1 PETER 1.6-7
In
this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been
grieved by various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—more precious
than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in
praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
In this you
rejoice. The source of Christian rejoicing
isn’t found in some euphoric worship-induced high, nor taking giant gulps of
the Spirit as if he were a super-spiritual dose of THC. No, the source of the
Christian’s rejoicing—a rejoicing which is done in the Spirit and celebrated in
worship—is centered upon the Christian hope: our future inheritance and total
salvation. In the midst of suffering and trials, a Christian’s joy, and thus
his or her rejoicing, is founded upon a concrete and clear vision of the
future; in other words, the Christian hope. Having written about the
Christian’s inheritance, which is a living
hope, St. Peter now takes this eschatology and makes it relevant.
Knowledge of eschatology isn’t there
just so we can feel smug about having (what we believe to be) an accurate
understanding of the future; rather, knowledge of eschatology should prod us
towards greater rejoicing, greater devotion to God, and greater love for one
another. Also, knowledge of the future should inspire hope and courage in us as
we go through life’s trials and tribulations. This aspect of understanding
eschatology wouldn’t be lost on Peter’s readers: already they were experiencing
persecution in minor forms, and the threat of mortal persecution crouched like
a panther outside the door, ready to pounce. And while we may not be facing
martyrdom under an anti-Christian government, we, too, have our own trials and
tribulations, and we, too, as Christians, are called to focus on eschatology in
the midst of such difficult times.
* * *
Trials &
Tribulations: Not Just A 1st-Century Reality. There’s a tendency to super-spiritualize everything we read
in the New Testament. Mere mention of persecution becomes martyrdom; obedience
becomes a blind adherence to arbitrary rules and regulations; heaven becomes an
immaterial realm; trials and tribulations only count if they’re in relation to
persecution. While trials and tribulations in 1 Peter certainly carry the
undertones of persecution, we would do well to take off the blinders and
envisage a wider scope for the word.
Everyone, Christians and non-Christians
alike, experiences trials and tribulations. Trials can take on any form, and
the root wherein trials come to life lies in the difficulty. Trials can be good (in the sense that one experiences
hardship and difficulty doing the right thing) and they can also be bad (in the
sense that one can experiences hardship and difficulty in, and especially
after, doing the wrong thing). Trials encompass every aspect of life:
situations, circumstances, relationships, conflicts, everything can become a trial. There’s no need to make a spiritual
beast out of the thing: we experience trials when we fall under financial
strain, when a loved one betrays us, when we’re diagnosed with a debilitating
disease, when our lives don’t pan out as planned, when regret, disappointment,
and tragedy assails us at every turn.
“Trials & Tribulations” don’t refer
only to those things which happen to us because we’re Christians. Any hardship
that befalls us—be it physical, social, mental, spiritual, etc.—is a trial by
virtue of it being difficult. What might be a trial to one person may draw
forth nothing but a hapless shrug from another; how we perceive things in our
lives directly correlates to whether or not these things become trials &
tribulations. When Christians experience trials & tribulations, these take
on new meaning as they fall into the realm of testing.
* * *
Trials &
Testing: An Integrated Match. All
of life, not least trials, tests us. Our responses to trials—whether the
responses be psychological, social, personal or communal—bring out our “true
colors,” revealing where our loyalties and allegiances lie, showing our true
characters. The art of self-deception is mastered by everyone; we may proclaim
loyalty to God—or to a spouse—but when we flirt with other gods (or other
people), we show that our loyalties may not be so strong; and when we give
ourselves over to other gods (or engage in an affair), it shows that we were
not so committed all along. Our character doesn’t exist in a vacuum, simply
being “highlighted” by our responses: our responses themselves can “make or
break” our character, though a better word for this may be evolution. Our responses to trials form our character. Hardships
and suffering always change us, either into bitter, inwardly-focused creatures
or into the type of creature whose suffering, coupled with trust and faith in
God, radiates the sweet scent of God himself.
St. Peter writes that trials test our
faith. Trials test our faith in that they’re a litmus-test of our faith’s
authenticity. Self-deception is an art-form all human beings have mastered.
