Says Peter, "The end of all things is near, so ... you must be sensible - prayerful, loving, hospitable, and helpful."
It is a curious conclusion to draw: as though to say, "The future threatens, so concentrate on the present." Prayer and love, hospitality, helpfulness and humble service: these all concern our everyday life. But if the phrase "the end is near" means that everyday life is about to end, why be so concerned with them?
i. A Puzzle
There is a puzzle here, a puzzle that meets us elsewhere in the New Testament too.
"The presence of the Lord has drawn near," says James (5:8 - 11); "Be patient therefore and establish your hearts" ... and commends Job as a model of the steadfastness we shall need to have.
"Children, it is the last hour," says John, and then warns us that we must settle down to a long, stern struggle if we are not to lose our hold on the truth. (I John 2:1 ff.)
"Upon us the end of the ages has come," Paul tells the Corinthians (I Cor. 10:11) and then commends humility and calls for endurance and faith in the face of testing.
It is curious how time after time a reminder that we are living in the time of the end is followed with exhortations to be patient, to be prepared for a long stint, to "dig in." In so many cases the statement seems to lead to a conclusion that does not fit it.
We are so familiar with the idea of the second coming of Christ that whenever the apostles speak of the "end" we leap to the conclusion that that is what they mean. But is it? That they looked forward to the personal return of Christ at the end of the age there can be no doubt at all. But to assume that that is always what they meant when they spoke of "the end" leads to considerable difficulties. If that is what they meant the end has been a long time coming. Were they mistaken? Or does the curious inconsistency in their language suggest they meant something else?
ii. The Answer to the Puzzle
I believe they did, and for the further curious reason that whenever they use this language, they invariably do so in a context where the Lordship of Christ is uppermost in their minds, as though that, primarily, is what has been ushered in in these last days.
Peter is no exception here. A few verses
earlier he has spoken of Christ as having gone into heaven where He
is at the right hand of God (i.e., occupies the seat of power and
rule), angels, authorities and powers being subject to Him, and ends
with the assertion that to Christ belong glory and dominion.
When Paul says that the end of the ages has come upon us, he assures
us that even our temptations are under Christ's control.
When John tells us that it is the last hour, he says it is for that
reason Christ, the Lord of the Church, is in the process of cleansing
it.
"The end of all things is near," says Peter, and draws the conclusion that we must be sensible (i.e. not swept away by fanaticism), and sober (i.e. live life with a due sense of responsibility).
What it means that the end is upon us is that God has put the risen Lord in charge of the universe ... and there may be a long way to go before He steers all things to the consummation He has planned.
The word "end" can have more than one meaning. It can mean a "terminus." When you come to the end of a journey, it is over; there is no more travelling to be done. But it can also mean "consummation": the "end" of a courtship is not a parting of the ways, but marriage (or it should be!). The "end" of education is not that you finish with learning but that having acquired the "how" of it you go on with it. And that is the sense in which the Apostles use the word.
We have not the space to quote every example, but the fact is that whenever they spoke of the period of history in which they (and we) are living, as the "last days," "the end of the ages," "the last hour," they meant that we are living in the time when Christ has established his rule in the earth, and we have a part to play in it. When in the book of Revelation the cry goes up, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ," that happens, not at the Lord's second coming, but at His ascension, and there follows a long war in heaven mirrored by the age-long suffering of Christians on earth. The time of the end began with the Ascension. The Kingdoms of this world will not one day become the kingdom of Christ - they are now. Now, in these days, the ascended Lord rules the world's life.
If Paul or Peter could be challenged today by a bunch of bright young men in the church who said, "Now, look here Paul and Peter, you said that the end was near. But nineteen centuries have passed, and we're still waiting for the Second Coming. What about it?" I believe that Paul and Peter would neither of them be at all dismayed. Whether they would confess to a mild surprise that the world should indeed have gone on so long I do not know; but it would not upset them as though that had proved them wrong. They would simply reaffirm what they had already written. Their surprise would be that we should not have understood what they meant. "You," they would say to us "are in a better position to see the truth of what we wrote than we were then. You can look back on two thousand years of Christ's rule in the world where we could only look forward. Surely you are not blind to it!"
"As to the Second Coming" they would say, "we knew from the beginning that its day and hour was known only to the Father."
