Message Three

The Operation of the Triune God

Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 1:2-4, 15, 23; 2:19; 4:6;
2 Pet. 1:2, 8; 3:18

1. Chapter 1 of 1 Peter, especially verses 2 and 3, reveals the energetic operation of the Triune God to bring God’s chosen ones into the participation in the Triune God and into the full enjoyment of Himself:
   1. The Triune God passed through a process to do many things for us and become everything to us so that we may partake of Him for our enjoyment—vv. 18-20, 3.
   2. The believers were chosen by God the Father before the foundation of the world, in eternity past; this was done according to the Father’s foreknowledge and is carried out in time in the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ—v. 2; Eph. 1:4:
      1. To foreknow is to foreordain, to ordain beforehand—Rom. 8:29.
      2. First Peter 1:20 says that Christ was foreknown, foreordained, and verse 2 says that the believers were chosen according to the foreknowledge, the foreordination, of God; thus, verse 20 matches verse 2:
         1. For Christ to be foreknown before the foundation of the world means that He was foreordained by God—v. 20.
         2. The foreknowledge of God in verse 2 implies that in eternity past God approved us, appreciated us, and possessed us.
         3. At the same time that God foreknew and foreordained Christ, He also foreknew and foreordained all the believers—vv. 20, 2.
   3. God the Spirit’s sanctification carries out God the Father’s selection—v. 2:
      1. In eternity God chose us, making a decision to gain us; in time the Spirit comes to sanctify us, to set us apart, from the world so that we would obey Christ’s redemption—Eph. 1:4-5.
      2. The sanctification of God the Spirit separates us from the world and causes us to come to ourselves, repent, and turn to God so that we may belong to Him and enjoy His full salvation—Luke 15:17; John 16:8-11; Acts 20:21; 26:18, 20; Rom. 5:10.
      3. In 1 Peter 1:2 the sanctification of the Spirit comes before obedience to Christ and faith in His redemption, indicating that the believers’ obedience unto faith in Christ results from the Spirit’s sanctifying work—Rom. 1:5.
   4. The issue of the Spirit’s sanctification is our participation in the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, which is the application of redemption—1 Pet. 1:2:
      1. The sanctification of the Spirit brought us to the blood shed by the Savior on the cross and separated us unto this divine provision—vv. 18-19.
      2. The sprinkling of Christ’s redeeming blood brings the sprinkled believers into the blessing of the new covenant, that is, into the full enjoyment of the Triune God—Heb. 9:13-14.
      3. The first thing in God’s salvation is to sprinkle us with the blood of the second of the Trinity; thus, we are washed, forgiven, justified, and reconciled to God—1 Cor. 6:11; Rom. 5:10.
      4. In 1 Peter 1:2 obedience implies repentance and faith; the sanctification of the Spirit is unto the obedience of repentance and believing; thus, our repentance and believing into Christ result from the Spirit’s sanctifying work—Acts 11:18; John 3:15; 1 Pet. 1:8.
   5. Because of God’s choosing, the Spirit’s sanctifying, and Christ’s redeeming, God the Father has regenerated us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—v. 3:
      1. When God regenerated us, He put Christ into us as our life so that we may have the divine life in addition to our human life and have a relationship of life with God—John 1:12-13; 3:3, 6, 15; 11:25; Rom. 8:16.
      2. We were regenerated through the living and abiding word of God as the incorruptible seed containing God’s life—1 Pet. 1:23.
   6. The threefold description of our inheritance points to the Trinity—v. 4:
      1. Incorruptible refers to the nature of the inheritance; this is God’s nature, signified by gold—v. 7.
      2. Undefiled describes the condition of the inheritance; this condition is related to the sanctifying Spirit.
      3. Unfading refers to the expression of the inheritance; this everlasting expression is related to the Son as the expression of the Father’s glory.
   7. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of God constituted through and with the death and resurrection of Christ for the application and impartation of Christ’s death and resurrection to the believers—v. 11; John 7:39; Phil. 1:19:
      1. Although the constituting of the Spirit of Christ is dispensational, constituted dispensationally through and with Christ’s death and resurrection in the New Testament time, His function is eternal, because He is the eternal Spirit—Heb. 9:14.
      2. According to function, there is no difference between the Spirit’s work in the prophets and His work in the apostles—1 Pet. 1:10, 12.
   8. The Holy One who called us is the Triune God—the choosing Father, the redeeming Son, and the sanctifying Spirit; the Father regenerated us, the Son redeemed us, and the Spirit sanctifies us so that we may be holy in all our manner of life—vv. 2-3, 15-16, 18-19.
2. To bless God is to speak well concerning the Triune God and all that He is to us, has done for us, and will do for us—v. 3:
   1. To bless God is not merely to praise Him for what He has done for us or given to us objectively but to speak well of what He is to us subjectively.
   2. Although the revelation in 1:3-12 is divine, it is something experienced by a human being through the Trinity of the Godhead; Peter’s well speaking of the Triune God came from his experience.
3. We need to have the consciousness of God and the full knowledge of God—2:19; 2 Pet. 1:2, 8; 3:18:
   1. The consciousness of God is the consciousness of one’s relation to God, indicating that one is living in an intimate fellowship with God, having and keeping a good and pure conscience toward God—1 Pet. 2:19; 3:16; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3:
      1. Our regenerated spirit has a keen sense toward God, a God-consciousness to deal with God and to sense the things of God—Rom. 1:9; 9:1.
      2. To have the consciousness of God is to live in the spirit according to God—1 Pet. 4:6; Rom. 8:2; 1 John 2:27.
   2. The full knowledge of God is an experiential knowledge of God—2 Pet. 1:2, 8:
      1. The full knowledge of the Triune God is for our participation in and enjoyment of His divine life and divine nature—vv. 3-4.
      2. In 3:18 the knowledge of the Lord is equal to the truth, the reality of all that He is; hence, to grow in the knowledge of the Lord is to grow by the realization of what Christ is, the realization of the truth—John 8:32; 17:17.