Transcript & Slides: Who is God (1 Peter)

PDF Slides

Who is God (1 Peter)
By David Feddes

We're going to continue our study of First Peter: Suffering and Glory. Today, we're again returning to those first couple of verses. I mentioned before that Peter can say more in saying hello than some thinkers and theologians can say in entire books. He's told us who he is as an apostle and who we are, and now we're going to ask the question, Who is God?

The answer we get right away in those early verses is that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Peter says that you were “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood” (1 Peter 1:2). So in saying hello, he speaks of the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

When we think of God the Father and look at what Peter says, just a few of the things that Peter mentions about God the Father stand out. The first thing he says, even in this greeting, is that we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. God the Father is the one who initiates everything, who starts everything, who decides how anything is going to be before it ever exists.

If you are a person chosen by God, God didn’t choose you five minutes ago or have something suddenly pop into his mind—“Oh yeah, I think I’ll go for them.” It says that you’re chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. As the Bible says elsewhere, before the creation of the world, before anything ever existed, your salvation was already in the mind, the heart, and the love of God (Ephesians 1:4).

That is, among other things, because God is love, but also because everything begins with God. Before anything else even begins, the outcome of things is already there in the mind and purpose of God.

It also says that you’re “shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). So when we go through life and we belong to God the Father, what do we see in the Creed? “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” Mighty God, the power of God, is what defends and protects you. He is the great guardian and protector.

He is also a judge—and a just judge. Peter says, “You call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially” (1 Peter 1:17). God is the one who assesses everything. Whether something is good or bad does not depend on the latest opinion; it depends on the eternal character of God and what he says about it. People often condemn something with which there’s nothing wrong at all, and they often approve things that are utterly wicked. God is a just judge. He knows. He judges fairly.

Probably above all, associated with the work of God the Father is that he is “the maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” He brings everything into being. In fact, he’s not just a creator; he is a faithful creator. So Peter can say that even if you’re suffering, “commit yourself to your faithful Creator and continue to do good” (1 Peter 4:19). He’s the one who made you. It’s not like even these sufferings caught him by surprise. He made you, and he’s faithful to you, and you can count on him.

Those are some of the things said about God the Father in the letter of First Peter—a pretty short letter. I could say more from other books of the Bible about God the Father, but that will suffice for now. There is a wonderful revelation about God the Father, and all who believe in one God at all will believe that these things are true of him.

But God the Father is not the only person who is divine according to Peter. He also speaks of Jesus. What does he say about Jesus?

He speaks of Jesus repeatedly, over and over, as “our Lord Jesus Christ.” Kurios, the word for “Lord,” is how the Old Testament—when translated into Greek—renders the divine name of God, sometimes called the Tetragrammaton, or translated as Jehovah or Yahweh. The Greek translation uses kurios. Now, when that word is applied to Jesus—our Lord Jesus—it’s saying something very important about him.

Peter also calls him “Jesus Christ.” “Christ” is simply the Greek word for “Messiah,” the Hebrew word for “Anointed One,” the special one of God. So to call him “our Lord Jesus Christ” is a tremendous statement.

Peter goes even further than that. In Second Peter 1:1, he speaks of “the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Our God and Savior. He’s saying that Jesus is God and the only one who brings salvation.

He speaks over and over of “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Even if Peter didn’t dive into doctrines—which he does from time to time—just the very titles that he gives to Jesus tell you much of what you need to know. He is our Lord, our Savior, our God.

When Peter speaks of what Jesus has done, he says that Jesus has conquered death, that he is “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19), a perfect lamb, and that his precious blood has paid for all our sins. He’s the one who “bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

He’s the one who is “the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25), or as he says in chapter 5, verse 4, “the Chief Shepherd.” Does that ring a bell? Even if you don’t know much of the Bible, many people still know “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1). So when someone is called “the Shepherd” or “the Chief Shepherd,” what’s that saying about him?

He’s the Lord who is spoken of in the Old Testament. He’s the Shepherd of our souls, the one who watches over us, guides us in paths of righteousness, refreshes us in green pastures, carries us through the valley of the shadow of death, whose mercy and love pursue us all the days of our life, and who will bring us to dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23). That’s all packed into calling Jesus the Shepherd of our souls.

It says that he ascended and “is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him” (1 Peter 3:22). He is the ascended King of angels.

