Born Again to Hope (1 Peter 1:3-5)

What a sentence! This run-on goes together with the next, even longer, one. However, for clarity it is perhaps easier to treat each one individually. They both deal with the new life, the salvation that believers have in Christ. This one talks about the hope in salvation (future) and the next one looks at the joyful aspect of it (present).

The subject of this sentence is God the Father. God is the active agent. The central focus of the passage, however, is on the believers—the born again—and the hope that awaits them. They are the direct object of God’s activity. Nearly every clause in the sentence expounds on how God has made them, or what being born again means; what awaits us.

Believers are born again thanks to God’s mercy. There is nothing we do that earns us a reward. We simply trust God and follow His lead. In that trust, our blessing is three-fold.

We have a living hope. This is not some dream or wish. It is a hope that is founded on a tangible reality. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the reality that justifies our hope for the future. We do not trust in some idea or a random teaching.

The living hope that we have is for a future—an inheritance. This inheritance is solid and trustworthy. It cannot be destroyed, it cannot be changed, it will last for eternity. It is a future secure in the relationship with God that we were created to fulfill.

And we have a salvation, protected in the power of God. The trust that we place in Him will not be disappointed. Despite the difficulties, tragedies, and suffering we experience in life, we count on a healing in the end.

The salvation Peter introduced in verse 2 provides us with this bright future. And that has a tremendous bearing on the here and now as well…