Trials, and our subsequent responses, show us the kind of people we really are.
An inauthentic faith in Christ will collapse, and an authentic faith will
endure. One’s loyalty to Messiah will be shown genuine (or disingenuine) by the
decisions one makes in the midst of trials. The person with a weak or
non-existent faith will not endure the trials; the one whose faith in Jesus is
strong and secure will endure. Endurance, the Bible tells us, is the
appropriate response to testing (see 1 Cor 10.13, Heb 3.6, 4.14, and 10.23;
throw in Rom 5.3-5 for good measure).
The likening of faith to gold tested by
fire clues us in to yet another aspect of testing. Just as testing reveals the
condition of our faith, so in those who endure, it intensifies and deepens that
faith. In the ancient world (and in many places today), the ores of precious
metals, such as gold, would be melted in a fiery furnace. The end result would
be the “weeding out” of the impurities, resulting in a purer metal. Just as the
“testing” of gold results in a purer gold, so the testing of genuine faith
results in a deepening faith. So we find that when Christians undergo trials
(of whatever sort they may be), the result is two-fold:
The condition of the faith is revealed. Authentic faith will persevere.
Inauthentic face will crumble in the face of trials and tribulations.
Genuine faith is deepened. Remember how our responses to trials
play a role in the development of our character? Likewise, the response of
endurance in the midst of trials—an endurance which is built upon devotion to
and trust in God, as well in rejoicing in the midst of the promise of hope’s
fruition—forms our character and faith into one that is more submissive to,
loyal to, and trusting in God.
* * *
Trials &
Testing: The Eschatological Perspective. St. Peter writes that this testing, which he hopes will both
ratify and deepen the Christians’ faith, will result in “praise, glory, and
honor” at the revealing of Jesus Christ. Indeed, St. Peter’s point in this
verse isn’t so much about testing but, rather, what Christians have to look
forward to when Jesus appears. To understand what Peter means, we must unpack
the last phrase.
The Rapture: a phrase which
caught the western world by storm following the infamous “Left Behind” series
by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. The fictional series took place in the
future following what’s called the “rapture”: when Jesus takes all his faithful
into heaven with him while the world boils in its own private hell. While this
eschatology is considered by many to be air-tight, countless scholars shake
their heads in a refusal to submit to what such theologians judge to be an
inaccurate understanding of “the End Times”. One’s belief about Jesus’
“return,” as it were, colors a portrait of what St. Peter is talking about. If
one takes LaHaye and Jenkins’ position, the text seems to imply that following
the rapture, and our admittance into heaven, we’ll be doted-upon with all sorts
of honors while the rest of the world scratches their heads in confusion while
plummeting into a seven-year period of unending misery. The New Testament talks
about Jesus’ “return,” but reexamination of the texts has shed light on some of
the errors within LaHaye and Jenkins’ understanding. While entire books have
been written on the subject, space provides us with only enough room to cover
the basics. When we speak about Jesus’ return, “return” may not be the best
word to use. Throughout the New Testament, and especially in the letters of
Paul, two Greek words are used to refer to this monumentous future event: parousia and phaneroo.
Parousia is a word that carried both
secular and religious undertones. In its religious context, the word drew forth
an image of a god revealing his (or her) power in healing. This is how most
Greeks understood the word in its religious sense, and Jewish people adopted this
usage, too: the ancient Jewish historian Josephus sometimes used this word when
he wrote about God coming to the rescue of burdened, defenseless Israel. The
secular context operated within the sphere of royalty: when a person of royal
status (or of high political ranking) visited a state, colony, or province, the
word used was parousia: the king or
emperor would come in his parousia,
or “royal presence.” St. Paul uses this word in 1 Thessalonians 4.17-18, and
the image he implants within his readers/hearers is an image of Jesus—the
world’s true King, Lord, and Emperor—coming to visit earth just as Caesar might
make a visit to Colossae or to the provinces of Asia Minor. Caesar wouldn’t
visit a colony just to show that he was present; generally, his visits were
orchestrated to deal with problems in the colonies; thus we have an image of
Jesus coming to the created order—over which he rules—and dealing with all the
problems present within it.
