In his first chapter, Peter has been focusing on the greatness of our salvation. After asserting its greatness outright, he advances his first evidence of its greatness: its source in the Triune God and in his Word.
As he begins chapter 2, he continues this discussion by focusing on the effect of our salvation.
I’d suggest that the first effect is implied rather than asserted; Peter exhorts his readers to turn from the old ways (1P 2.1) and pursue the Word—the great source that he has just been discussing—in order to grow in this new thing, this salvation (1P 2.2). The implication, of course, is that salvation empowers us to change, to reject the old ways—or as Paul terms this, the “old man” (Ro 6.6; Ep 4.22)—so as to live under the goodness (1P 2.3) of God himself.
Then he turns to more explicit effects.
The first two are astounding. God has taken a bunch of sinners, enemies, and turned them, metaphorically speaking, into building blocks in a temple—and second, into priests (to mix his metaphor in a way that expands it and highlights its astounding nature) who offer sacrifices that are acceptable to God.
From enemies to priests, welcome in God’s presence and pleasing to him.
A complete transformation.
Our forerunner, Christ, is both priest and sacrifice; we are both temple and priest.
The third effect is no less impressive: because we believe in Christ, the “chief cornerstone” in the temple of which we are a part, we “shall not be confounded” (1P 2.6). We have assurance and confidence because our faith is solidly grounded in the unshakeable Christ.
A part of this confidence is that our cornerstone will stand against all attackers and in fact will be an offensive weapon, a stone that makes his enemies stumble in defeat (1P 2.7-8).
The fourth effect, in contrast to the assured defeat of God’s enemies, is our new standing in Christ. Peter has already noted that we’re priests who offer acceptable sacrifices, and here he repeats that idea, but he extends it as well: we are “a chosen generation (race), a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession” (1P 2.9).
There’s much to note here. First, God has given us as a group an identity, just as he did to Abram’s descendants in his great covenant with him. We are, as it were, a spiritual ethnicity; we are a family.
Secondly, he mentions the priesthood again, but he ornaments it significantly; we’re not just a priesthood, but a royal priesthood.
We skim over those words without realizing how significant that expression was in biblical times. In Israel, it was impossible to be both king and priest; the kings were from Judah, and the priests were from Levi, and never the twain would meet. King Uzziah tried to usurp the priestly duty of burning incense in the temple—he was the Queen Elizabeth II of his day, having ruled for well over half a century—and he was struck with lifelong leprosy for his trouble (2Ch 26.18-19).
Two generations before Judah or Levi even existed, Melchizedek, the Jebusite priest of the Most High God, was both king and priest (Ge 14.18), but he was in a unique priestly order, available by special appointment only. Christ, we’re told, is ordained a priest after the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110.4; He 5.10). And now, we find, we are kings and priests as well.
Remarkable privilege. Remarkable consequence of a divine work.
The next label on us is “a holy nation.” In the same sense in which we are a spiritual ethnicity parallel to Abram’s descendants, so we are a divinely constituted nation parallel to Israel’s standing at Sinai. Since Abram they had been a people; now, under Moses, they are a nation.
And so are we.
The fourth label is “a people of his own possession” (KJV “a peculiar people”). We’re not just a people and a nation; we are a different kind of people, a special people, a people that belong particularly to God. We’re his fine china, set aside in a special china cabinet, one in which he takes great pleasure.
“Mine,” he says.
Peter finds a fifth effect of our great salvation. We have been brought out of darkness, he says, and placed in the light (1P 2.9). We can see. We can rejoice, in the same way we rejoice on a warm, sunny day after a cold, dark winter. The brightness in our minds and hearts elevates our spirits and enables us to proceed certainly, confidently, joyously.
One more. We have obtained mercy (1P 2.10). Mercy withholds from us the terrible consequences that we justly deserve, and it frees us to live, to do, to thrive, without fear and without despair.
What a great salvation.
Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash
Leave a reply. Keep it clean.