1 Peter 5:11

Just before this, Peter has told the elders to lead humbly, the younger to submit, and everyone to cast their care on God and to stay watchful against the devil (1 Peter 5:1–9). The word “But” turns from all of that to God himself. Having spoken of what believers must do and of the enemy who opposes them, Peter rests everything on who God is, and every piece of practical advice in the letter stands on this.

He calls him “the God of all grace”. The word for grace, cháris, comes from chaírō, to rejoice, and means graciousness, kindness that gives delight, shown both in manner and in act. In Scripture it is above all God’s influence on the heart and its reflection in the life. God is the source of every kind of favour his people receive, unearned, and that includes the strength they need when trouble comes. His grace begins their calling, carries them through their trials, and brings them at last to glory. John says that this grace came to us in person, for the Word made flesh was “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Because grace is who God is, everything this verse promises flows from his own nature. The believer’s future security rests on his steady character and his purpose to redeem.

God “hath called us”. The call has already gone out, and God himself gave it. Its goal is “his eternal glory”, an unending share in God’s own splendour and honour. Peter wrote the whole letter in this hope. He opened it with a living hope and set the believers’ present trials beside the glory still to come (1 Peter 1:3–9).

The call comes “by Christ Jesus”, who stands between God and us in salvation and in our growth in holiness. His own life set the pattern of suffering first and glory after. Jesus asked, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26), and the letter to the Hebrews calls him “the captain of their salvation”, made “perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10). Through his atoning sacrifice we are reconciled to God and given access to this glory, and by his Spirit living in us God does the work this verse describes.

Paul teaches the same order. Those who suffer with Christ will also be glorified with him, and the glory that shall be revealed in us far outweighs the sufferings of this present time (Romans 8:17–18). The glory comes when Christ comes: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4).

The verb páschō means to suffer, to undergo something that is done to you, usually something painful. Peter uses it plainly, because his readers were really hurting. They were believers scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1), slandered and shunned by their neighbours, suspected of disloyalty to Rome because they kept away from pagan rituals, and perhaps facing official persecution as well. Peter speaks of “the fiery trial” and of suffering “for the name of Christ” (1 Peter 4:12–16). The letter was likely written before Nero’s persecution at Rome began in A.D. 64, but the pressure was already heavy enough to cause real distress.

“A while” translates olígos, little or brief. Earlier Peter told the same people that they were in heaviness “for a season” (1 Peter 1:6). Paul calls it “our light affliction, which is but for a moment”, and says that it “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:16–18). Set side by side, “a while” and “eternal glory” show the measure of each: suffering is counted in a little time, and glory in eternity. The order of the verse matters too. God’s perfecting work comes “after”, so the suffering is a passage that leads somewhere, a stage within his larger plan to redeem.

Four verbs, set side by side without a single “and” between them, describe what God does for his people after they have suffered. Piled up this way they show how complete his work is, and each one adds something of its own.

• “Make you perfect.” The verb is katartízō, formed from katá and a word related to ártios, “fitted” or “complete”. It means to complete thoroughly, to repair or adjust: to mend, equip and restore something to its proper, intended state. Matthew uses it of James and John “mending their nets” (Matthew 4:21), and the word has also been used of setting a dislocated bone. “Perfect” here means made whole and fit for God’s purpose, mended where suffering has torn.
• “Stablish.” stērízō means to make firm, to set fast, so that a person stands steady and unwavering.
• “Strengthen.” sthenóō means to give strength, the inner vigour that keeps a person going.
• “Settle.” themelióō means to lay a foundation, to ground something deeply and securely, as a building is set on solid ground.

Together they say that God means to make his people whole, firm, strong and deeply rooted, through their trials and beyond them. The work is active and ongoing, and God is the one doing it.

Peter words this as a prayer, a benediction spoken over his readers at the close of the letter, and it rests on God’s faithfulness so firmly that it carries the weight of a promise. Paul has the same confidence, “that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). The end of all this work is that God’s people are conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29).

Peter follows his prayer at once with praise. Verse 10 has spoken of the God who strengthens his people, and verse 11 answers by giving all honour and power back to him. These are the last words of the body of the letter, before the greetings of 1 Peter 5:12–14. He has called his readers to humility and to cast their care on God (1 Peter 5:5–7), to be sober and vigilant against the devil (1 Peter 5:8–9), and to trust God’s grace to restore them (1 Peter 5:8–10). Now he turns their eyes from human weakness and brief suffering to God’s strength and everlasting triumph. For a pressured community this praise was an anchor, reminding them that God rules and that the powers set against them were passing ones.

The word “be” is supplied in English, so the line is both a wish and a declaration that glory rightly belongs to God always. Glory, dóxa, from the base of dokéō, is God’s majesty, splendour, renown and honour, all that makes him worthy of praise. The same God who called his people to “his eternal glory” in verse 10 is the one to whom the glory belongs. Dominion, krátos, is vigour, might and ruling power. It is power at work, God’s effective authority over all creation and every circumstance, able to accomplish what he purposes. The God of all grace is also the God of all power and glory.

“For ever and ever” is in Greek eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn, “unto the ages of the ages”, the strongest way the language has to say that something never ends. It stands against the “little while” of verse 10. The suffering will pass, and God’s reign and the glory his people share with him will go on. Paul looks the same way: “for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). This is the hope Peter set out at the start of the letter, an inheritance kept for those who are kept by God’s power (1 Peter 1:3–5).

Peter has already closed one section of the letter almost the same way, “to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:11). Praise of this kind was common in Jewish and early Christian worship, and it runs through the New Testament. Revelation gives glory and dominion to Christ in the same words (Revelation 1:6), Jude closes with glory and dominion to God our Saviour (Jude 1:25), and Paul ends his great passage on God’s ways with “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).

The glory and dominion given to God in this verse are shared by the Son and shown to us in him. The risen Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). Paul says that at the name of Jesus “every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11). Christ is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3), and in heaven the Lamb that was slain is worthy “to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Revelation 5:12). So this praise is given to the one God, Father, Son and Spirit, whose glory is seen in Jesus Christ, the one by whom we are called to eternal glory.

These verses give you a way to hold your troubles. They are real and they can be intense, and they last “a while”. The God who allows them is the God of all grace, and he uses them to mend, steady, strengthen and ground you. Even where you feel broken he is at work, and the end he has in view is his eternal glory, which he has already called you to by Christ Jesus.

The praise of verse 11 belongs in the middle of that waiting. Giving God the glory and the dominion lifts your eyes to the one who rules over all, and it brings humility and trust together: you can hand your cares to his strong hand, find peace in his rule and courage in his strength, and say your own Amen to his reign for ever and ever.