Phaneroo is a word St. Paul uses in
Colossians 3.4, and St. John uses this word in 1 John 2.28 and 3.2. While parousia speaks of a “coming” (to deal
with the problems) or to a “royal presence,” phaneroo speaks of a revealing.
The thinking goes like this: Jesus is reigning bodily from heaven. The promise
we have isn’t that Jesus will suddenly appear in our present world order like a
mysterious spaceman plummeting from the stars but that when Heaven and earth
are married (as Revelation 21 pictures), Jesus will “appear”: he won’t “come,”
in the sense of making geographical movement (such as coming to earth from
Alpha Centauri, the nearest start to us other than the sun, which some older
theologians speculated to be the location of heaven); rather, he will “appear”:
what has been there the whole time but which has been hidden from our
physiological eyes—the lordship and reigning of Jesus the Messiah—will become
visibly apparent. Intricately tied to the “appearing” of Jesus is the
consequential “appearing” of his people, the church: when Jesus appears, being
made known in all his glory, so the church (one of heaven’s many secrets) will
be unveiled, revealed to be what it has been all along: God’s people, his new
humanity.
* * *
An understanding of these two Greek
words and their meanings gives us a glimpse into the return of Jesus: it is the
unveiling of Jesus as he is—the world’s true King, reigning from Heaven—as he
comes to earth to deal with all its problems. There’s no hint of people being
“carried away” from earth to let the planet drown in its own well-deserved
misery. There’s only the picture of justice: the King returning to deal fully
and finally with the world. It is a one-time event intimately connected to all
the other End-Time events, namely the resurrection of the dead, the Great
Judgment, and the Consummation. Jesus’ appearing/coming will inaugurate the
last moments of the present evil age and the beginning moments of a world born
anew, and he will play the key role of bringing God’s eschatological promises
to pass. All of this no doubt swirls in the understanding of the Asia Minor
Christians, and the Greek word Peter uses sheds more light on the subject. The
word he uses in 1.7 comes from the Greek word apocalypse.
If you’re like me, the word
“apocalypse” invokes images of gunfire and napalm (from the hit movie “Apocalypse
Now”) or images of the End of the World, brought to striking detail in such
recent movies as “Armageddon,” “2012,” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” This Greek
word, surprisingly, doesn’t refer to any such things. It literally means a
“lifting of the veil” or “revelation,” and it refers to the unveiling of
something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era of falsehood and
misconception. Used here, the “revelation” of Jesus Christ thus becomes the
“lifting of the veil”: the present evil age, consumed with misinformation,
misbelief, and pretentious falsehood, is suddenly shown what has been true all
along: that Jesus Christ really is
King, that he really is the Savior of
the World, and that, in line with this, Caesar (who called himself Lord and
Savior) is just a parody and a sham.
When this happens, when Jesus is
revealed to be who he is for all the world to see, the result will be, for
those who belong to him, “praise, glory, and honor.” It’s easy to become
trapped in the pursuit of trying to understand what all these words mean and
thus trying to find a way to make sense of them. Perhaps the best way to
understand what St. Peter is saying is to take the simple route: when Jesus
appears (and thus when the church is revealed to be who the church truly is,
the people of God) the result will be that Christians are showered with praise,
glory, and honor, both from God and from the unbelieving world. While this may
sound heretical to some—“Aren’t Christians just as due for judgment as everyone
else?”—the New Testament paints a portrait of Christians not only being vindicated at Jesus’ appearing but also participating in the judgment itself
(for example: 1 Cor 6.2). No doubt Peter has in mind the Christian doctrine of
glorification, when God’s people are made completely and wholly human at their
resurrection.
Peter’s point can easily be lost in the
midst of all this backtracking: “When trials and tribulations strike, endure!
If you endure, then you’ll be richly rewarded when Jesus is revealed before the
world!” He isn’t telling the Christians to endure because if they don’t,
they’ll face harsher wrath and a steeper purgatory from God; he’s telling them
to endure because if they do, they’ll be rewarded! We who endure hardships and
difficulties have the same promise and the same encouragement.
