the aorist active participle (masculine nominative singular). When applied to a father, gennao means “to beget;” when applied to a mother, it means “to give birth.” Hence, Father-God is the Begetter—not the mother who gives birth. His work is done “according to His great mercy.”

So the word literally means “having begotten again.” In 1 Peter 1:3 it describes what God has done. He has begotten us again “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” When we were crucified with Christ, the old man died—the man which had been begotten by our earthly father. But when we were raised again in Christ, we were begotten a second time by faith and now live as new creations (Romans 6:4).

Paul makes it clear from the start that these ex-Israelites of the diaspora were not chosen on account of their physical descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That physical descent was the old man of flesh, now legally recognized as dead—as their baptism attested. It was the “new man” (as Paul called it) that was chosen and alive, begotten not by men but by God in His mercy.

Although we continue to live in this mortal body that was begotten by our earthly parents, it is dead to us, not because its life has ceased but because our identity now resides elsewhere. This is comparable to a man disowning his son, saying, “you are dead to me.” But in this case, it is the son begotten by Father-God who makes the legal claim in the divine court that the man who he used to be has died. He is now legally a different man with a different Father.

Peter was in agreement with Paul, although he expresses it somewhat differently. Peter had received personally the revelation of sonship on the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16) and understood the meaning of sonship.

Inheritance

1 Peter 1:4, 5 continues,

⁴ to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵ who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

This new man, a son of God, is first an inheritor. Paul tells us in Romans 8:17 that “if [we are] children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” The inheritance itself is immortal and incorruptible, which means it “will not fade away” as mortal bodies do. Even so, Peter says that this immortal body is “reserved in heaven for you,” something that Paul affirmed as well in 2 Corinthians 5:1,

¹ For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

This inheritance is ours but yet remains unclaimed, because we are yet minors in need of spiritual maturity. In the big picture, measured in ages, the era of the Old Covenant was a time of growth and discipline under tutors and governors (Galatians 4:1-7), and the arrival of the New Covenant was the time of full sonship.

Each individual, however, must also experience spiritual growth through the ever-increasing faith of the feast days (Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles). At the present time, all who believe in Christ have basic Passover faith (in the blood of the Lamb). Spirit-filled believers have Pentecostal faith, achieving levels of obedience. Those who carry Tabernacles faith are those who are destined to come to full maturity when Christ returns to fulfill that feast.

The Pledge

Hence, the immortal “tent,” “house,” or “building from God” remains “in the heavens” until Christ’s return. It is a garment of immortality that God owes us, and therefore God treats it as a loan in Scripture. Paul says that He has given us the Holy Spirit as a “pledge” (arrabon, “pledge, collateral”) on that loan (2 Corinthians 5:5). If we now possessed that immortal, glorified body—our inheritance—there would be no need to give us a pledge.

Meanwhile, we are “protected by the power of God,” Peter says. There are many ways to protect people, but within this context, Peter was referring to the protection of a believer’s legal rights to the inheritance. That, of course, is the basic purpose of a pledge, which guarantees that the debtor will return at a certain time and make the full payment on his debt. Hence, this was Peter’s way of saying that a believer’s right to his inheritance was protected by the law of pledges until he receives the full (Tabernacles) “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

For further explanation about the law of pledges and how God became our debtor in this way, see chapter 12 of my commentary on Second Corinthians.

https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/second-corinthians-apostolic-authority/chapter-12-what-is-a-pledge/

I think I have packed this weblog sufficiently for one day. We will continue tomorrow.