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CHAPTER  7

THE PLACE, EXAMPLE AND ENCOURAGEMENT
 

OF  PETER

WHY PETER DID NOT PETER OUT ...  Luke 22:32 

THE REAL PETER, NOT IMPERIOUS,

FAR LESS IMPERIAL,

BUT PITIFUL 

 

WHAT PETER HAD TO RETURN FROM    

In Chapter 6, we were considering a prophet and a king, in the presence of the Lord.Last week we were considering a prophet and a king, in the presence of the Lord.

The King fell badly. He was given time. He fell as if gravity had increased greatly. He proliferated in falling; it became almost a game.

King Ahab was not turned around. He continued in his woeful way, even after finding considerable mercy from the Lord, when he humbled himself. It was like a pang; but he continued after this,  still resorting to the way of violence and grasping imperiously for gain (I Kings 21:27-22:3). Confronted by Elijah on his false naturalistic gods, through God's miraculous and just intervention, he had lost earlier.  Suffering first 3 years drought, he was shown to be rankly idolatrous in Mt Carmel's categorical defeat. Then he murdered for gain, had pangs of repentance, and relapsed. At last, he lost again, with his life.

Peter, in the new Testament, more like Elisha than Ahab, nevertheless had one bad fall, and he got it over early! It came as the time for Christ's long predicted death and death date came on stage (cf. Christ the Citadel Ch. 2). This coming denial by Peter too was foreseen by Christ, and exposed in advance before all,  just as He also knew that there was a devil amid His close disciples, who would betray Him (John 6:70, Matthew 26:21ff.).

With Peter, the prognosis was healthier, but the abasement to come was very real.

WHEN you are turned around, WHEN you revert, strengthen your brethren. 

That was the word of Christ to Peter, after the disciples had been arguing as to which one was the greatest, just after the Lord's Last Supper. This deplorable and dismal fall, in all fairness, it must be acknowledged, came after they were all warned that one of them would betray Christ. You can imagine the feelings of horror, of loyalty, of love, of assertion from the heart, and then in the presence of doubt concerning SOME one, a competitive element. Still it was there, and this was not the only time the point had arisen.

Christ put it to instant death by noting that the nations, without God, specialised in being greater, having authority and dominion over another. The way in HIS kingdom, He observed, was wholly different. Here it is to serve, not order about, far less with lordly pomposity: that is a crucial point  for  all disciples. If you want to be great, don't swagger but serve. Was not even Christ Himself among them as serving;  yet who is greater, the served or the server ? Thus the paradox is complete: it is He who serves them, yet in this lies the greater task, the greater office. Greatness in appearance to impress is fickle fiasco; greatness in life to help in the will and work of God, this is the reality.

Peter, He went on to say, having first told them that they would be on twelve thrones judging Israel (one being statedly a betrayer, to be replaced), this same Peter would deny Him three times, before the cock was a-crowing. In fact, the very devil had put out a claim for him, demanding his soul, and this was saved because Christ had prayed for Him, that his faith would not fail. When you return (to Christ), He added, strengthen your brethren.

The word used here for 'return' is not the same as that in Matthew 18, where they were equally told that unless they were converted, and became as little children they could not enter the kingdom of heaven. There it is a turning that is involved, a change by turning; but here it is RETURNING, restoration by turning again to the one to whom he had already turned.  Christ knowing all this, is yet faithful to Peter,  knows it and declares Peter's restoration before he even falls. This is a  prodigy of comfort in this.

THE FAITHFULNESS OF THE LORD
TO WHOM  PETER RETURNED 

"If we are faithless, He remains faithful", says Paul: "He cannot deny Himself."

In other words, faithful is what God IS, and this being so, and His eternity being changeless for He is always what He would be, the "I am," there is an embargo on His becoming unfaithful. It is not a thing in God, that you can have: it would deny what God is and being so, wants to be, and will never cease to be. That is the meaning.

But it also says in II Timothy 2, that if we deny Him,  He will deny us. Here you see the point: it is  not  about mere episodes. The Lord KNOWS who are  His (II Timothy 2:19), and remains faithful to them, so that even if in some squalid moment, one denies Him, yet for His  own He has prayed, and their RETURNING is assured. He knows His sheep. It does however remind that our  God is a consuming fire, and playing with Him is nothing but folly.

