May 22

Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. - 1 Peter 1:3.

HERE are three things we may notice concerning the production of the believer’s hope. First, The author of it. “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The title of God, under the Old Testament dispensation, was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The title of God under the Gospel is, so to speak, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything is paternal in the new economy. “The Father loveth the Son, and hath put all things into his hands.” This is the grand rule in the dispensation of divine grace. It always regards him first, and then us in him, as he said to his disciples, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” We here see not only the communion which Christ and Christians have in this relation, but we see the order of the communion too. First, His God and Father; then our God and Father. It is this which is to explain the manner in which we are always to pray. We are to come and ask in his name and for his sake, and it is this which is to explain the motive urged by the Apostle, “to forgive one another even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven us.”

Secondly, Observe the principle of the production. “According to his abundant mercy.” There was power in God; this would have crushed us. There was justice in God; this would have condemned us. There was goodness in God; but we have no claims upon his goodness. He could both righteously and easily have destroyed us. But there was mercy, “abundant mercy.” Owing to this, mankind from the beginning were placed under a dispensation of forbearance. This led God so early to speak in a way of promise to the perishing children of men; this led him to open a door of hope even in this vale of tears.

“’Tis from the mercy of our God

That all our hope begins.”

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.”

Thirdly, Observe the medium of the production: “The God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The case is this, that all the hope we derive from the mediation of Jesus Christ, or from any one of the offices he sustains, depends upon his resurrection, and would be nothing without it. It is in his discharge from the grave we may read our own discharge from the curse of the law. In his resurrection we behold him as the model, the principle, and the efficiency of our resurrection. When he died, we died in him; and when he rose, we rose with him.