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Theologies of Peter and Jude · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reformed thinking. Glad to be here.
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We are so glad you're with us today.
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We've got a stack of sources in front of us, and I have to say,
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this one feels particularly heavy.
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It does. It has a certain gravity to it.
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Not just, you know, the page count, but the content itself.
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Right, we're looking at the tail end of the New Testament.
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Specifically, we're digging into the letters of Peter and Jude.
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And you're right about the weightiness.
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When you read Peter and Jude, you're not getting, say, the
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systematic, logical flow of Romans.
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No, you're getting this urgent, almost fiery pastoral theology.
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I mean, these are men writing to a church that's basically under
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siege. That's a perfect way to put it.
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And for our source material in this deep dive, we're leaning
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heavily on The Moody Handbook of Theology by Paul Ends.
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A great resource. It is.
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We're zeroing in on his analysis of the theologies of Peter and
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Jude. And the mission for us today is,
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I think, pretty straightforward. We want to get our heads around
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how these two early church heavyweights.
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And they were heavyweights. Absolutely.
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Peter the fisherman turned apostle and Jude the half
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brother of Jesus. How they articulated some core
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doctrines. Christ, Scripture, the end
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times, the big ones. The big ones.
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And we want to understand the why behind their warnings.
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Why were they so concerned about false teachers and why the
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constant encouragement during suffering?
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And we're going to be looking at all of this through a Reformed
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lens, which is, I think, very fitting because as Ends points
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out, you can't read these letters without seeing doctrines
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like election, the authority of Scripture, and the sovereignty
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of God just well baked right in. They're all over the place, so
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let's start at the beginning. We have to unpack the man
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himself, Peter. Simon Peter.
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Right, Simon, son of Jonah or John, you see both brother of
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Andrew. He was from Bethsaida, then
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later moved to Capernaum. And his trade was.
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A fisherman. And I think sometimes, because
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we're so used to seeing him in, you know, stained glass windows,
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we forget the grit of that background.
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You really do. It's so key to remember that he
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was not a scholar in some, you know, ivory tower.
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He was a tradesman. He worked with his hands.
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But at the same time he was part of the inner circle.
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Inner circle. He was one of the inner three
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with James and John. He saw things the other apostles
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didn't. He witnessed the transfiguration
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with his own eyes. And that becomes a huge point of
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authority for him later on, doesn't.
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It it does, it's one of his credentials, so to speak.
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In fact, Ends makes the point that Peter's authority is just
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central. He was a pillar of the church.
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That's what Paul calls him in Galatians.
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He was the spokesman at Pentecost.
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Stood up and preached that her sermon.
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He stood up at the Jerusalem Council.
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He was by designation, the apostle to the Jews.
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So when we read his letters, this isn't just, you know, some
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friendly advice. We're reading the words of
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someone who literally walked on water with Jesus and saw him
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glorified on a mountain. The authority is immense.
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OK, let's get into his first letter then.
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First, Peter NS notes that this one received early
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authentication from some big names.
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Oh yeah, guys like Eusebius, Irenaeus Tertullian.
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The early church was confident this was from Peter.
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And the internal evidence is solid, too.
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Very solid. There's a lot of consistency
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between the language and themes in first Peter and Peter's
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sermons that Luke records for us in the book of Acts.
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The dating here is also interesting.
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Ends places it sometime before 8064.
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Why is that specific date so significant?
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Well, 8064 is the year of the Great Fire of Rome, and that's
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when the neuronium persecution really kicked into high gear.
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So Peter's writing just before the storm breaks in full.
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It seems that way. He's writing to Hebrew believers
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who are living among Gentiles, likely scattered throughout Asia
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Minor, and the situation he describes is already intense.
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He talks about a fiery ordeal. He does.
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He says they are distressed by various trials.
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And notice the kind of trials he's talking about.
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At this stage, it seems to be mostly, you know, social
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pressure, slander. Not necessarily official state
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sponsored executions yet. Not on a wide scale, no.
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It seems to be more about being charged with disloyalty to the
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state, being ridiculed for not participating in the local
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heathen practices. So if you're the guy who refuses
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to go to the feast at the Pagan temple, you're suddenly the
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outcast. You're the outcast at work.
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You're the weird neighbor. You're being maligned for your
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faith, and Peter's purpose in all of this is what scholars
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call hortatory. Hortatory.
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That's a good word. Basically encouraging.
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Encouraging, exhorting, building them up.