When the time came, Peter was shocked, bemused, stricken, staggered at the arrest of Christ, at his own irrelevance against their force. Was not his sword, though effective, being ordered to be put up.- by Christ!

He wandered to the temple, warmed himself by the fire of the evil authority, was queried by a maid, then another person, and in an hour, a third: Did he not relate to the stricken man, to the Lord ? To this query, Peter reacted as one in a dream, denying knowledge of Christ with the old nature, with fishermen's curses or oaths, swearing, in a fit of fiasco, striving as one in a cage, to break out, to become free. Then the Lord looked on him as He passed, Himself being tormented by the evils of men, and on His way to agony. Peter at once saw through the mists of psychological confusion and breach, and repented bitterly. 

 

HOW PETER REALISED WHERE STRENGTH LIES!
 

First, it was not through his own force and personality, that Peter did this. Christ had to PRAY for him,  to achieve this, and as to the devil, he was actively seeking for him, demanding him (that is the force of the Greek word), and nothing but God could frustrate him.  Christ foresaw this, said  so, and forestalled it. He, the devil, wanted Peter  to pop through the holes of the sieve, being tested and gained: but no!  

As  Paul states in II Timothy 1,  we are called not according to works, this not being the way we gain qualification before God, but rather are we called "according to His own purpose and grace", so that it is HE who keeps what is "committed to Him against that day," by faith, the day of judgment (II Timothy 1:12, 4:8). This is for all who have loved His appearing.

God's own purpose is that all may be reconciled to Himself (Colossians 1:19), and we know this because He in fact says so. Yet, as He also declares in II Timothy 1:9, it is allied to grace, just as it is available only through faith (Ephesians 2:1-12), the grace acting as if a filter, for there is no place in God's purpose, but by His grace. His love is as broad as man in divine willingness, even desire, and as narrow as grace's input, pure and untainted, in divine good pleasure as in Colossians 1, Ephesians 1:5.

This is, just as He has foreknown (Revelation 14:6, John 6:47, 5:24, 3:16),  a clear cut thing,  His own purpose and grace operative with delightful clarity, the results assured (Romans 8:30), in that logical order, from foreknowledge to predestination.  Moreover, it is only through the cross of atonement (Galatians 6:14, 1:6-9, 3:23-27, Titus 3:3-7),as divinely appointed, paid for and extended to man, that grace to save operates. Indeed, just as He knows who are in fact His own, these He keeps unrelentingly. He knew each one of these before the world was and HENCE before sin on earth was or man in sin was. He knew His own, where the prodigy of love which is His (for He IS love! and never forget this - I John 4:7ff.) found its place.

The beautiful part is this, that IF you have so received Him, then you are shown to be part of His own purpose and grace, and predestined on the grace basis (NOT OF WORKS as both Titus 3 and Romans 3 so emphatically tell us) so that for this datum, salvation itself, your works being irrelevant, IT cannot fail (Ephesians 1:11, John 5:24, Romans 8:29ff.).

Then you KNOW Him in whom you have believed and so gain assurance as in Romans 8:16, II Timothy 1:8ff. and 1:12 in particular, with Paul who declares,  "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him  against that day," that of judgment, the prelude in 1:8-9 here making its application as required. Moreover as in 8:16 of Romans, it is the Spirit of God who attests this, just as His word insists on it.

It is not humility which throws out such assurances, but the works of the flesh, which cannot help peering at itself, as in a mirror, not for improvement in sanctification, but fitness for salvation. Nevertheless, if you are prompted to study that you HAVE faith in Him who saves, by all means study it in the knowledge that as surely as God is and His word is, if ever you have by faith, in entirety trusting in His entrancing love and truth, received Him, Redeemer and risen, life bringing His crushed body triumphantly back from the dead: then neither sin, nor Satan, nor success nor failure can snatch you from His hand,  nor can you perish.

