Called to Endurance and Faith (1 Peter 2:13–3:6)

How are believers to behave in oppressive, difficult, or dangerous situations for which they are not at fault? Peter tells us that these situations are in the will of God for saints in order for Him to deal with “the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). Foolish people are those who refuse to give God His rightful place in the order of things (Psalm 53:1). Their ignorance is willful rejection of good due to moral blindness. That ignorance often makes their response to Christians quite hostile. So, how do saints cope with such people? It is by the saints’ continuing to do good. It is to this that they are called (v. 21). Christ Himself is their example. When reviled, He would not match their ignorance. Instead, “He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly” (v. 23). He accepted the wrong by understanding that God would set it right eventually.

Revelation 13 makes it clear that God is sovereign because “the beast was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.” Satan and his beast-minions are on a leash. They need permission to do anything. Thus, when God allows them to make war on the saints, He has a glorious purpose in their being beaten down and conquered. The saints should not be discouraged by this because Christ was beaten down, and through it He conquered Satan, sin, and death. So, the question is, why does He continue to allow the evil one to make it difficult for saints? John does not reveal the reason for this allowance; he informs that “here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints” (vv. 7, 10). In their patience and trust, they commit themselves to “Him who judges justly.”

Peter, however, does give us the answer to the question. It is to “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people” (1 Peter 2:15). As we have stated, the means of doing this is through “doing good.” This is a problem because Paul makes it clear that “All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:12, citing Psa. 53:1–3). Psalm 53 states that the foolish person says no to God. He rejects God. He does not want to acknowledge God because he chooses evil. Thus, the psalmist writes that “they are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity.” Corrupters are those who spoil, ruin, and destroy. In Romans, Paul puts it that they have turned aside and become worthless. They are of no use to God’s kingdom, but they make a lot of noise. That is, “there is none who does good.” Good, in this text is a quality of morality that reflects the very character of God. Jesus told the rich young ruler that there is none good but God (Mark 10:18). Only those who are of God do good by being kindly disposed to others, especially those who oppose and abuse them.

(To be continued.)

Gospel Obedience (1 Peter. 1:22)

A great deal of confusion arises when grace is emphasized in contrast to law-keeping. Law is looked on by many as being at enmity with grace, and therefore any call to obedience is immediately suspected of being anti-gracious. Returning briefly to 1 Peter 1, we recall Peter’s admonition that we are to be holy (vv. 14–17). God’s people have escaped judgment on their sinful ways through the atoning work of Christ in their behalf (vv. 18–20). The qualification for enjoying this benefit is that one believes (v. 21).

Here is where understanding often goes awry and false conclusions are drawn. Careful attention to the text should clarify things, but how often does one’s preconceived opinions cloud what the text actually says? Does believing the gospel save? Yes, but how? Is faith the activating cause of God’s responding and rewarding the believer with salvation by grace? No, and Peter is very clear on this point. It is Christ’s work that saves, and it is through Christ that one believes to salvation. Reread verses 18–21 carefully. You were ransomed or redeemed (a passive verb). Believers believe because they were ransomed to believe. Thus, every ransomed person escapes punishment for his sins because Christ paid the debt in his stead. Through Christ, the saved believe God for what He did on their behalf. In other words, faith is the evidence of salvation, not the cause of it.

Notice also that grace did not remove the obligation to holy living because each one’s deeds will be judged by God (v. 17). Believers have nothing to fear in the judgment because they are covered by Christ’s blood (vv. 17–21) and because they continue to purify their souls in (Gk. en, “in”) obedience to the truth (v. 22, pointing back to vv. 14, 15).

Now, where do law-keeping and grace fit into this discussion? Right here. Obedience is a work of grace, fulfilling the obligation of the law. How? Peter does not tell us that we are to obey the law, per se, but we are to obey the truth. Obeying the truth results in keeping the law. Read verse 22 carefully again. We purify our souls by obeying the truth unto (Gk., eis) “a sincere brotherly love.” That is how the NT defines law keeping—loving others (Rom. 13:8–11). The one who loves God supremely and his neighbor sincerely fulfills the obligation of the law (Matt. 22:34–40).

