Lesson 5 – I Peter Chapter 1:18-25
We saw last week a command for us to be holy, it wasn’t a suggestion, but a specific command to us from God’s Word. So, it is important for us to be able to personally define what being holy is for ourselves. To be holy is to be morally blameless, this comes about by the choices we make each day. To be holy is to be separated from sin, and therefore, devoted to God. It’s also about living a life of obedience to God, and as we learn His truths from the Scriptures, we make every effort to apply it to our life. Remember, we are not trying to live a holy life in order to earn salvation, but to bring glory to God.
The first step to holiness is accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior over your life. The second is living in obedience and devotion to God.
Eph. 2:19
“So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family.” (NLT)
We finished last week in verse 18:
“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom He paid was not mere gold or silver.”
Our salvation is worth so much more than gold or silver, we can’t put a price on it, but God did… it’s the blood of Jesus!
The ransom He paid was not mere gold or silver…
I Peter 1:19
“But with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
We are redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ! This is the truth straight from God’s Word. In verse 18 Peter stated what we’re not redeemed with, and here he tells what we are redeemed with… there is no substitute. With God, the only solution to our sin is His “blood.”
When Adan and Eve sinned and were ashamed to be naked, God gave them clothes to wear.
Gen. 3:21
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.”
The garments of skin involved the killing of animals, this was the first shedding of blood for sin.
Before the Law was given and Israel was still enslaved in Egypt, blood was needed to save lives. The last plague against the Egyptians was the “angel of death” would come through the land, and kill the first born in each household unless there was the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their house. The blood would save lives.
Peter uses the phrase, of a lamb unblemished and spotless, this was the requirement of the first Passover lamb, that it would be a perfect lamb.
Exodus 12:5
“Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.”
The newly converted Christians that Peter was writing to would be very familiar with perfect animal sacrifices, that a lamb was needed without any imperfections. This was something they experienced at the temple all the time. Now Peter points out that Jesus is the pure spotless Lamb of God.
As a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah, God put a sacrificial system into place, where animal sacrifices were needed to cover the sins of Israel. The Jews knew each animal they used needed to be the finest, purest, and the most perfect specimen. When we look at Jesus, we see that He qualifies, He is the most perfect sacrifice.
II Cor. 5:21
“God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Heb. 9:22
“And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
So, what is our take away from this? Where sin exists, blood is then required through a sacrifice.
Romans 6:23a
“For the wages of sin is death.”
Before Jesus went to the cross, the only way to appease God when it came to sin was through the shedding of blood. Peter is reminding us that for our sin, it was God’s own blood that was shed.
I John 2:2
“And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”
When John says that Jesus is the “propitiation” for our sins, he means that what Jesus did through the shedding of His blood appeased God the Father when it comes to our sins.
Heb. 9:11
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
When we say The blood of Christ it isn’t referring to the actual blood coursing through Jesus’ veins, but to the whole of His redemptive death and resurrection. It’s interesting how Scripture speaks about Christ’s blood just about three times as often as it speaks of the cross.
Another thing to note is Jesus didn’t bleed to death, God’s Word teaches us that Jesus voluntarily yielded up His spirit.
John 10:17-18
“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
John 19:30
“Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”
I Peter 1:20
“For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.”
Just as we covered in the first part of this chapter, how we were predetermined by God for salvation, Jesus was predetermined… He was foreknown. This means the Father planned to send His Son before the foundation of the world. It wasn’t a surprise to God when Adam and Eve first sinned in the garden. Sending Jesus to die on our behalf wasn’t a last-minute fix done by God. God the Father predetermined before anything was created that He was going to send His Son as the Messiah.
II Tim. 1:9
“Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,”
For God’s own purpose, He called us, saved us, and sent Jesus to secure it for us for all eternity.
But has appeared in these last times for the sake of you…
Heb. 1:2
“In these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.”
This is the incarnation of Jesus. The appearing of Jesus is most important to us. Without Jesus, we would not be able to see God. Jesus said “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.” (Jn. 14:9)
Heb. 1:3
“The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and He sustains everything by the mighty power of His command. When He had cleansed us from our sins, He sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the Father in heaven.” (NLT)
Gal. 4:4
“But when the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children.” (NLT)
Where would we be today if the Father didn’t send the Son?
In these last times…
I get excited when I hear “last times” or “last days,” I guess because I know what God’s future holds for me. “Last times” is a familiar expression for us, it’s referring to the entire period between the birth of Jesus and the Second Coming of Jesus.
Years earlier Peter spoke of the last days…
Acts 2:17
“In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.”
We are still living in the last days, also known as the church age. That being said, I also think we’re beginning to experience some birth pangs pointing to the end of the church age.
Luke 21:28
“But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
For the sake of you…
It should be pretty clear to us that the redemptive work Jesus did was for the sake of you, meaning all of the redeemed.
I Peter 1:21
“Who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
Through Him… John 14:6 “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” This is what separates Christianity from all other religions. All who do not believe in the gospel cannot know God at all and are subject to eternal destruction. It’s through Jesus we are believers in God.
Acts 4:12 Peter says,
“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
Believers in God… apart from Jesus, nobody can “know” God.
Heb. 11:6
“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”
Even if a person only has faith the size of a mustard seed, it is enough to bring them into the arms of Jesus. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. (Heb. 11)
Heb. 10:37-38
“For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away. But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved.” (NLT)
Again, all other religions are separated from God because they aren’t in Christ, in which they’re headed to their own destruction.
