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Kept by the Power of God
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone SDA Church, CA, USA
Delivery: 2008-04-19 21:41Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2008-04-19 21:41Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kirl-1peterpt1.php
Every now and again someone takes Seventh-day Adventists to task for our recognition that not only was there in God’s plan a time of genesis but also for apocalypse; not only a time of Adam and Eve but also a last time, where God who spoke in the beginning puts period to suffering. The battle between good, and evil, which need never have been, has a goal. The deity has been maligned, charges have been lodged against the Maker of earth and of man. God gave intelligence to men and to angels. He gave free will. When rebellion arose, He promised justice and mercy, that He would treat the intelligences that He had made with kindness. But the malignancy that is evil could never go quietly. It fights tooth and claw to the last. Can He or cannot He keep His people? Can He or cannot He remake man in His image? Can He or cannot He be just and Justifier of those who receive His plan of salvation?
The early church had the same New Testament books as you do, but in a different order. After the Gospels and book of Acts came not the writings of Paul but the General Epistles: James, 1 and 2 Peter, the three epistles of John, and then Jude. Only after these came the writings of Paul. (The book of Revelation, written by John, was always the last.) That is to say, that the sequential reader heard from every other writer of the testament before Paul’s writings, which inspiration foresaw would especially be subject to distortion of their meaning (2 Peter 3:15-17). Is there a different way of salvation in Peter than in Paul? No, but we should read Peter with the same interest that we read Paul, and not make our interpretation of Paul the single lens through which we understand. There are insights in the Scriptures for those who read the general epistles with care.
First Peter was written, we think, sometime between A.D. 53 and 64, which would place it within thirty years of Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary. Peter writes to believers dispersed across the area that equates roughly to contemporary Turkey (1 Peter 1:1).
They are called elect, or chosen, according to the foreknowledge of God. But there is a widespread misunderstanding about God. The theory is that He predetermines some to be saved and some to be lost. When your child is born, she is a vessel of joy or of destruction; God has already decided that, already chosen whether the person will cleave to good or to evil. But this is not the teaching of Peter or of the Bible.
Hear what he says: they are elect through sanctification of the Spirit.
Sanctification of the Spirit has two potential meanings. The sanctification of man through the Holy Spirit, or the sanctification of the spirit of man. Either way, the outcome involves what they do or do not permit the Holy Spirit to do in them. Sanctification is making holy. The elect are made holy by the Holy Spirit. Holiness is never forced upon a man. Holiness is a choice. Does the believer choose to cooperate with God, to experience the sanctification of the Spirit? God’s grace—not only unmerited favor but also power to obey—is available to every believer who will receive it.
Just here we have crossed over, as we always do in Scripture, from theories made by men to gospel reality. Men may interpret foreknowledge by their own ideas of predestination, but God links the fate of man to sanctification of the Spirit.
The converted heart is a rare find. It has been has offered that only one in twenty in the church truly is converted. And we would expect that there is a higher conversion ratio in the church than outside of her. All this makes a converted man or woman a peculiar person in the world.
And yet, the cities of planet earth are sprinkled by tens of thousands of mosques, synagogues, churches, and other worship places. There are persons who invest much of their lives in the obtaining of theological knowledge and lore. But the varied understandings are numerous. There is a theological system for persons of every kind of belief. Why so many? A part of the answer, surely, is that most people desire a method of forgetting God which passes as a method of remembering Him. They want the benefits of religion without its moral demands. And so at one end of the street stands a church where biblical standards are upheld, a gospel of transformation is preached, and at the other end of the street, a different approach prevails, and men and women are told that they belong to Jesus although Bible claims are not pressed. One church goes by the Bible; another is the setting for spiritual snake oil.
