At the close of his 1st Epistle, the Apostle Peter, in writing to Jewish believers of the dispersion, used the words, “this is the true grace of God in which ye stand” (1 Peter 5:12). The true grace of God was in marked contrast to the law under which the Jewish nation had been since Sinai, even though there was, in God’s grace provision made for sins of ignorance. Indeed, the intercession of Moses time and again, but especially when Israel made the golden calf, showed that Israel were not under pure law, else they would have been blotted out at that time. The coming into the world of the Son of God however was a new departure in the ways of God with His people, even as it is recorded in John 1:17, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Knowing this, John could write for himself, and for his fellow disciples, “And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (verse 16). In 1st Peter the Apostle is writing to his fellow believers of this wonderful grace, grace in which all true Christians stand before God.
2 Peter 1:12
Although the Jewish believers had been instructed in “the present truth,” Peter thought it well to put the truth they had learned in writing, knowing that he was soon to lay down his life as the Lord had foretold him (John 21:18-19), and having the truth in writing it was always there to refer to. The Apostle Paul wrote somewhat on the same line when he said, “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe” (Phil. 3:1). The safety of the saints of God is in always referring to the written word, that which contains the full and perfect revelation of God, and which is God’s standard of truth by which every human utterance must be judged. For Israel, everything had to be judged by God’s word, and they had to be directed in all their ways by it, even as it is written, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is not light in them” (Isa. 8:20). Now we have not only the law and the testimony given to Israel, but also the present truth of Christianity.
In 2 Peter 1 we have some of the things that are spoken of as “the present truth,” verse 8 bringing before us “the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Peter had a very wonderful knowledge of his Lord and Master, having received from the Father a special revelation of who Jesus was, for when challenged by the Lord as to who He was he was able to say, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). Having companied with Jesus he knew Him as few others did, being chosen too by the Lord as the Apostle to the circumcision, being the first among the twelve.
The present truth centred in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Peter had his special knowledge, and special commission in making this known. Not only was he versed in all that Jesus had done and spoken when on earth, but the risen Christ had sent him to feed His lambs, and to feed and shepherd His sheep, and he had done this, and his two epistles are in the fulfilment of this commission. Peter’s preaching at the beginning of the Acts also shows his knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as, with his fellow disciples, he preached the Gospel concerning the death, resurrection and glory of the Lord Jesus, the One in whose Name alone there is salvation.
Another aspect of the present truth is found in verse 10 of our chapter, where Peter exhorts the saints to “give diligence to make” their “calling and election sure.” This was not God’s calling and election of the nation of Israel for earthly blessing, but the calling and choice of individuals for heavenly blessing, and there was to be the evidence of their having been called of God in their lives, and this would be by occupation with the present truth that had been ministered to them in the goodness of God. There was to be fruit in their lives through the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then there is the truth of the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in verse 11. The present truth not only brings to us the knowledge of the millennial kingdom of our Lord Jesus, but reveals that after that day is over there is His everlasting kingdom, and Revelation 22:5 adds that the saints then “shall reign for ever and ever” with Him.
Having been with Jesus on the holy mount, Peter knew something of “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 16), for with James and John he had a pre-view of the coming day when Jesus will be displayed in His glory as Son of Man, and when His own, as represented by Moses and Elias, will reign with Him, Moses portraying the saints who have died and been raised from the dead, Elias representing those who do not die, but are changed at the coming of the Lord for His saints at the rapture. The three disciples represented the godly remnant of Israel who, on earth, will be blessed under the reign of Christ. There was also the Father’s voice telling of the pleasure He found in His Son, and the cloud of the Father’s glory, from which the Father’s voice came, for when Jesus comes in His own glory as Son of Man, He will also come in the Father’s glory (Luke 9:26).
These are some of the features of “the present truth” of the Christian revelation, as given by Peter, but there are also many other features unfolded in these two epistles, and in Peter’s ministry as recorded in the book of the Acts.
1 John 3:1–3
The Apostle John, like Peter, had his own presentation, by the Holy Spirit, of the present truth of Christianity. John’s Gospel, and his epistles, have a very special unfolding of the truth concerning the revelation of the Father in the Person of the Son, and the making known of the eternal life that was with the Father. The above Scripture gives one or two of the features of John’s ministry concerning the great truths of Christianity. With the full revelation of God in His nature, and the manifestation of the Father’s Name, there is brought out the love of the Father in the relationship into which He has brought His children.
