'In Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with
joy unspeakable and full of glory.'--1 Peter i. 8.
The Apostle has just previously been speaking about the great and
glorious things which are to come to Christians on the appearing of
Jesus Christ, and that naturally suggests to him the thought of the
condition of believing souls during the period of the Lord's absence and
comparative concealment. Having lifted his readers' hopes to that great
Future, when they would attain to 'praise and honour and glory' at
Christ's appearing, he drops to the present and to earth, and recalls
the disadvantages and deprivations of the present Christian experience
as well as its privileges and blessings. 'Whom having not seen, ye
love,' that is a very natural thought in the mind of one whose love to
Jesus rested on the ever-remembered blessed experience of years of happy
companionship, when addressing those who had no such memories. It points
to an entirely unique fact. There is nothing else in the world parallel
to that strange, deep personal attachment which fills millions of hearts
to this Man who died nineteen centuries ago, and which is utterly unlike
the feelings that any men have to any other of the great names of the
past. To love one unseen is a paradox, which is realised only in the
relation of the Christian soul to Jesus Christ.
Then the Apostle goes on with what might at first seem a mere repetition
of the preceding thought, but really brings to view another strange
anomaly. 'In Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' Love longs for the presence of
the beloved, and is restless and defrauded of its gladness so long as
absence continues. But this strange love, which is kindled by an unseen
Man, does not need His visible presence in order to be a fountain of joy
unspeakable and full of glory. Thus the Apostle takes it for granted
that every one who believes knows what this joy is. It is a large
assumption, contradicted, I am afraid, by the average experience of the
people that at this day call themselves Christians.