Where YOUR works are excluded, such failures are irrelevant, except as grounds for approach to His mercy that you being sanctified, if falling, be restored like Peter.

Coming to Him in this way by faith, not only do you receive redemption, but "eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12); for by ONE offering He has perfected for ever those who are being sanctified, once for all by the body of Christ (Hebrews 10:10-14), and it avails however much sin may desire to prevail. It CANNOT; all that is overcome from the outset. He has spoken; the universe can more readily fail than His work fall, as in Jeremiah 33.  

What then ? Neither can any person in heaven or in hell, on earth, citable, statable, snatch from Him, nor can any perish: and that too is by His grace: for nothing that is not entirely of grace can win any sinner for Him (Ephesians 2:1-8), nor find any place for such. Nor can the same lose any saved sinner: that is the nature of divine grace accorded, exclusive of human works: YOU cannot work that. He does.

When He so acts, grace avails, prevails and your puny self-righteousness proffered as if in the same realm as His cross-secured salvation, becomes actually ridiculous as well as irrelevant. Perfection is His alone, and nothing else makes heaven's ranks, opens its door or keeps its inhabitants, sent from sin's  sovereignty to His glory in rest.  This He GIVES (Matthew 11:27ff.).

Salvation is by grace through faith and the entirety is NOT of yourselves but of God as Ephesians 2:5-8 tells us so very clearly. It is Christ, who through this kindness opens the door, seals the sinner (Ephesians 1:13), grants an eternal inheritance (Ephesians 1:11), satisfies the conditions, forbids the entry of our own works in any shape, form or mode; and it is sanctification which scours the renewed life in Christ  (I Thessalonians 5:23, II Peter 1).

For the sinner once His (I John 3:9, John 5:24, Ephesians 1:11), the very earth can go and will (Matthew 24:35), but that one, being redeemed, stays. Only the spurious, the unbelieving can go. The rest are sanctified by that same grace which freely enabled their procurement; and it freely sustains their sanctification.

Just as Christ ASSURED Peter of the outcome before even his worst fall, so the Spirit of God attests to the spirits of His people, that these are indeed the children of God. In reply to this assurance of Christ's prevailing prayer for him (Luke 22:32), Peter the more assured Christ that he would not fail him. Christ knew better, but for all that, had it covered.

Meanwhile: This day,  said Christ, you will deny Me three times before cock crow! Thus even before Peter RETURNED to the Lord from his momentary lapse, he gave an indirect strengthening to the brethren in this, that we see that God foreknows even our worst moments, and having prayed for us (as in Hebrews 7:25, ever living to make intercession), Christ has the plan all worked out, to bring us back and make us yet fruitful, serviceable and sound, but IN HIM ONLY.  This, in its time, he shares with His sheep (Romans 8:16).

It reminds us moreover that it is not ultimately a matter of how spiritually strong we are, but of how gloriously faithful God is. Once you are reborn,  HIS seed stays in you (I John 3:9), and you do not make a practice of sin.  It was through continuing communion with Christ through grace, that Peter regained spiritual consciousness, and this itself, was as arranged by the Lord, and effective in love.

A momentary slip does not remove love, which is strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6), going so far as Christ did, in His love to save sinners. A momentary glance was enough to produce horror; but horror was the escape from the haunting cacophony of heart which is the austere prelude to hell. The glance like a surgeon's knife, cut the cancer, and the cut hurt; but the cure helped, and was on the highroad to heaven.

The child of God does not cease to be a child of God, though death itself intervene; and the death of Christ is the signature of the distance He will go, as well as that to which He actually went, to preserve those whom He has redeemed. And what hinders that it should be all that are  redeemed ? it is the preference of man for  darkness in the very face of Light. This image of  God capacity is not violated, but interpreted and known past the boundaries of sin, and this knowledge is that of God only (John 3:19, Eph.1:4).

What or who shall  separate the Christian believer, by faith locked into the love of Christ, from this love ? (Romans 8:36). Certainly not death, certainly not things future. THAT was all ordained,  before there WAS so much as an earthly future, or earth time at all! WHOM He foreknew, He both called and justified; and this done, He did not stop, but completed the work so begun (Philippians 1:6), and glorified His people, this too being foreknown (Romans 8:17, 30ff.). To enter that cycle, is to complete it; but much goes into that completion as you walk with the Lord, and THIS, it is the adventure of a life-time.

