The Unseen Christ (1 Pet. 1:8-9)

This sermon was preached on 21 March, 2011

It was a wonderful experience for doubting Thomas when he responded in worship to Jesus and gladly confessed his faith by saying, ’My Lord and my God’ (John 20:26-28). After all he had just seen the physical evidences of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, so it is not surprising that he acknowledged his Lordship. The evidences of the crucifixion were the holes in the hands and side of Jesus, and the evidence of his resurrection was the fact that he was alive. It was a wonderful privilege given to Thomas and the others to see the risen Lord. So we may find the response of Jesus rather puzzling: ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’ (John 20:29). What could Jesus have meant? An answer to that question is given in 1 Peter 1:8-9: ‘Though you have not seen him, you 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.’

Peter comments on two aspects of their inability to see. One aspect concerns a failure to see Jesus in the past (though you have not seen him, you love him) and the other aspect concerns their inability to see Jesus in the present (Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory). It looks as if Peter is saying that the appropriate attitude towards Jesus for what he did in the past is love and the appropriate attitude for what he is doing in the present is great joy. Of course, he is not saying that one should not love Jesus for what he is doing in the present or that one should not have joy because of what he did in the past.

Peter himself had a different experience from his readers because he had seen Jesus. His love for his Saviour had developed initially in situations where he had seen him, heard his words, observed his actions. Peter’s memory was full of incidents in which Jesus had been present physically. Yet wonderful as such experiences were, the lack of them did not mean the recipients of his letter were second-class Christians. Their response was not to be, ‘I wish I had Peter’s experiences.’ Instead they had to realise that spiritual experiences are not dependant on physical situations. After all, many had seen what Peter saw but had not been changed in a spiritual sense.

I would suggest that Peter here is highlighting two features of authentic Christianity when he mentions their love and joy. He could have focussed on their perseverance or their loyalty (which he does elsewhere), but it is possible to have such without love or joy, or to have them without joy. I suspect it is not possible to have them without love because, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, love is essential to Christian living.

Love

A first comment that can be made about their attitude of love is that it expresses obedience to the first commandment which tells us to love God with all our heart, mind and strength. So this kind of love reveals that the lover understands that Jesus is fully divine. Only God can be the object of such love. There are other levels of love found within Christians, such as marital love or family love, but they are not corporate expressions of love. In contrast this love is a shared love, which means its object can only be someone who is precious to them all. And the one who fills such a position has to be divine. All these Christians to whom Peter wrote loved Jesus, just as all Christians love Jesus.

Further, this love for Jesus is not only based on who he is, but is also founded on what he did. As these Christians learned more about Jesus, they discovered that all his actions were expressions of love towards them. This is one reason why their love was not based on having had a physical sight of him. Of course, his coming to earth was wonderful, but his acts of love for them had begun long before then. In what ways had he shown love for them?

His love for them was a receiving love in the sense that he gladly accepted them before time as a gift from his Father. The Father and the Son entered into an eternal agreement which involved the Son acting in various ways on behalf of an innumerable number of sinners that the Father gave to him. Before he did anything for them, the Son loved them as the Father’s gift to him. So they love him because he received them lovingly in this way.

His love for them was a representative love in the sense that from then on he did everything as their agent. This is a profound mystery and very difficult to understand, nevertheless it is the case that his people were in his mind as Jesus, with the Father and the Spirit, engaged in the works of creation and providence. Each Christian can say that Jesus worked to prepare that individual’s personality and situation. Their genetic make-up is the outcome of generations of development, but Jesus has been in charge of it, all the time having his eye on each of them. The situations in which they found themselves when they met him through the gospel were arranged by him just as certainly as was the character and situation of Levi when Jesus recruited him into his band. The universe was created by Jesus for them as the location in which he would meet with them.

Of course, his representation of them is more particular in the sense that he came to earth in order to live a perfect life on their behalf and then take their place when he paid the penalty of their sins as he suffered on the cross. Think of the details in the Gospels in which Jesus interacts perfectly with sinners. Then imagine how you would have reacted when you have met similar persons. At one level, Jesus is dealing with them personally, at another level he is keeping the law on behalf of his sinful people, and as they read about how he did so, they love him, even although they have not seen him.

When we turn to the cross, we see that his love was a redeeming love that rescued them from slavery to sin. What matters is not that they never saw him on the cross – after all, many people saw the crucifixion and received no benefit. Instead what matters is that they have received the benefits of the cross, and they include deliverance from sin’s bondage, pardon for their rebellion, cleansing from defilement, and promise of a rich inheritance. As they realise such blessing that came from the one who loved them, they love him in return.

What can be said about the love Christians have for Jesus? One aspect of their love is that it is clean. This does not mean that they are free from wrong motives, but when they have them they are not the outcome of love to Jesus. In fact, love to Jesus is the purest activity in which a sinner can engage. When such love is present, Christians have the right motives; when it is absent, as was the case with the church in Ephesus (Rev 2:1-8), then even good actions, such as getting rid of false teachers, are sinful activities. Such clean love to Jesus also results in clean love to his people. What I say about or do to another Christian tells me what my love to Jesus is like.