The apostles believed that when Jesus ascended into Heaven all authority in heaven and on earth was given into His hands. They were living in a world which had passed directly into Christ's control. The events of their own day bore witness to that in their eyes, and all future events would continue to bear witness to it. That is what they meant by saying that they were living in the last days. Since Christ was now in charge of the world's life, He would bring it obediently to the climax God had planned for it, exercising His dominion on those principles revealed in His death and resurrection.
The secret of history was a secret no longer. This world's life was an open book to those whose vision penetrated behind the screen of events to where Christ sat enthroned in majesty on high. The kingdom of God was not "some far off divine event toward which creation moved;" it was an established reality. It was not as though Christ's reign could only begin with His Second Coming, it was here and now ... had already begun, and He would "continue to reign until," as Paul put it, "until He had put all His enemies under His feet. For God has put (not will put) all things in subjection to Him."
The word "at hand" which Peter uses - "the end is at hand" - is the same word exactly Jesus used of the Kingdom: "the Kingdom of God is at hand." Jesus meant by it that the rule of God was pressing in upon the present, and Peter means the same thing by his phrase.
Christ's rule is most obvious in the church, but it is going on beyond the life of the church; it is happening in the life of the world. We should not picture the church and the world as two separate circles, Christ sitting on His throne at the centre of the one called the Church and the devil sitting on his throne at the centre of the other called the world, but rather as two circles, one within the other, with Christ sitting at the centre on the throne of both. In the circle of the church Christ rules as King with the willing consent of His reconciled people; in the circle of the world He rules as King without the willing consent of its peoples - even without their knowledge; but He rules!
And He calls Christians to share His rule with Him.
That is why we must be diligent and faithful. That is why in these last days, it behoves us to be sensible men and women, men and women of prayer, men and women of such love as covers a multitude of sins, men and women of kindness and mutual care, men and women of humble service to one another, for if we do not do these things, the testimony to Jesus will fail in the earth, and His judgments will fall on a world blind to their meaning because we, His people, have deserted from our post.
This is why the exhortation to hold unfailing our love for one another follows directly from the warning that the end of all things is at hand, for this is how we share the rule with Him (as we shall see more fully in a moment). There is a danger that the Master will come and find we have not been following "standing orders." Like the steward in Jesus' parable, we may be found neglecting and ill-treating our brethren - to whom God has made us responsible - when we should be found faithful in our stewardship to them of loving care.
Are there any whom at this time we are neglecting? Are there any to whom at this time we bear illwill? Beware, says Peter, lest the Lord come and find you so. You know your orders.
Note the four areas of those orders Peter chooses to underline. Let me run the paragraph past your mind again:
The end of all things is near; be sensible men therefore - responsible men of prayer. Above all else, preserve a devoted and unbeatable love for one another, for love neutralises and puts away a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without complaining: and as each of you has received a gift, put it to work in one another's service as good stewards of God's variegated grace, so that every which way in your life together, God may be exalted in the eyes of the world through Jesus Christ, Whose is the glory and Whose is the power that rules, age after age, until the end.
The four areas are prayer, love, hospitality and service
And into the mix of all four Peter has kneaded an ingredient which flavours them all: the ingredient of effort. Keep sane and sober unto prayer; hold unfailing your love for one another; practise hospitality ungrudgingly; serve in the strength God supplies. Prayer, love and service are things we have to work at! The words Peter uses are reminiscent of the games. If an athlete is to win his race he cannot afford, at any stage in it, to flag; he has to show stamina, not relaxing at any point; and he has to exert himself till it hurts. To pray, love and serve as we should will call for everything we have in terms of muscle, nerve and sinew.
Prayer
In our prayer life we are to "keep sane and sober."
i. Preserve sanity in your
praying
What does that mean? The great characteristic of sanity is that it
sees things in proportion; it has an instinct for what is vital; it
discerns between what is important and what is trivial; it is not
carried away by passing fads or enthusiasms. To put it at its
simplest it means seeing things with God's eyes. When you pray, look
at things you pray about from the standpoint of eternity, "from the
hilltop above."
ii. And "sober"?
The core of meaning in the word is "responsible." It stands in
contrast to "drunk", and the chief fault of drunkenness is that it
makes us irresponsible. Peter does not mean we should all be joyless,
gloomy and dowdy (sober), but he does mean we are to take life
seriously, not be frivolous about it. We are the King's stewards.
