'... Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to
be revealed in the last time.'--1 Peter i. 5.
The Revised Version substitutes 'guarded' for 'kept,' and the
alteration, though slight, is important, for it not only more accurately
preserves the meaning of the word employed, but it retains the military
metaphor which is in it. The force of the expression will appear if I
refer, in a sentence, to other cases in which it is employed in the New
Testament. For instance, we read that the governor of Damascus '_kept_
the city with a garrison,' which is the same word, and in its purely
metaphorical usage Paul employs it when he says that 'the peace of God
shall keep'--guard, garrison--'your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.'
We have to think of some defenceless position, some unwalled village out
in the open, with a strong force round it, through which no assailant
can break, and in the midst of which the weakest can sit secure. Peter
thinks that every Christian has assailants whom no Christian by himself
can repel, but that he may, if he likes, have an impregnable ring of
defence drawn round him, which shall fling back in idle spray the
wildest onset of the waves, as a breakwater or a cliff might do.
Then there is another very beautiful and striking point to be made, and
that is the connection between the words of my text and those
immediately preceding. The Apostle has been speaking about 'the
inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away,' and
he says 'it is reserved in Heaven for you who are kept.' So, then, the
same power is working on both sides of the veil, preserving the
inheritance for the heirs, and preserving the heirs for the inheritance.
It will not fail them, and they will not miss it. It were of little
avail to care for either of the two members separately, but the same
hand that is preparing the inheritance and making it ready for the
owners is round about the pilgrims, and taking care of them till they
get home.
So, then, our Apostle is looking at this keeping in three aspects,
suggested by his three words 'by,' 'through,' 'unto,' which respectively
express the real cause or power, the condition or occasion on which that
power works, and the end or purpose to which it works. So these three
little words will do for lines on which to run our thoughts now--'by,'
'through,' 'for.'