THEY are described in 1 Pet. 1:22Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. (1 Peter 1:2) as “Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Why, it may be asked, do we designate those thus spoken of as a new kind of people? You will see, beloved reader, that they had been redeemed from their vain conversation, received by tradition from their fathers, by the precious blood of Christ (vss. 18,19). They were Jews by natural descent, and their fathers had been redeemed out of Egypt, and brought thence to have quite a different “conversation,” or manner of life, from that in which they walked while in the house of bondage. God led them to Sinai, and there gave them His law of the ten commandments, besides other injunctions and directions, which Moses wrote in the book of the covenant, and having read it in the audience of the people, they said, “All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Whereupon Moses took the blood of the previously offered sacrifice, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you” (Ex. 24). Thus were these people enjoined a conversation, or manner of life, by God Himself, which was bound upon them by blood, ―that is, the penalty of death for the infraction of the covenant, or relationship, in which they now stood with God.
But, further, we see that they undertook that for which they had no love. Their hearts never really left Egypt (Acts 7:3939To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, (Acts 7:39)), nor were right with God (Psa. 78:3737For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant. (Psalm 78:37)); so that at the very time they were thus entering into this covenant, the Lord said to Moses, “Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always” (Deut. 5:2929O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! (Deuteronomy 5:29)). And in after years, by the mouth of Isaiah (29:13), the truth was declared which the blessed Lord affirmed in His day (Matt. 15:8, 98This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:8‑9)), that “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me.” Truly was it proved that what they walked in was a vain conversation, or manner of life, received by tradition from their fathers. What God had given them was “holy, just, and good;” but in their hands it had become a vain conversation, handed down from father to son, a religion of outward form, without a bit of heart in it.
Look around, dear reader; do you know any of this kind of people? Are you one of them? A person having a fair outward form of religion, but without any heart for God? Your religion a gratification of self, or an attempt to satisfy an uneasy conscience by the externals of ritual, music, ceremonies, or cold intellectualism; conforming strictly to outward observance, but your heart a stranger to the love of God and the preciousness of Christ? If it be so, yours is still “a vain conversation,” from which you have not yet been delivered.
Now, look at the characteristics of those who had thus been redeemed. And first, remark that it was the kind of people spoken of in verse 2 whom God had in His mind in eternity; not a people who undertook, however sincerely, to do His will in their own strength, and yet to whom He had never given “a heart to perceive” (Deut. 29:44Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. (Deuteronomy 29:4)), ―a people whose heart was far from Him. No, beloved reader, neither in the days of Sinai nor now are those the kind of people whom God chose according to His own foreknowledge. I do not say that you may not become one of this kind by redemption from your vain conversation, but you are not one if still in it.
Further, they are not those who stand in their own strength, and say, “All that the Lord hath said will we do;” but they are the subjects of a new power operating in them effectually, the power of the Holy Ghost. In 1 Peter 1:2424For 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: (1 Peter 1:24), we are told that all flesh, high or low, rich or poor, one with another, withers like grass; but the energy of the Holy Spirit is mighty, and that by which He works―the word of God―is living and abiding, while all flesh is dying and passing away. It was the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost which moved on the face of the waters (Gen. 1), and garnished the heavens (Job 26:1313By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent. (Job 26:13)). He came as a rushing mighty wind on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:22And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. (Acts 2:2)), and shook the place where they were assembled (4:31); and it was His resistless power which gently opened the heart of Lydia to listen to the things spoken by Paul, and broke the hard heart of the gaoler, so that he tremblingly asked of the men whom he had just before beaten, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16) It is the power of the Holy Ghost which sanctifies―that is, sets apart―this people to the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. In the former vain conversation it was an obedience of compulsion. The law said, “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not; and the heart did not go with it at all, but wanted its own will. The obedience of Jesus Christ was quite a new kind of obedience. He could say, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” It was not an obedience of compulsion, but of love.
Again, the blood sprinkled on the book and the people at Sinai, bound the penalty of death on them for its infraction. But the blood of Jesus Christ has paid the penalty; it is the witness, by means of death, of redemption of the transgressions which were under the first covenant. How differently it speaks to those whom the Holy Spirit has brought to know its value. See what His working effects! It brings a poor sinner to know that all flesh is grass, and in his heart―which naturally rebels at the obedience of compulsion, even if outwardly conforming to religious observances―to know a new divine principle of love manifested in Jesus Christ. He, in the midst of a world of sin and enmity against God, was ever the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; that is where He dwelt in eternity, and when down here He never left it. He could say, “I do always those things which please him.” How He knew the secrets of that bosom! How did He delight to do His Father’s will! (John 4:3434Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. (John 4:34).) And that will was for Him to come down here in grace, and then to die for rebel, ruined man. The Holy Spirit puts a poor sinner into association with this blessed Person, and teaches obedience to the heart as it was manifested in Him. The former vain conversation, while outwardly appearing to be near to God, really had the effect of creating distance of heart from Him. It is even so, beloved reader, and if you have not learned this divine principle of love, by the Spirit revealing it to you in Jesus Christ, you know perfectly well that your heart rebels against subjection to God, and that which He approves, though you may in your own mind nullify His holiness by trying to believe that He is as indifferent to disobedience of heart as you are.
But love, God’s love, as Christ knew it, draws the soul and bows the heart to itself. The Holy Spirit, we have said, acts by the Word of God, as in vs. 23; by it the soul is new-begotten, a new direction is given to it, which is towards God and not from Him; and the word which begets anew, is not the word of the law, but that which by the gospel is preached to us. The effect of the gospel is to give the taste that God is gracious; thus it draws the soul to God’s living Stone, the rock of His salvation. And, further, the taste of this grace and love of Christ which the gospel brings to us, and which was manifested in Him who delighted to do God’s will and shed His blood for sinners, by the sanctification of the Spirit accomplishes God the Father’s purpose, in giving us to know this new kind of obedience, the obedience of love, and the value of the precious, precious blood of Jesus Christ.
We thus learn what was in the bosom of God the Father towards us poor sinners, that He wanted our hearts. He knew that in our hearts naturally there was no love for Him, or for His will. He sought for it in vain, but He wanted our hearts to let into them the droppings of His own love. So Jesus came, came down to us to win us in love, by telling us what He knew was in his Father’s heart, and thus to beget in us the bowing of heart to Him. When a soul is awakened to this love, what a frightful amount of disobedience, self-will, self-gratification, alienation of heart and sin, does it not find in itself, all so contrary to what was in Jesus. But the Holy Spirit acquaints the soul with love as He knew it, sheds it abroad in the heart, and puts it consciously under the blood of sprinkling, which atones for all its frightful guilt; and, moreover, makes it know that it is begotten again, according to the abundant mercy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Reader, is not this a new kind of person? Such an one is a Christian. Are you one? or are you still a child of disobedience, one whose heart God’s love has never penetrated, outwardly saying, “I go, sir” (Matt. 21:3030And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. (Matthew 21:30)), but your heart far from Him? Or have you known redemption from your former vain conversation, so that, as one of the “children of obedience” (vs. 14), you are seeking now to be holy in all manner of conversation on this new principle of love?
“O largely give, ‘tis all Thine own,
The Spirit’s goodly fruit:
Praise, issuing forth in life, alone
Our living Lord can suit.”
T. H. R.