When you are the King and the ruler of the cherubim and seraphim, of the mighty Michael and Gabriel, and of all the millions of angels, what does that say about you—that you’re just another guy? He is the ascended King of angels. He is the one returning to judge and to restore all things.

We said a moment ago that God the Father is the Judge, but somehow Jesus has an equal judging status on behalf of God the Father. Peter is saying that Jesus is this remarkable and astonishing person to whom titles of God can be applied—that he is the Lord, the God, and the Savior.

Now, that’s not what everybody says. If you were into bestsellers a few years ago, you would have read The Da Vinci Code. The author of The Da Vinci Code has one of his characters delivering the punchline: “Jesus was viewed by his followers as a mortal prophet, a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless—mortal, not the Son of God.” That’s how Jesus was viewed by his followers, according to that story—just a guy, a really powerful guy, but that’s all.

Or maybe some of you, when exploring around a little bit to find out what other viewpoints are or what people who attack the Christian faith say, have come across Bart Ehrman. He’s one of the go-to guys. He’s a professor of New Testament exegesis. But don’t fool yourself—just because somebody is a professor of New Testament exegesis doesn’t mean that they understand the New Testament or that they can guide you in the ways of God. The man is a total unbeliever. He just claims to be an expert on the New Testament and on early Christian culture. Bart Ehrman says that Jesus was not originally considered to be God in any sense at all.

Now let’s take that for what it’s worth. Here’s somebody who doesn’t believe in God saying that Jesus was never considered to be God. It’s one thing to be an atheist and not to believe what Christians believe; it’s quite another thing to tell people what the early Christians believed or didn’t believe.

You just heard what Peter wrote. Let’s think about it. “Our Lord Jesus Christ,” “the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ,” “our Lord and Savior.” Does that sound like just another guy? Does that sound like if you really got your advanced degrees in New Testament and learned to interpret First Peter properly, you’d understand that Peter was saying Jesus is not Lord and Savior? If you insist on that, then don’t believe what Peter says—but don’t try to tell me that Peter thought Jesus was just another guy.

I read a little bit of Bart Ehrman’s book. It was titled How Jesus Became God. It’s his account of how people came to think of Jesus as God way later on. A rejoinder to that book was written: How God Became Jesus, because the Bible says, “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14)—God became human among us.

I read some reviews, and they said, “Well, that book is written by five different authors, and they’re kind of clunky writers. They aren’t nearly as smooth or interesting or articulate as Bart Ehrman.” Okay, now we’re getting somewhere—he’s a smooth talker. He talks nicer than other people, and so people liked his book better. Well, so what? Dan Brown was a good author too—that’s why The Da Vinci Code sold millions of copies. Because they can write well. But they don’t know diddly squat about Jesus Christ. So you need to keep that in mind.

Who is Jesus? Peter says, “Our God and Savior.” Peter, when he was working with his friend—the one he called his son—Mark, in producing the Gospel of Mark, had a major role. What does Mark say about Jesus? The early Christians just thought Jesus was another guy? Then why does Mark’s Gospel begin by saying, “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1)? That’s the first sentence of the Gospel of Mark. Just as the first sentences of Peter’s letter are talking of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you have the first sentence of Mark saying, “Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

And later on, at the moment of Jesus’ death, the Roman centurion says, “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).

The Gospel of John begins by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1, 14). Then, at the end, it has the most doubting of the apostles, Thomas, saying the words, “My Lord and my God!” to the risen Lord Jesus Christ (John 20:28).

Do you think John—and Thomas, for that matter—thought Jesus was just another guy? When John explains why he wrote his Gospel near the end, he says, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31).

They all say the same thing—whether it’s Peter, whether it’s John, whether it’s the apostle Paul. Paul says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created… all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together… For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:15–19).

Now, if you’re biblically illiterate, if you’re just immersed in your age and say, “I’m going to be even-handed in my pursuit of truth. I’m going to get a copy of Bart Ehrman, and then I’m going to get a copy of somebody who happens to believe in Christianity, and I’m going to see which of the two books sounds more convincing to me,” well, if that’s how you pursue truth, then have at it. But you might want to read the original sources: Peter, Mark, John, Paul, the author to the Hebrews—“God’s Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:2–3).

His first followers thought he was just another man? No. The New Testament is the record of what his first followers believed and taught about him. Those records were written within two to four decades of the actual events. So you can deny and disbelieve what the New Testament says, but don’t ever try to tell me that the earliest followers of Jesus did not believe that he was great beyond all human measure.