(Peter is remembering again; Jesus told a lot of parables on the
theme of stewardship.)
Love
For Peter, that stewardship means quite simply the enthronement of love. "Hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins."
Varied opinions are held about that second clause. Does Peter mean that if we love others our own sins will be covered, or that by loving others we shall cover theirs? I have no doubt that he means our love covers theirs, just as James does. (James 5:20.) It is a bold conviction, and one Peter shared with all the apostles, that when we love others the way Christ loved them - the way Peter has urged upon us all through this letter, meeting their injury with pardon, soaking up the hurt and answering illwill with an undefeated goodwill - we actually become partners with Christ in His reconciling, redeeming work on earth. The love of Christ "covers" sin, and when we love in the strength of His love flowing through us, we help to "actualise" that covering. Brother becomes "Christ" to brother.
This is how we share the rule with our Lord. He rules from the Cross; He wins by way of love through suffering, and we are to share that rule with Him. That is our stewardship. And it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
Hospitality
Third, Peter commends hospitality.
Remember that in the New Testament period they had no church buildings; the only place to meet was in private homes. And preachers like the apostles ... and prophets and evangelists ... moved about among those house churches frequently. They had to be accommodated. Hospitality must often have imposed considerable strain on folk. It must often have been inconvenient - sometimes exasperating even. That is why Peter says, "without grumbling!"
In verses 10-11 Peter has two things to say of interest about our stewardship of love. It is to be pursued in the exercise of two categories of gift: of speech and of service.
Peter uses a colourful word to describe their source: "God's variegated," or multi-coloured "grace." It evokes the image of light being refracted through a prism, the white broken up into separate bands of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. The grace of God, which is the one source and supply of all gifts, is "refracted" through the prism of personality, in the process "breaking up" into a variety of component giftings.
Some gifts we have are gifts of nature: they were built into our make-up even before we were born, determined by our pattern of chromosomes and genes. Others are gifts of grace: aptitudes that appear only after we are born again. They all have one source, the grace, the generosity of God. Paul said it in I Cor. 12:4 - 6, "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one."
It seems not to have occurred to Peter even to mention the more spectacular gifts of healing, tongues and deliverance. What is of interest interested is the dynamic Peter says should inform their exercise:
... gifts of speech exercised "as uttering oracles of God"
... gifts of service exercised "in the strength He supplies."
i. Oracles of God
"As each has received a gift," he says, "use it - whoever speaks as one who utters oracles of God, whoever renders service as one who renders it in the strength which God supplies."
When we teach, whether from a pulpit or in a Bible or Sunday School Class or House Group, it is emphatically not our business to "air our views." We are seriously to grapple with the Scripture till we are sure that it "is the word of God, the whole word of God, and nothing but the word of God, that we utter. Discussion groups where there is no serious intention to get to grips with the word of God, get a right understanding of it, and be serious about obeying it, are a waste of time, and qualify to fall under the condemnation so frequent in Paul's letters about losing our way in endless and fruitless disputation.
ii. In the strength God supplies
The strength to serve is supplied out of God's inexhaustible store. We will never discover that until we actually put our hand to some plough, and do a job. Nobody who sits on the sidelines watching others work, too timid or lazy to "pitch in" themselves, will ever have any testimony to bear to God's trustworthiness. We have to "get in there" and risk failure and exhaustion.
iii. The Goal of our Stewardship
Finally, note the goal of our stewardship: "that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ."
The reason we have been equipped with gifts is not so that we may be glorified in the exercise of them, but so that God may. He did not endow you with your special aptitudes just for your benefit. He gave you them so that you could be of service to others.
"As each has received a gift, put it to use in service to one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace."
God did not have our personal distinction in mind when He gifted us. Squander our gifts in the pursuit of self-fulfilment and we shall foul up the whole purpose for which God made you you and me me. It is not our gifts that give us any claim to dignity, nor even the exercise of them. The dignity we have is that God has chosen to love us. Our gifts have nothing to do with it. Our gifts are tools - tools of love with which to serve each other. Do not ask, "What's in me for me?" but, "What's in me for others?" Would I like God to serve me on the same basis I am so prone to serve others - give me a bit of what is left over after He's served His own needs first?
"You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ how that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor that we, through His poverty, might become rich."
Said Brother Lawrence, "Sanctification is doing for God's sake what we commonly did for our own. Let but His love possess you and sacrifice will be delight."
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