Understanding 1 peter 1:1-2

As I have posted many times, Ephesians 1:4 must be understood as "He chose us in Him [corporately as those His Redeemer would redeem] before the foundation of the world, [when God chose the Word to be His Lamb]. Thus God elected the Word before the foundation of the world, and because you do not choose a Redeemer without a plan to redeem, He chose us in Him [corporately when He chose Christ individually] before the foundation of the world.

This view solves all the problems of needing to nullify 2 Thessalonians 2:13, James 2:5 and on and on. It returns John 3:16 to a straightforward understanding, whoever believes in Him shall not perish. God decides who believes, when He credits our faith as righteousness. Our faith does not merit salvation, but God credits our worthless filthy rag faith as righteousness or not according to His sovereign judgment.

 

Saying something is so does not make it so. Lets go over it one more time,

In verse 3, who are the "us" that have been blessed? The saints, those who have been set apart in Christ. Thus they have been individually elected and placed within the corporately elected body of Christ.

So Paul is inumerating some of the blessing of being "in Christ" to those who are "in Christ."

Ephesians 1:4 (NASB) "just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him."

The "us" is plural, referring to a group. And then it says "in Him". What does this mean.
Some Calvinists argue this means individuals were chosen and spiritually placed in Him. But another way to look at it is God chose Him (the Word to be His Redeemer) and when He did He corporately chose those that the redeemer would redeem, not individually but corporately as the target group of His redemption plan.

Bottom line, those of us in Christ have received a blessing of being chosen corporately before the foundation of the world. Now flip over to 2 Timothy 1:9, which says, "who has saved us and called us with a Holy Calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace [think redemption plan] which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.

Both verses support the corporate election view and allow a straightforward understanding of many verses which say God chose us during our lifetime, such as 2 Thessalonians 2:13, James 2:5, 1 Peter 2:9-10, and 1 Corinthians 1:26-30.

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but all those elections were done, (1) during the lifetime of the individual and (2) without doing the election based on crediting their faith as righteousness for salvation.

Chosen "from the womb" indicates the choice occurred while in the womb. Before I formed you, refers to before you were fully formed. Scripture speaks of the "unformed substance" in the womb and so this fixes the time of the election to be a prophet.

 

Before I formed you my eyes saw your unformed substance. Thus election from the womb and during the lifetime of the prophet. This is yet another example of my minimalist method of understanding verses, what is the view that makes the least assumptions.

 

1 Peter 1:1-2 NASB:

‘Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.”

Peter uses covenant language, pointing to Mount Sinai and Exodus 24, but clarifies that the covenant in view is the New Covenant in the blood of Christ. Peter is Christ’s apostle and refers to himself with the name given him by Jesus.

Next we encounter phrases, which modify or describe how his audience became chosen aliens. First it was according to the foreknowledge of God – God’s redemption plan was to choose believers for His own possession. Second they became chosen aliens by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Here “sanctifying work” refers to God setting the person apart – spiritually in Christ – rather than the process of sanctification that occurs once a person is placed spiritually in Christ. And third, we have the phrase “to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.

In summary, the encouragement provided by Peter’s first letter is based on the readers understanding that they are aliens suffering difficult in the world because they were chosen out of the world and made citizens of the kingdom through the New Covenant in His blood.

God Bless

 

Yet another logical absurdity argued in defense of Calvinism. Lets agree God created time when He created the universe, the "space-time continuim".

Now we are in time and we look at the creation of time from within time and we intellecturally refer to before time began, before creation. Before the foundation of the world, from all eternity, and the like refers to when God and only God existed before He created time.

 

What does "earlier" mean. Before the OP in this thread! When I prepared this opening post I was aware of the difficulty in using the adjective as a verb and therefore I used the term chosen aliens, using chosen as an adjective.

Archangel assumed I did not understand the issue and raised a problem with the NASB and said I too was using an adjective as a verb. Total fiction.

 

Since 1 Peter 1:1-2 uses "by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to describe how the chosen aliens came to their present situation, without any "for salvation" to be found, it is clear that "by the sanctifying work of the Spirit" and "through the sanctification by the Spirit" (2 Thessalonians 2:13) both refer to God setting individuals apart in Christ as the means of being chosen, not saved.