Our Assurance
During my devotional time I was reading 1 Peter and came across a passage that I have read and studied thousands of times. This time it especially stood out to me because of an experience last week with a young man who was questioning his salvation and fearful that he might be lost. I was able through talking to him and praying with him to see his faith and hear what he was trusting in so that I could show him several passages that help with assurance. He left feeling much relieved, but I guess it tuned my ear to other passages of assurance. When I read a certain passage I had to stop and chew on it.
In 1 Peter 1:3-5 Peter praises God because of the salvation he has given to himself and his reader. He shares that God has given us new birth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is a done deal, not just future hope or pie in the sky, but an actual new birth. This new birth gives a living hope, not a fitful hope or a blind faith, but a living hope that walks beside us and guides us. When the world hears the word hope as we use it, they misunderstand and assume we are saying, “I hope this is true.” The hope we have is a response to the past hopelessness. As fallen man we had no hope, no future. All we could look forward to was judgment and condemnation, but through Jesus Christ we now have hope for the future—a future that is bright and blessed. This is not hoping against reality, but a change of reality itself, we were dead and now we are alive.
Peter goes on to say that not only did the resurrection of Christ give us new birth and hope, but it secured for us an unalterable inheritance. An inheritance is something that is received by right, the right of the testator, not the recipient. A father has a right to leave an inheritance to his son, if he chooses. But a son can not assume an inheritance just because he is the son. Who receives the father’s property is his right to choose. In the absence of a will it is usually concluded that the son was to inherit, but this is an assumption of how the father would have acted, not of the rights of the son. In the passage we’re looking at the father (God) took action to secure our inheritance. He gave Jesus Christ over to death and resurrection, documenting his bequest to us—life.
An inheritance is only as good as how it is stored or where it is secured until the transfer. Peter’s readers would be familiar with stories of sons far away from home at the death of their father. They would understand that between the death of the father and the receipt of the property by the son many things could happen, so securing an inheritance was very important. Our inheritance is kept in a location where it can not be damaged, stolen or lost; as Peter put it, our inheritance can never perish, spoil or fade.
We as believers in Jesus Christ are already born again, our reality has been changed from one of despairing expectation of damnation to one of hope and glory. God has secured for us an inheritance, based upon God’s right to give it, not our worth to receive it. This same inheritance is sure and well protected, unable to be diminished by any action—including our own. We will receive the inheritance promised to us—eternal life in Jesus Christ.
