Peter’s Conviction

by Terry Wane Benton

Peter, another eyewitness and apostle of Jesus, was recorded by Luke regarding several of his testimonial accounts. See Luke’s impressive documentation of Peter’s presentation of the evidence of Jesus, as Luke recorded them in summary in Acts 2, 3, and 10. Luke recorded these speeches to show future generations the kind of things Jesus did to be thought of as God’s divine demonstration for all time to come. Luke shows the consistency of Peter’s message even in the hostile place of Jesus’ crucifixion, right in Jerusalem on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ Passover timed death by crucifixion. Peter also offers his own written testimony in two books, collected into the New Testament and known as First and Second Peter.

Peter’s two books were written before his death, which occurred around AD 67. In his first book, he talks about his “living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3). This means that the hope he had for the last 30 years was still very much “alive” in him, and His testimony had kept him going strong in his conviction for that long. He had not weakened in his conviction that Jesus was real, and that “the blood of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:2) was still setting people apart to God and covering the sins of all who want reconciliation with God. Peter believed there was an absolute truth that was still “purifying souls” (I Peter 1:22).

After about 30 years of preaching the truth of Jesus, his testimony continued to be the same as Luke had reported him preaching on that first Pentecost of Acts 2 and to the Gentiles in Acts 10. The same basic facts had not changed in 30 years of preaching the message of Jesus Christ. In Peter’s first letter, he does as he did on Pentecost, he reminds people that the prophets (I Peter 1:10f) had been writing beforehand about this Christ and His sufferings and the glories that would follow. He spoke of what God had revealed by the Holy Spirit (I Peter 1:12). He said that Jesus was coming to be revealed again in the future (I Peter 1:7,13). It is impressive to see how Peter had lost no confidence at all in the “incorruptible seed,” the word of God, and he appeals to Isaiah 40 to remind his readers that “the word of the Lord endures forever” (I Peter 1:24-25), no matter how the glory of man changes and fades. It was to Peter that the conviction came, “Glory and dominion belong to Jesus forever and ever” (I Peter 4:11). Peter was just as alive with his conviction as he had been 30 years earlier, when he stated the truth on that first Pentecost in Jerusalem. Glory and dominion still and always belong to Jesus.

These are not the words of someone who knew they made up a story, lying to the world about a dead man, but the words of someone still fully convinced that Jesus is “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), the One who proved His Godhood and power over death itself. He believed that the full glory of Christ was still ahead and would finally be revealed (I Peter 4:13) and that “exceeding joy” was coming.

Suffering as a Christian was just a high honor to Peter (I Peter 4:16). After 30 years of suffering for Jesus, Peter was still alive with such confident expectation. If Peter knew he and the other guys had hidden the dead body of Jesus and that he was part of a deception, he could not stomach 30 years of lies for hopelessness and more unnecessary suffering of persecution. But these are the words of a man fully convinced he had spent 3 years witnessing God come in the flesh and seeing Him alive from the dead. This man was still alive with confident expectation. He knew God as “a faithful Creator” (I Peter 4:19). Everything from Genesis to this moment was a result of God's reality and His faithful work in bringing about a rock-solid foundation for faith. Peter said he was “a witness of the sufferings of Christ” (I Peter 5:1). He had not forgotten it and would never forget it. He was still reeling with confidence that he was “also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed” (I Peter 5:1). He believed there is to be the coming reception of “the crown of glory that does not fade away” (I Peter 5:4). These are not the words of someone who was part of conspiracy, a deception, but the words of a witness to the greatest event of human history, when God came and revealed Himself in the flesh and demonstrated the greatest love man has ever seen, and regenerated the hearts of men toward a very “living hope.”