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Believers live with the tension of kingdom citizenship and life in a fallen world. Both exercise tugs; one in the direction of holiness and obedience to Christ; the other in the direction of self-indulgence and denying Christ. Neither coexists without ultimately conquering the other. A Christian lives as a kingdom citizen on pilgrimage in a fallen world; or the world swallows up the professing Christian proving him deficient of the saving grace of God. Nothing seems to prove this out more than periods of trials, persecution, and suffering for the sake of the gospel.
That’s precisely the kind of situation that the recipients to Peter’s first epistle faced (cf. 1:6; 4:12; 4:16, 19). He identifies them as “those who reside as aliens,” that is, Christians on pilgrimage in an alien world. They were scattered across Asia Minor, many due to intensifying persecution they faced as those “chosen” and foreknown by God, sanctified by the Spirit, and sprinkled with the blood of Christ (cf. 1:1-2). They had been “distressed by various trials,” which evidently, prompted Peter’s letter to encourage them.
The natural tendency when facing trials and suffering is withdrawal—to pull back to ease the pain. But the believer is called to forward progress; better known as perseverance in the faith. That steadfastness is seen not only in our devotional life but also in our ethical practices. Peter’s concern did not focus on ivory tower pontifications but on genuine Christian living in the midst of a hostile world.
The Apostle’s approach in stirring up his fellow believers to faithfulness centers on five imperatives, each carefully couched in a context of living out the life wrought in the new birth (1:3). They had been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” so they must not retreat to sterile passivity but to a lively practice of the Christian life. First, he tells believers to “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” That is, think of the grand finale of the Faith and all that will be yours for eternity. Set your hope on this and not on the passing trinkets of the fallen world (1:13).
Second, “like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior” (1:14-16). That is, you have received the high calling of a holy God in the gospel and by the inward working of the Holy Spirit. He has not called you to remain as you were living in the “lusts which were yours in your ignorance” (1:14). He has called you to holiness so that you might be like Him.
Third, since you have the privilege of invoking God as Father, conduct the details of your life with a holy fear. That is, fear doing anything in life, thought, relationship, or tongue that would dishonor the Father or Son (1:17-21).
Fourth, the saving work of Christ has a corresponding relational effect upon your life in regard to your Christian brethren; therefore, “fervently love one another from the heart” (1:22-25). That is, you are not saved to become a hermit but to live out the love and beauty of the gospel in relationship to the body of Christ.
Finally, you’ve been born into God’s family, so as a hungry child, “long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation” (2:1-3). That is, being God’s child is a whole new life. Just as you must feed yourself to grow physically, you must do the same spiritually.
Five imperatives highlight the epistle’s opening and set forth how we are to live as Christians in an unchristian world. Our focus in this study will be on the third imperative that calls for us to conduct ourselves in fear while we’re pilgrims in this world. But do we need this reminder? Just like the brethren in 1st century Asia Minor, we too need the exhortation to keep pressing on as Christians. Since our manner of life mirrors the condition of our hearts, we must live daily with a consciousness of gospel. How does this shape out in our daily practice of the Christian life? Consider this text with me in two parts, the centrality of the gospel and the practicality of the gospel.
How do you motivate Christians to live in holiness, obedience, and faithfulness? Though well-meaning, many have resorted to manipulation, scolding, or browbeating as legitimate methods for inducing Christians to live like Christians. I do not doubt in the least that such tactics produce results—they do—at least of sorts. But they are not the kind of results that God calls for in His people. Those who live by manipulation must be regularly manipulated or else they fall back into the squalor of worldliness. Their actions do not originate from the heart pulsing in love for Christ but rather the will being subdued by someone that holds power over them through manipulation or browbeating. Remove the manipulator and the person’s actions slip quickly back to the world. The problem is that the manipulator does all of the thinking for the Christian. The latter has become more of a robot trained to take commands instead of a living, breathing kingdom citizen following after his King. Manipulation is never the Christian means to motivation.
