Here we are, and we’re halfway through our seminar, having covered seven verses. So Marshall asked me downstairs, “How far do you intend to get?” And I said, “I don’t know. We’ll go this session, and then we’ll decide whether we’re going to do a blitz in the last session and cover more, but we’ll see.” This is a class about how to read the Bible, not primarily all of 1 Peter.

The Preciousness of Faith

First Peter 1:7: “So that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire.” So gold is the most precious thing he could think of, probably, and even gold, being fragile, consumable, and losable, is put through fire so that it becomes more goldy, goldish, and the dross is burned out of it so that it’s even more valuable when it goes through a fire.

Your faith, the genuineness of your faith, is more valuable — may I paraphrase? — than the greatest values on earth. I think that’s fair. I think that’s what gold stands for here. It’s not just like, “Oh, what about platinum?” No, no, no. It doesn’t matter what Delta Airlines does — gold is the best, and your faith is way, way more valuable than anything on earth.

The way God thinks about that is that it is so valuable, he will put it through the fire of various kinds. So don’t begrudge the school of suffering. God deems it necessary. The reason we get angry about suffering is that we don’t share God’s priorities. We want our comfort for us, for our children, for the people in Nepal, and we don’t like God’s judgments. But if we submit ourselves, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God (1 Peter 5:6), then we would see more of what God is doing. I’m not saying it’s easy — I’m saying that’s what we’re being taught.

The Outcome of Faith at Christ’s Return

Now, here’s the key question at the end of 1 Peter 1:7. He’s putting us through fire so that our faith may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus comes back. Whose praise, whose glory, and whose honor — God’s or yours?

So let me paraphrase both ways. Your faith is off the charts precious and valuable to God. Why? Why would that be? Because faith reflects his trustworthiness. Faith respects his power, his strength — I mean, shows his power. If you trust someone, you make them look good. You can keep their word. They’re strong enough to come through. They’ll be there for me. I’m banking on them. You make them look good. You’re just a child trusting mommy and daddy, but the one trusted, strong, faithful. So God loves to be made to look good. That’s why he created the world — to display his glory and his power and his trustworthiness in the world, and faith does that.

So your faith is so valuable, he’s willing to put it through fire, to burn out all the dross so that when Christ comes back, you will receive praise, glory, and honor — or so that when Christ comes back, you will be in a position to give him praise, glory, and honor.

Different Interpretations

We were talking downstairs, Norman and I, about why godly people indwelt by the same Spirit, looking at the same Bible, come to different conclusions frequently. This would be one of those cases, and there are numerous answers to that question.

One is there are some places in the Bible that are hard. I think this would be one. Another is we’re just so finite — we see through a glass darkly. Another is we’re all proud, and we tend to want to see things our way. And I don’t want to yield to say you were right all along and others. There are all kinds of reasons why people don’t agree.

I’m inclined to think here that it means you get praise, glory, and honor, and I like to think of myself as a really God-centered guy, not man-centered. I don’t like the word man-centered. I don’t like man-centered theology. I don’t like man-centered anything. It sounds like I’m giving this a man-centered interpretation by saying you will receive praise, glory, and honor.

But here’s gold, and gold is esteemed and valued and treasured. Here’s your faith, which is way more valuable, way more precious than that. It’s just passed through fire. It’s coming out beautiful at the end. Jesus shows up. It just seems like at that moment the thought is drifting towards Jesus says, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23). We are going to hear that word.

The Weight of Glory

C.S. Lewis wrote a sermon called “The Weight of Glory,” a very influential sermon in my life. The main point of that sermon is that the weight of glory is the words of the Lord Jesus to people like us. “Well done.” That is a weight.

You right now, I mean, if you can imagine that, you’re naive because you’re not doing very well. When he says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” he’s zeroing in on your faith, not how well you did in all the hundred ways that you blew it, but your faith. And he’s saying, “That makes me look great. I love your faith. You’ve trusted me. You’ve made me look trustworthy and strong and able to take care of you and I praise that.”

Now, all I know to do by way of confirmation of that is to start poking around in 1 Peter and outside 1 Peter. So let me just share with you a few things that point in that direction.

Biblical Confirmation of Glory

First Peter 5:1, Peter says, “I was a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed.” He doesn’t just say, “I will see and praise the glory.” “I will be a partaker of the glory to be revealed.”

First Peter 5:4: “We, a faithful pastor will receive the crown of glory.” Well, I mean, who’s going to put it on your head? To receive a crown of glory at the coming of the Lord, what is that but being praised and honored by the Lord himself? You can see why Lewis would call that a weight of glory. I just know, Lord. While we write songs about taking them off and throwing them at his feet because I’m just unworthy to have this crown on my head, but he’s putting it there.

Or 1 Peter 5:6: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” Right now he’s putting you through hell so you don’t have to go there, and then there’s going to come a day when he exalts you. It’s like Philippians. He was obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him and gave him a name. He’s going to do that for you. He who humbles himself will be exalted.

First Corinthians 4:5, this is Paul now: “Then each one will receive his [praise] from God.” I mean that’s just as plain as you can get. Now that doesn’t prove this text because it’s outside of 1 Peter, but it sure confirms it’s a possibility. First Corinthians 4:5, “Then each one of you receives his” — the ESV says commendation, the word is literally praise.

