God’s Overcoming Grace
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen 1 Peter 5:10,11
Twenty eight times in this first letter Peter uses the opening conjunction (here ‘and’ though more accurately ‘but’) to contrast what he’s about to say with what he’s just said. The previous section of 1 Peter has touched on suffering and the attacks of the devil against God’s people.
So the contrast is: the suffering and other attacks of the devil have been strong but they won’t last forever. In fact ‘after you have suffered a little while’ (an intentionally vague term that doesn’t attempt to put any kind of time frame on the suffering), ‘the God of all grace’ will ‘himself restore you’ (make you fully prepared, complete). This word was used of mending nets and carried the thought of something being ‘rightly ordered or fully fitted out.’
After a time of suffering God will ‘make you strong, firm and steadfast.’ The first verb, ‘make you strong,’ means ‘to fix, to set, to make fast.’ God would set them in place so they would be ‘firm’ in His position for them. The final term, ‘steadfast,’ means ‘to lay a foundation.’ So God’s promise is that He will use suffering to fix us in place firmly like a building with a full foundation.
Peter began this section with the reminder that God is the God ‘who called you to his eternal glory in Christ.’ This is the realm that counts and it’s the realm that lasts. God’s character is given spectacular expression in His ‘eternal glory.’ Ordinarily God’s eternal glory would make us fearful. But amazingly God has summoned us into the midst of His own glory. We come in Christ through our union with Him. Our experience of God’s ‘eternal glory’ might be partial now but will be unhindered in the life to come.
So here is a promise of God’s amazing grace, enough to overcome any sufferings in this life. No wonder Peter ends with ‘To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.’ This is God’s world, but a world where so much evil is present and a world desperately needing God’s light to shine. You and I are called to carry Christ’s light into this world. God is present in His world through His people, through us.
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