In this text, we learn some very important truths in true Christian motivation. We’re going to work our way back to verse 17, which contains the imperative, so that we understand how Peter is calling for Christian action. He does not manipulate, browbeat, or scold. He sets forth the gospel as the central motivation for living as Christians. Notice how he does this and how this sets the precedent for us.
Consider the first word in verse 18, “knowing.” It’s a perfect tense verb so that it points back to a settled, satisfying knowledge and understanding of the work of redemption. Yet syntactically, this perfect tense verb carries a present tense meaning. That is, Peter is reminding them of things they already know and how they are to live constantly in the reality of these things. Knowledge is not something to stuff in the back of the mind and forget but living truth for every day living. “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
He reminds believers of what we were delivered from: “your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers.” Futile living points to life without Christ; it’s the “vanity of vanities” that Solomon talks about in Ecclesiastes; it’s living life apart from God’s will. It’s life that lacks reality before God. It’s not that Peter singles out any one Christian and suggests that he alone has such an odd past! No, it’s part of our heritage as human beings. Some scholars suggest that the “futile way of life” may point to the idolatry so endemic in every society. Men follow the religion of their forefathers without giving thought to its content. It’s the life of sin and self-centeredness and rebellion against God and His law.
So enslaving is this kind of existence that we need to be liberated from it. Such a life holds us captive. Without redemption—deliverance through the payment of a price—there’s only slavery to the futile way of life that characterized our forefathers. What does it take to redeem you? “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold.” Peter identifies two precious metals that we hold to be valuable and of great price. But they lack the power or quality or virtue to redeem us from our futile way of life. Whether like a Simon Magus that tried to buy the power of God with silver and gold (Acts 8) or like the Ephesians that worshiped silver and gold replicas of the goddess Diana (Acts 19), there’s no redemption through such perishable things. Silver and gold last a long time but they are not indestructible. A man wears a gold wedding band on his finger for 50 to 60 years; it thins over the years. Something of immeasurably greater value is necessary to deliver us from bondage to sin and the world. Some try acts of merit or religious service or some other token of religious practice. But what is of imperishable quality that suffices to deliver us from slavery to sin?
Redemption or to ransom was used to describe (1) the act by which one purchased another’s property on behalf of the owner to keep him from losing it; (2) and the payment for a slave or prisoner of war in order to set him free from his bondage. In both cases, the one for whom the ransom was made had no power to redeem himself. By another’s sacrifice, either his land or his person was liberated [cf. Ernest Best, The New Century Bible Commentary: 1 Peter, 88]. The biblical term retains that same idea of helplessness on the part of the sinner as a slave to sin; and the payment sufficient to liberate the sinner from his slavery.
When God brought the judgment of death of the firstborn upon Egypt, the blood of the Passover Lamb sprinkled on the doorpost of the homes of the Israelites redeemed them from the judgment facing all the land. Only by the sacrifice of the lamb did they experience redemption: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things…but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” We’re called upon to think upon the effectiveness of Christ’s redemptive death as motivation for conducting our lives like Christians. What did His death do for us? Wayne Grudem identifies six particular effects of Christ’s bloody death as our substitute.
By this, I mean that we are to give regular thought to all that God has done both before the creation of the world and in history to bring about our redemption, as motivation for living as Christians. Peter begins by looking back before creation. “For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world.” This Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Second Person in the blessed Trinity, “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God”—this same Jesus, God foreknew as our Redeemer before He created the world. In other words, God was not caught off guard by the fall in the Garden of Eden; there was no “Plan B” with God. Before the world existed, God purposed that His beloved Son would suffer judgment and death on behalf of His elect. God did that! God planned that for you! So how are you to live toward Him?
For God to foreknow something doesn’t mean that He merely looked down the corridors of time and perceived what would inevitably take place apart from His decree. That would be a fatalistic and humanistic approach to life. As Grudem points out, “When God knows something beforehand, it is certain that that event will occur, and assuming the event to be therefore ordained by God seems to be the only alternative to the non-Christian idea of a certainty of events brought about by impersonal, mechanistic fate” (85]. This was not just knowledge that God had but God’s predetermined design to bring about the redemption of a people whom He would elect, call, justify, sanctify, and glorify (cf. Rom. 8; Eph. 1). Now, in light of that kind of love shown to you by the Creator and Judge, how will you conduct yourself as a Christian?
