1 Peter | From: Babylon, To: Scattered Strangers

Session 7 | 1 Peter 2:21-25

1 Peter 2:11-25 | Encouragement For Times of Suffering

• Verses 11-12 – see session 5

• Verses 13-20 included on session 6

• Verse 21 –

  • The nation of Israel is called to follow his steps in suffering. That is, to suffer as Christ suffered.

  • This explains why the Jewish people have very good arguments that the “Suffering Servant” passage of Isaiah 53 is about the nation, and the Christian community has very good arguments that the Suffering Servant is the Lord Himself. Both are right.

  • The Messiah is the first to suffer, and the nation is to follow his steps in suffering.

    
    

• Verse 22 –

  • It is Christ specifically of whom the verse speaks. However, as the nation that should follow his steps (v. 21), this verse should also describe Israel in going through the tribulation.

  • While there is much on which to accuse Israel of in her past, the tribulation is a time when she suffers innocently.

  • Job is the great type in the Bible of Israel in tribulation, and Job is declared innocent by God Himself (Job 1:8).

    
    

• Verse 23 –

  • Continuing to speak both of Christ, and the Jewish nation following in His pattern, the righteous Jew, as the righteous Lord, will receive the abuse, committing themselves to him that judgeth righteously, just as Christ did on the cross (see Luke 23:46).

    
    

• Verse 24 –

  • Christ becomes their example as a result of His work on their behalf.

  • The fact that Christ bare our sins in his own body on the tree requires the physical death, burial and resurrection of the Lord.

  • The fact that Peter is speaking specifically of Israel does not imply that the Lord did not also bare the sins of the entire world

  • Since sins were taken to the cross, the recipients of the letter are dead to sins. Since this is true, they should live unto righteousness.

  • The statement by whose stripes ye were healed has been misused by many, in two ways:

    • By some it is taken as a claim for current physical healing in the cross. The healing is physical (compare Lk. 6:17, which uses the same word), but it is not in the “here and now.” It is by His stripes that the Jewish nation will be changed from mortal to immortal.

    • By many it is taken to refer to the current spiritual healing of believers. Our spiritual healing is in the completed and total work of Christ and the offer of grace given to us by the Father through the mystery.

      
      

  • Since the context of the verse is the nation of Israel’s salvation through the tribulation, that context must remain in verse 24. The emphasis is that Israel is healed through His stripes and not through their own.

  • Some evidence that this is not referring to the Body of Christ (today’s church):

    • The words by whose stripes ye were healed are a quote from Isaiah 53:5. It would be against the principle of right division to have an Old Testament passage be prophetic of a mystery age reality.

    • The context of the original text must be carried to the quotation of the text. In this case, the context of the original is clearly the healing of the Hebrew nation.

      
      

• Verse 25 –

  • Peter’s recipients were as wandering sheep but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

  • This gives a current status of the recipient’s specifically, and a prophetic status of the nation as a whole.

  • Note: it is my contention that sheep and Shepherd illustrations always pertain to Israel alone.