“He [God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). Wise counsel for struggling Christians finds a sure starting point with Jesus’s resurrection—who would have expected that? Peter’s apostolic charge was to tend Jesus’s needy flock, and his first epistle is shaped by that mandate. Faced with the diverse needs of many believers across a wide expanse of territory, Peter focused on Jesus rising from the dead! Yes, there’s practical counsel of the “do this” variety later in his letter, but the apostle’s point of departure is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

A Faith-Building Exercise

This writer is not the same Peter who had vehemently opposed even the mention of Jesus’s death. Silenced are the protestations of, “Far be it from you, Lord!” (Matt. 16:22). The Savior’s gracious work in Peter’s life has unshackled him from the debilitating outlook shaped by what Jesus referred to as “the things of man” (v. 23). Now, with his mind set on things that are above, Peter recognizes how the humiliating death and glorious resurrection of Jesus ignite a bright hope—a blaze of heavenly light that lances through the oppressive clouds threatening to overshadow his readers.

Peter’s priorities are no less instructive for us today than for his first readers. Our urgency to deal with the painful realities of life in our fallen world drives us to push quickly past the Savior’s death and resurrection. But before we rush on to those thorny exile situations that cry out to be addressed, Peter invites us to pause to join with him in blessing our extravagantly gracious God: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” the “God of all grace” (1 Pet. 1:3; 5:10). As we appreciate and celebrate Jesus’s resurrection, we position ourselves to endure the bruising difficulties we experience. This is a faith-building exercise: It inevitably draws our thinking into alignment with the pattern our Savior has consecrated by his example. Otherwise, we forget (or try to forget) that it is only “after you have suffered a little while, [that] the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Pet. 5:10).

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? However, like many others I need to hear Peter—a messenger for Jesus himself—tell me to take my gaze off the things of man. To give one practical example, think about how our “eye-gate,” to use John Bunyan’s term, is constantly assailed and often captured by our omnipresent screens, through which the things of man inundate our lives. We are deluged relentlessly with solutions to our problems, told insistently that our citizenship really is in this world after all, and assured that we can fix its inconveniences to make it comfortable. Simultaneously, we are urged to find satisfaction and meaning in the accumulation of ephemeral things we know cannot satisfy the deep needs of our souls. This mindset represents a hard pushback against Peter’s assertion that we are “exiles of the Dispersion” (1 Pet. 1:1), regardless of where or when we might live in this present fleeting age. To conform to the thinking of this world in this way leads us to be surprised and perplexed when fiery trials befall (1 Pet. 4:12), or unduly alarmed when our goods seem threatened.

But Peter advances a positive message to reorient bewildered and anxious souls. Jesus’s resurrection throws open the door to a new hope! Peter’s language is compelling: “[God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3)—a breathtaking announcement. Take a moment to ponder it, for Peter is beckoning us to pause and turn our gaze to the riches of God’s grace to us in Jesus. Many of us don’t do that as well (or as often) as we should, but it is an effective antidote to our distress. Otherwise, the raw discomfort of our messy circumstances easily claims the firstfruits of our attention. How wise and compassionate of our heavenly Father to mandate that one day in seven be reserved for us to celebrate resurrection and nurture the health of our fretful souls. Tenderly, he calls us from worry to worship and greets us there with words of peace. By Word and sacrament, he reminds us again of our Savior—crucified and risen—and all the benefits that flow from his work. Then he sends us back out into the brokenness of our world with words of benediction blessing ringing in our ears.

A Lively Hope for All

Peter’s language pulsates with vitality: We have been born again; we have a living hope! In the delightful language of the King James Version, it is a “lively” hope—not listless, lethargic, or languishing, even in the face of withering difficulties. It is a hope solidly based on Jesus’s demonstration of his power to triumph over the most impossible of adversaries—death itself! Peter is emphatic about this; these are invigorating resurrection truths Christians dare not forget. We confess with all the saints that “on the third day he arose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven, and sits at on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” This is a muscular assertion that puts backbone into wavering saints and revives timid souls. We should declare this faith often and confidently in the hearing of our struggling fellow-saints—they need to hear it, and so do we!

Peter’s apostolic colleague, Paul, exemplifies the potency of this life-giving confession. He testifies that even though “we felt that we had received the sentence of death . . . that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9). This is a radical transformation for, at a stroke, our trials are morphed into tutors teaching us to rely on God who raises the dead! When we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus we confess once more God’s power over all that opposes us. We hail the destruction of the elaborate and pervasive works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Christ’s triumph is such that even our last enemy—death itself—has been destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26)! So, from a place of acute difficulty (think incarceration, defamation, discomfort, and the possibility of an actual death sentence), Paul could make his triumphant declaration, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). A lively hope indeed!