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His main thesis, if you could boil it down, is that they need
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to stand firm in God's grace right in the middle of all this
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persecution. It's a handbook for survival in
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a hostile culture. Now let's switch gears to the
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second epistle, 7 Peter. This one's a bit more debated
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historically, isn't? It it is, yeah.
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And ends is very upfront about this.
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He notes that so can Peter probably has the weakest
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evidence externally of any book in the New Testament.
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That's a pretty strong statement.
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It is but, and this is critical, but it was never rejected as
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spurious. It wasn't ever just tossed out
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as a fake. So it was debated but not
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dismissed, right? Origin way back around 80 to 40.
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He was the first to explicitly attribute it to Peter, so it was
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in circulation and being discussed very early on.
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And N seems to argue that the internal evidence is what really
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seals the deal. I think so, yes.
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The author claims to be an eyewitness of the
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Transfiguration. Which is again a massive.
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Claim it's his Apostolic credential.
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If that's not Peter, then the author is a liar pretending to
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be Peter. But the theology, the character
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of the letter, it all aligns with what we know of him.
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It was likely written a little later, maybe around AD 65.
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OK, but the threat has changed. In First Peter, the danger was
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external, the hostile culture, the neighbors, maybe the local
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government. In Second Peter, where is the
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threat coming from? It's coming from inside the
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house. The threat in Second Peter is
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internal corruption. Heretics.
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Heretics and false teachers and ends points out this this two
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fold purpose for taking Peter negatively.
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He's coming out swinging against antinomianism.
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Let's break that down for a second.
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Antinomianism. Yeah, it's a big theological
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word. It comes from the Greek,
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literally Antinomus. Against the law.
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Against the law, it says. You know this really dangerous
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idea that because we're saved by grace, the law of God just
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doesn't apply to us anymore? So grace becomes a license.
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A license to sin? A blank check.
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Yeah. And Peter sees this poison
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seeping into the church, and he knows he has to stop it.
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So that's the negative purpose. Positively, he exhorts them to
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grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.
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You see, the best way to fight bad doctrine is with good
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doctrine and with a life that reflects that good doctrine.
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That's a perfect way to transition into the theology
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itself. Let's look at Peter's high
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Christology. I love how NS breaks this down
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just by looking at the names and titles Peter uses for Jesus.
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It's a really insightful way to approach it.
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If you look at Peter's sermons in the book of Acts, like the
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big one in Acts 2 at Pentecost, he often uses the term Jesus the
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Nazarene. Which to a 1st century Jewish
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audience, would not have sounded like a compliment.
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Oh, not at all. You remember Nathaniel's
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reaction, right? Can anything good come out of
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Nazareth? Exactly.
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It was a backwater town. It was a term with, you know,
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negative cultural baggage. It was, but Peter uses it on
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purpose. He wants to highlight that this
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Jesus, the one you rejected, the lowly Nazarene, he's the one God
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has exalted. He's taking their insult and
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turning it into a badge of honor.
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He is. He flips the script.
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In Acts 2.36, he lands the final punch.
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He says God has made him both Lord and Christ.
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He takes the rejected Nazarene and declares him the sovereign
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Messiah. But when we get to his letters,
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the language changes a bit. He doesn't use Nazarene as much.
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No, in the epistles his preference shifts to Christ and
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Lord. Messiah and Sovereign.
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Yes, Christ or Messiah becomes the dominant title, especially
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when he's talking about suffering.
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Which is the heartbeat of first Peter.
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But it's not just, you know, life is hard.
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Get used to it. It's suffering with a specific
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pattern. The pattern is Christ himself.
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That's the key. Peter focuses so heavily on
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Christ's suffering as a substitute.
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This is where a Reformed understanding of the Atonement
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just leaps off the page and Peter's writing.
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What do you mean? He does.
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Christ died once for all. And that's a very specific
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phrase in the Greek. Right.
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Oh, it's incredibly emphatic. It means it is a finished,
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completed work. It cannot and does not need to
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be repeated. It was a singular effectual act
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in history. The ultimate sacrifice.
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The ultimate and final one, Peter uses the imagery of the
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spotless lamb in First Peter 1 .19.
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He's drawing on the entire Old Testament sacrificial system to
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say this is the fulfillment of all that.
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This is the Lamb of God. And the connection for the
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original reader and for us is so critical.
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Because Christ suffered, we can arm ourselves for our own
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suffering. Right.
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It's a therefore because Christ suffered.
