1 Peter 1:21
21 Who [ho] by [dia] him [autos] do believe [pisteuo] in [eis] God [theos], that raised [egeiro] him [autos] up [egeiro] from [ek] the dead [nekros], and [kai] gave [didomi] him [autos] glory [doxa]; that [hoste] your [humon] faith [pistis] and [kai] hope [elpis] might be [einai] in [eis] God [theos]. KJV-Interlinear
21 who through Him are believers
in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and
hope are in God. NASB
Through Him, is a
reference to Christ.By Christ only, we
can have a belief in God.
The reference here is
to the Father, and this is a technical distinction between those who reject
Christ, but profess to believe in a deity or some higher form of power.
The higher form of
power can be a god, in its many forms that man has invented, or a philosophy,
or a belief in things such as a life force, etc. All religions adopt this avenue of approach
to God or a higher force.
But in eternity past,
the Father, Son, and Spirit, all agreed that since man would try to approach
God (Them) by means of mans own design, that They would have to come up with a
plan whereby the approach could only come in one way, namely through the work
of the Son.
Since man was going
to become a sinner, then man would not have the means of getting out of his
sinful chains, on his own.He would need
help in that effort.Only God can help
in that effort, and thus the work of Christ on the Cross.
But, man nonetheless
would try to invent his own path to God the Father, and so the rules were laid
out.Man by mans effort was a worthless
effort.If God accepted mans efforts,
then mans good intentions, laced by his sin nature, would require God to lower
Himself to mans standards.And mans
standard at best is arrogance.
This, of course God
cannot do.God is perfect.
So, belief in God
(the Father) must come through belief in the Son, because that is the path of
perfection.The Cross is the path of
solution to the problem of sin and death.
Death is a separation from something, and in this case, it is the
separation from God, which is in view.
Since God cannot have
anything to do with sin, God somehow had to come up with a plan whereby the Son
would have to be equal with both God and man, assume the penalty of sin and die
(separated for God), and then come back from that death in resurrection.
Jesus came to earth
as a man.On earth as Jesus, He
possessed all of the attributes of humanity.
He was perfect man, and was no different from any of us, except for the
lack of a sin nature.During His life,
He set aside His divine power, and was sustained by the Holy Spirit only. In that, He became the pattern for our
sustaining life during this dispensation.
Jesus went to the
Cross, paid the price and died.God the
Father, together with the Spirit, brought Him back from the dead, and in that
remarkable work, bestowed the ultimate glory on the Son, which brought the
whole plan of God to its victory completion with respect to mans salvation.
In this work, neither
Satan, nor angel, nor any other human being has been able to duplicate, or
replace, or do better than the work that God has done.
And the result is
that your faith and confidence, in God, becomes valuable and effective and
real.Unlike all other religions whose
faith is not real, your faith has a real destiny.
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