⁴ And coming to (Christ) as to a living stone which has been rejected by people, but is elect and precious in the sight of God, ⁵ you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. ⁶ For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and the one who entrusts himself to Him will not be put to shame.” ⁷ This has great value then for you who believe; but for unbelievers, (He is) “a stone which the builders rejected that became the chief cornerstone,” ⁸ and, “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”. They stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this they were also appointed. ⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellent qualities of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light (1Pet2:4-9).

The main point I want to make from this next section of 1Peter pertains to the context of God’s royal priesthood within broader benign providence. As is often and intentionally the case within these posts, the points I draw out from a particular passage are not necessarily the main theme that the author, in this case Peter, wished to impart. His narrative primarily focuses  on Christ being the most precious and important component  of the “household of God”. Also the fact that many people, most notoriously members of God’s chosen people under the Old Covenant, have rejected that “chief cornerstone”, whereas blessed are those who entrust themselves to Him, themselves becoming “living stones” of that metaphorical house of God.

But I am not here primarily to exegete the passage – others can do far better, including the  artificial intelligence (AI) analysis that is available these days. Rather, I am forever looking for clues and insights regarding  the broader benign providence that I believe I am intended to draw to the churches’ attention, together with the related  negative but necessary deconstruction of certain established theologies by which God’s munificent plans for broader humanity have been obscured.

In terms of this particular passage, by “broader humanity” I refer to the many people who are NOT “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession”, nor could they be apart from an act of sovereign grace on God’s part (cf. Jn6:44 and the explicit or more frequently implicit references to predestination by Peter, John and Paul in particular). If alive at the time, such people (the vast majority) shall not be “raptured” so as to be delivered from God’s awesome “Day of Wrath”. Nor shall they be corporately married to the Lord of glory (Rev19:7), still less come to share His throne (Rev3:21). But many, not all, shall finally receive admittance into God’s eternal Kingdom, having demonstrated by their actions and attitudes in life the reality of their true humanity (cf. Mt25:31-46), a passage  devoid of so much as an implicit reference to religion or religious faith, “merely” to compassionate love – the essence of God.

 There is much more that could be said on that point, and it has been, but with reference to the royal priesthood, its members are intended to offer spiritual sacrifices to God but also to “proclaim the excellent qualities of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” (v9). Many translations translate ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε along the lines “show forth the praises” (e.g. KJV, NKJV, NIV, EHV). Of course, those privileged to be amongst that blessed assembly should praise God for the grace that has been shown to them, but as in the NASB translation I have utilized Peter is also if not primarily referring to proclaiming and expounding to those who have not been so blessed, the truly excellent qualities and intelligible goodness of God’s character and actions.

That will virtually be impossible for some (including myself in the past) who understand God to have chosen them regardless of any inherent merit on their part to enjoy unimaginable privileges and eternal joy, whilst for the rest of humanity, in view of the fate that awaits them it would have better if they had never been born. From the more prevalent Arminian or “moderated Calvinist” Evangelical perspective,  God is One who will deliver people from eternal miseries providing they are fortunate enough to have heard and understood a faithful and accurate presentation of the gospel.

That of course very much depends on their cultural, religious and societal heritage, the historical formation of which our sovereign God has (seemingly) passively overseen and thereby facilitated, along with a proliferation of Christian sects and denominations with their varying accounts of what is actually required for salvation. Even having lived in the nominally Christian United Kingdom for 70+ years, there are very few people I have met outside my particular  church circles who have instinctively understood  what was required of them to be “saved”, still less could those billions brought up as (say) Muslims or  the myriads of souls who have  lived within  unevangelized pagan or dictatorially atheistic regimes.

 Of course, many more liberal Evangelical, Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox Christians do believe and are able to declare from the heart that God is good and loving, but regrettably only by themselves or their churches rejecting, obscuring, rationalizing or at best “holding forth in mystery” some essential gospel truths, such as the bible’s irrefutable teaching on predestination and post-mortem punishment. That together with the unintentional but unavoidably dire depiction of God’s nature and providential intentions depicted by those who primarily seek to be faithful to the bible as they have been taught it is the inevitable outworking of the binary (saved or damned) soteriology that I am systematically adducing to be in error.

The God I have come to know and have delineated in The Little Book of Providence most assuredly can be proclaimed to all humanity as excellent, magnanimous and gracious in character. And although His ways are indeed  at times difficult to fathom, their rationale has been made much clearer to me, which I have also set out in that book and some recent posts. For God must be shown to be both fair and just, if from a human perspective He is  also perceived to be loving and kind, let alone accord with the bible’s depiction as love personified (1Jn4:8). As I showed in the previous post, He is the very image of Jesus Christ, or rather vice versa – our gracious loving Lord is the very Eikon of God (Heb1:3), of Whom the Psalmist prophetically wrote that “All the earth shall worship You, and shall sing to You; they shall sing to Your name (Ps66:4).

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