The Government of God for the Economy of God.❤️

The Government of God for the Economy of God
Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 1:2-3, 5, 10-12, 20; 2:1-5, 9; 3:4; 4:14; 5:10;
2 Pet. 1:4; 3:13, 18
I. The subject of Peter’s Epistles is the government of God with His judgment:
A. God’s judgment began from the angels (2 Pet. 2:3-4) and passed through the
generations of man in the Old Testament (vv. 5-9).
B. In the New Testament age it begins from the house of God (1 Pet. 1:17; 2:23;
4:6, 17) and continues until the coming of the day of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:10),
which will be a day of judgment on the Jews, the believers, and the Gentiles
before the millennium (v. 12).
C. After the millennium all the dead, including men and demons, will be judged
and will perish (1 Pet. 4:5; 2 Pet. 3:7), and the heavens and the earth will be
consumed by fire (vv. 10b, 12).
D. The results of the various judgments are not the same; some judgments result
in a disciplinary dealing, some in a dispensational punishment, and some in
eternal perdition-2:1, footnote 5, point 2.
E. However, by all these judgments the Lord God will clear up and purify the
entire universe that He may have a new heaven and a new earth for a new
universe filled with His righteousness (3:13) for His delight.
F. God’s governmental judgment can also be seen in the book of Daniel:
1. Because Nebuchadnezzar’s “heart was lifted up and his spirit became so
arrogant that he conducted himself in pride, he was deposed from his royal
throne, and his glory was taken away from him” (5:20); God said that his
kingdom would be assured to him after he had “come to know that the
heavens do rule” (4:26; 5:21).
2. Although his descendant Belshazzar knew all this, his debauchery before
God was an insult to God’s holiness, and Daniel told him that “the God in
whose hand is your breath and to whom all your ways belong, you have not
honored” (vv. 22-23); thus, his kingdom was “divided and given to the Medes
and Persians” (v. 28).
G. Thus, Peter tells us that we should “pass the time of your sojourning in fear”
(1 Pet. 1:17); he also says that we need to “be humbled under the mighty hand
of God that He may exalt you in due time” (5:6); to be willing to be made low by
God’s humbling hand in His discipline is a prerequisite to our being made high
by God’s exalting hand and to our enjoying the Triune God Himself as our life
supply, which is multiplied in the humble believer (v. 5; 1:2; 4:10).
H. To fear the Lord is to revere Him and to consider and regard Him in everything
(Psa. 86:11; Isa. 11:2; Prov. 1:7; 3:5-10), never forgetting that He is the wonderful
God who has created us (Isa. 43:7); fearing the Lord stops us from doing evil; it
also causes us to be touched by the sufferings of others and to show mercy and
compassion to them.
II. Although the subject of 1 and 2 Peter is God’s government, this is not the
central focus and basic structure of these Epistles; everything concerning
God’s government should bring us back to the central focus and basic
structure of these Epistles-the Triune God as our full enjoyment to carry
out the economy of God:
A. The central focus and basic structure of 1 and 2 Peter are the energizing Triune
God operating in His economy to bring His chosen ones into the full enjoyment
of the Triune God; our human spirit, as the hidden man of the heart, and God’s
Spirit, as the Spirit of glory and as the Spirit of Christ, are the means for us to
partake of God, in His divine nature, as our portion-1 Pet. 1:2-3, 5, 11; 2:1-3,
5, 9; 3:4; 4:14; 5:10; 2 Pet. 1:4.
B. The central focus and basic structure of 1 and 2 Peter are the Triune God operating to accomplish His complete salvation so that we may be regenerated, so
that we may feed on His word, and so that we may grow, be transformed, and
be built up in order that He may have a dwelling place and we may be glorified
to express Him-1 Pet. 1:23; 2:1-5, 9.
C. Peter was bold in admitting that the early apostles, such as John, Paul, and
himself (although their style, terminology, utterance, certain aspects of their
views, and the way they presented their teachings differed), participated in the
same, unique ministry, the ministry of the New Testament-2 Pet. 1:12-21; 3:2,
15-16; 2 Cor. 3:6, 8-9; 4:1.
D. Such a ministry ministers to people, as its focus, the all-inclusive Christ as the
embodiment of the Triune God, who, after passing through the processes of
incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, dispenses
Himself through the redemption of Christ and by the operation of the Holy
Spirit into His redeemed people as their unique portion of life and as their life
supply and everything, for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ,
which will consummate i...