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Therefore arm yourselves with the same way of thinking.
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If the master suffered unjustly, the servant shouldn't be
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surprised when they do too. But that's also about what comes
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after the suffering. He doesn't just leave us there,
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no. He always links the suffering of
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Christ to the glory that followed.
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The suffering and glory motif. That's it.
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Peter immediately pivots the discussion to the living hope
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that we have, which is secured by the resurrection.
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You see it at first, Peter 1.3. Christ isn't just the suffering
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servant, he's the glorify Lord who was coming back.
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And because he. Because he rose, our hope is
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alive. It's not a cross your fingers
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and hope for the best kind of hope.
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It's a certain expectation and anchor.
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And that certainty is grounded in the Word, which I think
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brings us to Peter's doctrine of Scripture.
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Ends makes a pretty bold claim here.
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He says that aside from the Apostle Paul, Peter gives us the
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most extensive insight into what Scripture actually is.
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It's a strong claim, but I think the text backs it up.
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Peter gives us both the what and the how of inspiration.
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OK, let's start with the what he calls it, the prophetic word.
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He does in second Peter 1.19. He calls it the more sure
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prophetic word, and you have to see the context there.
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It's just incredible. Set the scene for us.
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Peter has just finished saying I was on the mountain, I saw Jesus
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transfigured, I saw his glory. I literally heard the voice of
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God the Father from heaven. I mean, that's the ultimate
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spiritual experience. You can't top that.
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You would think not, but then he says in effect.
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But we have something even more sure than my personal experience
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on that mountain. And that something is.
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The prophetic word, the Scriptures.
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He treats the Old Testament as more certain, more reliable than
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his own eyewitness sensory experience of the glory of God.
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That is just mind blowing in our culture, which is so obsessed
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with chasing experiences and authentic feelings.
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Peter comes along and says the written text is the bedrock.
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It's the objective standard. It's more sure.
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And then he goes on to explain how we got it.
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This is where we get the mechanics of inspiration in
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Second Peter 1.21. He starts by saying what?
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It's not. It's not of human origin.
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It didn't come about because some clever men sat around a
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campfire and decided to write a holy book.
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No, he says prophecy never came by the will of man.
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Instead, he says, men spoke from God as they were carried along
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by the Holy Spirit. Carried along, that's a
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fascinating phrase. It is.
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The Greek word there is foramenoid.
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It's a nautical term. It's used of a ship being driven
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by the wind. The wind fills the sails and
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moves the ship in a specific direction.
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So the human authors, the men, they were like the ship's sails.
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In a way, yeah, they were active.
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They use their own minds, their vocabularies, their
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personalities, their research. But the Holy Spirit was the wind
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filling the sails, directing the course, making sure the final
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destination was exactly what God intended.
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So it guarantees divine authorship and accuracy, but it
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still uses human writers. That's the doctrine of
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concursus, God and man working together, but with God
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superintending the process to ensure the result is His
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infallible word. Precisely.
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And while we're on this, we cannot skip over what Peter says
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about Paul's writings. Oh, this is one of my favorite
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details in the whole New Testament.
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Second, Peter 3.16, Go ahead. Peter just casually admits that
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Paul writes some things that are hard to understand.
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Which is a great comfort to anyone who's ever wrestled
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through the book. Of Romans, isn't it?
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But then he says that ignorant and unstable people twist Paul's
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words to their own destruction, as they do the rest of the
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Scriptures. He puts Paul's letters on the
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same level, in the same category as the Old Testament.
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He calls them Scripture. That is monumental.
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It's an apostle affirming that the writings of another apostle
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are Scripture. It shows us that even at this
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very early stage, the Church recognized that these Apostolic
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writings were the Word of God on par with the Old Testament
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Canon. They knew they were reading and
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handling scripture. And what is the nature of this
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word? It's not just a collection of
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rules or facts. No.
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Peter uses these wonderful organic metaphors first.
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Peter 1.23. He calls it incorruptible seed.
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What does a seed do? It produces life.
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It produces life. The word leads to regeneration,
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to being born again. And then in first Peter 2.2 he
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says we should crave the pure milk of the word.
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What does milk do? It helps you grow.
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It leads to spiritual growth. So the Word is what gives us new
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life, and the Word is what sustains and grows that new
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life. It's everything.
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Which is a good lead in to how we're supposed to live this life
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out. Yeah.
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So part 4, Ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church and the
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Christian life. We talked about suffering
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earlier, but Peter gets more specific.
