Some notes on 1 Peter 2 As one can see in this Greek text of
Peter, the green words highlighted indicated that the word “calling” or “elected”
was very prominent for Peter. The faithful are “called” and when they answer to
the calling, they become the “elected”. If they were elected and then called it
will not make sense. All are called but not all will be eventually the elected
because they reject out of their own free will the election. Instantaneous salvation is not taught by
Peter. Look at 1 Peter 2:2. “In Him you may grow unto salvation”. Salvation is
a growing experience also if it is not exclusively so. The other way around,
salvation hope immediately is not absolute if Peter is taken together. Robert Johnson in his Commentary The Abundant Life Amplifier: Peter &
Jude (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1995), 51 said: “Various
aspects of salvation operate in three tenses – past, present, and the future.
God saved us from the penalty of sin when Jesus died and we accepted His
sacrifice; He is saving us now from the power of sin as we depend upon Him and
are faithful to Him; and He will save us finally from all evil at the end of
time, when the Lord will come again.” “Therefore” is not the beginning of
chapter 2 of 1 Peter, but in Greek the second word. The first word is “laying
aside”. Peter says that someone who experienced salvation has to lay aside “all
evil”. Retention? No. All evil. What about habits? All evil. All deception. Hypocrisy.
Envy. “And all slander”. The last word is actually katalalias but John Huss
took it to be kakalalias “evil speaking = slander”. The growth in Him unto salvation can only
occur if these are set aside. Peter is emphasizing the sanctification
process here. One point that distinguish Adventist
Theology from Reformation Theology is that Adventists do not say that God in
the Old Testament elected a nation by blood but in the New Testament He did
away with that and now elect by the heart. The Adventist position is that ever
since Adam and Eve, God had an elected generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy
nation of believers. The nation was not blood but heart. Like Ruth the Moabitess
and the Assyrians of Jonah’s day and other examples. It is the heart that
qualifies anyone to be part of the holy nation whether the Old or New Testament
and this aspect have never changed. There is a possibility that because of
his studies under the two Ridderbosse, father and son, that Hans LaRondelle was
influenced by this Reformatory view, namely that Jesus took over from David and
Israel what was applied to them and applied the Scriptures to Himself. Fallacy.
Red Card. Absolute not. Jesus was not a plagiarist. He built into the Old
Testament already aspects of Himself which was never to be applied to anyone in
the Old Testament since it referred to Himself. He merely brought out what was
already there. If LaRondelle had one weakness, it would be this point in his
theology and many of his students, who are also professors today in various
universities of the denomination are also teaching without realizing what they are
saying about this aspect. Peter is saying that his audience is
also now a holy nation just like Abel was part of the holy nation with Adam and
Eve, excluding Cain the murderer, because they believed. Similarly are they in
Peter’s day an elected generation as God did in every generation.