After an extensive tour of the United States some years ago, the late, well-known German pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke was asked what he saw as the greatest defect among American Christians. He replied, “They have an inadequate view of suffering.”

I think his observation still holds true. If it were not so, how could American Christians even give a moment’s credence to the ridiculous idea that it is always God’s will for believers to be healthy and wealthy? When we visited Macau in 1987, I asked a young woman from mainland China if she had heard of that teaching in China. She laughed softly, shook her head, and replied, “No, that teaching wouldn’t get very far in China.”

But an inadequate view of suffering is not just a problem for those who think that it’s always God’s will to give us a trouble-free life. I find it to be a problem among many Christians undergoing trials. Some face debilitating illness, but instead of submitting to God, they grow bitter and complain, “Why me?” Some put up with intolerable marriages for a while, but then bail out with the excuse, “Don’t I have a right to some happiness?” Others look back on a childhood in which they were abused and angrily complain, “Where was God when I needed Him? What kind of God would allow an innocent child to suffer like I did?”

All these people share in common an inadequate view of suffering. Because of their bitterness toward God, they are not in submission to Him. They are vulnerable to temptation and sin. Others who suffer may submit to God, but it’s more like glum resignation than grateful trust. They’re depressed because of their problems, perhaps even to the point of suicide. They’ve lost hope.

What all these people need is both hope and holiness in a hostile world. That is to say, they need to hear and apply the message of 1 Peter. The apostle wrote this letter to Christians scattered throughout what today is northern Turkey. He probably wrote from Rome (referred to in code as “Babylon” [5:13]) just before Nero’s fierce persecution of Christians in that city in A.D. 64. But the pressure was already on many who held to this new belief in Jesus as God in human flesh, who died on a Roman cross and was raised from the dead. Believers were being slandered (2:12; 3:14-16; 4:14). Gentile Christians were reviled by their former partners in sin (4:4). These Christians needed to know how to handle these trials that came upon them on account of their seeking to follow Christ.

Peter points them to Christ, our great example, who endured unjust suffering from a hostile world, but who maintained both hope and holiness by submitting Himself to the Father’s sovereign purpose. That’s the message of 1 Peter:

In spite of a hostile world, Christians can live in hope and holiness by submitting to God.

We all need this practical message because, in one form or another, we all face trials. Peter holds out no promise that following Jesus will exempt a believer from hardship. Far from it! He says that we should not be surprised at fiery ordeals, as if they were abnormal (4:12). But he points us to Christ and to the glory promised us in heaven. If we will learn the lessons packed into this great letter, we will be strengthened and encouraged as we live for Christ in this hostile world.

After an opening greeting, the book falls into three parts (I’ve adapted this outline from J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book [Zondervan], p. 303):

Introductory greeting: Scattered as aliens, but chosen and obedient (1:1-2).

1. The living hope: How to cultivate it (1:3-2:10).

The living hope is cultivated by knowing Christ as the living Savior (1:3-21); the living Word (1:22-2:3); and, the living Stone (

2. The alien life: How to live it (2:11-3:22).

The alien life (2:11-12) is lived as holy people in submission: as Christian citizens (2:13-17); as Christian servants (2:18-25); as Christian mates (3:1-7); as Christian witnesses who are wronged (3:8-22).

3. The fiery trial: How to endure it (4:1-5:11).

Christianity may be a life of fiery trials, but we can endure such trials purposefully as holy people (4:1-6); soberly, as serving people (4:7-11); joyfully, as expectant people (4:12-19); and, corporately, as humble people (5:1-11).

Concluding greetings: This is God’s true grace; stand firm in it! (5:12-14).

Most of the major themes of the book are in kernel form in the opening greeting (1:1-2):

1. Christians live in a hostile world.

Peter addresses his book “to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (the northern regions of modern Turkey). These churches may have been founded by converts from the Day of Pentecost when Peter preached (Acts 2:9); by Peter on missionary journeys into the area; by converts of the Apostle Paul from nearby regions where he preached (he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into Asia and Bithynia [Acts 16:6-7]); or, by some combination of these.

“Scattered” is the Greek diaspora, used to refer to the scattering of the Jews outside of Palestine (John 7:35; James 1:1). Peter calls these Christians the diaspora, or scattered people of God. Judging from the many Old Testament references in this epistle, there must have been many Jewish believers in these churches. But, also, many references point to many Gentiles (1:14 18; 2:9-10, 18 [servants]; 4:1-4).

“Aliens” (used also in 2:11) contains two inherent ideas: That we are both foreigners and temporary residents. As foreigners, we do not belong to this evil world. In Jesus’ words, we are in the world, but not of it (John 17:13-16). We should not speak its language or follow its customs. Our behavior should be distinct from the residents of this world.

Have you ever traveled to a foreign country where you stood out obviously as a foreigner? In 1987, when we went to China, we spent an afternoon walking the back streets of Guangzhou, where we didn’t see any other Westerners. People stared at us and we stared back. We found their customs interesting, but very different from our own. Instead of buying dead poultry and fish, shrink-wrapped in plastic, the Chinese buy live chickens, ducks, and fish. The birds are squawking and the fish are gasping for their last breath as they carry them from the market. While their custom is no doubt more nutritious, I must confess that I was a foreigner, because I wouldn’t know what to do if my dinner was still alive when I brought it home!

One of Peter’s favorite words is the Greek word, anastrophe. He uses it six times in 1 Peter (1:15, 18; 2:12; 3:1, 2, 16) and twice in 2 Peter (2:7; 3:11). It is only used five other times in the entire New Testament. It means “way of life” or “behavior.” The point is, as Christians our way of life, our conduct and behavior should stand out like a foreigner stands out in China. We’re supposed to be different, as the King James translates 2:9, “a peculiar people.” (You’re probably thinking, “Yes, I’ve met many peculiar Christians!”) But it doesn’t mean weird, but distinct. Christians should stand out as godly people in a corrupt, ungodly world.

Peter makes it clear, as Jesus did, that we are not to become hermits, cloistered from the world, but rather to live commendably in it (2:12, 15, 20-21; 3:13-17; 4:19; 5:9). Nor are we to live apart from the church, as individuals, but in community with other Christians as the people of God (1:22; 2:4-10; 3:8-9; 4:8-11, 17; 5:1-5, 9, 13-14). As someone put it, “We are not to live in the world and go to church, but to live in the church and go to the world.” So the word “alien” means that we are foreigners in this evil world.

The second sense of “alien” is that we are temporary residents. We’re not to be settlers, but pilgrims, looking for our real home in heaven. Peter brings this out numerous times: 1:6, “for a little while”; 1:17, “during the time of your stay upon earth”; 2:11-12, you are aliens now, but the day of visitation is coming; 4:2, “the rest of the time in the flesh,” with the day of judgment to follow (4:5); and, 5:10, “suffered for a little while.”

The ideas of hope, heaven, the return of Jesus Christ, and the future glory are all prominent in 1 Peter: 1:3-5, 7, 13, 21; 2:12; 3:5, 15; 4:5, 7, 13, 17; 5:1, 4, 6 (“proper time”), 10. Also, Peter repeatedly makes the point that unbelievers will be judged by God: 1:17; 2:7-8, 12, 23; 3:12, 18-20; 4:5, 17-18).

All of this is most practical to those who are suffering, especially when you look around at wicked people who seem to be doing quite well, and wonder, “Is it worth it to follow Christ?” Sometimes people mock Christianity as a “pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die” religion. Clearly, it is! Paul says that if it’s not, “if we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19).