The vibrant, hope-filled language of these apostolic witnesses is not the dialect spoken in the places we are dispersed to as the elect exiles of heaven. The vernacular of our society reeks of nihilism, confusion, and hopelessness. Our unbelieving friends inhabit the same broken world as us, often experiencing similar bewildering trials, but they do so bereft of resurrection hope. What a tragedy—and what an opportunity! Trial in all its varied forms continually exercises the hearts of our fellow image-bearers and constantly wells up in conversation. Inevitably, followers of Jesus will be asked about their response to it. Peter primes us to be ready for the questions: “Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15).

Significantly, Peter clarifies that he is not advocating angry polemic, harsh name-calling, or clever put-downs (nor, for that matter, is he invoking deft argumentation of the sort that eludes many of us). Instead, he tells us to testify to our hope “with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15). This is crucial instruction on tone as well as content. Peter is looking for the fruit-of-the-Spirit-flavored response that is one of the most credible ways we reflect Jesus and shine as lights in the world.

This outward-looking posture pivots us to a ripe harvest field and sends us there equipped for resurrection-shaped conversation. Christians can dialogue about the hardships of the present age with the fluency that comes from personal knowledge of its myriad bitternesses. But by God’s grace (and he is the God of all grace), we confess that we have a Savior who “was made manifest in the last times for the sake of [those] who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that [our] faith and hope are in God” (1 Pet. 1:20–21). With the eye of faith, we can look on adversity knowing that all things work together for our good (Rom. 8:28) and affirm with Spurgeon that, for the Christian, “Ill to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form” (The Treasury of David).

For that reason, Peter is quick to remind us that the full benefit of Jesus’s resurrection is not found in this life. With pastoral intuition, he cautions against courting disappointment by seeking an over-realized eschatology. On the contrary, faith looks beyond the grave “to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:4). Absent those eschatological benefits, we would remain in a pitiable condition, but Christ has indeed risen from the dead and is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15:19–20). Jesus’s resurrection simultaneously secures and heralds the coming joys of a glorious harvest time so that “those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” (Ps. 126:5). This is an invigorating reminder for missions-minded believers laboring in rocky soil!

Focus on a Glorified Jesus

It is only at the consummation that the benefits of our union with Christ ripen and come to full flower, for (to use the language of John Calvin), what “was begun in the Head . . . must be completed in all the members” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2, 990). The writer to the beleaguered Hebrew congregation makes practical pastoral use of this when he exhorts his readers to run with endurance the oft-difficult race that is set before them. Far from using this racetrack imagery merely as a call for his congregation to put forth greater effort, he directs them instead to look beyond the finish line to the resurrected Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:1–2). We are being taught to endure as seeing him who is invisible, just as Moses did (Heb. 11:27). This intentional focus on the glorified Jesus is a vital discipline of the Christian life.

The apostle specifically commissioned by Jesus to feed his sheep (John 21:17) fulfills his mandate well when he affirms the soul-sustaining effects of a faith fixed on the resurrected Jesus:

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Pet. 1:8–9)

With this, Peter assures us that Jesus’s resurrection has set in motion a train of events that will reach an inevitable climax—nothing less than the vindication of our faith in our Redeemer and the salvation of our souls! We can have no doubt about this, for we, “by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).

Cross-bearing disciples keep in mind that the glories to come are no less real than their present, ever-so-tangible trials. However, those coming glories are of such splendid character as to utterly eclipse what we may have to endure now. Paul voices his own perspective when he writes that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen” (2 Cor. 4:17–18). And, lest we suppose that these trials are random misfortunes, Peter assures us that the unfathomable wisdom of God deems them to be necessary tests of the genuineness of our faith (1 Pet. 1:6–7).

Peter paints a bright picture of the inheritance secured by the resurrected Christ. It is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:4). This is an inheritance that is profoundly different from earthly treasure with its irremediable susceptibility to the depredations of moths, rust, and thieves (Matt. 6:19).

As quickly as he draws attention to the inviolable permanency of the believer’s inheritance, Peter pivots briskly to highlight the believer’s security. We, “by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5). Both the heirs and the inheritance are secured by Jesus’s resurrection. How can it be otherwise when we are indissolubly united to Jesus and he himself is our inheritance? Peter’s great confidence rests on the fact that all these elements are profoundly and inextricably interrelated at the deepest level. Paul binds them together in his assertion that we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17).

Once again Peter is directing us towards the ordinary means of grace which fortify us against deception and discouragement. Our baptism testifies that we have died with Jesus. Now we are raised with him to walk in newness of life in confident anticipation of a resurrection like his (Rom. 6:4–5). What an encouragement for those grappling with such trials as physical pain, declining faculties, or the loss of believing loved ones! We do well to improve our baptism “by drawing strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, into whom we are baptized” (Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 167). Likewise, we gather around the Lord’s Table to taste the comforting goodness of our God and the sweetness of his grace when our teeth have been set on edge by the bitterness of life. As we do so, we savor the food that endures to everlasting life—a substantial alternative to the unhealthy diet this world offers! At the same time, the tunnel vision that fixates on trials has its gaze widened and uplifted to take in the Savior’s atoning death and his triumphant return in glory. Blessed indeed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The author is pastor of Knox OPC in Silver Spring, Maryland. New Horizons, April 2026.