Reliance, as Peter learned, should NEVER be upon oneself, but ONLY upon the Lord. That is realistic, functional, factual, like breathing as a way of gaining air. It is not in dreams but in breath that the continuation lies; and in the spirit, it is reliance on the Lord, the lungs of faith, that life lies.  Here nothing fails. God never fails (Zephaniah 3:6).

RELYING means DYING  to the eccentricities of the flesh, the foolish devices of the mind, the indulgent thoughts of the soul (Galatians 5:16-25, 2:20): it means living to the love of the Lord, finding in His mind and in His word the wonders of life and instead of indulgence, delight, for in Him is what our lives were made for, in His service the cause of their construction and HENCE, in walking in Him,  there is abundance of life. It was never meant to  be mean; and it is then, in Him, that one finds the meaning of life, and so is delivered from a whole host of psychic degradations, depressions, impressions, disparities, and superficialities, like a fly walking over the surface of a light, and wondering what it is all about. Praise God for the transformation, as for performing His task serviceably (Matthew 28:20), gloriously and effectively.

HOW PETER, ON RETURNING,

WENT ON TO STRENGTHEN THE BRETHREN
 

Actions and Intimations
 

The light of the Lord is to guide one, to inspire and fire; but for this, the eyes must first be opened, by faith.

Peter as we saw,  found this, loved the Lord, and losing a thrust of self-motivation, gained the thrust of truth in its enduement. How then did he, having fallen so  very fast and so far, yet as Christ told him, being prayed for, arise and return to  strengthen the brethren ?

Firstly, Peter strengthened by simply blundering and being found by merciful grace. It is a testimony in weakness to the power of God.

Secondly, he strengthened through his immediate repentance and vast contrition, as did David as seen in Psalm 51. A look from the Lord pierced at once the armour of testy bad testimony, in confused spirit. Change can be instantaneous.

Thirdly, his lack of clear-cut faith at the tomb, not rejection but uncertainty of conviction, contrasting with John's faith in this at that point, shows that it is not only the excessively speedy whom God loves, but the heart that is weak. He loves the strengthen, and the bruised reed He delights not to break.

Fourthly, Christ appeared personally to Peter on that first day (I Corinthians 15), and this showed that the Lord having told Peter to strengthen the brethren when he himself had returned from his unspiritual saga, knew precisely about the needs and would meet them, as He did for Joshua (Joshua 1, 5:13-15); for He does not appoint only to disappoint. The Spirit of God gives gifts sovereignly as He will (I Corinthians 12); and if HE moves from heaven to give a call, then He also gives what is needed. It is not sensationalistic, as is much Pentecostalism (cf. A Question of Gifts),  a sad mockery; nor is it a matter of self-seeking lust for blessing, as if to secure it by force, rushing here and there in excited will-thrill. It  IS a matter of waiting on God and seeking His service, finding what He appoints, and of course receiving that help, whether in the form of gift or other grace, needed.

Fifthly, when Peter suggested they go fishing, a reversion, in the waiting period before Pentecost, one Christ had commanded (Luke 24:46-49), then the Lord gave as before, His word about where to find the fish, despite their long lack of success: Peter realised who it was.  AT ONCE, he rushed out through the water to find the Lord at the shore, where He had prepared a fire for cooking the breakfast, having foreseen all. Having waited, he did not sleep; but as soon as opportunity came, he took it.

THIS too strengthened, for if the Lord did not fail to provide manna in the wilderness, no more did He fail to provide fish for the net and fire for the cooking and breakfast for a time of communion.

One notices that it is the Lord who DOES the things, and Peter who is used as He does so. This is not self-service, but the service of the Lord, where HE is honoured and glorified.

