1 Peter 1:1-2

I Peter 1:1-2  Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance (NIV).

   In my second job after graduating from Virginia Tech, I started out as a Legal Research Assistant, and I had the opportunity to do some writing, which I enjoyed. My supervisor was a graduate of the University of Virginia, and since I am a Virginia Tech grad, we had some entertaining talks. He would tell me about a professor he liked, giving his favorite quote from that professor, which he said slowly. The quote was: “Who is this evil nemesis ‘they?’”
   Here in the first sentence of I Peter, I have the opposite question: Who is this downright fortunate group “the elect?” My last semester at CCU, I had to take ‘Contemporary Approaches to Theology.’ I gave a class presentation comparing the theology of Rudolph Bultmann with Karl Barth. Now Bultmann’s theology is flawed, and I argued against his basic proposition, which is another subject, yet I have much admiration for Karl Barth. Concerning genuine evil, sometime after Adolph Hitler gained power in Germany, professors at German universities were required to give the Nazi salute. Karl Barth refused!(1) Getting fired from the University of Bonn was the result. Yet God got Karl Barth another university teaching position in his home country of Switzerland!
   I bring Barth up here, since the required Barth reading for my presentation was his famous piece on “election.” Karl Barth argued that Jesus is both the “Elector” and the “Elected.” Thus in the Bible when people are being referred to as the “elect,” they can be called such since Barth is saying that Jesus incorporates people into that position as He incorporates people into Himself. This makes sense, yet more importantly, it is supported by 1 Peter 1:20 as you take that verse in the context of chapter one of 1 Peter. The problem that I and some others see with his writing on this subject is that there is a suggestion that all people are incorporated into being the elect, since the “men” who are “elected” are the men who are the “rejected,” which is all people, who were “elected” only because of Christ’s substitution. “Being elected ‘in Him,’ they are elected only to believe in Him, i.e., to love in Him the Son of God who died and rose again for them,…” But this is wrong because people are not elected to believe in Jesus, or indeed all people would believe in Jesus by Barth’s reasoning.(2)  Rather, people who chose to believe in Jesus, the "Elector" and the "Elected," become the elect thanks to their Savior, whom they are bonded with.
   I think Barth saw the flaw of “double predestination” which was the norm in the Reformed community of which he was a part. That doctrine which claims people are predestined by God to either heaven or hell is wrong, since the atonement by Jesus was not limited. The atonement made on the Cross by Jesus was unlimited. We are going to see this later on in this great epistle in the verse, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (I Peter 3:18 NIV).
   But then Barth started to slide, or slid, into the wrong doctrine of “universalism.” There have been others who have realized the doctrine of limited atonement is wrong, but then who have erred by claiming universalism. I do applaud that Barth understood what Christ did on the Cross was to be the substitute for the sins of all people! Yet all people were not elected. People have a choice regarding incorporation. What is the method of gaining status as the elect? Believe in Jesus. Jesus made this clear in passages such as John 3:16, which is so well know.
   Now Dr. Aaron Smith, my professor in that class, and a Karl Barth scholar extraordinaire, stated it is possible Karl Barth may have simply been staying positive, not wishing anyone to go to hell; since on one hand Barth said he did not teach universalism, but on the flip side he said he did not teach against it. This may be true, but then that is lacking theology, since telling the complete truth about salvation and damnation is a whole different matter than desiring people to be condemned. Have you ever warned young children about staying out of a road? I have. I gave that talk to two great kids I was babysitting for my close friends when they were young. I sure did not want them to go in the road and get hit by a car. When I was around five or six years old, a girl ran in front of a slow moving ice cream truck on the road right by my house and was hit. Fortunately she was not seriously injured, but that sight impressed on me not to run into the road. Now in talking to kids about staying out of the road, my intention is not to scare them! My intention is to simply tell them the worldly reality of cause and effect, and to be serious about it, so that they can grow up safe, even when that day comes years later when the soccer ball goes into the street, and the first reaction is to dash out and get it.
   I add that “God’s elect” were chosen with God’s foreknowledge, through “the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ…” Thus being chosen here involves sanctification, as well as what comes first, justification. Peter, just as his fellow apostle Paul sometimes does, is stating things in reverse order. The Holy Spirit is the One who enables a person to be sanctified, which means to be changed to be like Jesus. Preceding that is justification, which means to be forgiven of wrongdoings, both of which are possible because Jesus died as the atoning sacrifice, which is what the sprinkling of His blood is referring to.
   Note how this introduction includes all three Persons of the Trinity! (Speaking of Barth, he championed the Trinity in a time when Trinity theology was being degraded.) Lastly, some people think the elect in this introduction were Jewish Christians spread out in those various countries as a part of what was known as the Dispersion. The Dispersion started when Assyria conquered the ten northern tribes, Israel, and continued after the Babylonian exile. I do not think Peter was singling out Jewish Christians, rather he was addressing Christians who were both Jewish and Gentiles. For example, I Peter 2:10 indicates more of a Gentile audience. Yet either way, the messages of Scripture are always key, because a primary attribute of Scripture is that the immediate context is critical for interpretation, yet that interpretation also provides a message from Holy Spirit meant for all people until Christ returns.  So I Peter is a letter meant for even us.
Hunter Irvine

Footnotes:
(1) Stanley J. Grenz & Roger E. Olson, 20th Century Theology: God & the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1992), 69.

(2) David F. Ford & Mike Higton, eds., The Modern Theological Reader
(Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 17.