Grosey's Messages

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith---more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire---may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

εἰς κληρονομίαν ἄφθαρτον καὶ ἀμίαντον καὶ ἀμάραντον, τετηρημένην ἐν οὐρανοῖς εἰς ὑμᾶς

to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you

An echo . Matthew 6:19-21  Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Standing there that day, Peter listened intently to that great word about the robes of office that moths cannot corrupt, about the swords of power that rust cannot defile, and about the shining hoard that thieves cannot steal. And, long afterwards, the three sets of treasure were obviously running in his mind when he himself wrote to these scattered and persecuted Christians concerning the inheritance that is incorruptible, because no moth can corrupt it; undefilable, because no rust can defile it; and inalienable, because no thieves can steal it. And, to that vivid memory of the old days in which he companied with Jesus, we owe our text.

This sentence about the deathless inheritance is like a lovely casket containing three flashing jewels. Those three jewels are three very beautiful words-aphtharton, amianton, amranton. One is inclined to pick them up and finger them fondly

(I) Aphtharton-incorruptible.

imperishable. So many inheritances vanish away before they are obtained.

We hear much nowadays of the fifth columnists-the enemy within. In actual fact most of our deadliest enemies are within. In every hair of my head, ~ every pore of my skin, in every drop of my blood, there swarm millions of secret agents, working day and night to compass the disintegration and decay of my entire body. Every nerve and tissue and sinew and vein is corruptible. 'What shadows We are and what shadows we pursue! ' exclaimed Edmund Burke as, on his electioneering platform at Bristol, he received news that his opponent had suddenly died.

But aphtharton! This inheritance is flawless; and, what is more, incapable of developing a flaw, The exquisite word occurs in other connections. In that noble passage to which we resort for consolation at every burial service, we are assured that the dead shalI be raised incorruptible. Who can imagine the most microscopic particle of corruptibility in the radiant body of the risen Saviour? Who can imagine the most infinitesimal atom of corruptibility in the glorified bodies of His risen people?

The second occasion on which this fascinating word occurs is in this very chapter. We are born again, Peter declares, not of corruptible seed, but of incwruptible. Is it conceivable that that which is born of God, born of the Spirit, born of the Word which liveth and abideth for ever, can have within its divine structure any element of corruptibility? 'You have an inheritance,' Peter assures these harassed and hunted Christians, 'you have an inheritance as incorruptible as the resurrection body, as incorruptible as the new and divine life that regeneration brings!'

(2) Amianton-undefiIable! Not only undefiled but incapable of defilement! It was the name of a precious stone to which nothing unclean could adhere. Dust would not settle on it. Filth automatically fell from it. The breath would not cloud it. It was like those snow-white flowers that flourish in the English coal-mines: although the grime and the dust are blowing about them all the time, not a single speck settles upon their lovely petals. It reminds  us of that great saying of Jesus: Satan cometh but hath nothing in Me. Like this deathless inheritance of ours, He was undefilable.

(3) amaranton-

These inscriptions will fade away, but not this inheritance in Christ. It will not be like a faded rose. It is unwithering. It was said of the amaranth that, in any atmosphere, however stifling, it would indefinitely preserve its dewy freshness. Other flowers might droop and wilt and fade, but the amaranth retained its pristine beauty.

So there you have these three words of grace in which Peter describes the celestial inheritance to which these fugitives are the heirs. Aphtharton: amianton: umaranton! It is incorruptible, indestructible, and imperishable as to its substance; it is stainless, untarnishable, and undefilable as to its purity; it is fadeless, unwithering, and unshrivelling as to its beauty.

 

I said that Peter was standing on that grassy hillside listening with all his ears to his Lord's arresting words about the mothproof robes and the rustless swords and the treasures that no thieves can steal. But John was there, too. And, long afterwards, whilst Peter echoed the utterance of his Lord in stately prose, John, wrote of the dazzling imagery in his Apocalypse The Revelation. For John's walls of jasper and streets of gold and gates of pearl are, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the very things of which Jesus spoke on the Mount, the very things of which Peter wrote to his persecuted refugees. Robes, says Jesus, that no moth can corrupt; swords that no rust can defile; wealth that no thieves can steal!     

An inheritance, says Peter, uncorrupted and incorruptible; unsoiled and undefilable; inalienable and inviolable!

Walls, says John, that have in their composition no germ of crumbling decay-walls of jasper.' Streets that, unlike the grandest of earthly streets, can never be defiled by material or moral mirestreets of gold! Gates of immaculate purity and impregnable strength, gates that neither Goths nor Huns nor Vandals can storm--gates of pearl!