A final question remains. What is the truth we are to obey? It is not the law because Peter states that we are to obey the truth unto sincere brotherly love, which is the law (4:8–11). What the truth is is implied in verse 21 with God’s raising Jesus from the dead in order that our faith and hope should be in God. The gospel is the truth we are to obey. We obey by believing and hoping in God’s promise to save us though the death and resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:1–4). God works through the gospel with great power to transform our lives as we put our whole trust and hope in Him.

A Gracious Thing (1 Peter 2:18–25)

     The issue that Peter expounds in these final verses of Chapter 2 is how believers are to conduct themselves when they are suffering unjustly under human authority. Peter has already commanded them to be under submission to institutions ordained for people (v. 13) because doing so is in the will of God (v. 15).

There is a plan that God’s people must understand in order for them to endure suffering and not be discouraged by it. Without this understanding, our tendency is to buckle under the stress of suffering. Although we know that a certain level of trial is beneficial to our character building (James 1:2–4), we assume that God will grant us deliverance as quickly as possible. Our general welfare requires freedom from the stress of the trial. When that does not happen, we are tempted to unbelief, disappointed and thinking that either God was not caring or that we were unworthy.

The fact is God uses suffering as a means to get victory over the evil and bring glory to the Savior. “For to this you have been called” (v. 21). “For what credit [glory] is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God” (v. 20). Peter, then, gives an argument to support this thesis.

Christ established this principle in His suffering, leaving an example for all believers to follow (v. 21). Peter is very clear that this suffering has nothing to do with sin, either yours or God’s. Jesus promised to support His own (Heb. 13:6); and He does not lie (v. 22).

Suffering is vital to service. The passage began with the command for servants (slaves) to be subject (submissive and obedient) to their masters in every respect (v. 18). However, we live in a culture that is very sensitive to personal wrongs. We demand justice and recompense, going to whatever lengths needed to insure that the offense is challenged. Christ, on the other hand, teaches us to bear with wrong (v. 23). We are not to repay evil with evil but bless (do good) to those who mistreat us (3:9). Serving with kindness and generosity those who don’t deserve such treatment provokes a response of wonder. Christ served in this way, blessing us with salvation while we were His enemies (Rom. 5:8).

Believers can follow Jesus in this way because we, of all people, should understand what it is like to be on the other side. Christ served the undeserving by taking their sins and enabling them to die to sin and to live unto righteousness (v. 24). That Christ suffered for His enemies ought to continually occupy our hearts with awe and wonder. His suffering made the impossible a reality. Our sin wounds were healed and our desertion from God arrested. We have returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (v. 25). Jesus did all this by entrusting Himself to the just Judge of all the earth (v. 23). We must also entrust ourselves to Him in our suffering.

Honorable Conduct (1 Peter 2:12)

The “builders” rejected God’s “cornerstone,” which became to them a “stone of stumbling” (1 Peter 2:6–8). This stumbling occurred because they “disobey the word” (v. 8). However, the obedient were found to be “a people for his own possession” (v. 9). Thus, Peter instructs them on how to live as the people of God in a pagan world (vv. 11–17). “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (v. 12). Gentiles (Gk., ethnos) refers to people groups who do not worship the true God (Deut. 32:8, 9).

Believers are to live life in keeping with God’s reputation. That is what it means to be honorable (Gk., kalos, “powerful,” “vigorous,” “excellent”). To be kalos is to have everything in proper order; thus, to reflect God’s character. This is important when believers are maligned as offenders. The accusations come because Christ is offensive to pagan principles. If one claims to be a Christ follower but is not spoken against, he is not living the Christ-life. The obstruction to his witness may be that his soul has surrendered to his fleshly passions, obscured his calling (v. 11). The Lord gave the Holy Spirit to believers in order for them to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in every situation of life (Gal. 5:22–26), especially when they are reviled (1 Pet. 2:23; Matt. 5:11).