I’m thankful for modern medicine, but there’s a sense in which it has done us a great disservice. Years ago, people didn’t need to be convinced of the shortness of life and the reality of eternity. Most families lost several children in death. Many adults died of things that now can be healed. Death was a constant reminder of the fact that this life is not all there is. Eternity is ahead. Though we suffer and the wicked prosper now, a day is coming when it will all be made right, just as Jesus Christ promised.

But we often mistakenly assume that because medicine can extend someone’s life for a few years, we escape from the reality of eternity! No, says Peter, we’re aliens—foreigners, temporary residents—here on earth. We live in a hostile world now, but we’re looking for that great day when our Savior returns from heaven for us! Therefore,

2. Christians can live with hope in this hostile world.

People going through trials need hope. Peter begins (1:3) by saying that God “has caused us to be born again to a living hope.” He instructs us to fix our hope completely on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1:13). Since Jesus has been raised from the dead, our faith and hope are in God (1:21; see also 3:5, 15).

Biblical hope is not like worldly hope. Worldly hope is uncertain, at best. We say, “I hope my investment will be profitable.” There’s a lot of anxiety and not much certainty in that kind of hope! But biblical hope is certain, though not yet realized, because it is backed by the God who cannot lie.

It’s as if you and I had both missed the World Series. I heard which team won, but you hadn’t. We sit down to watch a videotape of the final game, and I say to you, “Would you like to put a friendly bet on the game?” You’d be a fool to make that bet! Why? Because even though I don’t know exactly how the game will develop, I am certain about the final outcome. And Christians may not know exactly how the events of life will unfold, but we know for certain whose side is gonna win. We can be sure of the glory that awaits us in heaven. That’s biblical hope!

In the opening greeting, Peter gives three reasons we can live with hope in this hostile world:

A. We can have hope because we’ve been chosen by God.

In the Greek text, the word “chosen” comes right after “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.” It is put at the start for emphasis. Peter wants us to know from the outset that our relationship with God does not depend on our weak grasp on Him, but rather on God’s sure grip on us. Our salvation is not our doing; it is God’s doing! Thus we can submit to God during times of trial because He is sovereign in saving and keeping His own. This comforting theme of God’s sovereignty runs through the whole book (1:3-5, 11-12, 20; 2:7-10; 3:17, 22; 4:11, 19; 5:10-11).

This greatly comforting truth, that God has chosen us for salvation, has been undermined by those who say, “Yes, but it says that God chose us according to His foreknowledge.” They say that election means that God peered down through history, saw who would believe in Him and put them on His list.

But a moment’s thought will show how inadequate that view is. It makes the eternal, sovereign plan of God depend upon the will of man. It makes God into a heavenly wimp who happened to be omniscient. So He looked at the future and said, “Oh, I do hope that Saul of Tarsus will believe in Me, because he would make such a nice apostle. Oh, good! He is going to decide for Me! I’ll put him on my list of the elect.” But Paul made it clear that God had set him apart even from his mother’s womb (Gal. 1:15).

Also, such a view turns the grace of God into merited rather than unmerited favor. If election just means that God knew in advance who would believe, then He did not sovereignly choose them apart from their choice of Him, but because of it. But Scripture is clear that God chose whom He willed, simply because of His choice (Rom. 9:11, 16, 18). The word “foreknowledge” means that God knew in the special sense of choosing His people before the foundation of the world. The idea of foreordination is implied in “foreknowledge” (1 Pet. 1:20; Acts 2:23; Rom. 8:29).

B. We can have hope because we’ve been saved by the Triune God.

Peter assumed that his readers accepted the Trinity. He doesn’t stop to explain or defend it; he just states that we were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that we may obey Jesus Christ. God is one God who exists in three coequal, eternal persons, the same in substance, but distinct in subsistence. Each person of the Godhead has a role in our salvation. We can have hope because our salvation depends on this great Triune God.

C. We can have hope because we enjoy God’s multiplied grace and peace.

“Grace and peace” is a form of Christian greeting, but it is much more. God’s grace was the motivating factor in Peter’s life, as it should be in every Christian’s life. He uses the word in every chapter of this book, ten times in all (1:2, 10, 13; 2:19-20; 3:7; 4:10; 5:5, 10, 12). The first word of the epistle, “Peter,” illustrates God’s grace in a most personal way. The unstable Simon, who failed miserably on a number of occasions, but most terribly when he denied the Lord, became Peter (the Rock), greatly used by God as an apostle. “Peace” is the inner result of experiencing God’s grace.

The words “Peter, an apostle,” contain a fine balance that we must maintain. “Peter” illustrates God’s grace, that He forgives our sin and showers us with blessings we do not deserve. “Apostle” means “one sent under authority,” and shows that the things Peter writes to us are not helpful suggestions, but divine commandments. There is no contradiction between “grace” and “obedience” to God’s commands.

We’ve seen that Christians live in a hostile world as aliens; but, they can live with hope. Finally,

3. Christians can live with holiness in a hostile world.

Holiness and obedience are major themes in 1 Peter (1:2, 14-17, 22; 2:1, 11, 24; 3:2, 6, 8-9; 4:1-11, 15-17). In the introduction these themes are brought out in the respective works of the Spirit and of Jesus Christ in our salvation.

First, Peter says that we are chosen “by the sanctifying work of the Spirit.” (The same phrase is used in connection with election in 2 Thess. 2:13.) The word “sanctifying” means “setting apart” and looks here at the initial work of God’s Spirit in taking a believer out of the world and setting him apart unto God in the community of God’s elect people (Ramsey Michaels, Word Biblical Commentary, p. 11). But, the word also has an active, ongoing sense that points to the process by which the Spirit progressively separates the believer unto God, in cooperation with our submission and active participation in the process (Simon Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary: Peter and Jude [Baker], pp. 36-37, 38). Thus holiness is both positional and progressive. It involves both the Spirit’s sovereign work and our willing cooperation.

Next Peter says that we are chosen “unto obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ” (literal translation). Grammatically, the word “obedience” stands alone and refers to our initial acceptance of the gospel, what Paul and Peter both call “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26; 1 Pet. 4:17). The Bible is clear that saving faith is obedient faith. In fact, “obedience” is often used to describe saving faith (John 3:36; Acts 6:7; Rom. 10:16; 15:18; 2 Thess. 1:8; 1 Pet. 2:8; 3:1). We are saved by faith, but saving faith is not mere assent, but rather active belief that always results in ongoing obedience to God.

The phrase “sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ” stems from Moses’ sprinkling the Israelites with blood at the initiation of the Mosaic Covenant (Exod. 24:3-8). The Book of Hebrews applies this to Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice of Himself in inaugurating the New Covenant (Heb. 9:19-28). Thus Peter is referring to the initial cleansing from sin that takes place when the blood of Christ is applied to our hearts when we commit ourselves by faith to follow Him. “Obedience” looks at our part; “sprinkling” looks at Christ’s part.

As with the word “sanctifying,” the word “sprinkling” is an active noun that also contains the idea of an ongoing process. Though the blood of Christ cleanses us from all our sins at the moment of salvation, there is also a repeated cleansing applied to our hearts as we confess our sins (1 John 1:7, 9).

Thus the idea here is that the Christian life is both an initial and an ongoing process of separation from sin and separation unto God. It is first and foremost the work of God’s Spirit and of Jesus Christ on our behalf, but also it involves our active obedience.

Conclusion

Another key word in 1 Peter which relates to having both hope and holiness in this hostile world is the word “submit” (2:13, 18; 3:1, 5, 22 [used of angelic submission to Christ]; 5:5). It’s not a popular word in our day of “rights” and “assertiveness,” where everyone is trying to avoid pain and seek fulfillment at all costs. But it is a key to having a proper view of suffering. When we face trials, we have a choice. We can assert ourselves and complain about how unfair things are and look for the easiest and quickest way out. Or, we can submit to the sovereign hand of God, knowing that He has chosen us for salvation and saved us by His mighty power.