The gospel, as the central feature of salvation and thus Christianity, as the place whence all doctrine is wired, becomes center of contention. Systems of understanding are erected, then vended. In all sincerity they are offered. But the human psyche is too weak. The whole of the race has made commitments to sin. Few are committed heart and soul to moral renovation. As the Roman Catholic Church came to sale “indulgences” to its members, so many Christian groups offer their own sophisticated set-ups which profess to help people to know God and enter in to harmony with Him. False assumptions lead to non-gospel outcomes. All the world groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, the conclusive demonstration of the power of the gospel which Heaven has promised. The demonstration that will put sin out of business and enable God’s creation to advance in the pursuit of His purposes is now possible. God calls out, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? (Isaiah 6:8). Who, that is, will be My witnesses? Who will demonstrate what happens when God makes men holy?
We are elect unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. It is God’s intention, through sanctification, to enable our present obedience. But what is this sprinkling of the blood? The Bible contains numerous references. All of them have to do with the issues of sin and atonement, with covenant, priesthood, and sanctuary. When an offering was made, the blood would be sprinkled “round about upon the altar” (Leviticus 1:5, 11; 3:2, 8, 13; 7:2; 8:15, etc.). The blood was also sprinkled before the vail (Leviticus 4:6, 17). On Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) the blood was actually taken within the vail and sprinkled upon the kapporeth, the “atonement piece,” the lid of the ark, often called the “mercy seat.”
These Tanakh, or Old Testament, images of sprinkling, then, form the background for Peter’s reference to “the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.” Whereas the sprinkling described in Tanakh involved types, the sprinkling of the blood of Christ is the great antitype. It represents His sinless character, offered in place of the sinner’s defiled character. Sin must be addressed, and so God specified the plan of redemption, including the process of atonement, or the means of addressing the sin problem.
Men are not to sin, but if they sin, a means is provided for those who sincerely want to return to God to return to Him. A sacrifice is involved and the sacrifice must be applied. Part of that involves addressing the issue of the guilt of that particular sin, and part of it involves the issue of origination. What use to cleanse the record of sin if the source of the sin is not addressed? What use a priesthood or sanctuary if no provision is made to change the heart? God’s plan will change the person who let’s Him change him, and will never force a person to change who chooses not to change.
Peter says that God the Father is blessed, that His mercy can give new life. We have a living hope because of Jesus Christ. Jesus not only died in our place for our sins, but He rose again. The resurrection is at the center. Resurrection means death was conquered. The tomb could not hold Him. It is empty.
Jesus was resurrected but resurrected from the dead. He came back from death. He defeated death. Ours is a living hope. How glibly we say “the portals of the tomb,” but how powerful the person who passed through those portals and passed back into life again. I remind you, the Christian claims on this point are nowhere echoed. In no other system of faith did God Himself come down and enter flesh and give away that life, annihilate death, and walk out to angel anthems of victory. Not Buddha, not Mohammed, not Moroni; only Jesus.
Our inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled, and cannot fade away. God is ready to give us good things. If we are faithful we will not be disappointed. God has a pure and precious future for us. It only awaits reception. Who then will be faithful?
That is the question. And the main part of this message now addresses it.
Peter now offers this vibrant thought: “You who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
You
The gospel is not impersonal. The power of God is not impersonal. Jesus’ death on the cross is not impersonal. The gospel, God’s power, Jesus’ crucifixion, are all very personal. The gospel is not directed to some gray, generic person out there who nobody knows or can ever touch. It is a gospel prepared with the purpose in God’s infinite mind of healing you personally.
You are not incidental to God’s plans. You are not saved as an afterthought or a bonus. Jesus came all the way from heaven to earth to transform you, and would have suffered the nails to be driven into Him if you were the one and only person benefited by it. Around the holidays people are accustomed to saying that Jesus is “the reason for the season.” But it is more biblical to say that you are the reason for the season. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus was not lost. He came voluntarily, and not for the self-righteous, but to save sinners. You are the object of God’s interest. The gospel is not impersonal.
