1 Peter 1:18-2:318Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. 22Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 24For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 25But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. 1Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, 2As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (1 Peter 1:18‑2:3)1Pe 1:1818Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; (1 Peter 1:18) 1Pe 2:33If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (1 Peter 2:3)
There are two facts put side by side at the close of the first chapter of 1 Peter, one spoken of as most frail and fleeting, the other as living and enduring forever. The former refers to man, the latter to the Word of God.
“The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." The grass grows up in the morning and flourishes; in the evening it is cut down and withers. The flower attracts the eye, but no sooner does it charm with interest than it fades away forever. Such is man—all men without exception. "For all flesh is as grass." Man is not only sinful, unclean, and corrupt, but weak and without continuance, for he passes away. Rich or poor, high or low, in this there is no difference: he is fragile and soon decays. All that in which he glories has no continuance, whether it be riches, wisdom, or strength, for he no sooner becomes an object of admiration, than he passes away.
But while man fades and his glory so rapidly passes away, is it not most blessed to know that God has given us something which endures forever? It is His own Word, "which liveth and abideth forever." This gives a solid resting-place for our souls, even with the quicksand of human opinionism and religiousness all around us. We have the Word of God, blessed be God, and when the created heavens and earth shall have passed away, this Word will shine as brightly as ever in all its imperishable clarity and worth.
It is well to remember that God has spoken and that we have His Word, God's own revelation of His own mind and will, written down for our meditation. He knows our infirmities and our needs, and it is this Word that gives certainty to faith and assures our hearts of realities. Luke, the beloved physician, informed Theophilus that he wrote the Gospel that he might know the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed. The certainty of the Word of God is the ground of all stability of soul, for as Jesus said, "The Scripture cannot be broken." Again, "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass away." The Holy Spirit, too, is given to teach us this Word. He will guide us into all truth, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
There are three points of instruction brought before us in the scripture we have just read. They are redemption, the new birth, and growth. The first two are fundamental truths and bring out the two things absolutely necessary in order to be happy in God's presence. Without redemption it is impossible to be brought to God. Without the new birth it would be impossible to know God or to enjoy His presence.
1. REDEMPTION: The apostle reminds the believers whom he addressed (naturally Jews) that they had not been redeemed from their traditional religion with silver and gold, "but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." The silver and gold here, no doubt, refer to the atonement money of a half shekel, paid in Israel for every one that was numbered among them from twenty years old and upward. (Ex. 30:11-1611And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 12When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. 13This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord. 14Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the Lord. 15The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls. 16And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls. (Exodus 30:11‑16).) With this ordinance they had been familiar, as Jews, and no doubt it stands before us as a remarkable type of the redemption work of Jesus. This atonement money was used to make the silver sockets on which all the tabernacle rested, and for hooks on which the curtains were hung. Surely all our hopes are built, and all our confidence hangs only on this foundation which has been laid for us in the death and blood-shedding of the Son of God. Here they were reminded of the cost and reality of their redemption.
The person of the Lord Jesus in His infinite perfection is also presented to us by the statement that He was "without blemish and without spot." The Jews had to make diligent search for their sacrifices to find animals which were without a blemish or spot. Many creatures might be looked over before a spotless one could be found. But such only might be used in the service of the sanctuary, for such only could typify the Son of God who was holy, harmless, and undefiled. Jesus was God's Lamb: the only One that ever walked through this world that could be a sacrifice for sin. All else had sinned, but He knew no sin.
Twice the voice from heaven bore witness to this by saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Even the devils acknowledged His title, "the Holy One of God." Wicked Pilate declared several times before all the people that he found no fault in Him. The self-convicted traitor said he had betrayed innocent blood. The mighty angel Gabriel bore witness to the spotlessness of His person as born into the world when he said to Mary, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." The thief upon the cross, when expiring by His side exclaimed, "This Man hath done nothing amiss." Thus all intelligences in heaven and in earth, angels, men, devils, saints, sinners, Jews, Gentiles, have borne witness to the fact that He was "without spot or blemish.”