We can respond to trials like an egg or like a potato. An egg goes into boiling water soft, but comes out hard. A potato goes in hard and comes out soft. I’d like you to ask yourself, “How am I responding to the trials God has sovereignly allowed into my life? Am I submitting to God or resisting Him?” If we submit to Christ, He will soften our hearts and give us both hope and holiness as we live in this hostile world.

Discussion Questions

1. What examples have you seen of Christians having an inadequate view of suffering?
2. What does “separation from the world” mean in practical terms?
3. Does the doctrine of election comfort or confuse you? Why?
4. Does submission to God in trials mean passive fatalism? What does it mean?

Copyright 1992, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

As you think about your life, what consistently brings you the most joy? Some might answer, “My family”; but for others their family is the source of their greatest pain. Some may say, “My friendships” or “this new guy (or gal) I’m dating.” A few may answer, “My job” or “career.” Some may not be honest enough to say it, but they really live for their possessions or hobbies or leisure activities. Or, some might be brutally honest in saying, “I don’t have much joy in my life.”

For every Christian, the true answer ought to be, “The thing that brings me the most joy in life is my relationship with the Lord and the full salvation He has provided.” The Lord and His salvation ought to be the hub of our lives from which radiate out the spokes of joy in our families, our friendships, our jobs, our possessions, and our other activities. If you take away the hub, everything else would crumble into meaningless ruin.

Yet I fear that for too many Christians, salvation is nice, but not necessary. It adds a little fulfillment to their well-rounded lives, but it’s not the essential core without which life would disintegrate. If they were honest, they would ask with a shrug of their shoulders, “What’s so great about salvation?”

God has a sure-fire method of getting us to answer that question: He puts us in the fires of affliction! Trials have a way of getting us to focus on the bare essentials of life. What really matters? What am I living for? What gives life meaning and makes it count? And, of course, the more life-threatening the trials, the more focused we are.

In 1777, Dr. William Dodd, a well-known London clergyman, was condemned to be hanged for forgery. When his last sermon, delivered in prison, was published, a friend commented to Samuel Johnson that the effort was far better than he had thought the man capable of. Dr. Johnson’s classic reply was, “Depend upon it, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Peter’s readers were enduring affliction. Some may have been facing martyrdom for their faith. Some were under pressure in their homes from pagan spouses, in their jobs from pagan employers, and in their communities from pagan acquaintances. Some were probably wondering, “Why suffer for our faith? Is it worth all the pain I’m going through?” Peter’s answer is to get them to look up from their suffering to their salvation and see, “It’s more than worth it because our salvation is so great! The salvation we enjoy is that which the prophets struggled to understand and into which the angels long to look!”

Because our salvation is so great, we should joyfully endure present suffering in light of the future glory.

To trace Peter’s flow of thought, in 1:3-5 he points his readers to the greatness and certainty of their future inheritance in Christ. In 1:6-9, he shows how this great salvation results in inexpressible joy, even in the midst of present trials. In 1:10-12, he goes back to the past prophetic revelation about this great salvation to show how unsearchable it is—neither the prophets nor the angels fully grasped it—and how privileged we are who have received it. He means to encourage believers in the midst of trials. Just as Christ first suffered and then was glorified, so Christians may now suffer, but there’s glory ahead. If we will focus on the incomprehensible greatness of our salvation, we can joyfully endure present trials.

1. Our salvation is so great.

Our text shows five reasons our salvation is great:

A. Our salvation is great because it is the message of God’s grace.

Peter uses the word “grace” in 1:10 (and 1:13) as a synonym for the salvation which we have received but won’t completely understand until Christ returns. As I mentioned last week, there are three tenses of our salvation: We were saved from sin’s penalty when we put our faith in Christ; we are being saved from sin’s power as we walk by faith; and, ultimately we shall be saved from sin’s presence as we persevere by faith.

I want to camp on the word “grace” for a minute, both because it is an important word to Peter (used ten times in this book: 1:2, 10, 13; 2:19-20; 3:7; 4:10; 5:5, 10, 12) and because it is a widely misunderstood concept in our day. Many Christians confuse grace for a hang-loose, laid-back flavor of Christianity that urges us not to be too rough on ourselves and not to be judgmental of others. We end up being tolerant of all sorts of sin that the Bible strongly confronts.

Grace is undeserved favor. You cannot appreciate God’s grace until you both understand cognitively and feel emotionally how unworthy you are to receive anything other than judgment from the holy God. All true Christians agree that we’re sinners, but many quickly turn around and argue that we’re worthy persons, not unworthy. We’re being told that the root of all our problems is low self-esteem. So one of the major tasks for Christians has become to build their self-esteem. One best selling book confronts the notion that we should view ourselves as sinners saved by grace:

Is that who you really are? No way! The Bible doesn’t refer to believers as sinners, not even sinners saved by grace. Believers are called saints—holy ones—who occasionally sin. (Neil Anderson, The Bondage Breaker [Harvest House], p. 44.)

I was raised in a Christian home and believed in Christ at an early age. I’ve lived a relatively clean life. I’ve always subscribed to the biblical teaching that I am a sinner. But as a young Christian, I had no idea how sinful my heart really is. The more I’ve grown in Christ, the more I see how desperately wicked I am, which makes me cling to the cross more fiercely and revel in God’s grace more joyously. I’ve had to learn that grace isn’t God giving a little boost to a basically decent, churchgoing young man. Grace is God’s mercy to me whom He justly could send to hell. It’s only when I feel how much He has forgiven me that I will love Him much because of the wonder of His grace.

God’s grace, properly understood, is not at odds with obedience to God’s Word. Rather, grace is the motivation for obedience (Rom. 2:4). No sooner does Peter tell us that we should fix our hope completely on God’s grace (1:13) than he tells us to be obedient and holy (1:14-15). An emphasis on grace is not opposed to an emphasis on obedience.

But don’t miss the point: Our salvation is great because it’s the message of God’s grace. That means that there’s hope for every sinner, no matter how great his sin! That’s good news! The only thing that keeps you from experiencing God’s grace is your pride that tells yourself that you’re a good person who doesn’t need grace. If you’ll confess your sin, the cross of Christ is sufficient to forgive you completely.

B. Our salvation is great because it was predicted by the Old Testament prophets.

The Old Testament prophets made careful search and inquiry as they sought to know what time (a better translation than “person”) or circumstances the Spirit of Christ was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow (1:10-11). Peter is saying, “The salvation you have received is the very thing that these great men of God spent their lives looking for!” That doesn’t mean that they weren’t saved. But they couldn’t understand it the way we do because they lived before Christ came.

Some have explained it by saying that the prophets saw two mountain peaks: Mount Calvary, where Christ would die for our sins; and, Mount Olivet, where He will return in power and glory to set up His kingdom. But they couldn’t see the valley between the two peaks, much as we can’t when we look at two distant peaks. So they didn’t grasp that the same Messiah who would suffer for our sins would ascend into heaven for 2,000 years before returning to reign in glory.

Note how Jesus Himself interpreted the prophet Isaiah when He was preaching in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-21): He read a few verses, then stopped in the middle of the verse and announced, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Why didn’t Jesus finish the verse from Isaiah? Because it goes on to say, “And the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa. 62:2), which refers to His second coming in judgment. It’s easy to see why the Old Testament prophets missed the 2,000-year gap between the two halves of that verse!

Note also Daniel 9:2-3, where Daniel seeks by prayer and fasting to grasp what Jeremiah had prophesied. In answer to his prayers, God gave him the prophecy of the 70 weeks (9:24-27), which I’m sure Daniel himself did not understand! In 12:8, Daniel admits that he couldn’t understand what the angel was telling him about the future. He was told that these things are concealed for the end time (12:9).

