1 Peter | From: Babylon, To: Scattered Strangers
Session 3 | 1 Peter 1:13-23
1 Peter 1:13-17 | Peter’s Instruction for Holy Living
Verse 13 –
The recipient were enduring manifold temptations (v. 6), but a “tried faith” is much more precious than of gold (v. 7).
While the word wherefore could be “based on this trial,” it is separated by several verses.
The more immediate context is that the prophets and angels wanted to know more about the Kingdom gospel than they knew, wherefore the recipients of the letter should gird up the loins of [their] mind.
That is, Peter seems to be encouraging them to mental knowledge more than physical endurance (which he covered in verses 6-7).
Obviously, gird up the loins of your mind is a figure of speech, likely saying “get ready, put your thinking cap on, step up to the plate, engage in mental wrestling.”
Also speaking figuratively, he instructs them to be sober, or self-controlled.
Finally, he wants them to hope to the end, that is, the revelation of Jesus Christ at which the grace that has been in view will be delivered.
This grace, of course, is not the Pauline message of grace, which is a “here and now” grace. Rather, it is the grace of the establishment of the Kingdom.
Note that the revelation of Jesus Christ is not the rapture, but the Second Coming (as in Revelation 1:1).
Verse 14 –
The comparison to obedient children seems to be tied to the manner in which children hope (v. 13) but could be connected to the next phrase.
The recipients are not to be walking according to the former lusts in your ignorance. This could indicate that the recipients were proselytes to Judaism but would not require be required since the former lusts are not elaborated upon.
Verses 15-16 –
Presumably he which hath called you is God the Father, whose character is the standard of holiness.
So too were the scattered Jews to be holy in all manner of conversation (ἀναστροφή [anastrophe], turning again, a reference to the “comings and goings” of life).
Peter basis his command not only on the character of God, but also the instruction of Torah, found in Leviticus 11:44.
Verse 17 –
Not only were the recipients to live in holiness, but also in fear. The fear was to be based upon God’s future judgment. He will judge every man’s work and will do so without respect of persons (such is the only true justice).
This future judgement sounds like the judgment seat of Christ of which Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 5:10. Neither sound like a “complete in Christ” kind of judgment that we would expect for believers in the age of grace. In fact, the Corinthians were of the same Jewish background as the recipients of I Peter, and the two instructions are similar because they are the same, both a reference to the Kingdom judgment (and thus not part of any judgment that may be involved in the dispensation of the grace of God).
1 Peter 1:18-21 | Peter’s Reason for Holy Living
Verses 18-19 –
Knowing the cost of their redemption, the recipients of the letter were asked to live holy lives.
They were redeemed (a ransom was paid). This redemption came from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. The traditions of Judaism, even before the opening of the New Testament, was filled with tradition rather than living the true word of God. Compare the book of Malachi and its call to shut the Temple doors, and Jesus repeatedly saying, “ye have heard it said.”
It was the precious blood of Christ that gave a meaning to the Torah, for He was a lamb without blemish.
Verse 20 –
Christ, His person and His work, was foreordained before the foundation of the world.
There is no difference in Greek from foreordained and foreknown. It is simply impossible to create a world that includes freedom and not know in advance that freedom would be abused and there would be a need for a Savior.
The Savior was manifest in these last times for you, that is, became incarnate in the fulness of time.
Verse 21 –
The manifestation of our Lord was always so that people would believe in God and place their faith and hope...in God.
Though these words are specifically to the recipients of the letter, who are living under the Kingdom Gospel, they are true of anyone who places their faith in the completed work of Christ.
1 Peter 1:22-25 | The Result of Holy Living
Verse 22 –
The recipients purified their souls by obeying the truth. What truth? Likely this is a reference to the previous instruction, Be ye holy; for I am holy (v. 16).
This purification (change to holy living) was done through the Spirit and unto unfeigned love of the brethren.
Because of all this effort, they were to love one another with a pure heart fervently, else the purification would not have served its purpose. Israel was never to be “holy for holy sake,” but rather “holy to be the light of the world.”
Verse 23 –
Peter comes back to the place where he started (see 1 Pet. 1:3), Being born again. This new birth is, in my estimation, an individual grace-based new spiritual birth that is not the “born from above” rebirth of the nation of Israel spoken of in John 3 but is the individual salvation that our modern society speaks of when it uses the term born again.
If this premise is true, then even while the majority of the epistle was written to those living under the Kingdom Gospel, we must recognize that those in the Kingdom Gospel (often called the Little Flock) were not prohibited from being in the Body of Christ, and that there was a period of time in which some Jews were part of both bodies.
This premise is rejected by dispensational evangelicalism, which does not ever see two Gospels nor two bodies.
This premise is rejected by Mid-Acts dispensationalism, which most often views the “Little Flock” as prohibited from entry into the Body of Christ.