Saints of old were born of God, and were therefore children of God, but this relationship could not be known until the Son came and revealed the Father. With the knowledge of this relationship of being children to the Father, there is also through this the knowledge of the Father’s love. How very wonderful is this to know that the Father loves us. There is the sovereign love of God towards us, made known in the sending of the Son, and in His death for our sins (1 John 4:9-10), but there is the Father’s love for us because we are His children, and He finds delight in us. How very different this is from God’s relationship with Israel, though Jehovah loved them as earthly people.
As children of God we are in this world to represent God by manifesting His nature in all our ways. God was fully and perfectly made known in His well-beloved Son, and the same divine nature that was seen perfectly in Jesus is in the children of God in this world. The world did not know Jesus as the Son of God, having refused Him and the testimony He bore to the Father, nor do the world know the saints as the children of God, not having the ability to discern the nature of God that is manifested in them.
Although children of God now, it has not yet been manifested what we shall be when the Son of God appears in His glory, but this we do know that when He does appear we shall be like Him. We are to share the glory of the Son of God in the day of His manifestation, and we are to see Him as He now is in the Father’s House. The children of God in their glorified condition will be like God’s Son, having bodies of glory like His body of glory, and we shall be like Him then, there being nothing of the flesh in us to mar the likeness to Him that lies in the divine nature that the Father has given to us as His children. This is the Christian’s hope in Christ, and being occupied with Christ in His present place, and in relation to His coming glory, will make us morally like Him now in our place of testimony for Him.
Colossians 1:23–29
We have seen some of the features of the present truth of Christianity from the writings of the Apostles Peter and John, there are many special features of it in the writings of the Apostle Paul. Paul was the minister of the Gospel to the Gentiles, and this Gospel he received from the ascended Son of God, a Gospel with many revelations that are only to be found in his ministry. The Epistle to the Romans, and the two Epistles to the Corinthians, give us some of the peculiar revelations given to Paul, such as the purpose of God, the changing of the living saints at the coming of Christ, the new creation and new covenant ministry. It was a Gospel that made known the glory of God in the man of His counsels, the last Adam, and brought out the heavenly glory of God in the Man of his counsels, the last Adam, and brought out the heavenly glory of Christ that shines in His unveiled face. In 1 Thessalonians 4 there is also the truth of the rapture of the church to heaven at the coming of the Lord. This is the Gospel that Paul preached “to every creature which is under heaven” (Col. 1:23).
In Colossians 1 the Spirit of God through Paul gives us a wonderful cluster of the glories of the Son of the Father’s love, showing Him to be “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature,” and this because He is creator of all, being “before all things, and by Him all things consist.” Moreover, “He is the Head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead,” and pre-eminent in all things (verses 15–18). These glories belong to Jesus, the Son of God, where He now sits in the presence of the Father, and form part of “the present truth” of Christianity.
After bringing before us the greatness of the Head of the body, the assembly, Paul writes of his ministry “for His body’s sake, which is the church,” revealing that this great truth completed “the word of God.” The great divine secret of Christ and the church had been hidden in God, and “hid from ages and from generations,” and was disclosed by the Spirit of God through Paul as a special ministry to the saints (verse 26). This great revelation from God is called “the mystery,” the great secret of God’s heart, and into this wondrous secret God desires His saints to enter.
God had called Abraham His friend, and had told him the secret of the impending destruction of the cities of the plain. Moses had learned much of God’s ways, and David had been shown the coming glories of Christ’s kingdom, and many other secrets had been made known in the writings of the prophets concerning the world to come, and God’s purposes for the blessing of Israel and the nations in the millennium. The truth of the mystery had neither been revealed to any in Old Testament times, nor had it been hidden in the Old Testament Scriptures. It was hid in God, and after Christ had accomplished the great work of redemption, and taken His place in heaven, the Spirit of God made it known.
It did not concern God’s earthly people Israel, it was something entirely new, and belonging to a new creation, and to heaven. In the millennium the Messiah will be found among His people Israel, but now He is among the Gentiles who have believed in Him and received His Holy Spirit. Christ dwells in His saints, being their life, and they are united to Him where He is as having His life. Soon the saints will be with Christ in glory, but while they await His coming they have the hope of glory, the blessed hope of coming out with Christ in the glory of His kingdom.
R. 24.11.69