Peter Exhorts the Persecuted Believers Volume 7

Being Born Again to a Living Hope Part 5

1 Peter 1:8-9 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. KJV Note: NKJV=New King James Version

It is all about the One who has saved us, seperated us, and now shelters us our Lord, Master, and Savior Jesus Christ, "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love," (Colossians 1:13) (NKJV). When we are persecuted for Him and His sake we can be assurred that He is in complete control and not the enemy who delights in causing us physical and emotional pain. The Apostle Peter just finished writing that the trying of our faith might be found to the praise, honor, and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, it is natural for him to now 📝 write to us that our love for Christ Jesus our Lord keeps us in joy unspeakable and full of glory, as it is written, "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:8-9) (KJV). Remember, "We love Him because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19) (NKJV). Despite any of our outward circumstances or being surrounded by evil on every side as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church ⛪ with these words concerning himself and those brothers and sisters 'in Christ' who were with him, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh." (2 Corinthians 4:7-11) (NKJV). Yet, all of this never diminished Paul's love 😍 for our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13). Paul (who suffered great persecution for Christ sake) even wrote these words at the close of his first letter to the Corithian Church ⛪, "If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come!" (1 Corinthians 16:22) (NKJV). The Apostle Peter uses the English word 'unspeakable' to define the joy of the Lord Jesus that we believers receive fron Him and that English word is translated by the Greek word aneklaletos (used this one time only in the New Testament) meaning not spoken out, i.e. (by implication) unutterable:--unspeakable. In other words, the joy of the Lord can so swell up in us that we are speechless and often express that unutterable and unspeakable joy with 😭 tears because our love for Christ at that moment is so strong we cannot speak but only weep.

Here is what Alexander MacLaren had to say of 1 Peter 1:8, "The Apostle has just previously been speaking about the great and glorious things which are to come to Christians on the appearing of Jesus Christ, and that naturally suggests to him the thought of the condition of believing souls during the period of the Lord’s absence and comparative concealment. Having lifted his readers’ hopes to that great Future, when they would attain to ‘praise and honour and glory’ at Christ’s appearing, he drops to the present and to earth, and recalls the disadvantages and deprivations of the present Christian experience as well as its privileges and blessings. ‘Whom having not seen, ye love,' that is a very natural thought in the mind of one whose love to Jesus rested on the ever-remembered blessed experience of years of happy companionship, when addressing those who had no such memories. It points to an entirely unique fact. There is nothing else in the world parallel to that strange, deep personal attachment which fills millions of hearts to this Man who died nineteen centuries ago, and which is utterly unlike the feelings that any men have to any other of the great names of the past. To love one unseen is a paradox, which is realised only in the relation of the Christian soul to Jesus Christ. Then the Apostle goes on with what might at first seem a mere repetition of the preceding thought, but really brings to view another strange anomaly. ‘In Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ Love longs for the presence of the beloved, and is restless and defrauded of its gladness so long as absence continues. But this strange love, which is kindled by an unseen Man, does not need His visible presence in order to be a fountain of joy unspeakable and full of glory." Here is what Matthew Henry had to say of 1 Peter 1:9, "The salvation of their souls (the more noble part being put for the whole man), which salvation is here called the end of their faith, the end wherein faith terminates: faith helps to save the soul, then it has done its work, and ceases for ever. He speaks of the present time: You are now actually receiving the end of your faith, etc. The word used alludes to the games at which the conqueror received or bore away from the judge of the contest a crown or reward, which he carried about in triumph; so the salvation of the soul was the prize these Christians sought for, the crown they laboured for, the end they aimed at, which came nearer and more within their reach every day. Learn, First, Every faithful Christian is daily receiving the salvation of his soul; salvation is one permanent thing, begun in this life, not interrupted by death, and continued to all eternity. These believers had the beginnings of heaven in the possession of holiness and a heavenly mind, in their duties and communion with God, in the earnest of the inheritance, and the witness of the Divine Spirit. This was properly urged to these distressed people; they were on the losing side in the world, but the Apostle puts them in the mind of what they were receiving; if they lost an inferior good, they were all the while receiving the salvation of their souls. Secondly, It is lawful for a Christian to make the salvation of his soul his end; the glory of God and our own felicity are so connected that if we regularly seek the one we must attain the other."

If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...


Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr.


Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…