Sixthly, Peter was used to bring miracles of mercy, as seen in Acts 9, that very Chapter where we learn of Paul's conversion. In Lydda, Peter healed a man 8 years bed-ridden, paralysed; at Joppa he raised the dead in the same model of events as Christ instituted earlier, asking the mourners to be out of the room while he prayed for deceased Dorcas, whose good and kindly works were so conspicuous. To be sure, others had had miracles of healing also, but this was a distinctive touch (Acts 5:16).

Indeed, it was the more notable in this, that the healer needed help; for shortly afterwards, Peter was put in prison by popularity seeking Herod, who had killed James.

Seventhly, then, Peter though surrounded by 16 soldiers and chained to soldiers, was angelically loosed, taken through gates that opened, and delivered, so that he could report to the prayer meeting being held for him, and show himself to the others, escaping to serve. God in all this kept His word, for what He gave Peter to do, He enabled, and where power was needed, He supplied it.

Eighthly, Peter strengthened through the way he took the rebuke of Paul, who found that apostle eating with Jews when James came, as if to prevent trouble when the zeal of Jerusalem with its Jewish past came near (Galatians 2:11-14). Don't you realise, in effect Paul declared to him, that in so eating you are making Gentiles act and eat as if Jews, when you yourself ordinarily do eat with Gentiles! In other words, a path of seeming prudence could lead to a loss of liberty, and it was necessary to keep to principles that mattered, and not to yield because of fear of consequences from susceptibilities that James as a church leader, should not have. This was no weaker brother situation, but a call for conduct becoming to truth.

There is NO record of RETORT by Peter. He was good at taking it. This too strengthened the brethren, as did the fact that Peter was far from perfect, but ready for correction. He was anything but a pope, but simply one of the brethren given a call to strengthen, and setting about doing it in no conspicuous site or setting for the purpose. Thus when he recognised Paul's writings as scripture, he did not make a dance and summon him here or there, but simply referred to this fact IN PASSING. Thus,  in II Peter 3:16, there was reference to these along with other scriptures, hence recognising them . Incidentally, this is one more of the numerous 3:16 verses in the Bible, an interesting mnemonic for seeking a coverage of many doctrines.

Yet in so doing, Peter opened a door, just as in the case of going to see the Roman captain, called by God not to disdain the 'unclean', to which Gentile contact would be likened in the Jewish mind of the time, in a cardinal episode for the Church (Acts 10:9-33).

Ninthly, then, in this he strengthened the church, for instead of dissention, there was depth recognised; and instead of divisive disagreement, there was assured testimony from Peter, as he fulfilled his own calling, not in pontification, but in divine inspiration, with no suggestion of his own personal authority or power, any more than someone driving an engine, takes any credit for the tracks.

It was then, following the divine vision which led Peter to realise this was of the Lord, that he went to Caesarea. There, he found the Captain who had been good to the synagogue, and telling the Gospel saw an attestation that was useful in this case, as the Spirit of God was poured out on the meeting. Thus toward Paul and toward the Gentiles as those to receive the Gospel, Peter was used in ways that God engineered,  opening doors.

Here was the ninth way of strengthening. Indeed, a third door was this, giving the tenth. 

Peter had been used, not in terms of initiative (that was the work of Philip), but in confirmation, along with John, for the two came down to Samaria where Philip was in an astounding way, making headway with that people, though himself a Jew! They had believed Philip (Acts 8:12), apparently relying on his word, but had not yet apparently come into personal contact with Christ, and needed to lift their eyes from the concepts and considerations to the Lord, in an active personal trust. When Peter and John came, in this instance, they laid hands on them, after prayer, and the people received the Spirit, their eyes opened in faith to the Lord. Again, these things were examples of the LORD WORKING WITH THEM, for they were not what they could do in themselves. Meanwhile the door of faith to  Samaria was opened.

In all these things, Peter did not elevate himself (indeed in a crucial meeting in Jerusalem, concerning a tough doctrinal issue, it was James who was chairman, Peter simply reporting what the Lord had done re the Gentile conversions). He was sent, the Lord acted; and he was far from perfect, but he was consecrated, committed and used. Like Paul, he had an apostolic gift, such as became the 12 and Paul, as one born out of due time. The Church, says Paul in Ephesians 2, has been built on the prophets and the apostles, fashioned using the work of these men of yore, with Christ the cornerstone. It is indeed Christ who is the only foundation (I Corinthians 3:10-11).

