OUR LOVE FOR THE UNSEEN CHRIST
1 Pet. 1:8
Morning Meditation 4/18/17
Verse 8 says, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:”
There is such a desire to see Jesus that many have made icons of Him. Others have made other kinds of representations of Him. This is a violation of the second commandment: Exo. 20:4-5 says, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.”
It is impossible for God to be represented by any earthly creature or picture.. When man does this, the God he worships is always reduced to what man conceives God to be. When you look at the images of men worship, it is a terrifying sight. This is called idolatry. But Christians come close to it when they use their perceived images of Christ as a means to worship. Whether it is made into an object or painted on paper or imagined, all of these representations are forbidden by the second commandment.
Peter says, “Whom having not seen ye love.” Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” One of the truths derived from this statement of Jesus is that God is not physical and therefore cannot be represented by anything physical. God is Spirit. Jesus used the word MUST. If one worships God, he must set aside the physical representations. God does not allow that in worship. Then there is the word TRUTH that Jesus uses here. In our Lord’s prayer in John 17 He prayed to His Father for the disciples, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” The Word of God forbids the use of physical means as representing God who in His very nature cannot be seen.
The word “having not seen” translates “eido” meaning, “to see, to perceive with the eyes.” It is a perfect active participle used with the negative “ou.” The perfect tense with the negative means that those to whom Peter is writing had never in the past seen Jesus and they stand in the present as those who had never seen Him in a physical representation. There are those who seem to think that Jesus appeared on a regular basis to the early church in His glorified body. Well, that is contrary to the Scriptures and Peter’s statement here confirms it.
The words “ye love” translates “agapao” and means, “to love dearly, to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing.” This is the same word used in John 3:16 of God’s love for the world. It is a present tense verb which means that Peter recognizes that the ones to whom he is writing love Jesus without being able to seen Him. They have never seen Him with the eye. True worship and acceptance of Jesus is to love and worship Him without seeing Him with the aid of physical representations.
Then Peter says, “though now ye see him not, yet believing . . .” The word “now” translates “arti” and means, “just now, this moment, now at this time, at this very time, this moment.” The words “ye see” translates “horao” and means, “to see with the eyes, to see with the mind, to perceive, know, become acquainted with by experience, to experience.” It is a present tense verb. The negative “me” is used and expresses an absolute denial. It could be paraphrased, “ye do not now see him, absolutely not.” Then Peter says, “yet believing.” and translates “pisteuo” and is “used in the NT of the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of the soul.” It is the conviction of the truth of anything. Peter says, “You haven’t seen Jesus in the flesh, yet that has not hindered your faith in His existence, you believe it just as if you had seen Him, and the results are there to prove you believe.”
The words “ye rejoice with joy unspeakable” come as a result of believing without seeing. The words “ye rejoice” translate “agalliao” and mean, “to exult, to rejoice exceedingly, be exceeding glad.” Jesus told His disciples when He was preparing them for His death in John 16:22: “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” He uses the same word “rejoice” here, and here, He is speaking about them seeing Him after the resurrection which was a literal appearance. Peter is saying that we can have that joy by faith in the truth of His resurrected existence without seeing Him. The words “with joy” translate “chara” and means, “to have joy and gladness.” The word “unspeakable” comes from a word that means not to be able to put in words. A believer has a living relationship with the risen Lord and it results in ecstatic joy totally apart from seeing but not apart from experience. Faith brings us into a relationship with Him who is unseen yet it produces the joy as if He were seen. It is completely without a visible representation. It is without an imaginary representation. It is faith that rests with complete trust in His existence without requiring anything but faith in His revelation, i.e., His Word.
The words “full of glory” translate “doxazo” and means, “to make glorious, adorn with lustre, clothe with splendor, to impart glory to something, render it excellent.” It is a perfect passive participle. This means that our worship of Him though unseen by us, that we have all the glorious effects of His presence on our emotional being.. It is right for the believer to sense “the clothing of splendor,” and to feel the “imparted glory of God” in our worship. The perfect tense represents action completed in the past, having present results. The passive voice means that the subject is acted upon. This means that the Christians to whom Peter is writing had experienced what he is talking about, what he is writing is not a surprise to them, and that they were the objects of God’s bestowed glory. It is not something accomplished by them but something that was given them as a part of their believing worship.
May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.
In Christ
Bro. White