Above all, the Father's delight was to speak from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This was God's Lamb, holy in nature, harmless, blameless, without rebuke, able therefore to bear the sins of many, and to be a substitute for those who were dead in trespasses and sins. It was He who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, who suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God. This was God's Lamb, and He finished the work the Father gave Him to do, satisfying every claim of divine justice and righteousness for sin, vindicating all God's ways, and establishing all God's purposes for His honor and glory. This was the Lamb "who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory.”
2. NEW BIRTH: Those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ are also born again, and have a life and nature suited to enter into and enjoy the things of God. This new nature is strengthened by the Spirit given to indwell us. But every believer is born again, born from above, born of God. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12, 1312But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12‑13).
In the third chapter of John's gospel, where our Lord most emphatically asserts the absolute necessity of Nicodemus's being born again, He presents the Son of man lifted up as the only source of this new life. This is eternal life and is to "whosoever believeth in Him." Here also we are told that it is the Spirit's work and by the Word—born of water (the Word) and of the Spirit. It is the way of faith, having the Son of God who was crucified as the object of faith.
In Peter, the Word is the seed, the Spirit is the power, and Christ is the One by whom we have believed God. Obeying the truth is believing God's Word, the word of the gospel, and coming to God by Him. All such are therefore cleansed from sin, born of God, redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. The activity of the new nature makes itself known by love to the brethren. We read: "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren... being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." 1 Peter 1:22, 2322Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:22‑23). The Word of God which testifies of Christ, received into the heart by the Spirit in the obedience of faith, makes Him the object of faith. Then the soul becomes partaker of a new life or nature and is born again.
3. GROWTH: The third link in this precious chain of divine truth is growth. Scripture speaks of the inner man being strengthened, of our growing up into Christ, sanctified, or practically separated unto God by the truth, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thus the soul makes progress.
Two things here are taught us as being necessary in order to grow. One is that the activities of evil which we all have in the old man, the flesh, must be unsparingly denied. To walk and act carnally is to produce the opposite of growth. So in this same chapter we are exhorted to "abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." What Christian is there who has not found this out by bitter experience? Who of God's children does not know that when he has given way to the desires of the flesh and of the mind, it has chilled his fervor, sapped his energies, and disturbed his comfort?
But you may ask if it is possible that I who am born of God, redeemed with the blood of Christ, and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, can be the subject of such foul activities as here recorded? Indeed, dear fellow Christian, it is possible. Can malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, and evil speakings come from a child of God? Yes, and it is children of God, those who are born of God, that he addresses and insists on their laying aside all these fleshly activities "all malice, and all guile... all evil speakings." Those who see that God has judged both the nature and the fruits of the old man on the cross, and given them a new life, a new nature in Christ risen and ascended, will understand this and find power from it. But if our souls would make progress in divine things, there must be this absolute, unsparing cutting off of all these fleshly buddings. Yes, all, for they are like worthless weeds which grow up and check the growth of what is really good.
With all this being laid aside, the new life, like a newborn babe, wants nourishment and strength. The second thing necessary for growth is nothing less than the pure, unadulterated milk of the Word. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
It is by receiving the Word with meekness that we grow. And as a newborn babe often turns to its source of nutriment, and takes in little by little as it can digest it, so we are exhorted as newborn babes to desire earnestly the pure milk of the Word that we may grow. In this way the mind of God, the love of God, the wisdom of God, and the ways of God are made known to us more and more. When the Scriptures which testify of Christ are neglected, how can there be spiritual growth? Does it not plainly show us why some Christians make so little advancement in divine things? This is why they have so little joy and gladness in the Lord.
We must not forget that though born of God, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. We need the power of the Holy Spirit to instruct us in the true knowledge of God's mind, to guide us into all truth. and blessed be God, this is one of His gracious offices. H. Snell