Are Kept
Do we believe that God will keep us? We read the Bible texts, such as the assurance at the end of Jude: “Unto Him that is able to keep you from falling (Jude 24), and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” We learn a great deal of independence in the world. Where do we go to learn how to cooperate with God’s keeping power?
We trust, we know that God has the power to keep us. But we are like the leper who approached Jesus in Matthew 8:1: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” The question was not about the power at Jesus’ command; it was about the willingness of Jesus to make him clean. You and I too often are like that leper. We know Jesus commands the power to make us clean. We just wonder whether He think us personally worthwhile of making clean.
Why do we wonder? After all, the biblical answer is clear. But then you say, where are the results? Why do I not feel clean? Why do I not have control of myself? Why do sinful thoughts occur to me so consistently?
The answer comes when we recognize that we are subject to a radical misunderstanding of the Scriptures. As a general thing, the power of faith is misunderstood.
By the Power of God
“Power” here is dunamis, more strength than authority, but including authority. The power of God makes roses and planets, and that is not even a warm-up. He is more than able to do the part He has chosen for changing us. The miracles of Christ testify of God’s power, just as does every Friday evening sunset. He is Creator and Recreater.
And since earth, like the sabbath, was made for man, made to be inhabited, we know that the miracles of Christ are not accessories or appendages to the creation, but examples of God’s core intention for man: to make free, holy beings. Physical healing is symbol of spiritual healing. Jesus wanted us to know that He could change hearts. His ministry 2,000 years ago was a more to the point demonstration of His power and purpose than creation week.
Through Faith
“Faith,” the central feature of monotheism, is one of its most poorly understood elements. Especially is this so in Western Christianity. Rome’s legal emphasis set men towards a salvation-by-works plan. When Protestantism arose as a reaction to the Catholic imbalance, some of its most central thinkers counter-balanced too far, sharply diminishing the role of works, to the point that the books of James and Revelation were seen as suspect by Luther. Luther’s descendants pushed the matter yet further, until it was held that salvation was fully encompassed in a legal pronouncement. Calvin and Luther, who all had studied as lawyers, laid their emphasis on the plan of salvation, not as physicians, but jurists.
How is a person made whole? The words of our Lord help:
Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole (Matthew 9:22).
O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt (Matthew 15:28).
Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague (Mark 5:34).
Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole (Mark 10:52).
Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace (Luke 7:50).
Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace (Luke 8:48).
Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole (Luke 17:19).
Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee (Luke 18:14).
Over and over again, Jesus told people that their faith had made them whole. Of course, faith is not independent. Faith by definition is active trust in another party. Thus, true faith can never be solitary; there must be an object of faith, someone in whom one trusts. Also, the blighted, darkened human inheritance must be illumined by light from above. The Holy Spirit must shine in a man and create possibility there for man to by his own will act upon.
We also prefer Jesus’ terminology when it comes to the result. Over and over again He said that people’s faith had made them “whole.” It is hard to conceive of being “made whole” forensically. But if you have in sight the healing of the whole person, then the ideas match perfectly.
“Faith” occurs 247 times in the Bible, but only twice in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and only a very few times in the writings of John. How do we explain this? After all, the Tanakh was all that Jesus—or the New Testament writers, had. Much of the answer is found in the Jewish way of looking at things. To the Hebrew mind, faith is seen in direct action. When the paralytic’s friends take up the tiles and lower him into the room under Jesus’s nose; when the woman reaches out and touches the hem of His garment; when Levi Matthew rises from the tax-collector’s booth and leaves it all behind to follow Jesus. These are actions of faith. These are doing, acting, showing one’s trust in God. So, yes, faith is found throughout the Tanakh, and throughout the writings of John, but it is not always described as faith. Often the actions are presented yet without the word “faith” applied. “Faith” is built-in to the action, assumed in the description. It was not necessary to use the word every time someone exercised faith.
