<p>5:1 <i>The elders among you I urge (I who am a fellow-elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ</i><i>- </i>Peter was present at the cross. After the denials, knowing his condemnation, where did Peter go after his denials? Probably he could quite easily have also gone and hung himself- for he was of that personality type. But instead he went to the cross- for he was a witness of the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet. 5:1), and his words and writing consistently reflect the language of Golgotha&rsquo;s awful scene. There, in that personal, hidden observation of the cross, probably disguised in the crowd, not daring to stand with John and the women, his conversion began. Then his love for his Lord became the more focused. Now he could <i>do </i>nothing- and his thinking had been so full of <i>doing</i> until that point. All he could do was to watch that death and know his own desperation, and somehow believe in grace. &ldquo;Who his own self bare our sins in his body up on to the tree&rdquo; (2:24 RVmg.) suggests the watching Peter reflecting, as the Lord&rsquo;s body was lifted up vertical, that his sins of denial and pride were somehow with his Lord, being lifted up by Him. &ldquo;For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God&rdquo; (1 Pet. 3:18) could well have been written by Peter with a glance back at the way that after his denials, he the unjust went to the crucifixion scene and reflected just this. When in 5:1 he comments that he witnessed the sufferings of Christ, he could be saying that therefore these thoughts were his thoughts as he witnessed it: the just suffering for him the unjust, to bring him back to God.</p><p>Peter was a &ldquo;witness&rdquo; of the sufferings of Christ. The same word is used to characterize his witness of preaching in Acts 1:8; 5:32; 10:39. The Greek word doesn&rsquo;t convey that he simply saw the Lord&rsquo;s sufferings, but that he saw-and-therefore-spoke it. There is something in the cross that cannot be held passively once it has been seen / understood. It <i>must</i> be spoken out. Having described the physicalities of the cross, Is. 52:15; 53:1 continue: &ldquo;<i>So</i> shall he sprinkle many nations&hellip; for that which had not been i.e. the like of which had never been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard ever before the like of shall they consider. Who hath believed our preaching (Heb.)? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?&rdquo; by our preaching? There is an undeniable link between the Lord&rsquo;s sufferings and the preaching of them. They are in themselves an imperative to preach them. <i>So</i> shall He sprinkle many nations with His blood of atonement and new covenant, in that His sufferings would provoke a world-wide (&ldquo;to all nations&rdquo; cp. &ldquo;many nations&rdquo;) witness to them by those who knew them. Paul sums it up when he speaks of &ldquo;the preaching of (Gk. &lsquo;which is&rsquo;) the cross&rdquo; (1 Cor. 1:18). This is how essential the link between preaching and the cross. Peter&rsquo;s witness to men is a living exemplification of this.</p><p><i>Who is also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed)</i><i>- </i>Our eternal future will be about God&rsquo;s glory being revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). And yet we are even now partakers in that glory which shall be revealed through us in the future. In this we see the connection between our present spirit of witness, and the eternal life. We &lsquo;have&rsquo; eternal life in the sense that we live out now the essence of the life we will eternally live. Our eternal future will be all about revealing Christ, who is the glory of God; and this therefore is to be the essence of our lives today. Which is all why &lsquo;preaching&rsquo; isn&rsquo;t an optional extra to the Christian life, something some are into but not others; the essence of revealing / manifesting Christ is to be the essence of our whole existence. And further, the fact we will do this to perfection in God&rsquo;s future Kingdom is seen by Paul as the ultimate encouragement for us, on account of which we can count all the sufferings of this life as nothing (Rom. 8:18).</p><p>We have been called to &quot;glory&quot; in possessing Divine nature in the Kingdom (2 Pet.1:3,4). Obviously we do not fully have that now. Yet we are firmly connected with that hope; Peter earlier described himself as &quot;a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed&quot; in us. Likewise we have been credited with righteousness now through Christ (Rom. 9:30), yet our reward in the Kingdom will be a &quot;crown of righteousness&quot; (2 Tim. 4:8).</p>