Peter moves from what God determined before creation to the way that He acted in history to bring about our redemption: “but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God.” The word “appeared” indicates that time in history when God manifested Himself in the Incarnation. The “last times” is not a reference to what we often call “end times” but rather to that whole period from the Incarnation of Christ to His Ascension and finally to His return. Here, Peter calls upon us to find the needed motivation toward living as Christians by knowing what God has done for us in the Incarnation. Christ has “appeared” or come into the world with the express purpose of redeeming a people for Himself that would be “zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14). Consider in a fresh way that God sent His Son for you. Think about the Incarnation that we sing about this Christmas season.
Come to Bethlehem and see
him whose birth the angels sing;
come, adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Good Christian men, rejoice,
with heart and soul and voice;
give ye heed to what we say:
Jesus Christ is born today;
earth and heav’n before him bow,
and he is in the manger now.
Christ is born today!
Christ is born today!
Christ, by highest heav’n adored,
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold him come,
off-spring of the Virgin’s womb.
veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
hail th’incarnate Deity,
pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
It’s not you or your deeds that can boast about your redemption. All the glory belongs to our Redeemer! It was this Christ foreknown before the world’s foundation and appearing in the Incarnation so that He might be crucified and raised from the dead on your behalf, “who through Him [you] are believers in God.” Peter further motivates us by considering the many ways that God has shown grace to us in our salvation. “Through Him [you] are believers in God.” In other words, through His sacrifice for you, through His acceptance before God on your behalf, through the grace that He gives so that you might believe, you are believers in God. What does that do to motivate us toward holy lives? If indeed we are saved, it humbles us in the dust in realizing again that our salvation is all of grace! It reminds us of our constant need for depending upon Christ.
Further, Peter reminds us of how God affirmed the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf as the One “who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory.” The resurrection testifies to God’s acceptance of the price Jesus Christ paid for our redemption. It is the certainty that ‘Jesus paid it all,’ and therefore ‘all to Him I owe.’ God “gave Him glory” as the Son that completed the Father’s will to redeem a people for Himself. This refers to the ascension and exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father where He continues until that day that the last enemy is made a footstool for His feet! In light of such glory, how will you conduct your life before Him?
What Jesus did has radical effects upon all of the redeemed. The use of the present tense in that last purpose clause in verse 22 shows the life of the Christian: “so that your faith and hope are in God.” That is, your ongoing faith and ongoing hope are in God through Christ; He brought all of this about by grace. The result of what He has done has left you in relationship to God so that your present reliance and future confidence rest solely upon the revelation of God through the gospel. In light of this, how will you conduct your life as a Christian?
Now, let’s get to verse 17 which contains the imperative—the call to action. What Peter explains in verses 18-21 is that there is a corresponding moral and ethical impact upon our lives through the redemptive work of Christ. As Derek Thomas mentioned, quoting someone else, “Christ comes with a blessing in each hand—forgiveness in one and holiness in the other; and never gives either to any who will not take both” [“Incentives to Holiness,” 1 Pet. 1:13-2:2, www.fpcjackson.org]. If you have viewed the gospel simply as some kind of contract to get to heaven while you continue to live as lord of your own life, then you’ve believed an unbiblical gospel. The Christian gospel proclaims heaven in the future and holiness in the present through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. These believers in Asia Minor that felt the tug of the world were reminded of this through Peter re-stating the details and nature of redemption through Christ. Consider how the Apostle shows us the practicality of the gospel in everyday life.