The question arises when we suffer: What if Christianity isn’t really true? What if I’m believing in myths or something purely psychological? What if I’m suffering for nothing? Peter’s answer is that our salvation is rooted in prophecies made hundreds of years before Christ came. Even though the prophets didn’t understand everything the Holy Spirit (here called the “Spirit of Christ” because He bears witness to Christ) revealed to them, it has been fulfilled in the death, resurrection, ascension, and promised second coming of Christ. As Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:19, “We have the prophetic word made more sure.” Our salvation is great because it is nothing less than that predicted throughout the Old Testament.

Two applications: (1) Read the Old Testament! So many Christians neglect the Old Testament, complaining that it’s too hard to understand. It is hard to understand in places. Daniel himself had trouble! But it speaks to us of Christ. We will be impoverished if we neglect it.

(2) Apply yourself diligently to understand the Bible. I confess that I’ve never sought the Lord with prayer, fasting, sackcloth and ashes, and confession of sin as Daniel did to understand a portion of Scripture! But so often we just give up in frustration rather than applying ourselves to try to understand and obey God’s Word. Peter admits (2 Pet. 3:16) that some of Paul’s stuff is hard to understand. But God saw fit to put it in Scripture, so we need to seek Him to grow in respect to our salvation.

C. Our salvation is great because it is revealed by God to man.

The prophets weren’t religious geniuses who invented all the things in the Bible. They got their stuff from the Holy Spirit. Verse 11 establishes the divine inspiration of the Old Testament. As Peter explains (2 Pet. 1:21), “No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The apostles didn’t cook up their own message, either. Peter tells his readers that those who preached the gospel to them did so “by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1 Pet. 1:12).

When we talk about the inspiration of the Bible, we mean that “God superintended the human authors of Scripture so that using their own personalities they composed and recorded without error His message” (Charles Ryrie, Study Graph, “Bible Doctrine I” [Moody Bible Institute]). As Charles Hodge put it (Systematic Theology [Eerdmans], 1:154), “Inspiration was an influence of the Holy Spirit on the minds of certain select men, which rendered them the organs of God for the infallible communication of his mind and will. They were in such a sense the organs of God that what they said, God said.”

A critic may argue that we’re reasoning in a circle: We say that the Bible is inspired because the Bible says it’s inspired. Any book can make that claim for itself. But if you read the Bible, you discover that it is a self-authenticating book. Though written by many different authors over thousands of years, there is a unity and integrity to the Bible that could not exist apart from supernatural influence. Furthermore, if you reject the divine inspiration of the Old Testament, you must reject the teachings of Jesus Himself, because He repeatedly taught that Scripture is from God (Matt. 5:17-18; 22:31-32, 43; John 10:35).

Thus our salvation is great because it is the message of God’s grace; it was predicted by the Old Testament prophets; it is revealed by God to man.

D. Our salvation is great because it is a mystery to the angels.

Peter says that even the angels long to look into our salvation! The word “look” means to stoop to look into (it was used of Peter stooping to look into the empty tomb--John 20:5) or to gaze intently at something (James 1:25). It implies intense interest. When Satan and the other fallen angels sinned, God did not provide salvation for them. He provided it only for fallen human beings, and that at great cost: He took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and died in our place on the cross. His plan is that His manifold wisdom might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places (Eph. 3:10). Jesus taught that the angels rejoice over the salvation of one repentant sinner (Luke 15:10).

Whatever angels know, we can assume that they know a lot about God. They stand in His holy presence (Isa. 6:1-3). They are sent out to do His will (Heb. 1:14). They have tremendous authority and power (2 Pet. 2:11; Jude 8-9). They’re impressive beings! And yet, there is something about the majesty of God’s Being that He is teaching even the angels through our salvation! How privileged we are to enjoy such a great salvation!

E. Our salvation is great because it involves the sufferings and glories of Christ.

Jesus Christ is the center of world history. His coming to this earth, His dying for our sins, His resurrection, His ascension into heaven, and His promise to return bodily, are the most important facts in human history. Nothing else comes close by way of comparison. He is the center of all Scripture. As the risen Savior spoke to the men on the Emmaus road, “‘O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:25-27). Christ is at the center both of human history and of Scripture.

And the cross is the central reason Christ came to this earth. Thus, as Alexander Maclaren declares (Expositions of Holy Scripture [Baker], 1 Peter, p. 47), it is not enough to preach Christ; we must preach Christ crucified. It is not enough to preach the ethical teachings of Jesus, although we must seek to live by them. It is not enough to point to Jesus as our great example, although His life should be our model. It is not even enough to speak of His death as a brave sacrifice, unless we make it clear that He “died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). He accomplished that salvation through His death on the cross.

When Paul reasoned from the Scriptures with the Jews in Thessalonica, he explained and gave evidence “that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead,” saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ” (Acts 17:3). The sufferings of Christ refer to His death that satisfied the justice of God as payment for our sins. The glories of Christ refer to His resurrection, His ascension, His present exalted place at the right hand of the Father, His bodily return, and His future reign in power and glory. Our salvation is great because it is centered on these, the most crucial truths in history.

2. We should joyfully endure present suffering in light of future glory.

This point stems from the context of our text. Peter is arguing that our salvation is so great that whatever we must endure for Christ’s sake now is nothing compared with the glory that awaits us. Just as Jesus first wore the crown of thorns and then the crown of glory, so with us who follow Him. We may suffer now, but we already have tasted of this great salvation that the prophets foretold and into which the angels long to look. We can’t even fathom all the riches which God has in store for those who love Him. So when you suffer for Jesus’ sake, hang in there with joy, knowing that glory lies ahead!

Conclusion

When you study your Bible, one secret is to look for words that are repeated for emphasis. Sometimes these words are not significant in themselves, but their repetition makes them significant. In our text, there is a word that occurs once in 1:10 and three times in 1:12 that drives home Peter’s message: the word “you.” He writes of “the grace that would come to you“ (1:10); “they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1:12). The point is simple: Even though the message of God’s salvation is the greatest message in human history, it does you no good unless you personally lay hold of it by faith.

I began this message by asking, “What consistently gives you the most joy in life?” The Reformed Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 begins with a similar question: What is your only comfort in life and death? It’s a personal question with both temporal and eternal implications. If your honest answer is anything other than, “Jesus Christ and the salvation He has given to me by faith,” you need to do some serious soul-searching. You may be a church member or even involved in Christian ministry, but if you’ve never responded personally to the great salvation God provided in Jesus Christ, you are lost. I fear that as in Jesus’ day, so today it is often the most outwardly religious who have the most difficulty responding to the salvation Christ provides because it requires admitting that we are not good people; we’re undeserving sinners.

Years ago, Bishop John Taylor Smith, a former chaplain general of the British army, was preaching in a large cathedral on the text, “You must be born again.” He said, “My dear people, do not substitute anything for the new birth. You may be a member of a church, ... but church membership is not new birth, and our text says, ‘You must be born again.’ The rector was sitting on his left. He continued, “You may be a clergyman like my friend the rector here and not be born again, and you must be born again.” On his right sat the archdeacon. Pointing at him, he continued, “You might even be an archdeacon like my friend here and still not be born again, but you must be born again. You might even be a bishop like myself and not be born again, but you must be born again.”

He finished his message and went his way. But several days later he received a letter from the archdeacon which read, in part, “My dear Bishop: You have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over 30 years, but I have never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. I could never understand it. But when you pointed at me and said that a person could be an archdeacon and not be born again, I understood what the trouble was. Would you please come and talk with me?” Of course, Bishop Smith did talk with him and the archdeacon responded to Christ’s call to salvation (H. A. Ironside, Illustrations of Biblical Truth [Moody Press], pp. 49-50).

