The Power behind the Beautiful Life (2:1-10):
Revival comes, Gods blessing comes when God has His rightful place amongst His people, when there is a putting away of all false Gods, all distractions, and a whole hearted turning to Christ in faith. Communion is re-established between heaven and earth, between man and God. Such was the case in 1 Samuel Chps6 & 7 and 1 Kings chp18:31.
Gods rightful place today amongst His people is not in a field (1Sam6), nor in a tent nor in a temple but it is in our hearts (Eph3).
In this section we are confronted with the tremendous opportunities which come to us everyday in testimony for Christ.
We notice that these opportunities to testify to Christ are not specially constructed for the purpose, not some special event for evangelism but these are the every day events of ordinary lives, opportunities to testify before:
The Sinner (2:12)
The Sovereign (2:13-17)
as Servants before masters (2:18-20)
as Spouses before husband or wife (3:1-7)
One of the great practical errors of the past 30 years is that we have come to regard evangelism in particular and testimony in general as being somehow distinct form everyday life, we now suffer the consequences of that!
So if you think that evangelism / testimony is all about meetings – 1 Peter 2 ought to cause us to think again!
These opportunities for testimony are the opportunities of every day life!
You say: ‘I’m not so sure that I see anything in this section about testimony. Is it not just all about how to live a Christian life in the society in which we are?’
Notice the:
The Purpose in living out Christ is to bear testimony to Christ (v12)
The Prayerful desire for living out Christ is to see souls saved (3:1-2)
This section on practical Christian living is all about testimony.
My manner of life must in every sphere and in every place and throughout all of my life, it must commend the gospel of Christ.
The real opportunities for sharing Christ aren’t the ones created for the purpose but for the most part they are the every day opportunities God gives!
If we are not feeding upon Christ, not founded upon Christ and not carrying a fragrance of Christ then we will miss every opportunity that every day brings for Him, we will be unprepared with nothing of Christ to bring to the unsaved.
The most effective testimony and evangelism that we read of in any NT assembly after Pentecost is surely that of the Thessalonians.
There we saw that evangelism consisted of 2 things:
What we say and preach about Christ (1Thess1:8)
How we live out Christ (1Thess1:9-10)
The gospel may consist of the preaching of Christ but testimony and evangelism consists of both life and lip being together in harmony.
There is no way of circumventing this, of believing that I can be one thing in every day life and another in the assembly, on the platform, the reality of Christ must over arch every aspect of my Living for God.
These 4 features of Christ: submission, service, sacrifice and sanctification will be utterly impossible to live out in these 4 spheres of service except it be for the power of the indwelling presence of Christ in my life.
The out living of these 4 features of Christ will be utterly impossible for the unregenerate man and will hardly be fulfilled in the life of the believer at a distance from God!
These 4 features of Christ will only be fulfilled when Christ is given His rightful place deep within the inner recesses of my being, when He dwells within my heart by faith (Eph3:17), with Christ deeply “rooted” and “grounded” within my soul.
These 4 features of submission, sacrifice, service and sanctification are only possible for the man or woman living in the power of 2:1-10: feeding upon Christ, founded upon Christ and carrying a fragrance of Christ!
The power for testimony lies in the inner relationship with Christ, Christ deep within my heart.
Do you desire power with men? Power in testimony? Well you can’t have it, you’ll never have it till you have power with God. This was the great discovery Jacob made in Gen32. A man who had schemed and connived all of his live to get what he wanted. Now he was having to face up to the past. Surely God forgives the past? So he does but a man who is saved is a man who will face up to the past and put it right where he can and acknowledge his faults where he can’t – that is the Zaccheus principle!
There he is in Gen 32 having to face up to Esau! He wants power with men (Gen32:11)! At the brook Jabbok he will gain power with men but he will learn this that power with men only comes after power with God!
At Peniel he will gain a deep experience of God in his life, marked by:
A New Honesty in the Presence of God (32:27)
“What is thy name?” – honesty about the past; (Gen27:18,24), God takes him back to his sin, an echo from the bed of Isaac, wher he had a 50/50 chance of getting the answer right and all of those years ago he got it wrong!
He worked on the premise that if you want a blessing then you steal it and if your old father happens to be blind then all the better it makes it even easier!
Here’s a blessing but he will not obtain it on the basis of dishonesty but rather only on the foundation of complete and utter honesty with God!
There are no short cuts here to blessing, no round about routes, blessing from God will only be upon the basis of what he actually is before God.
There are no short cuts to blessing from God, charismatic nor otherwise! Absolute honesty before God about my past failure and my present sin and my absolute need of Him, no pretending.
There will be no power with God before there is utter honesty about our sin. No deception and no detours.
A New Earnestness in Laying Hold of God (32:26)
He had met God before at Bethel
Raised a pillar, anointed it and then walked away from the Divine presence with these words: “If God will be with me…” (28:20)
God gives him here a second opportunity to lay hold upon Him and this time there is no: “if God will be with me…” no conditions and no departure.
This is now “I will not let thee go…” (Gen32:26), he will not leave without the blessing of God. Through the trial and the testing he lays hold on God and refuses to walk away in the opposite direction.