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He makes a distinction. Not all suffering is the same.
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Right, and this is a very practical point, he says.
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There's no credit if you suffer for doing something wrong.
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So if you break the law and you get punished for it, you can't
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claim you're being persecuted for righteousness.
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You're just a criminal at that point, getting what you deserve.
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But he says, if you suffer unjustly for doing good, and you
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endure it with patience, that is admirable before God.
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Why? Because it aligns you with the
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pattern of Christ who suffered unjustly for doing good.
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The proper response, Peter says, is not resentment or bitterness.
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It's rejoicing. It's rejoicing, which is a hard,
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hard command to follow without the help of the Holy Spirit.
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Impossible, I'd say. Now, what about the church
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itself? Peter was, I mean he was pivotal
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in the universal Church's understanding of who is in and
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who is out. Acts 10 and Acts 15.
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The Story of Cornelius and the Jerusalem Council.
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Peter was the key figure God used.
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To do what? To break down the dividing wall
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between Jew and Gentile. He was the one who came to the
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shocking realization that Gentiles did not need to become
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Jews. They didn't need circumcision or
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to follow the ceremonial law to be saved.
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Faith in Christ. Just faith in Christ.
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It opened the floodgates. But he also talks about the
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local church. He has specific instructions for
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the leadership. Right in First Peter 5, he
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speaks to the elders. And he tells them to shepherd
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the flock. Shepherd not drive the flock or
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fleece the flock. Shepherd It's a caring,
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protective role. You feed them, you protect them
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from wolves, you care for them. And he gives some
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qualifications. They shouldn't be domineering.
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No lording it over people. Right.
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They shouldn't be in it for filthy liquor.
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That's the old King James language for dishonest financial
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gain. Instead, they should serve
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eagerly as examples to the flock.
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And then there's a topic of baptism.
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Peter makes this comparison to Noah's flood that has generated
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a lot of theological heat over the centuries.
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Yes. First Peter 3.21 he says
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baptism, which corresponds to this now saves you.
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OK, let's just stop right there, because if you just read that
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phrase in isolation, baptism now saves you.
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That sounds a lot like baptismal regeneration.
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It sounds like the water itself is what saves you.
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It does, but Peter thankfully clarifies immediately.
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He follows that phrase by saying not as a removal of dirt from
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the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience
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through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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So it's not about the physical washing.
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No, the analogy is Noah. How does Noah fit in?
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I'm listening. The water in Noah's day was a
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symbol of two things, judgement on the wicked world and
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salvation for Noah's family. It separated Noah from that old
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condemned world. It's a dividing.
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Line, a dividing line. In the same way Peter says
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baptism symbolizes our break from the old sinful life.
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It is our public identification with Christ's death and
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resurrection. It's the outward symbol of the
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inward reality, not the reality itself.
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So it's like putting on the uniform of the team, it shows
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everyone which side you're on. That's a great way to put it.
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It marks the transition into the New Covenant community.
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OK, let's pivot now to the other author in our deep dive today,
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Jude. The brother of James.
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And since James was the half brother of Jesus.
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Jude is also the half brother of our Lord.
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Which is a biographical detail that he never once mentions as a
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way to, you know, pull rank or claim authority.
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Never. He introduces himself as a bond
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servant of Jesus Christ. That's real humility.
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I mean, Can you imagine? You grew up in the same house as
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the Son of God, and when you write a letter to the church,
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you call him your master. It tells you everything you need
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to know about who Jude understood Jesus to be now.
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Like Peter, Jude was likely writing to a predominantly
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Jewish Christian audience. And the occasion for writing
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seems very, very similar to Teppa Peter.
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Extremely similar false teachers have crept in unnoticed.
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That's the phrase he uses. Ends calls them libertines.
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Libertines. So these are people who are
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turning the grace of God into a license for immorality.
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It's that antinomian spirit again.
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God's grace is so big, he'll forgive anything, so I can live
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any way I want. And Jude's response to this is
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one of the most famous charges in the entire New Testament.
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It is, he says, contend earnestly for the faith which
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was once for all handed down to the Saints.
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Let's unpack that first, the faith.
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He doesn't say your personal faith journey or your truth.
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No, the faith here is objective. It refers to the body of truth,
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the core doctrines of Christianity.
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And notice how it was delivered once for all, handed down.
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It's a closed deposit. It is a fixed body of truth.