Romans 2:6–7: “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality.” It’s not wrong to seek for glory and honor and immortality. We are going to be glorified with Jesus. We’re going to be partakers of him.

And one more. Romans 2:29: “But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” His praise is not from man but from God. Who do you want to be praised by, man or God? We all want to be praised by men. We love being thought great, and we need to break ourselves of that addiction and look to God for our approval, and we will have it if we do. So that’s why I’m inclined to think.

Principles of Biblical Interpretation

Here’s a principle when you don’t know which a text means, and here’s Meaning A, and you can look elsewhere in the Bible, and Meaning A is a truth. First Corinthians 4:5 says it’s a truth. Meaning B, we praise God, is a truth. Point to another text, and it’s just fine if you’re a pastor or a small group leader, a Sunday school teacher, to say, I’m not sure, but both are true.

Therefore, whichever you land on, it’s okay. Just don’t be dogmatic. Maybe this text proves that, just know that all over the Bible, both these possibilities are confirmed, and therefore, in the whole of things, it’s good to believe both whichever one is intended here.

That’s a principle I use a lot when I’m not sure. I look. Is the interpretation that I’m moving toward confirmed elsewhere? If it is, I want to believe it and then not be too dogmatic about whether this text is the place to get it. So I’m inclined to think it means result in your praise, your glory, your honor, at the coming of Jesus.

Assurance of Faith Despite Not Physically Seeing Jesus

First Peter 1:8: “Though you have not seen him.” That was a concern in the early generations that they’re just one generation late. They knew people like Peter who had seen the Lord, and they just thought “God, if we could just have seen him.” And Peter wants to say, “You didn’t. And guess what? You can love him though you do not now see him. You believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Though you do not now see him, you believe. Though you haven’t seen him, you love and you rejoice.” So you love him, you trust him, you rejoice in him.

The Nature of Loving Jesus

Just a brief word: What does it mean to love Jesus? Jonathan Edwards wrote an entire book on 1 Peter 1:8 called The Religious Affections, arguing that loving Christ and joy in Christ are at the heart of Christianity. Affections really matter. So my reason for asking the question is to protect you from a common use of, say, John 14:15.

John 14:15 says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And I have heard numerous people say, “To love is to obey. It’s not a feeling. It’s a resolve and an action. ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’” To which I respond, “That’s not what those words say. They say the opposite of that.”

They say, “If you love me,” which is one thing, “You will obey,” which is another thing. They’re not the same. You are misusing the text. If you love Jesus, you will obey Jesus, which means obedience and love are not the same thing. Root. Fruit. Make the tree good and the fruit will be good. A good tree bears good fruit. A bad tree bears bad fruit. The tree and the fruit don’t distinguish. Don’t say, “Because this tree bears good fruit, therefore the tree is the fruit.”

So what is it then? And it is, let’s just let Jesus, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” That’s Matthew 10:37. So what do you feel for your father? What do you feel for your mom? What do you feel for your kids? You must feel more for me. You must value me more than your children. You must value me more than your parents.

In fact, you must value me more than your life. The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life. That’s what love is. Love is valuing, treasuring, embracing, enjoying, being satisfied by, and that’s why it produces obedience. That’s why it changes life. And we’ll see that as we go on. So he’s stressing here in this. “Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible.”

Seeing Christ Spiritually

Last question on this before we move to a new paragraph: Do you not see him? Well, he says we don’t, so we don’t. Is there a sense in which we do? That’d be a fair way to ask it. So he’s saying you don’t see him, and I’m asking you, is there a sense in which you do see him that wouldn’t contradict that? Because I want to know how do you love somebody that you don’t know and see?

Here’s 2 Corinthians 4:4, we looked at it once before.

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Second Corinthians 4:6 — remedy for that blindness:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

There is a sense in which you have seen him. When you read the Bible, especially Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what happens according to 2 Corinthians 4:6 is that God, by a miracle, shines into your heart through the words, through the truth. And what shines there is called in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” — light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Which means that as the gospel and all of its aspects are unfolded in the Bible, the Holy Spirit shines through those words into your heart, and you see the glory of Christ.

Or as 2 Corinthians 4:6 says he has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. As you read the story, Christ himself, his person stands forth, and your knowledge of God in Christ is like a light shining in your heart.

I think this is how you come to have confidence in the gospel that enables you to die for it. Most people don’t die for probabilities. If you’ve heard the gospel and you say, “Well, I don’t really know if it’s true or not, I wasn’t there. I couldn’t see.”

Well, guess what? The people who were there didn’t believe either. Pharisees didn’t believe. Judas didn’t believe — he was on the inner circle for three years and didn’t ever value Jesus above thirty pieces of silver.

Joy in Future Inheritance

The way you know that the gospel is true and that the Bible is true is by seeing him. Not to contradict Peter — physically, you don’t see him. You weren’t there, and he’s not here physically. But when you read your Bible, God intends to use the words of Ephesians 1:17 — the eyes of your heart to be enlightened — so that you know what is the hope of your calling, the greatness of your inheritance, and the power at work in those who believe. So I think we need to be very careful that we don’t write off all seeing when we hear Peter say, “You don’t now see him.”

And when he calls this joy here — this joy, inexpressible and filled with glory or glorified — I think the idea is this: The joy is in the inheritance, in the salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time in Jesus Christ showing up in glory. And when you have your hope fixed on hope like that, it comes back into the present. And you taste some of it now.