Who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory…
Who raised Jesus from the dead? God did, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So that your faith and hope are in God…
With everything that goes on in the believer’s life, the different struggles, testings, and anxieties, it’s faith and grace that carry them through. Hope is the byproduct of the believer’s faith in God, that the day is coming when God will receive them to Himself… this is our future grace that is coming. The hope of redemption is sweet to the soul.
I John 3:2-3
“Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
The day is coming when we won’t need faith or hope, because we will see God just as He is, we will be with Him! And, as we hold on to our faith and hope presently, Peter says…
I Peter 1:22
“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart,”
“You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.” (NLT)
“Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth” (The Message)
We pause and say, “Who is the Truth?” We know that Jesus is the truth. Evidence to obedience to the truth is the fact the we’re saved by grace through faith. Once we arrive at salvation, we now have the God-given capacity to love others (the brethren). Apart from God, I think it’s impossible to really love the brethren as God’s Word tells us to do.
John 15:5
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
It’s not very hard to love those who love us, but it’s quite another thing to love difficult people.
I John 4:7-8
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
Love is the reason for salvation; without love, God wouldn’t have saved us. The way in which God has demonstrated His love for us is by sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus was crucified for unlovable, undeserving sinners. Before Christ, we were all headed for eternal damnation, but God took the form of a man and came to earth to reconcile us to a peaceful relationship to Himself. He didn’t need us, we needed Him, so He chose to connect intimately with us.
Rom. 5:8
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
It’s amazing that God should love those who hate Him. Yet He did, and He does.
I John 4:10-11
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
Fervently love one another from the heart…
In verse 15 we were told to be holy. Our response of holy living shows that we are a new creation in Christ. Being brand new in Christ, we then pursue a life of obedience, obedience to the truth has a purifying effect on us, thus producing a sincere love for others.
Bible commentary says, “The well-known New Testament verb agapaō expresses the ideal kind of love, that which is exercised by the “will” rather than emotion, it’s not determined by beauty or desirability of the object, but by the noble intention of the one who loves.”
In other words, when it comes to us loving a person, it happens when we choose to do it.
So Peter is saying, “Choose to love the brethren.” One of the sad realities within the body of Christ is we don’t always get along. You would think that those of us who walk in hope and holiness would also walk in fellowship with one another… this isn’t always the case.
Rom. 12:9-10
“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;”
Peter also uses the word fervently, as describing the way in which we should love. Metaphorically, the word means to go all out, to reach the furthest extent of something. We see an example of this when Jesus was praying to the Father.
Luke 22:44
“And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.”
So, when we see words like fervently being used in this context, we shouldn’t take it lightly. This being the case, we must look within and examine our hearts.
Did Jesus think loving others was important? I think He did…
Luke 10:27
“And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all you soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus points out that we’re not only to have a fervent love for God, but for others (brethren) as well.
I Peter 1:23
“For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”
This is a great reminder to us from Peter. He’s saying in an obvious way, “Take a look at yourself, you’re not the same person you used to be… you’re born-again, you’re a new creation in Christ.” Believers are to love one another to the fullest extent because it’s totally consistent with who we are in Christ.
I John 5:1-2
“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.”
Being born-again is the past in every believer’s life. Moving forward in salvation should prove to have ongoing results in the present… and that one of those results should be the action of loving one another.
If we were to ask James the half-brother of Jesus, he would say, “If you are truly born-again, let me see evidence of it by you loving others.”
Simply said, anyone who is born-again goes from being a godless, lawless, and selfish individual, to one who has come to the place of repentance, trust, and love. The problem is, some are content with the fact that they have been saved, and do nothing further, they just stagnate. God doesn’t want that, He wants what’s best for us and what glorifies him.
Through the living and enduring word of God…
Let’s go to James again:
James 1:18
“He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true word. And we, out of all creation, became His prized possession.” (NLT)
We are born-again by His true word, Peter says, enduring word of God. Who is the Word of God?
John 1:1
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Rom. 10:17
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”
If we are filled with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, we will express the love of God in our everyday experiences.
I Peter 1:24
“For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off.”
Peter is quoting Isaiah 40:6-8. In verse 23 we’re told about the imperishable, here we have the perishable… we’re dealing with mankind. In our first birth, we are born of the flesh, which means we’re all destined to die and decay at some point.
Warren Wiersbe writes, “This explains why mankind cannot hold civilization together; it is all based on human flesh and is destined to fall apart. Like the beautiful flowers of spring, man’s works look successful for a time, but then they start to decay and die.”
In this room we have a variety of flowers all differing in their stages in life. Just like the flowers of the field, every one of us will die. Paul had an excellent way of looking at this.
Phil. 1:21-24
“For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live.” (NLT)
Peter is telling us that life on this earth is short, and Paul is saying, while you still have life, live it for Christ. In the end, we all get to be with Jesus. Can I get an Amen?
As we grow old we know that beauty fades away, and that young life is wasted on the “utes” (kidding). But true beauty is deep within, along with wisdom and knowledge. What matters most is what we do with what God has given each one of us. A life lived for Christ is most precious to God. As a flower of God, water your life with the Word of God.
I Peter 1:25
“But the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which was preached to you.”
For those who are in Christ, there is no death or decay in the realm of eternity, Jesus has given us a new life that will endure forever, just like the Word of the Lord endures forever.
In this last verse of chapter 1, we see God’s whole package of salvation, the Word of the Lord endures forever. The Word of God has no beginning and has no end. He is Perfect, Holy, Righteous, and True.
And this is the word which was preached to you…
God came to each one of us through His Holy Spirt, and preached His life saving gospel to our hearts. The Holy Spirit brought conviction and not condemnation, and by His grace saved each of us. Let’s remember to show God’s love to anyone He puts in front of us, because we have an imperishable new life in Jesus.