Not only does Peter speak of Jesus being our God and Savior, but he also speaks of the interconnectedness of Father and Son. He speaks of “God the Father” as “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:3). In chapter 1, verse 21, he says, “Through Jesus you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” When you believe in the risen Jesus, then your faith and hope are in God.

He says that you’ve been called to be “a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). When you offer your prayers as a spiritual sacrifice, when you offer yourself and your body to God as a spiritual sacrifice, and when you’re offering that spiritual offering acceptable to God, how is it acceptable to God? Through Jesus Christ.

God and Jesus are inseparable. Peter speaks of God’s eternal glory, where in Christ the divine glory of the Father is shining. As Jesus himself said, anyone who rejects the Son rejects the Father also. “The reason you do not love me is that you do not know my Father” (John 8:19). You can’t have one without the other. There is that close, close relationship between Father and Son.

Peter also, in his opening verses, mentions the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies us and sets us apart, making us holy. He’s called the Holy Spirit, and he makes us holy. Jesus called him the Spirit of truth, and Peter says that it was “the Spirit of Christ in the prophets” who gave them foresight and enabled them to predict “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow” (1 Peter 1:11). It was the Spirit of truth who gave them that foresight.

The Bible speaks of him as the Spirit of power, and Peter speaks of “those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Peter 1:12). Why did that preaching come with such power? Because they were smooth talkers? No. Some of them were fishermen, some were tax men—none of them were professional speakers—and yet they had tremendous power because the Spirit of power was upon them.

The Bible also speaks of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of life, and Peter says that “Christ was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). So he’s the one who raised Jesus to life. That’s why he can be called more broadly the Spirit of life, because he’s the source of life for every living thing that breathes and, supremely, the source of the new, eternal, miraculous, unending life that comes in Jesus Christ.

He’s the one who activates spiritual gifts. “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides” (1 Peter 4:11). It’s God doing that through you by the Holy Spirit.

If you’re suffering for the name of Christ, you’re blessed, because “the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14). The Spirit of glory—that phrase speaks of the shining, the Shekinah, the radiance of the glory of God.

Those are just some of the things Peter says about the Holy Spirit. If you look at the Scriptures more widely, you find that the Spirit is divine and that he’s personal. Jesus often spoke of him as the Counselor, sent by the Father and the Son. The apostle Paul would often speak of the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of God. The Spirit is always working on behalf of God the Father and God the Son and is himself God.

You find out also that he’s personal. Peter made this clear when he spoke to a liar named Ananias. He said, “You have lied to the Holy Spirit. You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3–4). Now, I just finished a course on logic. I won’t bother you with all the details of modus ponens and modus tollens and all the other techniques of logic. I’ll just ask this little question: if someone said, “You lied to the Holy Spirit—you lied to God,” what logic would you employ to answer, “Now, who is the Holy Spirit?” If you lied to the Holy Spirit, and in lying to the Holy Spirit you lied to God, who is the Holy Spirit? God.

Okay, I won’t bother you with all the details of logic that led to that profound conclusion. But if you can’t follow that logic, you’re not going to do well in my logic course.

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30). You can’t grieve a force or a power or an “it.” You can grieve a person. So we can conclude that the Holy Spirit is divine—truly God—and also not just a power or something impersonal about God but a person in the being of God.

So you have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Remember Jesus’ baptism: “As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’” (Mark 1:10–11). In a sense, that moment is a picture of the eternal reality and being of God, where you have Jesus the Son being told how much the Father loves him, and the Spirit—the third person of the Trinity—coming down upon Jesus visibly for all to see.

That relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit is reflected when we baptize. How do we baptize? Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:18–19).

You baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You bless in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because that’s who God is. “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Again and again, the Bible speaks of Father, Son, and Spirit—of the divinity of all three. The doctrine of the blessed Trinity is simply this: God forever exists as three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, and there is one God. That goes beyond human ability to grasp, but somehow, in the life of God, three divine persons are one inseparable being. Whatever one person of the Trinity wills, the three persons will. Whatever attribute or quality—whether power, majesty, goodness, love, or holiness—one has, all have. If you’re dealing with any person of the Trinity, you’re dealing with Father, Son, and Spirit. They are never divided against one another.

Just a couple of practical applications of that. One is this: sometimes people think of God the Father as the grumpy member of the Trinity and Jesus as the nice one. They think God the Father is out to get you, and he would zap you if it were just up to him—but thank goodness there’s a nice member of the Trinity who can step in on your behalf and turn aside the Father’s grudge against you. Well, that is not so.

