How Does God the Father Relate to Jesus Christ in 1 Peter?
By Garrett Craig, TGC.
What’s the nature of the relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ in 1 Peter? How do God’s actions toward Christ contribute to our understanding of Peter’s conception of God’s identity?
Jesus Christ’s identity can only be understood in relation to his unique filial relationship with God the Father. Further, God’s relationship with Christ is disclosed when the identity descriptions of Peter’s God-talk are given proper attention.
Unique Relationship with Father
Divine fatherhood is the controlling concept of God in 1 Peter (1:2, 3, 17). Commentators connect the picture of God as a Father to the rebirth metaphor that Peter uses to describe believers’ salvation (v. 3). John Elliott writes, “The metaphor of God as father . . . implies God as progenitor and the believing community as God’s family or household (2:5; 4:17) and ‘brotherhood’ (2:17; 5:9).”
We may add that Peter clarifies that rebirth isn’t given by means of “perishable seed” (σπορᾶς φθαρτῆς) but the “imperishable” (ἀφθάρτου)—the living and abiding Word of God (1:23). Further, as God is the Father of believers, certain codes of conduct from his children are required (τέκνα ὑπακοῆς; v. 14).
Thus, in 1 Peter, both spiritual and social privileges of the community are grounded in the thick metaphor of the fatherhood of God. Since the believing community relates to God as Father, how should we understand the fatherhood of God in relation to Jesus Christ (v. 3)? Is the sonship of Jesus symmetrical with the sonship of believers?
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