1 Peter 1:9 Commentary and Bible Study

If verse 7 went forward to the appearing of Jesus Christ, and verse 8 came back to the present, then verse 9 joins both together. You receive the end of your faith now the endpoint, the purpose, the object; the goal of your faith is salvation. You have received it now, but you'll receive it completely and fully when you enter glory. The end or outcome of the believer’s faith is that great reward which will be received at the revelation of Jesus Christ, but even now we enjoy it by anticipation. In one sense faith will always be part of our relationship with God for we will always need to trust one whom we cannot fully understand or trace, but so many of the things which we now know by faith will then be known by sight. Faith will take a different form in heaven, for while on earth faith must work without the support of sight, in heaven it will work alongside sight. On earth faith suffers trials and needs to be exposed to these because it is in its growing phase in which it is exercised and required to sustain us without sight. In heaven, faith will no longer have this hard work to do, but will operate with great ease and pleasure, adding to the joy that sight brings and extending the confidence and happiness of the present into the remotest future on the basis of God’s unchanging character. If faith had no role in heaven, it could not be called precious and could not be compared with gold that perishes.Faith will be commended and praised when it receives so great a reward; it will be vindicated for all the hard choices it had to take. These will be proven true and wise, while the choices of the worldling which were by sight will be shown to be exposed as foolish and without foundation in the truth. What seemed so obvious to the unbeliever led to disaster, while what seemed to far-fetched and unlikely to him was the path that led to victory and everlasting reward. How was it that his judgment was so much in error? It was because he based his judgment not on the revelation of God and wisdom that comes from heaven, but on his own wisdom which he had been warned was unable to see things as they really are. God made a path for the righteous to walk which excluded all who walked by fallen human wisdom.