The obligation of God’s people living among the pagans is to be a witness against them on judgment day because those being judged will have no excuse. They will have seen a Christ-like proper response (Gk., kalos ergon, how one does excellence) to their malicious accusations, forcing them to “glorify God”—to reluctantly admit that the Lord is just in their condemnation.

What follows in the next verses is instruction on how to live honorably in an evil culture. First, believers must be law-abiding citizens. They are to submit to every God-ordained human institution for the Lord’s sake, and this submission includes authorities at every level (v. 13). God instituted human authority for the welfare of the race by encouraging good behavior in a fallen world (Rom. 13:1–7). Remember, Peter wrote this instruction during the reign of Nero and with considerable personal experience in persecution (Acts 4:19; 5:29). The principle here is that authorities must be obeyed except when they claim for themselves what belongs only to God.

It is God’s will that believers’ doing good—properly responding to reviling—foolish ignorance (used only twice in the NT, meaning the willful rejection of the Word of God, 1 Cor. 15:34) will be silenced. The foolish are those who deny God any place in their scheme of life (2 Pet. 3:5, 8). The truth is self-evident but is overlooked when people refuse to investigate the facts (Acts 26:26).

Second, believers are to live free by not covering up evil (v. 16). Freedom is not the absence of restraint but willing submission to God’s plan to restore true liberty in Christ. Ironically, this freedom is enjoyed by those who become the slaves of God, not self (Rom. 6:16, 17).

The People of God (1 Peter 2:9–12)

Peter uses terminology that once identified ethnic Israel as the sole people of God. For example, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). The reference is Exodus 19: 5, 6: “You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” It would appear that Peter was writing this letter to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He referred to his readers as “the elect exiles of the dispersion” (1:1). A wrong understanding here can lead to confusion when it comes to correctly interpreting Peter.

Most commentators lean towards Hebrew Christians as Peter’s target audience. He was the apostle to the circumcision as Paul was to the Gentiles, was he not (Gal. 2:7, 8)? However, Peter also uses language informing his readers that salvation brought them into a new covenant relationship with God that so they were no longer to “be conformed to the passions of [their] former ignorance” (v. 14). Ignorance was a term used of Gentiles outside the old covenant community (Ephesians 4:18; Acts 17:30). Also, note that verse 9 is followed by this: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (v. 10, citing Hosea 6:9, 10). Paul cites the Hosea passage in Romans 9 to argue that Gentiles were also being called as a people for His name (vv. 24–26). The gist of the Hosea text is that Israel’s unfaithfulness made them like the Gentiles, “not a people of God.”

The confusion of many is due, quite frankly to dispensational error that insists that God has two separate and distinct peoples: the nation of Israel and the church of Jesus Christ. They teach that while Jews are being saved in this gospel age, most will not have God’s particular attention until the end times when He will remove the church and focus again on the nation of Israel. (I do believe that God will save a remnant of the Jewish nation when Christ returns as per Zechariah 13:8, 9.) This confusion is particularly noticeable in interpreting end-time prophecy.

Paul’s discussion in Romans 9 is key and pertinent to defining who the people of God are. In verse 6, Paul’s problem is stated: God’s promise and covenant to the seed of Abraham seems to have failed and His Word voided because, save a few, God’s people rejected their Messiah. Paul’s response is that God never intended to save all of ethnic Israel (vv. 6–13). He will save a remnant, but not all ethnic Israel is to be included into spiritual Israel, the true people of God.

The purpose of ethnic Israel was to bring in the true Israel, Jesus Christ. The gospel privilege was never intended to be limited to the Jewish nation but to include Gentiles as well (Eph. 2:11–22). The New Covenant people of God are not an extension of the Old Covenant community but a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:5).  

