Now let us turn again in our
Bibles to 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1, and I would urge you to follow
as I read verses 17 through 21. 1 Peter 1, beginning the reading
at verse 17. And if or since you call on him as father, who, without respect of persons,
judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning
in fear, knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible
things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life
handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of
a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ,
who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world,
but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake, who
through him are believers in God that raised him from the
dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be
in God." Well, let us again ask God for the help of His Spirit
as we come to another very rich and in many ways very compact
portion of the Word of God, that God will help me to teach and
preach that Word with clarity and unction, and that God will
give to each of you the anointed ear to hear and to receive that
Word. Let us pray. Our Father, we have indeed been
sobered as your word has brought us again to that day when we
must be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ.
And we would seek both to preach and to hear your word as those
who are on their way to that awesome day. Come then by the
presence and power of the Holy Spirit that we may taste the
powers of the age to come as we open up your word together. May your spirit so attend the
preaching that it may indeed be preaching with the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven, and so attend the hearing that the word
may be received with meekness, with faith, and with obedience. Come then by your Holy Spirit
and meet our needy and our waiting hearts, we plead through Christ
our Lord. Amen. Now in the familiar 21st chapter
of John's Gospel, we're given that very moving account of how
the Lord Jesus recommissioned his servant, the apostle Peter. The very Peter who a short time
before with oaths and with maledictions had sworn that he did not even
know Jesus, that same Peter is now being drawn out by the Lord
Jesus to make fresh affirmations of his love and of his loyalty
in the presence of Christ. And in that setting, the Lord
Jesus commands Peter both to feed and to shepherd his sheep
and his lambs. Furthermore, in that same portion
of the word, we are informed that Peter would go on fulfilling
that renewed commission until he became an old man. And after
becoming an old man and fulfilling that commission, he would die
the death of a martyr. Well, here in this portion of
the Word of God that we call First Peter, Peter the old man
is still carrying out that commission. He is feeding and shepherding
both the lambs and the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
as he writes to these distressed saints in Asia Minor, described
in his opening greeting as elect sojourners of the dispersion,
He begins, as you've been reminded again and again, not by laying
upon them any duty, any responsibility, but by taking them up with Him
in this amazing eulogy, this speaking well of God and of His
great and glorious salvation in the Lord Jesus. Then, beginning
in verse 13, he calls them to the kind of life they are to
live in the light of their privileges by the grace of God. And in this
first cycle of pastoral exhortations, Peter concentrates primarily
upon the kind of life they are to live with God himself as their
reference point. And in verse 13, he indicates
that it's to be a life of steadfast hope. Verses 14 to 16, it is
to be a life marked by the pursuit of universal holiness. And in
verses 17 to 21, it is to be a life marked by appropriate
cheer. Now, as we saw last Lord's Day,
this fear which Peter enjoins upon the people of God and which
is to mark their entire sojourn upon earth is conditioned by
two sets of realities. On the one hand, it is conditioned
by the fact that God is both their accessible Father and their
impartial judge. If you call on Him as Father,
who without respect of persons judges according to each man's
work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear. So the first set of
realities that is to condition this fear that is commanded,
this fear that is to mark their entire earthly pilgrimage, is
the reality that they know God as accessible Father and as impartial
Judge. But then the second set of realities
clusters around that which Peter describes in verses 18 to 21,
the heart of which is the reality of their relationship to Christ
as their Redeemer. And so this fear is pressured
on the one hand by the knowledge that God is their Father and
their Judge, and on the other hand by the knowledge that Christ
is their Redeemer. Pass the time of your sojourning
in fear knowing that you were redeemed. Now we opened up last
Lord's Day, verse 17, seeking to understand what this acknowledgment
of God as Father and Judge does in the conditioning of this appropriate
fear that is to mark our earthly sojourn. And all I will do by
way of review before moving on to verses 18 and 19 this morning
is to read several sentences from the Lutheran commentator
Lenski, and this is all that you will get by way of review.