If you do not know today the great joy of salvation, perhaps it is because you have never personally responded to Jesus Christ. Why not do so right now? Then you will know what’s so great about salvation!

Discussion Questions

1. Must we feel our sinfulness in order to know God’s grace? Is this only at salvation or ongoing?
2. Does the Old Testament apply to us who are not under the Law? How?
3. Why is the cross the center of our salvation? What practical implications does this have?
4. Is your salvation truly the greatest thing in your life? If not, why not?

Copyright 1992, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

If you’re motivated, you can do amazing things. What would motivate a person to get out of bed in the middle of the night and read with avid interest a boring, technical book? Every parent of a sick child who has read Dr. Spock at 3 a.m. knows the answer! What would motivate a person to go sit out in an icy wind for an hour on a Saturday when there are other pressing things to do? The love of our son who was playing soccer has caused Marla and I to do that very thing.

What would make a college student stay up all night banging away at his computer? Surely his body is crying out for sleep! Surely he’s not so intrigued by his subject that he just can’t quit! He’s motivated by a professor who said, “The term paper will count for 25 percent of your grade. No late work will be accepted. No exceptions!”

Why don’t we read our Bibles with the consistency and fervency that we should? Why don’t we pray as we ought? Why don’t we discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness? Why do we get more excited about sports or leisure activities than we do about talking with a neighbor about Christ? Why don’t we strive to be holy people in every area of life? Why do our hearts grow cold toward the things of God?

The answer is that, for one reason or another, we lack motivation. If we can kindle the right motivation, we will not fall into lukewarmness (Rev. 3:14-22). We will be fervent in spirit, all-out for the Lord.

In 1 Peter 1:13-16, the apostle calls us to a holy lifestyle in light of the great salvation which God has freely given to us. But, holiness is not an easy thing! It doesn’t happen automatically. To be a holy person in a corrupt world, we must live carefully. We must be focused in purpose. We must fight against the lusts of the flesh and the pull of the world. We must be distinct, which often means standing alone in the face of group pressure. To succeed, we’ve got to be motivated. So Peter goes on to answer the question, “Why be holy?” In 1:17-21, he gives both a negative threat and a positive incentive which should motivate us to be holy people.

We should be holy because our Father is also our Judge and because He redeemed us at infinite cost.

Some say that negative threats do not motivate as well as positive incentives. But God includes plenty of negative threats in the Bible as motivators. So we’d best not shrug them off! Peter begins with a threat:

1. We should be holy because our Father is also our Judge.

This is actually a mixed motivator. The fact that we call upon God as our Father is a wonderful thing, picturing the best of any earthly father-child relationship and raising it far above that. It means that we are His children, the objects of His special love. I love kids, but there is a special place in my heart for my own kids. Watch any father at a soccer game or school play and his eyes are on his child. “There he is! Did you see how he did that?” Maybe the thing the child did was unimportant. But that dad’s eyes are on him and he blows it all out of proportion, because it is his child.

That God is our Father means that He cares for us more than any earthly father cares for his own children. What father wouldn’t pay a million dollars, if he had to, to get adequate medical care for his child? What dad wouldn’t risk his own life to save his child from danger? A fierce dog once went after Christa when she was a toddler riding in the seat on the back of my bike. I had enough adrenalin pulsing through me that if I could have gotten a hold of that dog, I would have torn him apart with my bare hands! A father cares for his kids!

That God is our Father means that He is tender with us and that we can be intimate with Him. When my children were infants, I loved holding them on my lap or cuddling with them on my shoulder. When they were a bit older, I welcomed them climbing up on my lap and telling me about their day. Even now I want them to feel my tender concern and to know that they can share any struggles with me and that I’ll listen and care. God is far more that kind of Father to us!

But Peter says that the same one we address as Father is also the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work. He is our loving Father, but He’s also our impartial Judge! We can climb up on His lap and know that He will tenderly welcome us, but we dare not forget that He also scrutinizes our lives and that someday He will judge every motive of our hearts.

That should cause us to conduct ourselves with fear during our stay on earth (1:17). The phrase “the time of your stay” uses the same word root as the word translated “aliens” in 2:11. It is used in Acts 13:17 to refer to Israel’s stay in Egypt. It implies a short stay on this earth in light of eternity. Since we’re just here temporarily, we shouldn’t settle in as if it’s permanent. We shouldn’t live for this world’s rewards, but rather for the eternal rewards which the impartial Judge will hand out when Christ returns.

The phrase “conduct yourselves” is the same word translated “be holy yourselves in all your behavior” (1:15) and translated “way of life” (1:18). It means lifestyle. Thus the “work” God is going to judge is not so much a list of particular good deeds as it is our entire way of life--how we conduct ourselves in thought, word, and deed at home, on the job, in the world, and in the church.

The “fear” of which Peter speaks is not paralyzing dread or terror, but rather the kind of fear you have knowing that you must give an account of your life. It’s the kind of fear that motivated you to study in college because you knew that the final exam was coming. I used to see two basic responses to that kind of fear. Some guys would goof off all semester. They’d sit outside the library talking to the girls when they should have been studying. They wouldn’t keep up in reading the textbook. They would be hit and miss about attending class. Then, right before the big exam, they’d panic. They’d come around begging for any insights that those who had been diligent studying all semester could give them on how to pass the final exam. That wasn’t the way that fear of the final was supposed to work.

Others of us didn’t like to put ourselves into a position of stark terror. So we would discipline ourselves. If we had to read a 500 page textbook in 15 weeks, we’d divide up the pages and keep up. We’d get on the task of writing papers early in the semester so they didn’t stack up. We’d never skip class and we’d always take copious notes. There was still some fear about the final, but it wasn’t the dread of not being prepared. The fear of giving account on that final motivated us to do what we had to do during the semester to get ready.

That’s how the fear of standing before God someday should motivate us as His children. If we have truly put our faith in Christ as Savior, we know that we won’t fail: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). But, as Paul tells us (1 Cor. 3:12-14), our works will be tested with fire at the judgment seat of Christ. If our work remains, we will receive a reward. If our work is burned up, we will suffer loss, but we will be saved, although as through fire. I don’t know exactly what that means, but the imagery of going through fire is scary enough to motivate me to live in fear of the Lord on a daily basis now.

Alexander Maclaren writes (Expositions of Holy Scripture [Baker], “Father and Judge,” [1 Pet. 1:17], p. 69):

I suppose in Peter’s days, as in our days, there were people that so fell in love with one aspect of the Divine nature that they had no eyes for any other; and who so magnified the thought of the Father that they forgot the thought of the Judge. That error has been committed over and over again in all ages, so that the Church as a whole, one may say, has gone swaying from one extreme to the other, and has rent these two conceptions widely apart, and sometimes has been foolish enough to pit them against each other instead of doing as Peter does here, braiding them together as both conspiring to one result, the production in the Christian heart of a wholesome awe.

He wrote that 100 years ago, but it’s no different today. I think the pendulum has swung toward God as all-loving and non-judgmental. Don’t throw out His love: He is our tender Heavenly Father. But don’t forget the final exam: He is the impartial Judge! Our lifestyle (“conduct”) proves the reality of our faith. We must live in holy reverence because our Father is also our Judge.

2. We should be holy because God redeemed us at infinite cost.

This is the positive motivation to a holy life. Peter reminds us of something we know (“knowing,” 1:18) but are prone to forget: That we’ve been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus told us to partake of communion often in remembrance of Him, because thinking about what He did for us is the greatest motivation to holy living. I keep pictures of my family in my office. As I look at them during the day it stirs my heart because of the love we share. Communion is our picture of the Savior and His love. If your heart is not moved to greater purity and love for Christ when you stop to think of what He did in dying on the cross for you, then there’s something seriously wrong with your relationship with Him.