All this is clarified by Jesus telling the same thing. He acted in cooperation with what others did. For example, “and Jesus seeing their faith,” (Matthew 9:2); and “When Jesus saw their faith,” (Mark 2:5), tell of Jesus responding to the faith expressed by others in their actions.
Whether we use the word, faith is necessary for transformation.
But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Without faith, it is not possible to please God. We must believe not only that God exists but that He stands ready to help the diligent seeker. The Bible contains no promise for the casual seeker.
Why must we have faith? Because our souls are palsied and we need to be transformed. Faith works. It is not inert. It is active. It is an acid that burns through the cold and hard barriers we have built up by sin.
Paul understood this.
Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love (Galatians 5:4-6).
No one, says Paul, is made right by an independent obedience to the law. If it is done apart from God then it is done apart from transforming power. It is hollow. It is unwatered by grace. The Spirit must accomplish an inner work. It is not being Jewish or any other ethnicity that recreates us. It is that faith which works by love. Real faith works. Real faith cannot idle, cannot just sit inert in a jar. True faith is ever found in action.
Thus, considering the biblical datapoints as we have, we may revisit the Ellen G. White statement that so well reflects this biblical truth:
Head knowledge can condemn but it is unable to transform. We must believe in Jesus. We must embrace, appropriate, join, transact with Him.
We must have His merits. But this is not just a lawyerly thing. Saving faith puts us in a covenant relationship with God. It brings life to us. It helps us have more spiritual vigor, more confiding trust in God. By these things the soul—but not the soul—your soul—“becomes a conquering power.” A conquering power in what particular way? In the exercise of faith.
Unto Salvation
Salvation then, we see, can never mean our own independent action; there is no spiritual power in our own independent action. And it must be larger than our giving intellectual ascent to what Jesus did for us on the cross. The devils believe that way and they tremble. We must allow Him to enter the holy and yes, the most holy place of our inmost being. We must not leave Jesus standing in the outer courtyard. Bring Him to the center. Hide from Him nothing. Receive from Him everything. And the power and merit of God, and the reaching out of your faith that He makes possible, will make you whole.
Ready to Be Revealed in the Last Time
Now there is one more item we want to understand. Peter said all that he said so far, and then finished his line with “ready to be revealed in the last time.” There is a development of faith, a demonstration of the gospel, that only reaches its fullness in the last time.
Consider the parallel of rocketry. The Chinese used rockets anciently. By the 1800s the British were using Congreve rockets against the Americans. The Germans launched their V rockets against Britain in WWII. But the most serious demonstration of what rockets could do came only in the 1960s when the immense Saturn V rocket was developed and used by the United States to send astronauts to the moon. The most extraordinary demonstration of what a rocket could do came at the climax of their development. Even the new rockets that are being designed to replace the space shuttle, Ares V, although a half a century newer in design, are mostly warmed-over Saturn Vs.
Eventually rockets placed men on the moon. It was the ultimate demonstration. Btu what will the gospel do? Can men be kept by God? Can the gospel keep men from sin? When the plan of salvation is unleashed in the lives of believers, what will be seen? God is ready. He has brought His people to this time. He has something for the world, nay, for the universe, ready to be revealed in the last time.
The development of Present Truth did not end in 1844. When Ellen White died in 1915, God never intended His people to enter any kind of holding pattern. Rather, “For His church in every generation God has a special truth and a special work” (Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 78). His church in every generation includes His church in your and my generation. There is a special truth for us. There is a special work for us. What is it? It is to discover and experience how to be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. This is the Third Angel&rdsquo;s Message (Revelation 14:6-12).
The Reformation of the church, begun 500 years ago, was never finished. Indeed, even more than reformation is needed. Beside the return to the Bible principles advocated by the Reformation, there is a need to go back even further. We are not only reformationist but also restorationists. We are ready to throw away traditions and practices that are found to be unbiblical and to make the early church our model, to restore to the Bible and New Testament standard. We have not been radical enough in following God. We become contented without having drilled-through to truth. May God help us to go deeper. GCO
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