If you have a good understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, anything Jesus does is done only because the Father sent him. The Father always initiates everything in the life of the Trinity, and the Son carries it out, and the Spirit applies it. So anything good that comes our way did not come in spite of the Father, but because of the Father. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). Never think that the persons of the Trinity are divided against one another.

That kind of thinking—dividing divine powers—belongs to the old pagan mindset. You might remember one of the stories from the Old Testament where Israel had a battle against the forces of Aram, and Israel won the battle. The forces of Aram said, “What in the world happened? I understand now—their god is a god of the hills, and we fought in the hills. We picked our territory badly for that battle. Our god is good in the valleys. Let’s make the same formations, the same number of captains—everything identical—but this time let’s fight them on the level ground. Then we’ll win.” They got smacked worse the second time.

Why? Because God isn’t just the God of this little spot or that little spot or some other little spot. He’s the Lord of heaven and earth. If you’re dealing with any spot, you’re dealing with the same God and with the same power. He’s not like that bunch of Greek gods who were all different and squabbling half the time, where you wanted Poseidon on your team if you were on the ocean, and you never wanted to get Zeus against you. The gods were squabbling, and people tried to pick and choose which ones to keep happy in their particular territory.

When you’re dealing with God, you’re dealing with God—Father, Son, and Spirit—never divided in will, never divided in purpose. The Bible says, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The oneness in the being and life of the Trinity goes beyond anything in our experience. I don’t want to use things like clover leaves or eggs or other analogies to explain how the Trinity can be three and yet one, because God’s not like an egg, and he’s not like a clover leaf. He’s not like anything he has made. We simply have to take his revelation and say, God is great and one beyond anything we can understand.

One person who understood this well in later centuries, after the Bible was written, was Athanasius. He was known by the Latin nickname Athanasius contra mundum—Athanasius against the world. You might say, “He must have been hard to get along with.” Well, some people found it hard to get along with him—especially if you were a heretic. If you opposed the godhood of Jesus Christ, you found it very hard to get along with Athanasius.

He proclaimed the Trinity when much of the world and many politicians were Arians. I’ll say more about Arius in a moment, but Arius was one who denied that Jesus was fully God. Athanasius came in for a lot of mockery. He was called “the black dwarf.” He wasn’t very tall, and he wasn’t very light-skinned. He was African, and people mocked him for his appearance or his skin color. Five different times he was sent into exile by four different emperors. This was, by the way, when the empire was supposedly Christian—but there was much tussling between the forces who rejected the deity of Jesus and those who accepted it.

So he got booted five different times from the area where he served in Egypt. He was targeted by assassins on various occasions. He’s the one who wrote in one of his letters, “Now we accept these twenty-seven books, and none should be added to them, none should be taken from them.” You can guess what those twenty-seven books are—they’re what we call the New Testament.

Athanasius was deeply devoted to the New Testament and to Jesus being the Son of God. He said there is no salvation if Jesus isn’t God. How can he help us if he’s not fully God? And if he’s not fully man, how can he help us either? He’s both God and man. Don’t make him something somewhere in between, because then he’s no good to anybody. That was his logic, and he stood with great courage in a world that wanted to stray.

There’s a creed named after him, though it was written years later—it still bears his name: the Athanasian Creed. Part of it says, “The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.”

Peter was writing to people in different places, and one of those places was Cappadocia. A few centuries later, there were three Cappadocians—often called by historians “the three Cappadocians”: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. I won’t get into all the details of each of those theologians. I’ll just say this: they were three men who, after the Council of Nicaea had declared the doctrine of the Trinity, continued to think deeply about it. The doctrine still hadn’t completely won the day, and so they worked hard to lead many people back to accurate belief in the deity of Jesus Christ and in the Trinity of God. These men came from the very region of Cappadocia where the first recipients of Peter’s letter had lived.

They were also involved in the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381. The Council of Constantinople, and later the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, were among the historic councils of the Church. Dan Brown, Bart Ehrman, and others would say those councils are the ones that invented the idea of Jesus being God. No—they are simply the ones who stated clearly and forcefully what the New Testament had already said. The truth was summarized in what we now call the Nicene Creed.

Throughout history, various people have denied this. Why? Well, people like to fall in love with their own thoughts. But it’s more than that. Satan’s task has always been to attack faith in Jesus as the Son of God sent into the world. The apostle John called that the spirit of the antichrist and said that “many antichrists have already come into the world,” those “who deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 2:18; 4:3).

