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1 Peter 1:20–21
“[Christ] was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 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.”
Reverent fear for God—a life wherein we love God, obey God, and repent when we sin—is the proper response of those redeemed by the costliest price ever paid, which is the blood of the perfect Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:1–19). A lack of reverence, in fact, is beyond distasteful. Since it is horrible when children fail to honor their earthly parents even when their parents have sacrificed much to give their children what they need, those who profess to serve Jesus act more terribly and with greater ingratitude when they show no concern to honor their heavenly Father, who gave up His only begotten Son.
Continuing his exposition of our proper response to the salvation purchased by Christ, Peter in today’s passage expands on God’s eternal purposes in His Son. The Apostle states that Jesus “was foreknown before the foundation of the world” (v. 20). Peter means more than that God the Father, before creation, had intellectual awareness of what His Son would do. God’s foreknowledge includes His determination of what will be (see also Rom. 8:29). In foreknowing, God establishes in His eternal plan what will take place. Matthew Henry comments: “When prescience is ascribed to God, it implies more than bare prospect or speculation. It imports an act of the will, a resolution that the thing shall be. . . . God did not only foreknow, but determine and decree, that his Son should die for man, and this decree was before the foundation of the world.” Thus, the incarnation of Jesus and His atoning death to save His people were no afterthoughts. As Peter says in Acts 2:23, Jesus was delivered up “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” The degree of careful forethought behind our salvation should move us to thankful obedience to God.
Our foreknown Savior was “made manifest in the last times” (1 Peter 1:20). Jesus came at the proper point in history that God intended, “the last times” or the age of prophetic fulfillment in which we now live. “The last times” constitutes the entire period between the first and second comings of Christ and is distinguished from “the last time” that the Apostle mentions in 1 Peter 1:5, which is the return of Christ. Jesus has come and instituted the “last days,” the final epoch in the history of salvation that will be consummated on the “last day” when He returns. This salvation is now here, and we will enjoy it in its fullness at our Lord’s second advent. In the meantime, our faith and hope now look to God and that great day (v. 21).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Considering that God foreordained our salvation through the work of Christ should inspire awe in us. He had to plan everything in history down to the smallest detail to ensure that the incarnation and atonement would take place at the proper time and that nothing would intervene to prevent Him from accomplishing the plan of salvation. Since the Lord put such careful thought into our salvation, let us put careful thought into how we will obey Him.
For further study
- Isaiah 46:8–11
- Micah 5:2
- Acts 4:27–28
- Ephesians 1:11
The bible in a year
- 1 Samuel 13–14
- Luke 14:25–15:10