2 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander, ² and like new-born babies, long for the reasonable and unadulterated milk of the word, so that by it you may advance in respect to salvation, ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is kind (1Pet2:3 – my translation)

The Lord IS kind (honest!)

I merely want to pick up on the highlighted phrase in verse 3: “the Lord is kind”. The Greek text  χρηστὸς ὁ κύριος could also legitimately be translated as “the Lord is gentle” or “the Lord is pleasant”, even “the Lord is useful” but the latter would hardly do Him justice. A point of grammar is that “the Lord” ( ὁ κύριος) is nominative (i.e. the subject) and kind/gentle/pleasant or whatever (χρηστὸς) is the adjective describing that Subject. “The Lord” could be referring to Jesus Christ – it almost certainly would be if Paul were writing (cf. 1Cor8:6), but Peter could be referring to God (the Father). In a sense it doesn’t matter, for if you have seen the One you have seen the Other – in terms of nature, that is. Disciple Philip needed to be enlightened about that (Jn14:9), and note that Jesus was referring to Himself as He had revealed His character during His earthly ministry (“How long have I been with you, Philip?”).

Jesus – the Eikon of God

As I pointed out in a much earlier post pertaining to that passage in John, Jesus’ gentle rebuke of Philip challenges a lot of theology, not least the Calvinism I grew up with. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus was “the exact representation of (His Father’s) nature” (Heb1:3NASB) challenges so many  tenets of Reformed and other traditional bible-based theology. For Jesus Christ, as He amply demonstrated in His earthly ministry was kind; He was compassionate towards all who were needy, tolerant towards the genuinely ignorant, and intelligibly reasonable and fair in all His judgements (cf. Mt7:2). The God of the Bible as so many have come to understand Him is none of those things, and indeed the likes of Augustine, Luther and the Protestant Reformers regarded God’s nature as barely comprehensible to human reason, even in the case of those who were being sanctified and according to Paul already possessed the mind of Christ.

The usual translations

So coming back to our opening point about the translation of χρηστὸς ὁ κύριος, it is perhaps no surprise that most bible versions are reluctant to translate the phrase literally and simply as “the Lord is kind”, as can be demonstrated using Biblegateway. Some bible versions refer to “the kindness of the Lord” but in the Greek, ὁ κύριος is nominative not genitive – the latter implies that kindness (or whatever) is a quality God possesses and may choose to exercise rather than what He is by nature. John’s statement that “God is love” (1Jn4:8), for example, is even more powerful – both words are nominative: love is what God is, and love (ἀγάπη) assuredly incorporates kindness.

Echoes of Psalm 34

Many simply translate the phrase as “the Lord is good”, no doubt with Ps34:8 in mind: “Taste and see that the Lord is “טוֹב”” As to what the Hebrew טוֹב^H2896 actually means, check out Biblehub – it translates as “good, pleasant, agreeable, beneficial, beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, fair, favour, fine, glad, goodly, graciously, joyful, kindly, loving, merry, pleasant, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, well-favoured” . Take your pick! The Greek χρηστὸς^G5543 specifically emphasizes kindness, gentleness and pleasantness.

Other versions such as the King James take the phrase to be “God is gracious” – but then that is perhaps as close to kindness as the early Reformer translators dare get, but it’s not really a valid translation of χρηστὸς. If Peter intended “grace” or “gracious” he more likely would have employed  χάρις or its derivatives, as he did on eight occasions in his first epistle. Apart from which, grace as the KJV authors understood it was for the chosen few; towards the rest they understood the Creator to be anything but kind, gentle or pleasant.

Pardon my literalism

My task has been to show that such sincerely held perspectives (which were mine also for 28 years) are a misinterpretation of Scripture and a travesty of the truth concerning God’s nature and especially His providential intentions. If I appear to be over-literal and pedantic in the task of proving it, so be it.  It has been the method I’ve employed throughout this process, and (I am clear with the Spirit’s help) it has enabled me for the first time in my life to understand Scripture such that it becomes thoroughly coherent.

Why we got it so wrong

Very briefly to close, there are two main reasons why God’s nature and providential purposes have been misunderstood. The first is the interpretation of Scripture as a whole, for which reason I believe I was intended to write The Little Book of Providence (see small-print postscript). The second reason is the fact that whilst God’s nature should be intelligible to those created in His image, God’s ways  are entirely another matter: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts (Is55:9).

The prime example is God’s extraordinary, seemingly detached superintendence of Satan and his empire in the current age, and the related utilization of evil and suffering in the world that He so loves (cf. Jn3:16; Eph6:12). I have been shown the latter pertains to His purposes for those He most loves (because they love and serve His Son) in preparation for their eventual glorification (Heb2:9-11 cf. Rev10:7). This was touched upon in my previous Halloween post and was dealt with in a little more detail in the one prior to that (“Ransomed from Futility”).

[These posts pertain to an expansive revelation concerning divine providence. It was the result of a prophetic insight received by the author, who believes the process he is involved with is itself a fulfilment of scriptural prophecy, both canonical and extra-canonical – more particularly Revelation chapter ten and two related passages from the Book of Enoch (ch93:8-10 and ch104:11-13 Charles edition numbering). The full picture is set out in “The Little Book of Providence”  and summarized in 95 theses HERE ].

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