Arius, the one whom Athanasius opposed so strongly, taught that Christ was a creature. He was created; he was not the Creator. The slogan that Arius and his followers sometimes sang was, “There was when he was not.” That has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? They would sing that in Greek—“There was a time when he did not exist.” Jesus was not eternal; he wasn’t God. That was the teaching of Arius.

I’ve said many times, and I’ll say it again: Satan believes in recycling. He used Arius, and people might say, “Well, that movement died out.” But a little bit of recycling later, about six hundred years after Christ, a man named Muhammad claimed to have received a revelation from an angel. And that revelation said, “The Trinity isn’t true, and Jesus isn’t the Son of God.” The Qur’an teaches that Jesus was a prophet—the third greatest prophet. Pretty good, isn’t it? Out of all the prophets, to be number three is impressive. But not good enough.

Another supposed revelation from an angel came to Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormons teach, following what Joseph Smith claimed to have received, that Jesus came from Mary’s physical union with Elohim, who supposedly had a physical body, and that Jesus is not on the same level as God the Father.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have taught that the archangel Michael became Jesus the human. To help us out, he gave up his angelhood to become human—and that’s what made Jesus great.

And then, of course, there are our various secularists who say, “The Trinity was just made up later. Jesus was not considered God by his original followers.”

The only way you can believe that kind of nonsense is by not reading the New Testament documents—the ones written by the people who were closest to Jesus—and by not believing what Jesus himself said. “I forgive your sins” (Mark 2:5). “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39). Who does that? Is that what a normal man does? “I forgive the sins you committed against other people.” “I didn’t like that storm the other day. Okay—it’s gone.”

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.”

That’s what the Nicene Creed says of the Father and the Son. And what does it say of the Spirit? “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.”

That’s not something that was invented later. That is one of the great creeds of the Church because it captures, in a nutshell, the answer that the New Testament gives to the question: Who is God?

Anyone who denies that this is the truth of who God is—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is the antichrist.

Of course, there is much more to be said, but we don’t have much time to say it. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s how Peter says hello. But Peter then also goes on to speak of God’s mercy—his kindness to the helpless—of God’s power in defending those who don’t have the strength, of God’s grace in giving generously to the undeserving, to the wicked, of God’s holiness in being utterly pure and calling us to purity, of God being the just Judge, the one who is absolutely fair, of God being good. “You have tasted that the Lord is good,” says Peter (1 Peter 2:3).

He is light—he “called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Or, as Jesus put it, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). He is the good Shepherd.

He’s patient. Even in the time of Noah, when the people definitely had judgment coming to them, he waited 120 years. The Bible says, “God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built” (1 Peter 3:20). He is the ruler, with angels, authorities, and powers in submission to him (1 Peter 3:22). He is faithful. He is the Creator. He is caring—“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). He listens to prayers. And he is the God of all glory.

That’s going to be our theme in the rest of Peter—suffering and glory. The reason there is glory is because he is the God of all glory.

So again—hi from Peter. His hello takes three sermons to deal with!

Who is Peter? An apostle of Jesus Christ.
Who are you? You are elect exiles, chosen, set apart, obedient to Christ, and cleansed by his blood.
Who is God? He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If you can get that hello into your bones, then you’ll be well on your way toward being the kind of believer who stands fast in troubled times and who isn’t shaken by every wind of doctrine.

If you know who the mighty Peter is—the anointed apostle of Christ—and his fellow writers of the New Testament, and the might and truth and wisdom that came to them from Jesus Christ, then when you read a book by Bart Ehrman, you can ask, “Who’s he?” Was he the one whose shadow healed the sick when he walked by (Acts 5:15)? Was he standing by Jesus’ tomb when it was empty? Did he see the living Lord Jesus Christ? What does that guy know?

You listen to Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ.

Who are you? Are you going to listen to those who say, “Oh, you’re nobodies. You evolved from slime. You’re coming from nothing and headed for nothing”? Or are you fearfully and wonderfully made by the living God (Psalm 139:14)? Are you elect, people who are in this world but destined for a better one? That’s who you are.

And who is God? The devil will offer many answers. Most of the time, he’ll just recycle the same old lies he’s offered before. But the living God has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—forever blessed, forever trustworthy. Believe in him.

