In 1 Peter 1:20, Peter tells us that Christ “was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has been manifested in the last of times for your sake.” Christ was foreordained, prepared, by God to be the redeeming Lamb (John 1:29) for His elect according to His foreknowledge before the foundation of the world. This was done according to God’s eternal purpose and plan; it did not happen accidentally. Hence, in the eternal view of God, from the foundation of the world, that is, since the fall of man as a part of the world, Christ was slain (Rev. 13:8). First Peter 1:2 speaks of the foreknowledge of God the Father, and verse 20 says that Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world as the redeeming Lamb. In the New Testament the root of such words as foreknowledge, foreknow, and foreknown is know. This root is preceded by the Greek prefix pro, which means “before, or beforehand.” In New Testament Greek, words such as foreknow, foreknowledge, and foreknown imply more than what we would understand from the English translations. The Greek root for these words includes the meaning of “appreciation, approval, and possession.” If we approve something, we will appreciate it. Then we will want to take possession of it and own it.
For Christ to be foreknown means that He was foreordained by God. To foreknow is to foreordain, to ordain beforehand. In his expanded translation of the New Testament, Kenneth S. Wuest uses the words foreordained and foreordination. According to this translation, verse 20 says that Christ “was foreordained before the foundation of the universe was laid,” and verse 2 says that the believers are “chosen-out ones, this choice having been determined by the foreordination of God the Father.” God’s foreknowledge, therefore, means not only that He knew us in eternity past; it also means that He ordained us. We all were ordained by God the Father in eternity past. We were ordained by Him before the foundation of the world. God’s foreknowledge includes foreapproval, foreappreciation, foreacknowledgement, and foreordination. Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world. This means that in eternity past God approved Christ and appreciated Him. Then God ordained Christ to be the anointed One, the One commissioned to fulfill in time all that had been planned by God.
We may say that in eternity past God held a ceremony of ordination. In that ordination ceremony, He first ordained His Son to be the Christ. Then He ordained all of us, the believers in Christ, to be Christians. In an eternal ordination ceremony before the foundation of the world, we all were ordained when Christ was ordained. When He was ordained to be the Christ, we were ordained to be Christ-men. He was ordained to be the Anointed of God, and we were ordained to be the little anointed ones. How marvelous that Christ and we were ordained at the same time in eternity past! Christ was foreknown by God the Father, and we also were foreknown by Him.
It is a marvelous spiritual fact that we and Christ were foreknown and foreordained by God the Father in eternity past. Verse 20 says that Christ was foreknown, foreordained, and verse 2 indicates that we the believers were chosen according to the foreknowledge, the foreordination, of God. Therefore, verse 20 matches verse 2. When Christ was ordained, we were foreknown and chosen. This is possible because there is no time element with God. We should praise God the Father for His selection, approval, and ordination. With God’s foreknowledge and foreordination as the basis, Christ came to the earth to be our Redeemer and to accomplish God’s purpose. Furthermore, the Spirit came to us, worked on us, and brought us to repentance and faith in Christ. Because we were foreordained by God, the Spirit came to us and did whatever was necessary to cause us to believe in Christ.
In verse 20 Peter also says that Christ “has been manifested in the last of times for your sake.” This implies that it was not necessary for Christ to be manifested for the sake of God. Rather, it was for our sake that He was manifested. The incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the constitution of the Spirit of Christ exist eternally in the sight of God, but for our sake it was necessary for Christ to be manifested through incarnation and to pass through human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension so that the Spirit of Christ could be constituted dispensationally (John 7:39). Christ was ordained before the foundation of the world, but “in the last of times” and for our sake He was manifested and passed through human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Actually, in the eternal sight of God, all this had happened already. Christ had already been ordained to be Christ, and we had already been ordained to be Christians in eternity past. However, it was still necessary for this foreordination to be carried out in time. Therefore, we were born, lived our human life, and committed many sins and offenses. One day we heard the preaching of the gospel, repented, believed, called on the Lord, and thanked Him for all He had done for us. God did everything in eternity past. The only thing needed was for Christ to be manifested in the last of times for our sake.
First Peter 1:21 says that God raised Christ from the dead and gave Him glory. This was to glorify Christ with glory (v. 11). It was the Father’s answer to His prayer in John 17:1. This glory actually includes many kinds of glories: the glory of resurrection, the glory of ascension, the glory of the Lord’s coming back, and the glory of His reign over the nations in the coming kingdom. Satan put Jesus to death, but God raised Him up and gave Him glory.
First Peter 1 reveals various aspects of Christ as the element of Christian experience: His sprinkling blood, which ushers us into the full enjoyment of the Triune God; His all-inclusive resurrection, through which we were regenerated unto a living hope; His unveiling for the salvation of our soul; His precious blood, which has redeemed us from our vain manner of life; and His being foreknown before the foundation of the world, manifested in the New Testament age, raised from the dead, and given glory by God. Day by day we should enjoy all these items of Christ as the element of Christian experience as revealed in 1 Peter 1.