Thus while we rejoice at the various ways in which God fulfilled His word concerning Peter, His call to strengthen the brethren, the eleventh way Peter did this was by being unassuming. To serve he had been called, and as to being an outstanding brave, he had learned the folly of such self-assertion, even if devotion, had been in part behind it. Thus in a way  of humility and functionality, service being the badge, not assertion, in I Peter 5, he talks of being a FELLOW ELDER, as he indicates the way to act before the Lord. He is not somewhere between man and God as one of the popes blasphemously asserted of himself. He stresses the point in his advice: to the fellow elders he said, as ordained to write scripture, these words:

"Shepherd the flock of God ... serving as overseers." They are NOT to be as lords, but examples.

In this way, if you want to be particular, you might recognise in this passage a twelfth way in which Peter strengthened the church, by FORBIDDING precisely that particular error Romanism invented with the pope: for it  most odiously USED  Peter to institute the OPPOSITE both of what he did and the way that he did it, and indeed of his own advice, as applicable to all as was the word of Christ (Matthew 23:8-10).

This then came in the area of prohibition. Having, in other words, driven conscientiously on the right side of the road, he is busied pointing out, by the word of the Lord, that it is wrong to drive on the left.

EXCLUSION NOTICES

Thus those who with Peter, were elders had certain exclusion notices (I Peter 5).
 

In doing their work, they were to do so: willingly and

	not by compulsion,
	not with any eye to gain,
	not as lords over those entrusted to them, but
	as examples to the flock.

ONE is your master, teacher, Christ, ONE is your Father, and YOU ALL ? YOU are (by contrast) all brethren (Matthew 23:8-10). There are no exceptions; there are no exemptions.

Knowing this, we see that the much distorted 'Peter' of Rome can help no one. It is a creation of flesh, a quasi-Peter. The Peter of history and the Bible strengthened the brethren by KNOWING HIS PLACE, having learned multiply what that was, and what it was not, a matter forgotten by Rome (cf. SMR pp. 98-99, and see pp. 911ff., 946ff., 1032-1088H), alas to its cost (Revelation 18).

The Lord does not cease to  teach, and where necessary, to impeach, and to bless the simple abiding in Himself, by faith, through grace that grows.  

INCLUSION NOTICES

Let us therefore serve without the disagreeable nonsense about who is greater, a fault for which Christ rebuked the disciples, not in extravaganzas of self-elevation - as in the popes - and not in these alone, but with humility and grace, being clothed not with soaring self-proclamatory agility, but with humility as the real Peter exhorts (I Peter 5:5).

God has acted in strengthening the brethren in many ways:
praise the God of glory for this,
and let us rejoice in what strengthens the body of Christ,
and submissive to Him,
find our path for His glory.

It is not self-possession, far less self-parade that is needed;
nor is it sang-froid,
but a warm-hearted life of obedience in grace,
resting in the Lord's free salvation,
and possessing the calm that comes from righteousness attributed
(Romans 5:1,17, II Cor.  5:17ff.)),
freely from Christ's own treasury to those who receive it thus.
This needs neither distorting advertisement nor pompous advocacy from man:
for that from God is the best possession of all,
the Father of mercies and the friend of sinners.

It is then that one may say in reality,
My beloved is mine, and I am His! (John 17:20-24, Song of Solomon 2:16).

"Neither pray I for these alone,
but for those also who will believe on Me through their word;
that they all may be one;
as You, Father, are in me, and I in You,
that they also may be one in Us:
that the world may believe that You have sent Me.
 

"And the glory which You gave Me,  I have given them;
that they may be one, even as We are one:
I in them, and You in me,
that they may be made perfect in one;
and that the world may know that You have sent Me,
and have loved them, as You have loved Me.  

"Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me,
be with me where I am; that they may behold My glory,
which You hast given me:
for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
 

 "O righteous Father, the world has not known You:
but I have known You,
and these have known that You have sent Me.

"And I have declared to them Your name,
and will declare it:
that the love with which You have loved me
may be in them, and I in them."