Redemption means to buy back with the payment of a price. Our text brings out three facets of redemption:

A. Redemption implies previous bondage.

For us redemption sounds like a theological term, but for Peter’s readers, it was an everyday word loaded with emotional meaning. There were millions of slaves in the Roman empire and many of them had become Christians. Some of them had been born slaves. Others had become slaves when Rome conquered their land. Still others had become slaves by falling into debt. But every slave knew that he was not his own man. He could not come and go as he pleased. He wasn’t free to do what he wanted to do. He belonged as property to another person. The slave was in bondage and felt it.

Every person who has not been redeemed by Christ is in bondage to sin and death. Peter describes it here as “the futile way of life inherited from your forefathers.” Life is futile apart from Jesus Christ! You live for yourself, trying to grab all the things that you think will bring you happiness. You work hard, gain a few things, lose a few things, get sick and die. If you’re “lucky,” you stave off death until you’re 80 or 90. If you’re not so lucky, you die sooner. What’s the point of it all? It’s futile!

Only Christ can redeem you from this futile bondage to sin and death. He forgives your sins and gives you power to live a holy life. He takes the sting out of physical death with the certain promise of being raised up to spend eternity with Him. He gives you the lasting purpose of working for His cause, assuring you that “your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).

One of the reasons for the shallow Christianity of our day is that people don’t feel deeply enough the bondage of their futile way of life. We enjoy a pretty good life these days. We have the highest standard of living in the world. And along come Christians and say, “Wouldn’t you like to receive Jesus as your Savior? He will give you an abundant life! He will help you solve your marriage problems. He will help you deal with your children.” And people think, “I have a pretty good life, but I guess I could use a little something extra. Sure, I’ll try Jesus.”

But that’s not the point! The point is, apart from Jesus Christ, you’re in bondage to sin and futility, heading for hell! This isn’t something that some Fundamentalist preacher dreamed up. Jesus taught this. He said that hell will be an awful place (Mark 9:43-48) and that unless we repent, we will perish (Luke 13:3, 5). Unless we feel the bondage of being enslaved to sin and death and hell, we won’t appreciate what Christ did in shedding His blood for us on the cross.

Joseph Parker, a 19th century London pastor, wrote (in Preaching Through the Bible [Baker], “The Precious Blood of Christ” [1 Pet. 1:19], p. 294), “Where there is no conviction of sin--conviction amounting to the very anguish of the lost in hell-- there can be no felt need of so extreme a remedy as is offered by the outpouring of the blood of Christ.” He goes on to point out that when a man feels that he has not sinned deeply, he is in no mood to receive what he considers the tragic appeals of the gospel. But, when he feels that he has sinned and is deserving of hell--lost, damned-- then his need can be met by nothing other than the “the sacrificial ... personal ... precious blood of Christ.” It took nothing less than that precious blood to redeem us from bondage.

B. Redemption involves cost.

A slave in Roman times could be redeemed by the payment of a certain amount of silver or gold. The world values these metals above all else. They are among the most imperishable metals. But Peter calls them “perishable things” and implies that they are cheap in comparison with “the precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”

The imagery goes back to the very first people on this earth. God warned Adam and Eve that if they sinned, they would surely die. He meant not only physical death, but also spiritual death, separation from Him. When they did sin, God mercifully did not kill them on the spot. Instead, He killed animals and made skins for them to cover the nakedness which they had tried to cover with their own fig leaves. It must have shocked them to see the death of that animal, to watch its lifeblood soak into the ground! God was showing them that the life is in the blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.

Years later God told Abraham to offer his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. By faith Abraham proceeded to obey what had to be the most difficult command God has ever given to a human being (except the cross). At the last moment, God intervened and provided the ram caught in the thicket as the sacrifice, thus illustrating the great cost that He, the Heavenly Father, would pay in giving His own Son for our sins.

Why can’t God just forgive sins without the shedding of blood? God could not relax the penalty and still be just and holy. None of us could serve as a substitute for others, because we all have our own sin to pay for. Only Christ, who was without the blemish or spot of sin, could offer Himself in our place--the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world. That’s the cost of our redemption!

For us to continue living in sin after such a price was paid would be comparable to a woman whose husband loved her dearly and gave his own life to save her from a rapist and murderer. After the funeral she sought out this vicious murderer and pursued a romance with him. Unthinkable! That is precisely Peter’s argument: Because God redeemed us at infinite cost, we dare not cavort with the sin for which Christ shed His precious blood.

Thus Peter wants us to see that redemption implies previous bondage; and, it involved great cost to God. Third,

C. Redemption is of God.

Peter knew the tendency of the proud human heart to boast in its own attainments. We don’t want to be humbled into receiving redemption at God’s expense; we want to pay for it. We want to work for it. We want to hang on to our pride that says, “I am a self-made man! I am worthy! I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. Of course, God gave me a little boost, but I helped Him out!” Peter says, “No! No! No! Redemption is totally of God!”

In the first place, God planned it before we ever sinned: “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1:20). The cross wasn’t God’s last-minute plan put into place after man fell into sin. He ordained it well in advance of the creation of the human race. “Foreknowledge” doesn’t just refer to God’s knowing in advance. It implies His purpose. But just because God predetermined it doesn’t absolve sinful man of responsibility. In his sermon on the Day of Pentecost, Peter said, “This Man [Jesus], delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23).

Second, redemption is of God because God executed the plan at the proper time: Christ “has appeared [been manifested] in these last times” (1:20). At the proper time in human history, in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies, God sent His Son into this world. We had nothing to do with it. We didn’t vote on it and elect Jesus as Messiah. God sent Him and revealed Him as the Savior.

Third, redemption is of God because God applied it to us: Christ appeared “for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God” (1:20-21). Christ died for your sake! It wasn’t a blanket policy; it was personal. If you believe, it’s because God imparted saving faith to you through Christ (Eph. 2:8-9; 2 Tim. 2:25). All you can do is humbly give Him the glory.

Finally, redemption is of God because God completed it by raising Christ and giving Him glory. God raised Jesus bodily from the grave, to which Peter and the other apostles and many others were witnesses. The apostles saw the risen Jesus ascend into heaven where He now sits at the right hand of the Father in glory, awaiting the day of His return. Christ’s resurrection proves that God is able to raise the dead. Thus even if we suffer as Christians, even to the point of martyrdom, we can know that He will raise us and fulfill His promises to us. Peter adds the phrase, “gave Him glory,” to remind his readers that though, like Jesus, they suffer now, there is glory ahead.

The bottom line is, “You are not your own; you have been bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). In light of our great redemption from the bondage of sin and death; redemption which cost the Son of God His precious blood; redemption which God provided while we were still His enemies, apart from any merit on our part; we must live in holy reverence before Him.

Conclusion

A seminary student told of how, when he was a boy, he fell in love with golf. His parents gave him a club and a harmless whiffle-type golf ball which he could hit around the back yard. But one day, thinking his parents weren’t home, he was overcome with the temptation to feel the click of a real golf ball against the club. He teed up and gave it a hard whack. But the ball was not hit properly. It hooked from its intended flight and went directly through one of the windows on the house with a loud crash. Even worse, the crash was followed by a piercing scream.

The boy ran for the house, burst into the living room and, to his horror, saw his mother standing in front of the broken window with blood streaming down her face. He cried out, “Mother, I could have killed you!” His mother hugged him and said reassuringly, “It’s all right. I’m okay!”