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It doesn't evolve. It doesn't change with the
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culture. It's a sacred trust that must be
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guarded. That's a very confessional idea,
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very reformed. We have a standard of truth and
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we hold to it. And we fight for it.
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That phrase, contend earnestly, is an athletic term in the
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Greek. It has the idea of agonizing, of
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wrestling, of giving it your all.
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Let's look at Jude's Christology, because for such a
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short letter, it's really just a postcard, isn't it?
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He packs in some incredibly high theology about who Jesus is.
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He really does. In verse four he warns about
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these false teachers who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus
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Christ. That word for master is the one
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that always stands out to me. It's despotent in the Greek.
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From which we get our English word despot.
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We do. And in English, Despot has this,
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you know, terrible negative connotation.
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It implies A cruel tyrant. But in the original Greek it
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simply means an absolute ruler, someone with total, supreme,
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unchecked authority and ownership.
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Jude is saying Jesus owns us completely and totally.
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And he also calls him Lord. Which as we know in the New
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Testament, is the common substitute for the divine name
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Yahweh from the Old Testament. So Jude, the man who shared a
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mother with Jesus, is equating his half brother with Yahweh.
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He's calling him God. Unindiguously.
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And then he also calls him Messiah, the anointed one.
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It is a very, very high Christology.
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Jesus is absolute ruler. He is God and he's Savior.
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Then Jude's letter takes a bit of a strange turn.
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He starts referencing angels and arguments with the devil.
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Yes, this is one of those passages that makes people
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scratch their heads a bit. Jude mentions angels who did not
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keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode.
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What's that about? Well, NS links us to 2
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possibilities. 1 is the original fall of Lucifer and the angels
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who followed him. The other is a connection to the
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strange events of Genesis 6, where there was some kind of
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unnatural mingling. And then there's the reference
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to Michael the Archangel. Yes, Michael arguing with the
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devil over the body of Moses. This is an obscure reference,
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probably from a respected Jewish traditional text of the time,
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but Jude uses it to make a brilliant point about authority.
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What's the point? Even Michael, the mighty
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Archangel, did not dare to bring a railing judgement or a
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slanderous accusation against Satan on his own authority.
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He deferred to a higher power. He simply said the Lord rebuke
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you. He respected the divine chain of
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command, so to speak. He did, and the contrast
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couldn't be sharper with these arrogant false teachers who
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revile the things which they do not understand.
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They speak evil of spiritual powers and dignities.
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They're arrogant. Michael was humble before God's
20:45
established order. This is a perfect bridge to Part
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7 Reformed soteriology. We said at the top of the show
20:52
that this is reformed thinking, and Ends does a great job of
20:54
highlighting some very specific reformed doctrines in these
20:57
texts. And we have to start with
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election. The E word.
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The E word Peter and first Peter 1.20 says that Christ was a lamb
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for known before the foundation of the world.
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This whole plan of salvation wasn't a Plan B, it was planned
21:10
in eternity past. And Jude?
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Jude addresses his letter to those who are the called.
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Now, in reformed theology, the called doesn't just mean a
21:18
general invitation, does it? No.
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NS defines this as effectual calling.
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There's a general call of the gospel that goes out to everyone
21:26
who hears it, but the effectual call is the specific work of the
21:30
Holy Spirit to awaken the heart of the elect, to draw them
21:34
irresistibly to Christ. It's the call that creates the
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response. It is God's grace that overcomes
21:40
our natural resistance to Him. So when Jude writes to the call,
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he's writing to those whom God has specifically and effectively
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drawn to himself. OK, so if God is the one doing
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the calling. Then God is the one doing the
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keeping. The security of the believer.
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It's one of the most beautiful threads running through these
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letters. Jude 24 is one of the greatest
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benedictions in all of Scripture.
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Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling.
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He doesn't say now to you who, through your own hard work, are
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able to keep yourself from stumbling.
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No, the ability is all His. The ability to stand in the
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presence of His glory, blameless with great joy, is not based on
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our performance, it is based on His keeping power.
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To stand there means to be accepted, to be maintained by
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God. And Peter says something
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similar. He does.
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He says believers are kept by the power of God through faith.
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So our salvation is bookended by God's sovereign work.
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He plans it in eternity past, He calls us effectively in time,
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and He keeps us securely for eternity future.
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That's the heart of Reformed soteriology.
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Solidaeo Gloria, glory to God alone.
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All right, finally, let's look at eschatology, the doctrine of
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the last things. Both Peter and Jude are very
22:50
focused on the end. Very much so.