Peter begins with a condition, “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges…” The word “address” is actually much stronger than our translation. It’s the idea of “invoke,” so that the privilege of being able to invoke the Father through prayer or blessing or promise is referred to. Only those redeemed by Christ have the grace-given right to call on God as Father. Though many attempt to do this out of ignorance, they have no right apart from union with the Son, Jesus Christ. By the adoption inherent in the redemptive work of Christ, “God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”” (Gal. 4:6). Such family language emphasizes the relationship that we have with God rather than merely a title by which we refer to Him.
The writer of Hebrews concurs as he explains Jesus as our great high priest, passing through the heavens for us as one that sympathizes with our weaknesses, who knows our temptations through the Incarnation, yet without sin. “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find graced to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16). We invoke the Father’s name in prayer because of the redemptive work of our great high priest!
Is this word “invoke” too strong? Consider Hebrews 10:19-22. “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh [that’s the language of redemption!], and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Such confidence or boldness and full assurance means that the radical work of the gospel has translated into the practicality of relationship with the living God through Christ.
When I was in college, I served on staff of the First Baptist Church in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Often, I led several things in the worship service, including a time of prayer. One Sunday, I noticed a young man sitting in the service as a guest of a family that was members of the church. I did not meet him after the service, but that night, as I made my way back to the college, I stopped to grab a burger or two before returning (no drive-through windows existed!). That same young man was in the drive-in. He came up to me and said, “I saw you at First Baptist today. You did something that I don’t understand. You called God “Father” and spoke to Him as though you actually know Him.” Out of his Catholic tradition, he was accustomed to depending on saints or Mary or priests to intercede for him; he knew nothing of going to God through Christ. I spent an hour, as his burgers grew cold, explaining the gospel to him, and the relational nature of the gospel by which one of the notable characteristics is that the believer can boldly approach God as Father. He later came to Christ and enjoyed this same privilege that marks every believer. He saw that only through Christ revealed in the gospel can we invoke God as Father.
The imperative verb addresses action “during the time of your stay on earth.” While that conveys the essence of the language, we might miss something in the translation. “Stay” is a word meaning temporary residence, denoting residing in a place without the rights of citizenship [Cleon Rogers, LEGNT, 569]. So Peter picks up on the introduction when he called them “those who reside as aliens.” In other words, as Christians, you have a new citizenship; your continued time in the world is as a resident alien. But you are not to conduct yourself as a citizen of this world but of another world. “Conduct yourselves in fear during your time of stay on the earth.” “Conduct” is the imperative and refers to the way that you live your life. The word can be used negatively, as in Ephesians 2:3, there translated as “lived in the lusts of the flesh,” referring to our unbelieving condition. But here, the context qualifies the way believers are to live, as those sojourning in a foreign land.
“In fear” actually precedes the verb in the Greek, and thus is emphatic. He’s not calling for a fear of condemnation (Rom. 8:1) or fear of failure (Phil. 1:6) or fear of eternal judgment (1 John 4:17-18) or fear of the world’s reprisal for living as Christians (1 John 2:15; 4:4; Matt. 10:28). The fear seems two-fold: (1) he calls for a healthy respect for divine discipline. If God “impartially judges according to each one’s work,” then we must not be presumptuous with Him or presume upon His grace. The writer of Hebrews offers a similar warning: “and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (10:5-6). (2) “Fear” also carries with it the sense of awe and reverence that we are to have for the Lord. “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” (Heb. 10:31) Again, the writer of Hebrews exhorts, “Therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (12:28-29).
There’s some important outworking in regard to this kind of fear that affects the way that we conduct our lives during our stay on the earth. In light of the gospel of Christ, in light of God’s purpose and plan before the foundation of the world to redeem you, and in light of Christ coming in the Incarnation so that He might offer Himself for you, in light of the grace of God shown to you, and in light of the redemptive work by which you can call God ‘Father,’ then conduct yourself with fear:
John Piper offered a fitting summary to this passage, with which I close:
…the more precious the price paid to rescue you from a life of sin, the more horrible and fearful it is to take that price and make it a permission for sinning.
[“Christ Appeared That We Might Hope in God,” 1 Pet 1:20-21, Dec. 19, 1993, www.desiringgod.org]
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