“Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last times for you.”
(1 Peter 1:20)
The Lord Christ, God incarnate, Son of God and Son of Man encompasses and accomplished all that God the Father intended and all that a most holy God required to rescue and redeem his creation from the death grip of Satan. But what is even more astounding is that this grand drama of redemption that played out on the stage of history was designed, determined, and ordained before God spoke the first word of creation into existence.
And not only was the role of Christ in God’s redemptive plan ordained by him from eternity past, the method, means, and timing of his plan was divinely orchestrated as well. At just the right moment in history a virgin conceived the Christ child, God manifest in the flesh.
Maybe the most astounding truth of all, however, is that this majestic plan was created and carried out by Almighty God for his glory, and, as Peter tells us in our text, “for you.”
Why did God come to earth in the person of his Son? For you. Why did Christ suffer an unthinkable, heinous death at the hands of wicked, evil men? For you. And why did he ascend to the Father after his resurrection? For you. He did it all for your sake and mine, that we might be ransomed from a wasted life and eternal death. That the God of the universe would go to such lengths to extend such mercy, such grace, such love is, once again, simply more than the feeble mind of man can comprehend.
But it happened just as God foreordained. Christ came. He completed his earthly mission. And our ascended Lord now sits at the right hand of the Father continually interceding for his own. When he walked the earth, Jesus prayed for his own (John 17). And as Hebrews 7:25 declares, he continues to “ever live to make intercession for us,” (also Rom. 8:34, 1 John 2:1).
Christ was chosen by God for this distinct purpose (Isa. 42:1). He was sealed (John 6:27) and sanctified to it (John 10:36). The agreement made between him and his Father in eternity past was specific to a particular purpose and end, which he secured at Calvary. His passion, death, resurrection, and ascension were accomplished that he might purchase his people to himself as his own (Titus 2:14).
And as a result, just as Christ died for his redeemed people on the cross, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believing sinners in order to accomplish their justification. He fashioned this righteousness for us, by the appointment of the Father, as a consequence of the covenant of redemption. This righteousness was achieved in the same nature which initially sinned and fell, and which stood in need of it. He did not assume the nature of fallen angels, but that of the fallen and lost seed of Adam, the progenitor of human sinners. He became our kinsman that he might redeem our lost inheritance.
Because of his meritorious role in God’s plan for our redemption, Christ is expressly called the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. We are justified by HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, as he is the only Savior Mediator ordained to this end.
Contemplations:
- Lord, nothing can be more clear or made more evident from the whole current of Scripture than that the truth about what Christ did and suffered in our nature as the perfect God-man, he did and suffered specifically in our stead.
- Lord, this statement from Hugh Knox resonates with me, “It is true that both Christ’s obedience and sufferings were properly vicarious, e. for us, and transferable to us, on our being enabled to comply with, and fulfil the conditions of the covenant of grace; i.e. believe in such a manner as to repent and return to God, by a saving conversion; and this alone can account for the greatness of our Lord’s dejection, consternation, terror and agony in the last scenes of his passion.”[1]
- Lord, you declared Christ’s work and ministry on earth to be perfect and sufficient to satisfy all the purposes for which it was intended. And you are well pleased in his offering of himself as Savior as well as his work as Mediator. For if his mediatorial righteousness is imputed to me for justification, it must be in every way sufficient for that purpose.
- I have no righteousness of my own, nor could the whole universe of created beings furnish me with anything sufficient to cover my sins. In such a destitute condition, you pitied me and gave Christ’s help to me who is mighty to save.
- I cannot be justified by any inherent, personal righteousness of my own. It is equally certain, that without such an inherent righteousness worked in me by the regenerating, sanctifying Spirit, I can never enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is a doctrine of utmost importance.
Further references for 1 Peter 1:20:
Eph. 1:4; Heb. 9:26; Matthew 25:34; Rev. 13:8
[1] Hugh Knox, The Moral and Religious Miscellany, No. 14137 (New-York: Hodge and Shober, 1775), 43.