The seminary student concluded the story by saying, “When I saw my mother bleeding, there were some things I could never do again in the back yard. I could never so much as carry a golf club across the lawn of our back yard. The sight of her standing there with blood flowing down--blood that I had caused--changed my behavior forever.”

Peter wants us who are the children of God to see the great price He paid to redeem us from our sins. Seeing the Savior’s blood should motivate us to be holy. As C. T. Studd put it, “If Christ be God and died for me, there is nothing too great that I can do for Him.”

Discussion Questions

1. Why is the fear of judgment a proper motivation for believers?
2. Why couldn’t God forgive sins without the shedding of blood?
3. How does the fact that redemption is of God fit in with human responsibility?

Copyright 1992, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation

In his book, A Quest for Godliness [Crossway Books], subtitled “The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life,” J. I. Packer reports that a Puritan preacher named Laurence Chaderton once apologized to his congregation for preaching for two hours. They responded, “For God’s sake, sir, Go on, go on!” Ah! Every preacher’s dream! At 82, after preaching for 50 years, Chaderton decided to retire. He received letters from 40 clergy begging him not to, testifying that they owed their conversion to his ministry of the Word (p. 57). Packer states (p. 98):

Puritanism was, above all else, a Bible movement. To the Puritan the Bible was in truth the most precious possession that this world affords. His deepest conviction was that reverence for God means reverence for Scripture, and serving God means obeying Scripture. To his mind, therefore, no greater insult could be offered to the Creator than to neglect his written word; and, conversely, there could be no truer act of homage to him than to prize it and pore over it, and then to live out and give out its teaching. Intense veneration for Scripture, as the living word of the living God, and a devoted concern to know and do all that it prescribes, was Puritanism’s hallmark.

I assure you that I won’t preach for two hours (or even one hour) this morning. But I would to God that He would use my feeble attempt today to motivate each of you to get into God’s Word consistently. More than the food you eat, you must have God’s Word! Cut out of your life newspapers and television, and even sleep itself, if you must; but you must have God’s Word in your life! That is Peter’s point:

We must have God’s Word to grow in our salvation.

He writes, “Therefore (because you have been born again through the living and abiding Word of God), like newborn babes, crave the pure, spiritual-rational milk, that by it you may grow toward salvation.” God’s Word not only imparts life to us, it nurtures and sustains it. Apart from God’s Word, we shrivel and die like a starving child whose mother’s breasts have dried up and who has no other source of food. Therefore, we must have God’s Word.

We’ll look at three things: What the Word is like; How to be motivated to drink it in; and, How to drink it in.

1. What the Word is like:

I could spend many messages here, ranging over the whole Bible. But to limit myself to these verses we learn three things:

A. The Word is pure (2:2).

The Greek word means, literally, not deceitful. It is the same word as in verse 1 (translated “guile”) with an alpha added to the front, which negates the meaning. It means unadulterated, not watered down. Dishonest merchants in that day would add water to their milk to make more profit. This was “deceitful” milk. Peter tells us to long for the pure, not-deceitful milk.

This means that the Bible, if you take it straight, tells you the honest truth about yourself. It exposes the very thoughts and motives of your heart so that you have no where to hide (Heb. 4:12-13). It is not uncommon, after I preach, to have someone come up to me and ask, “Did anyone tell you about what I went through this past week?” When I assure them that no one told me anything, they say, “It seemed like you knew everything and you were aiming that sermon directly at me.” It isn’t me; it’s the Bible! We tend to deceive and flatter ourselves. But the Word of God cuts through the deception and lays out the honest truth so that we can deal with our problems.

I must warn you that there are legions of so-called evangelical churches where the Word of God is being watered down by upbeat preachers who want to be liked and who want to make everybody feel good about themselves. But that’s like going to a doctor who doesn’t talk about sickness, but who gives his patients sugar-coated pills that make them feel good without dealing with the root cause of their problems. As the Lord said to Jeremiah, “They have healed the wound of My people superficially” (Jer. 6:14).

The Bible declares that the root cause of our problems is our sin. By confronting our sin and presenting God’s remedy for it, the Bible brings lasting healing. So I try to preach the Bible in its pure, not-deceitful form, because then it confronts us with where our lives have gone astray and shows us God’s way to get back on the path.

B. The Word is rational (2:2).

The literal translation of verse 2 is that we should long for “the pure, spiritual milk.” The word “spiritual” also means “rational” (Greek = “logikos,” from “logos”). The only other time it occurs in the Bible is in Romans 12:1, where Paul says that presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God is our “spiritual (or rational) service of worship.” He means that it is a spiritual thing to do, since we don’t do it literally (as a burnt offering), but rather spiritually by yielding ourselves to the will of God. And, it is the reasonable thing to do in light of God’s great mercies to us.

Thus the term is purposefully ambiguous. Peter uses it to show us that he’s not talking about literal mother’s milk, but rather about the spiritual milk of the living and abiding Word of God (1:23). This spiritual milk is rational--it is grasped with the mind. Thus Christianity is essentially rational, but not rational in the worldly sense, but rational in a spiritual sense. Human reason must be subject to the written revelation God has given of Himself in the Bible. But you cannot know God without using your mind, since He has revealed Himself in the propositional revelation of the written Word.

Dr. Packer says that the Puritans were educators of the mind. They believed that “the mind must be instructed and enlightened before faith and obedience become possible” (p. 69). While they deeply believed that God’s truth must affect not only the head, but also the heart, they also “regarded religious feeling and pious emotion without knowledge as worse than useless. Only when the truth was being felt was emotion in any way desirable” (p. 70).

This balance would correct many of the excesses of our day. I meet many Christians who are heavily subjective. They operate on a feeling level, devoid of solid theological content. Others emphasize theological content, but they’re afraid of emotions. The Word of God ought to fill our minds with the knowledge of God and move our hearts with His majesty and love.

C. The Word is nourishing.

Peter is referring to a mother’s milk, as the analogy of newborn babes makes clear. He isn’t contrasting the milk of God’s Word with meat, as Paul does (1 Cor. 3:2). We are always to be feeding on this nourishing milk. It is simple enough for the youngest infant in the faith, but solid enough for the most mature saints.

God has designed a mother’s milk as the perfect food for newborn babies. It will immunize her baby from many illnesses and nourish her baby for growth. God’s Word will protect Christians from the many spiritual diseases which abound and nourish them to grow in the Lord. A mother’s milk will make her baby grow for months without any other food. God’s Word will nourish Christians so that they “grow toward salvation” (2:2). Peter means salvation in its ultimate sense, which includes everything that God has provided for us who are His children. We never reach a place in this life where we can stop growing.

One thing about kids is that they’re excited about growing. Just about every home with children has a growth chart. Every few months you measure your kids and say, “Wow, look how much you’ve grown since last time!” God’s children should be that excited about growing in respect to their salvation. Just as physical growth is not instant or readily seen, so with spiritual growth. You probably won’t see it day to day. But if you keep feeding on the milk of the Word, you will be nourished toward growth.

That’s what the Word of God is like: It’s pure; it’s rational; it’s nourishing milk that will make you grow toward salvation.

2. How to be motivated to drink in God’s Word:

Peter says that we should be as motivated as a newborn babe is for his mother’s milk. I didn’t understand this analogy until we had children of our own. Newborn babies have an intense craving for their mother’s milk! It doesn’t matter if it’s 3 a.m. If they’re hungry, they let you know about it and don’t stop letting you know about it until they get what they’re after! You can stick your finger in their mouth and they’ll suck on it for a minute (and what powerful cheek muscles they have!). But then they realize that they aren’t getting any milk, and they’ll spit out your finger and scream for the real thing. A couple of times, I made the mistake of holding our newborn babies with my shirt off when they were hungry. To a newborn, a nipple is a nipple, even if it’s on a hairy chest like mine! When they latched on to my nipple, I gained new insight on what Peter meant here!

