It’s the End of the World as We Know It…

1 Peter 1:20

He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.

One of the most basic mistakes of biblical interpretation concerns the end of time.  For us, ‘the end of the ages’ is somewhere out there-way out there I think it would be fair to say.  This is a reasonable interpretation.  It has been two thousand years since Jesus returned to heaven.  As he went, so shall he return.  But forgive me for the short-sightedness of my faith, I am not holding my breath at this point.  I pray and I hope, but I am living for the day I see grandchildren and beyond.

For Peter, and for John in the book of Revelations, and Paul, and the entire first generation of the church, the end of the ages was upon them.  That was what Jesus came for, to crown the history of God, to end the ages of sin, to usher in the renewed heaven and the renewed earth.  It is the labor of love that Peter is calling his readers to, of that first generation and to this generation. 

So what does that mean for us?  It means the destiny of Jesus from before the world is not yet fulfilled.  What has been revealed at the end of the ages, in the time of Peter, is not yet complete.  There is work for us, there is destiny for us, the work begun by Peter continues.  Such is our participation in the completion of the work of Christ.