The Lord’s Goodness

Peter presses the value of the Word of God as the source of the gospel message of salvation. It is only through the hearing of the Word that the Spirit grants faith to believe the message (Rom. 10:17). It is only through the living and abiding Word that the divine seed has produced the new birth in the spiritually dead (1 Peter 1:23). Because the Word is eternal, being the Word of the eternal God, it produces that which returns eternal fruit.

In light of this truth, Peter urges his readers to “put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander”—all motives and methods of carnal and worldly scheming for successful living in a sinful world (2:1). Instead, the new-born saint is to find his nourishment in the unmixed, unadulterated, pure Word that produces guileless people without dishonest intent (v. 2). It is only by this means that true believers will mature into the full and complete salvation Christ has prepared for them.

This operation of God’s Word, however, does not produce the same effect in everyone. Therefore, Peter adds, “If indeed you have tasted [experienced] that the Lord is good” (v. 3). This is taken from Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” The writer of Hebrews applies the psalm in this way, “You . . . have tasted the goodness of the word of God” (6:5). One cannot taste and see that the Lord is good unless he has tasted Him through the revelation of Christ in the Word. The Puritan, Stephen Charnock, wrote:

“Prize and study the Scripture. We can have no delight in meditation on him unless we know him, and we cannot know him but by the means of his own revelation. When the revelation is despised, the revealer will be of little esteem. Men do not throw off God from being their rule till they throw off Scripture from being their guide; and God must needs be cast off from being an end when the Scripture is rejected from being a rule.”

Have you experienced the Lord’s goodness—His gentleness and usefulness? Jesus invites us, “Come to me . . . take my yoke . . . and learn from me . . . for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:28–30). This invitation comes after Jesus declared, “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” He had just expressed wonder and delight in the fact the Lord of heaven and earth had willed to hide these truths of salvation from the “wise and understanding” but, instead, revealed them to “babes” (Matt. 11:25). No doubt Peter had this text in mind as he penned the exhortation to “new born infants” and that they should “long for pure spiritual milk” (2:2).

“As you come [are coming and keep on coming] to Him [having tasted of His goodness]. . . you yourselves are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (v. 4). 

The Lord's Portion

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people” (Deut. 32:8, 9).

Believers are instructed, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1 Pet. 1:14). Paul echoes this admonition: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed” (Rom. 12:2). The issue here is huge. It is not that we must stop enjoying a few morally questionable habits for an austere life of joyless conformity to God’s law. If that is your view of the Christian life, you are not a Christian.

True believers have been born again to a whole new life (1:23) from a former existence compared to grass that withers and perishes. The new life is like the seed that produces it—eternal life (1:24, 25). The powerful image described here is the operation of the living God. His word, spoken by the Spirit, is the creative force that brought all things into existence (Psa. 33:6–12). “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

The point is that the Lord is gathering out of the world a new race, a new nation, a new people, the Lord’s portion (2:9, 10). Each believer is a “stone” in the construction of God’s spiritual house (v. 5). The purpose of the house—a temple with priesthood—is to “offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” This purpose “stands in Scripture” (Gk., to surround or encompass). In other words, this project of the Lord’s gathering His portion is the central subject matter of Scripture.

Jesus Christ is the focal point. Peter quotes from Isaiah 28:16, to which he applies, “You believers see His value, but unbelievers stumble over Him” (1 Pet. 2:7, 8). Why is this? It is because, as Peter declares, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own” (v. 9). Every new creature in Christ now enjoys a glorious new privilege and opportunity. Believers, by their transformed lives, are to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (v. 9).

Believers have received mercy. They were once lo-ammi, “not a people” (Hosea 1:9, 10; 2:23; cf. Jer. 30:22) now they are the people of God. What a responsibility! Peter started the passage by urging believers to put away malice (Gk., to lack something, thus, be incapable), deceit (Gk., crafty), hypocrisy (Gk., to wear a mask), envy, and slander. Instead, they are to long for “pure spiritual milk” in order to grow into salvation, the transformation they were saved for (v. 1). He finishes the passage with the same charge (vv. 11, 12). You do this if you have “tasted that the Lord is good” (v. 3; Matt. 11:28-30).