Prayer

Lord, we praise you for being the living God, eternally Father, Son, and Spirit—the God of love forever, united in love for one another and pouring out love in creating and in saving. Lord, give us faith that at the very heart of reality there is goodness and might and power and love and truth and holiness and beauty. May we know that this is ultimate reality, that everything else fades away.

Give us, Lord, strength to stand on the rock, to hear the voice of the mighty apostles who wrote the New Testament, and of the faithful fathers like Athanasius who stood against the world to preserve your truth. May we be found worthy in our own generation to stand on that same truth—to love you, the true and living God—to be mighty, effective, faithful, fearless witnesses to that truth.

Lord, may that be true of us so that we can be true to you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Who is God (1 Peter)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Who’s who

• Who is Peter? An apostle of Jesus Christ.

• Who are you? Elect exiles, chosen, set apart, obedient and cleansed

• Who is God? Father, Son, Spirit

Who is God?

…chosen according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood. (1:2)

God the Father

• Chosen according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father (1:3)

• Shielded by God’s power (1:5)

• Father judges fairly (1:17)

• Faithful Creator (4:19)

Who is Jesus?

• Our Lord (Κύριος) Jesus Christ 
(1 Peter 1:3; 2 Peter 1:8, 14; 16)

• The righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1)

• Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
(2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:2; 3:18)

Who is Jesus?

• Victor over death (1:3)

• Perfect lamb, precious blood (1:19)

• Bears sins and heals (2:24; 3:18)

• Shepherd of souls (2:25; 5:4)

• Ascended King of angels (3:22)

• Returning to judge & restore (1:7)

Who is Jesus?

Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet… a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless. A mortal… Not the Son of God. (Dan Brown)

Jesus was not originally considered to be God in any sense at all. (Bart Ehrman)

Who is Jesus?

• Our Lord (Κύριος) Jesus Christ 
(1 Peter 1:3; 2 Peter 1:8, 14; 16)

• The righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1)

• Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
(2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:2; 3:18)

Who is Jesus?

• The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God… “Surely this man was the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1; 15:39).

• In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God.” (John 1:1; 20:28)

Who is Jesus?

He is the image of the invisible God… by him all things were created… And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together… For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. (Colossians 1:15-19)

Who is Jesus?

… God’s Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:2-3)

Father and Son

• God and Father of Jesus Christ (1:3)

• Faith in Christ = faith in God (1:21)

• Acceptable to God through Jesus (2:5)

• God is praised through Jesus (4:11)

• God’s eternal glory in Christ (5:10)

Who is the Spirit?

• Sets apart, makes holy (1:2)

• Gave prophets foresight (1:11)

• Empowers gospel preaching (1:12)

• Made Jesus alive again (3:18)

• Activates spiritual gifts (4:10-11)

• Shines glory on sufferers (4:14)

Who is the Spirit?

• Spirit of God/Christ

• Counselor sent by Father and Son (John 14:16, 26; 15:2; 16:7).

• “You lied to the Holy Spirit… You lied to to God.” (Acts 5:3-4)

• Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.  (Ephesians 4:30)

Father, Son, Spirit

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11)

Father, Son, Spirit

• Baptism: Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:18)

• Blessing: May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14)

Blessed Trinity

1. God forever exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is one God.  

(Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology)

Athanasius against the world

• Proclaimed the Trinity when much of the world and politicians were Arian

• Mocked as “the black dwarf”

• Exiled 5 times; targeted by assassins

• Listed 27 New Testament books

Cappadocians

• Basil the Great

• Gregory of Nyssa

• Gregory of Nazianzus

• Thought deeply about Trinity and led many back to accurate belief.

• Council of Constantinople 381

Denying Trinity

• Arius: Christ was created, not Creator

• Muslim: Jesus was prophet, not Son

• Mormon: Jesus came from Mary’s union with Elohim’s visible body

• Jehovah’s Witnesses: Archangel Michael became Jesus the human.

• Secularists: Trinity was made up later

Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth… And in one Lord Jesus Christ… God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

Who is God?

• Mercy (1:3)

• Power (1:5)

• Grace (1:13)

• Holy (1:16)

• Fair (1:17)

• Good (2:3)

• Light (2:9)

• Shepherd (2:25)

• Patient (3:20)

• Ruler (3:22)

• Faithful (4:19)

• Creator (4:19)

• Caring (5:7)

• Glory (5:10)

Who’s who

• Who is Peter? An apostle of Jesus Christ.

• Who are you? Elect exiles, chosen, set apart, obedient and cleansed

• Who is God? Father, Son, Spirit