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Peter talks a lot about the Day of the Lord and ends points out
22:55
that for Peter this seems to be a broad period of time.
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It stretches from the rapture of the Church all the way through
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to the end of the Millennial Kingdom.
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So it's not just a single 24 hour day on the calendar.
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No, it's more like an era of God's direct intervention in
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history. And it includes 2 things.
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Deliverance for believers, which is implied in what he calls the
23:16
revelation of Christ and judgement for the wicked.
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And these false teachers that he and Jude warn about, they play a
23:22
big role in this end Times drama.
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They're the scoffers. They're the mockers.
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Peter predicts that in the last days they will come, saying
23:29
where is the promise of his coming?
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They look at the world around them and say nothing's changed.
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Everything just continues as it has since the beginning of
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creation. God's not going to intervene.
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They mistake God's patience for God's absence.
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That's a great way to put it. Peter's response is that God
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isn't slow. He's patient, not willing that
23:48
any should perish. But he wounds.
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The day will come and when it comes, it gets loud.
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Very loud Second Peter 3.1012 The heavens will pass away with
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a great noise. The elements will melt with
24:02
servant heat. The earth and its works will be
24:05
burned up. Now, some people interpret this
24:07
as total annihilation, that the entire universe just ceases to
24:10
exist. That's one view, but Ends leans
24:13
toward the idea of renovation rather than annihilation.
24:16
The old sphere where sin took place is purged, purified by
24:19
fire to make way for the new heavens and the new earth.
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It's a cosmic cleansing. And Peter, ever the pastor,
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brings it right back down to a practical application.
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Always, he asked the piercing question.
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Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort
24:32
of people want you to be? And the answer.
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In holy conduct and godliness, the fact that this present world
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is temporary and going to be renovated by fire should
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radically change how we live in it today.
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We shouldn't be holding on too tightly to the furniture, you
24:47
could say. It's all going up in smoke
24:48
anyway. Or being made new.
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So let's try to wrap this up. Let's summarize what we've seen
24:53
in this deep dive. We have Peter, who you could
24:56
call the apostle of hope. He's calling the church to stand
25:01
firm in God's grace, while the culture is quite literally
25:05
throwing fire at. Them.
25:07
And then you have Jude, the brother of our Lord, and he's
25:09
calling us to contend earnestly for the truth while wolves are
25:13
trying to sneak into the sheepfold.
25:15
And both of them, they balance this incredibly high theology.
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Christ is Lord, Christ is God. Christ is sovereign with very
25:22
grounded, practical living. Suffer well, live holy lives,
25:26
love the brotherhood, be good citizens.
25:28
And they both ground everything, all of it, in the Word of God.
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For Peter, it's the prophetic word that's more sure than even
25:35
your most profound personal experience.
25:37
And for Jude, it's the faith, this body of truth, that was
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once for all delivered to the Saints.
25:42
It's a call to be thinking Christians.
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Not just feeling Christians, but thinking Christians grounded in
25:49
truth. I think that's right.
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OK, I want to leave our listeners with a final
25:53
provocative thought to chew on. We touched on it briefly, but it
25:56
really stuck with me from the reading.
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Go on. It's that detail from Jude about
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Michael the Archangel. You have arguably the mightiest
26:03
warrior Angel in all of heaven. And when he's face to face with
26:07
Satan himself arguing over the body of Moses, he dares not
26:11
bring a railing accusation against him.
26:13
He defers. He simply says the Lord rebuke
26:15
you. It is a striking image of
26:17
humility and deference to divine authority.
26:20
It really is, and it just makes me think, if a mighty Archangel
26:24
like Michael respects the hierarchy of authority that God
26:27
has established, if he recognizes that judgement
26:29
ultimately belongs to the Lord alone, how much more should we
26:33
be careful In this age of social media where everyone has a hot
26:37
take on everything and everyone is so quick to destroy their
26:40
opponent with words, maybe we need to learn a lesson from
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Michael. Maybe we need to be much more
26:45
careful in how we speak about dignitaries, about rulers, about
26:49
spiritual realities, and about things we just don't fully
26:52
grasp. That's a very sobering thought.
26:54
We are often far too quick to speak where angels fear to
26:57
tread. Indeed.
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Well, thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the
27:01
theologies of Peter and Jude it. Has been a real pleasure.
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This has been reformed thinking. We hope you'll take these
27:07
truths, dig into the sources yourself, and let them shape
27:10
your mind and your life. Until next time.