The question is, How do you get that kind of motivation for the Word of God?

A. Negatively, put off relational sins that hinder the Word’s effect in your life (2:1).

In the context, it is clear that these relational sins (2:1) will hinder your motivation for the Word (2:2). To “put off” means to cast aside like you take off dirty clothes. These sins are baggage from our past before we were born again. They surround us as we live in this sinful world. They are standard operating procedure for many people in the world, especially when they get into a tough situation. But Peter says that they are opposed to spiritual growth and they must be discarded like dirty clothes.

Let me quickly go over the list: “Malice” is a general word for wickedness of every kind, but especially having it in for someone. “Guile” originally meant “bait” or “snare,” thus came to mean deceit. It means to tell someone something that isn’t true, so that you trick or mislead them. It involves having ulterior motives in your communication. “Hypocrisies” (plural) comes from a word meaning to wear a mask and refers to the many ways we can project a false image to people. If we are inconsistent between how we behave at church and how we behave at home or at work, we are engaging in hypocrisies.

“Envyings” refers to the attitude behind much deceit and hypocrisy. It means being jealous of another person or their things. It was the motive behind the crucifixion of Jesus: the religious leaders were envious of His popularity (Mark 15:10). Envy often works itself out in all sorts of “slanderings.” This word means to speak against someone. Of course, it often goes with deceit. The slanderer says nice things to the person’s face but disparaging things behind his back, with the motive of making himself look good in everyone else’s eyes.

Christian communication stands against all these worldly ways. We are to speak the truth in love with a view to building up the other person (Eph. 4:15, 29). Peter says that we are to put off these wrong ways of relating, which implies that we are both responsible for these sins and able, with the Spirit’s power, to stop doing them. You don’t need years of therapy and delving into your past to stop doing these things. It is a matter of obedience. Make a decisive break with your past and commit yourself to live as a Christian. If you don’t, you won’t be motivated to drink in God’s Word.

B. Positively, focus on the kindness of the Lord (2:3).

“If [or, “since”--there is no doubt implied] you have tasted that the Lord is kind.” For Peter, Christ is the Lord (as 2:4 makes clear). Since this is a quote from Psalm 34:8 (LXX), it shows that Peter believed Christ to be God (“Yahweh” for the psalmist). Psalm 34 must have been Peter’s favorite--he quotes from it again in 3:10-12. Also, the theme of Psalm 34 is roughly the same as that of 1 Peter: “If in distress you seek the Lord, He will deliver you from all your troubles (4), for ‘though the afflictions of the righteous are many, the Lord will rescue them out of them all’ (19)” (J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and Jude [Baker], p. 87).

Peter here is referring especially to the Lord’s kindness or grace that was shown to us when we trusted Him as Savior and Lord. If you’re saved, you have tasted of the Lord’s kindness, because you know that though you deserved His judgment, He showed you mercy. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). The cross of Christ, where a holy God made provision for me, the sinner, so that I could experience His forgiveness and receive eternal life as a free gift, ought to be the focus of every Christian every day. That’s why communion is so important; it focuses us on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ who offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. Tasting of the Lord’s kindness motivates us to drink in His Word.

3. How to drink in God’s Word:

A. Read it.

I am amazed at how many Christians do not read their Bibles! Maybe you’re thinking, “But I’m not a reader.” Learn to be a reader! God chose to communicate His Word in written form. Reading is a learned skill that most people can master. While you’re learning to read, get the Bible on tape and listen to it. But you also need to learn to read.

If you’re new as Christian, start in the New Testament. Read it through several times. Also, read the Psalms and Proverbs. Then, tackle the whole Bible. You can read through the Bible in a year if you read 15-20 minutes a day. Get a Ryrie Study Bible or something similar in a modern translation to help you understand the flow of thought. You won’t grasp it all in a lifetime. But pray that God would show you something about Himself, about yourself, and about how He wants you to live. Like that newborn babe, don’t let anything keep you from your feeding times!

B. Study it.

It’s not just milk; it’s rational milk. You’ve got to think or meditate on it to understand it. Observe it carefully: What does the text say? To quote Yogi Berra, “You can see a lot just by looking.” Interpret it by comparing Scripture with Scripture and asking, What does this passage mean in its context and in light of other Scripture? Get a concordance and study how words are used in the Bible. Apply it prayerfully: What does it mean to me? How do I need to obey it? Memorize certain portions, so that God can use them in your life during the day. Listen to the Word preached every chance you get.

C. Taste it.

The image of milk and of tasting the Lord’s kindness brings up the fact that the Word is not just to fill your head with knowledge. It is to fill your life with delight as you get to know the Divine author and enjoy Him in all His perfections. Taste points both to personal experience and enjoyment. I can’t taste for you, nor you for me. We can only taste for ourselves. To taste something, we’ve got to experience it up close. You can see and hear and smell at a distance, but you can only taste something by touching it to your tongue. You can only taste God’s Word by drawing near to God and personally appropriating the riches of knowing Him. Once you like the taste of something, you don’t just eat it to live; you live to eat it. You want it as often as you can get it. God’s Word is that way for all who have tasted His kindness.

Conclusion

J. I. Packer (A Quest for Godliness, pp. 47-48, 97-98) tells of a Puritan preacher in the 1620’s named John Rogers who bore down on his 500 hearers for neglecting the Bible. First he personated God to the people, telling them, “I have trusted you so long with my Bible ... it lies in such and such houses all covered with dust and cobwebs; you care not to listen to it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer.” And he took the Bible from the pulpit and seemed as if he were going to carry it away from them.

But then he spun around and personated the people to God. He fell on his knees and pleaded earnestly, “Lord, whatever you do to us, take not your Bible from us. Kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods, only spare us your Bible! Don’t take away your Bible!”

Then he personated God again to the people: “Say you so? Well I will try you a while longer; and here is my Bible for you. I will see how you will use it, whether you will love it more, observe it more, practice it more, and live more according to it.”

At this point, according to Thomas Goodwin, who was there and who later became a powerful preacher in his own right, the entire congregation dissolved in tears. Goodwin himself, when he got outside, hung on the neck of his horse weeping for a quarter of an hour before he had the strength to mount, so powerful an impression was upon him.

If you don’t have a craving for God’s Word, there could be several reasons. Maybe you’ve never tasted the Lord’s kindness in salvation. You need to believe that He died for your sins and that He offers His salvation to you as a free gift. Take it! And start feeding on the Bible.

You may not have a craving for God’s Word because of sin in your life. Someone has said that God’s Word will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from God’s Word. Confess and forsake it! And get back into the Bible.

You may have ruined your appetite by feeding on the junk food of this world. “Hunger makes a good cook,” as the saying goes. If you don’t sense your great need for God and His Word, it may be because you’ve filled up on junk like television. Shut it off! Or, maybe you’ve been filling up on the junk food being sold at Christian book stores under the label of Christian, but which waters down the pure Word of God with modern man’s wisdom. Such junk food makes you feel full, but it doesn’t nourish the soul. Don’t waste your time reading it! There are some excellent Christian books that will help you to understand and apply God’s truth. They’re well worth reading.

But above all else, read your Bible! Hunger for God’s truth. Drink it in like a nursing infant. You’ve got to have it above all else if you want to grow in your salvation.

Discussion Questions

1. How can a person know if a preacher is giving out pure or watered-down milk?
2. Must every Christian become a student of the Word in order to grow? What if a person just isn’t a reader?
3. How can these relational sins (2:1) hinder desire for God’s Word?
4. Should we read the Word only when we’re motivated or even when we don’t feel like it? Why?

Copyright 1992, Steven J. Cole, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation