Mumford and Sons have a song titled “Hopeless Wanderer”. It’s a song about a quest for meaning and purpose in a hopeless world. The song suggests we are all just wanderers passing through life trying to find a place and a purpose. As age advances, hope diminishes. While this is a popular song, it is the opposite of what Peter writes about in his first letter.
The Apostle Peter writes to wanderers, except he calls them elect exiles of the dispersion. Peter uses the imagery of Israel in Babylon but also the imagery of Israel in her wilderness wanderings following the exodus. Of course, both are typological of the Lord’s glorious redemption. Both are connected in the Bible’s view. The prophets combine the imagery of both events (cf. Jer. 16:14-15; Is. 48:20-21; Ez. 20:34-38; Zech 10:8-12). In Jeremiah 16, God promised that Israel would be known as the people God restored from exile rather than those delivered from Egypt. Peter describes the earnest longing of the prophets (and angels) through the OT period – they were wanderers to be sure, but they were filled with hope. Peter’s letter reveals what glories will be bestowed upon God’s people through Christ (cf. 1 Pt. 1:10,11). 1 Peter applies the rich imagery of Israel during both exodus and exile to the church in the New Covenant era.
This imagery places us on our path of understanding Peter’s letter. We may be wanderers dispersed throughout the world, but not because we are hopeless or transient desperados. No, just the opposite, we are the called and redeemed people of God. While we live as exiles, we do so with all hope and confidence. Why? Because the God who redeems us has purpose and a place for us.
What a glorious epistle for the 21st century! When questions of identity are rife. When life seems to have lost meaning and purpose and there is only a repetitive cycle of bad news. When a new spirituality that touts suffering as the path to enlightenment gains popularity. All of God’s word is relevant for our age. Peter invites us to find hope and help. This arises, not by endorsing the world’s message or methods, but by revelling in the identity granted by God’s grace and secured through Christ’s work: hopeful wanderers, chosen exiles.
Peter, the fickle disciple, has a reputation of boasting about his strength only to be humbled when the path of life gets hard. The Holy Spirit inspires him to write an epistle that will give strength to the weak, courage to the cowards, and hope for the destitute and oppressed. We read not only of God’s grace, but we see how it gives a person like Peter, and you and me, a new outlook. God gives us this letter as a true lens to interpret our wanderings. We are not hopeless wanderers but redeemed hopeful sojourners in a world where we are often alienated and suffer as strangers. Peter, in grace, has become familiar with this journey. He now welcomes us to join him on the path. This letter sets our course by teaching us about our identity, our calling and our confidence.
Our identity
Along the path of this letter, Peter unpacks for us the beauty of our identity as elect exiles. This identity depends on the work of a sovereign and merciful Father. It begins with Him! He causes us to be born again to a living hope (1:3). This is inherent with being elect exiles. The foreground of this identity is the intervening grace of the Father in choosing a people for Himself. While Peter may not use the image, we know that election means that God is the potter. We are the clay. The identity results from His powerful “hands” moulding and shaping us to be vessels for His honour. That’s what it means to be children of the Father. You have a new life through the destined mercy of the Father whereby He unites you by faith to Christ. By Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, you have a new life, a secure inheritance, and a powerful guardian. That identity gives every child of faith a calling.
New life, imparted by the Father, accomplished through the Son, is applied by the Holy Spirit. It means we have broken with the past. Now, we are called as obedient children. Peter highlights the privilege of this relationship with the Father – as He has called and adopted us as children, we are to call on Him as Father, who judges impartially (1:17). To call on the Father is to invoke our privilege to be and live as His children. Our journey in life is destined for the Father’s presence.
Here is the journey that follows the way of Christ. He knows what it means to be estranged and exiled. Yet He is the chosen and precious cornerstone of God’s house. You may think Peter is mixing his metaphors here, but he captures the fullness of Israel’s wilderness privilege in a new covenant way. One of the blessings for God’s people in deliverance from Egypt was the placement of the tabernacle as the presence of God among His people. This grew into the presence of the temple under Solomon and was lost in the exile but restored during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Now that Christ has come and tabernacled among us, we have a new and astounding presence of God. Jesus is the precious and chosen cornerstone into which we are engrafted as living stones. How is He regarded? He is despised and rejected by men, but chosen and precious in the sight of God (2:4). By faith we are united to Christ so that His calling becomes the church’s. Being Christ’s body is the precious value of those called into fellowship with Christ.
Our calling
Your identity, together with your calling, is collective and holy. A single stone does not a temple make. The Christian life is not to be lived alone. We may be lonely, but we are never alone. Your calling is not to dig deep, internalize your identity and make it on your own. God calls His children and incorporates them into a body, the church. No matter how small or insignificant you may find your calling to be, together we are the display of the glory and honour of God. Thus, we are to be holy. Holy because we are God’s people. Just like Israel of old. We are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession”. That’s the source of joy for the journey.
The Christian life is more than getting your soul to heaven, it is traveling the journey with Christ and with Christ’s people. We are called to be a set apart group, who live distinctly, precisely because we know the purpose and destination of the journey. We are going to be with our Father and His family. So, let us be His children and celebrate His body, the church so that “you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you (pl) into his marvellous light” (2:9) On our journey, as we live in fellowship with our covenant Lord and His people, we will be surrounded by the glory cloud like Israel was in the wilderness. We are being guided through life by the word of the living God and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Your calling is: let your identity shine in the numerous relationships that you have in this world. There is a specific word for citizens, slaves, husbands and wives (2:13-3:7). All of us have an identity and a calling. Let us not withdraw or conform but stand faithful and firm. God has a purpose to shine the light of Christ through you so that “those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame” (3:16).
Our confidence
Knowing our identity and calling will give us confidence to face the challenges of the journey. Remember who writes this letter? Mr. Fickle himself. Oh, how the grace of God has been working in Peter’s life. This is important as he guides us with confidence to face suffering. Rev. Stares will deal with that more fully in his article. How suffering in the Christian life is a blessing.
As we close consider this confidence. What is it that gives you hope and help for the journey of life? It’s the glory of God’s presence in the journey and the destination. For example, think about the trips you take for holidays. For some the joy is in the journey. They stop at scenic sites, read the plaques at historical monuments, stop for a cuppa and enjoy the café ambience. For others, (like me) the joy is in the destination. Once I have arrived, I will enjoy myself.
Wonderfully, the confidence that Peter talks about covers both: the journey and the destination. His urgent plea is: recognise the joy of the journey and the delight of the destination. Why? More importantly, how? Remember the final outcome – “…rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed” (4:13). That’s the destination. The glory of Christ is coming with His return, then all will be clearly seen.
But for the journey? “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (4:14). Remember the Old Testament background of the glory cloud that accompanied Israel? That’s what you have for the journey in a more spectacular way with the presence of the Spirit of Christ. Let us learn from Israel’s history. What happened in the wilderness and even in the promised land? They forsook their identity and calling. They were God’s people, called to be holy because He was holy. They were distinct – a light shining in the darkness. But when they doubted their identity and purpose, they wavered in faith and lost confidence, such that they abandoned the Lord. No longer was grace and glory their featured outlook on life, but grumbling, complaining and disobedience. Peter was personally familiar with that danger. He writes to guide us through our Christian sojourning and alienation. Love his letter as a navigational tool for the journey of life. We possess, in Christ, all the more reason for hope and strength in life’s journey. So, what is your mental refrain and your heart’s song for life’s journey – hopeless wanderer or elect exile?
Mr Peter Kloosterman is the minister of Hastings Reformed Church.
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