A New Power with God (32:28)
Jacob had prayed for power with men (32:11), facing up to the past.
There is no power with men till there is power with God (32:28)
I will only be before men spiritually what I am before God
A New Walk with God (32:31)
This experience affected the rest of his life and his whole walk before God and men thereafter. Couldn’t have that kind of experience of God and just live the same as everyone else!
The Purpose of the Beautiful Life (2:12):
Any testimony, lived out in the power of Christ will never prove ineffective (1Peter2:12), “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isa55:11).
We notice that vs12 gives us the reason for the beautiful life: “conversation” = behaviour, “honest” = beautiful
I emphasise this at the beginning for however we interpret this verse the interpretation must make sense as a reason for the beautiful life, for that is precisely what the Spirit of God sets before us in this verse: “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas….”
I emphasise this because over the years some have come to this verse and interpreted it in a way which does not do justice to the verse, they end up with an interpretation which really does not provide a reason for the beautiful life at all!
Some would say you are to have your life beautiful amongst the gentiles so that some will get saved!
Now apart from there being no mention of anyone getting saved in verse 12, if this were the sole and real reason for the beautiful life then most of the beautiful life would be for no reason at all!
For I have to face up to this that most of my testimony for Christ in this world, in submission, service, sacrifice and sanctification will not result in anyone coming to Christ as their Saviour! Some of it will but most of the sinners I come in contact with and who see the beautiful life will reject it! You recall how many saw the beautiful life of Christ in His ministry, on one occasion a crowd of over 20,000 – 5,000 men and women and children and yet how many did he leave in the upper room – 12! Says Isaiah of the response to His beautiful life, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not,” (Isa53:3). Such is as a whole the fate of the beautiful life.
Sadly most testimony will not result in someone being saved!
If we see the reason for the beautiful life as seeing someone saved then we will have to conclude that most testimony has no real reason at all!
If in this verse we have a reason for the beautiful life then that reason cannot be dependant upon mans acceptance or rejection of it!
The reason given for the beautiful life is: “they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
Some say that we can only glorify God if we are saved. It is certainly true that the salvation of souls is ultimately for the Glory of God: 1Thess1:10,12; Eph1:12; 3:21. Gods purpose in salvation is indeed to glorify Christ!
We must also acknowledge that God is not only glorified in the exercise of His saving Grace but God is also glorified in the exercise of His righteous judgment: 1Sam6:5; Joshua 7:19, on these occasions we find sinners compelled to acknowledge that Gods condemnation and judgment upon them is righteous – thus bringing Glory to God. In other words if my testimony is used by God to the salvation of a soul this brings Glory to God – a souls is saved by Gods Grace in Christ for eternity and Christ is glorified! If however testimony is faithfully born to Christ and it is witnessed and rejected by a sinner this too is to the Glory of God.
How does that work? There’s a soul at the Judgment of the Great White throne, the books are opened and the sinner is judged according to his works, amongst those works will be the rejection of Christ, ah you say he never met Christ, he never witnessed Christ, he never rejected Christ, never in a gospel meeting, you say God can judge him for his sin but surely not for his rejection of Christ? That sinner worked beside you, lived next door to you, lived in your home, spoke with you in the streets of New Cumnock! You see what I’m getting at? That sinner rejected Christ in you! Every time you spoke of Christ there was something that repelled him, made him turn away! As he observed the Christian life he wasn’t attracted to it he saw it as something foreign, strange and undesirable!
You see testimony either brings Glory to Christ in the salvation of a soul or it brings Glory to Christ in proving the fairness and the righteousness of Gods condemnation of the sinner!
That of course only applies to faithful testimony, lived out in the power of Christ before men.
The testimony of the believer has a two fold and solemn purpose: “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: 16To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (2Co2:15-16).
All of this will come to pass “in the day of visitation” (2:12).
Peter seems here to be looking forward to one great future day which will enfold all men, or at least all sinners.
That day of “visitation” is only used twice in the NT: Luke 19:44; 1:68 of the visitation of God in salvation, but the Greek word appears frequently in the LXX: Job10:12; Isa10:3; Jer11:23; 51:18, where it is used frequently of judgment. Why the difference? The idea of visitation is that of the intervention of God, and it will depend on wither or not God is intervening for salvation or for judgment as to precisely what sense the idea of visitation takes.
Here in 1Peter2:12 men await “the day of visitation,” not an individual day of visitation but this appears to be a single collective day of visitation, I would suggest that since God has already visited in the past with salvation in the advent of Christ: Luke 19:44; 1:68 that this visitation of God looks forward to the next advent of Christ, to His coming in power and Glory to judge the world (2Thess1:5-10).
For in all testimony we are: “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: 16To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (2Co2:15-16) – our testimony you will notice is unto God and it is effective both in those who are saved as well as in those who perish.
Faithful testimony to Christ has a 2 fold purpose: that God might be righteous in saving the sinner and that Gods righteousness may be seen in condemning the sinner, that Gods judgment might be seen to be just.
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