A second aspect of their love for Jesus is that it is comprehensive. Love to him extends to all areas of life. A husband who truly loves his wife never forgets this relationship wherever he is. If he does forget it, he does not love her. It is the same with a healthy state of soul. What will stop a Christian sinning? Conscience might raise her voice, but it can be ignored. But when love to Jesus is present, such a believer will respond appropriately. The biggest danger to a Christian occurs when love to something else replaces love to Jesus (even when that something else is a good matter). Look what happened to faithful and loving Barnabas when he put love to his relative above love to Christ! His role in the church was damaged, although graciously restored later. We can extend the effects of love to Jesus into every area of one’s life (as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 13).

A third feature of their love for Jesus is that it is clinging – they can never stop gripping him. Often the first sign that two persons are in love is the hold they have of one another. The same is true in a spiritual sense – a spiritually-healthy Christian will cling to Christ. They will not only do so in times of danger and difficulty, but also in times of comfort and enjoyment. We can imagine a husband or wife seeing a beautiful sight. Often their thought is, ‘I wish my husband/wife could see this.’ A Christian clings to Christ all the time: he may be praying for help, or he may be reading the promises of the Bible, he may be in the company of Christian friends, he may be driving his care along the road. Wherever, he likes to talk to Jesus and say, in one way or another, that he is clinging to Jesus. We cling to him in our homes, in our work; we cling to him in every stage of life, and we will cling to him when we come to the end of the journey when all others can do nothing for us.

Joy

It is important to note that Peter connects their rejoicing to their faith. True joy is always the outcome of a living faith. It has often been pointed out that the preposition translated ‘in’ means ‘into’ and suggests a deeply personal contact with Christ. In other words, their faith was not a surface or shallow response to the gospel. Instead it was a deep and intense taking hold of Jesus.

From one point of view, what matters most is not the strength of one’s faith but the object of one’s faith. Yet this should truth should not be used to encourage a minimalist response to the gospel. Sinners should be urged to depend strongly on Jesus. We have an illustration of this in the way a worshipper in Israel was supposed to identify with the animal chosen as his sacrifice. When he identified himself with the animal, he did not merely touch it with his hand, he also used his hand to lean all his weight on the animal. Faith is like that hand and allows us to lean strongly on Jesus. No-one would say to the Israelite, ‘What a big hand you have.’ What mattered was not the size of his hand but whether or not it helped him to lean all his weight on the animal. The goal of faith is leaning entirely on Jesus. And when one does so, it opens the door to joy.

Or we can liken faith to a channel that runs between Christ and us. The question is not whether it is a long channel or a wide channel. It does not need to be a long channel because the distance between Christ and the souls of his people is not measured in miles; and it does not need to be a wide channel that functions as a kind of reservoir storing up blessings (Jesus is our reservoir). Our faith is the channel that takes to us from Jesus the particular grace that we need at a given moment. We may need several types of grace every minute, and they always come to us by faith.

The joy of these Christians is ‘inexpressible and filled with glory’. What do these descriptions convey about Christian joy? First, they suggest that this joy is surprising. It is not unexpected that these early Christians are classified by Peter as lovers of Jesus. They loved him with a love that was clean, comprehensive and clinging, which is how all Christians love him. What was surprising, in a sense, was that they had great joy in him despite their difficult surroundings.

Second, these terms remind us that Christian joy exists because they have found what satisfies them. People can face trials if they know that the trials are worthwhile. And these Christians had discovered that the presence of Jesus was worth more than anything else. Nothing that happened to them prevented them from receiving continuous grace from Jesus. For example, we can see how a Christian in difficulty gets comfort when he exercises faith in the promise that all things work together for good to them that love God. Of course, since it is inexpressible, the joy of such occurrences cannot be described, it has to be experienced.

Third, these descriptions are a reminder that joy is not dependant on things that we have. This is the great lie of the western world, that joy comes from accumulating things. The ones to whom Peter was writing had lost their things, but they had not lost their joy. True joy, whether in adversity or in prosperity, comes from drawing out of the fullness that is in Christ.

Fourth, true joy is anticipatory in that those who have it are always looking ahead to heaven. In this regard, we can say that faith is like a telescope that helps us see the blessings of the promised land before we reach it. The Spirit in our hearts functions as the earnest of the inheritance, assuring us that there is a better world, that at God’s right hand there are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).

Fifth, these descriptions remind us that Christians have great possessions. Spurgeon commented that ‘he is indeed rich who cannot count his wealth, he has so much that he does not know how much he has, and he is indeed full of joy who has so much joy that he cannot tell anyone how much he has.’ Although they were exiles, they knew that they were going to a wealthy place, that they had already received from God the salvation of their souls.

How much is included in the term ‘salvation’ is impossible to say. At present, we know more about what we are saved from, but we should also think about what we are saved to, by considering the great promises connected to final salvation which we will receive at the resurrection. The exiles have a great future, and in the meantime they love Jesus and through believing in him have great joy.