Thought for Thursday
The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. 1 Peter 5:1
During my many years as a reporter, and among the many hundreds of people I interviewed over those years, there is one type of person I was always looking for and was always glad to find: an eye witness! People who had an opinion to express were a dime a dozen, and people who would gladly pass on something that they had heard others say were always within arm’s reach. But the people I wanted to talk to were the people who had actually seen things happen. If the story was about a deadly accident, I wanted to hear from somebody who had heard the tires screeching and had felt the vibration of the collision. If the story was about a new bridge, I wanted to talk with somebody who had set foot on it and had discovered how much time they could save by using the bridge. Only an eye witness could provide the details of the action and the carnage. Only an eye witness could express the emotions that went along with viewing a great event. Somebody who could truthfully say, ‘I was there when it happened’, was somebody worth listening to. And that’s why the people who Peter was writing this epistle to would heed his words carefully: this was a man who had actually seen the Lord Jesus, an actual eye witness to the Saviour’s suffering during the events leading up to Calvary and even the events of the cross.
We don’t have any eye witnesses today of the sufferings of Christ. But we do have the written record of actual eye witnesses. The Gospel of John was written by a man who actually was at Golgotha while Jesus was hanging on the cross there. We are not sure if Mark was there, but his Gospel is based on eye witness accounts from Peter, so his Gospel can be considered first-hand evidence – admissible in any court of law! In our text, and even in the context, Peter does not go into details about the sufferings of Christ. But by establishing his credentials as an eye witness, he makes his case for having the right to exhort the leaders of the Lord’s people. And he also gives us a good reason to rejoice in the hope that we have as Christians.
Peter speaks of being a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Unlike the events of Calvary, this is not something that Peter had seen with his own eyes. This is something that he had seen by faith, something that means more to him than anything in the world. If we can believe Peter’s eye witness account of Calvary, we can believe in the glory that Peter is expecting by faith. For almost two thousand years, Peter has been in the glory, beholding the One Who he had seen during His suffering now crowned with glory and honour.
We have the testimony of an eye witness. Based on Peter’s testimony, we humbly thank God for the One Who suffered for our sins, and Who is waiting to greet us when we arrive to partake in His glory. – Jim MacIntosh