Lenski writes, Fear is the opposite of false security, not of joyful
faith. There is no contradiction between
joyful faith, steadfast hope, and the fear enjoined upon God's
people. And we do not reject the fear
of vigilance and caution which is afraid of insulting God and
falling into the danger of forsaking Him, but we do reject the fear
that is rooted in doubt. When men demand of God whom they
need not fear, they demand an idol who does not exist. When men demand a God whom they
do not have any need to fear, they demand an idol that does
not exist. To decry the holy fear of God
as an unethical or sub-Christian motive is to pervert it. To be
sure, Those who are not obedient children of this Father and Holy
Judge cannot have the right conception of this motive of fear. What
awaits them is the terror of the Lord whom they defy. The
truer the child of God, the more this child will dread to offend,
even to ignore God and His just judgment. A prevalent opinion
thinks that only the Old Testament preaches fear. The New Testament
nothing but love. Jesus and the entire New Testament
bid us to fear God. Well, now we come to this second
set of realities by which this appropriate fear is to be conditioned,
and it is, according to verse 18, the knowledge that we are
a redeemed people. And in opening up these two verses
this morning, think with me, first of all, of the concept
of redemption. When Peter writes and says, knowing
that you were redeemed, what did Peter have in his mind? when
these believers there in Asia Minor would first hear from one
of their elders that they had a letter from the Apostle Peter,
and on a given Lord's Day would stand up and read, what concept
would register on the minds of these elect sojourners in these
five provinces of Asia Minor when they heard the words, knowing
that you were redeemed. What would register in their
minds? What was registering in Peter's mind when he wrote? Well, if we were to do an extensive
topical study of the biblical doctrine of redemption, we would
have to flush out many aspects of that doctrine that I do not
in any way propose to handle with you this morning. We would
soon discover that redemption is a broad biblical concept with
many different nuances. We would discover that we are
redeemed from such things as the curse of the law, Galatians
3.13. We're delivered from the power of sin, Titus 2.14. We're
delivered from the tyranny of the devil, Colossians 2 and Hebrews
2. But in our text, believers are
set before us as those who have been redeemed, and the usage
of the word comes to us in a much more limited way. Now when we
come to such words as redemption, propitiation, reconciliation,
sacrifice, These are the words by which the Holy Spirit is conveying
to us the richness and the fullness of salvation in Jesus Christ. Each one of those words contains
a category of God's gracious provision, none of which are
luxuries, none of which are useless thrills. Every facet of our salvation
answers to some specific need arising from our sinfulness. And there are certain needs arising
from our sinfulness to which God's provision of a sacrifice
is the answer. Others to which God's provision
of a propitiation is the answer. Others to which the provision
of reconciliation is the answer, and some to which redemption
is the answer. And I fear that many of us treat
these words not with the disdain with which we would treat our
dirty clothes, but you're not at all concerned about how your
dirty clothes are arranged in the hamper where you put them.
Dirty undershirt, dirty socks, dirty shirt, dirty trousers,
all go in the hamper. And then after they're washed
and dried and folded, then they are put neatly in the various
places where they belong in your dresser drawers. And no one of
you, I trust, has his undershirt and his socks and his hankies
and his pajamas all jumbled up like they are in the dirty clothes
hamper. And I fear that many of God's
people say, oh, redemption, reconciliation, sacrifice, propitiation, throw
them all in the hamper called salvation. There may be some
differences, but no, the hamper is salvation, and in salvation
you can speak of being redeemed, you can speak of being reconciled,
you can say Christ is a sacrifice, and they have no distinct understanding
of the particular aspects of their glorious salvation realities,
not mere notions, but realities answering to the problems of
human sin and wonderfully expressed in these differing words. So
in these few moments as we focus upon the biblical concept of
redemption, let me try to convey it in its distilled essence to
you. When Peter picked up his pen
and wrote, knowing that you were redeemed, and when these first-century
readers would have received that letter and heard it read for
the first time, or after a period of time received a copy of the
letter and read it for themselves, Given the terminology used by
Peter in the context, they would have thought of redemption in
terms of this very fundamental category of reality. To redeem
was to secure release by the payment of a price. Remember,
there were slaves in this church. Slavery was rife in the Roman
Empire in the first century. And these believers would have
known, and perhaps some of them even were in the category of
redeemed or ransomed slaves. Peoples whose freedom from slavery
was purchased by the payment of a price which was called a
ransom. They may have had relatives who
had been taken captive in some form of warfare. and who were
released from their captors when someone redeemed them, that is,
released them from their captivity by the payment of a ransom. And though, as I've already indicated,
the concept of redemption throughout the Scriptures is much broader
than that limited definition, when we think of redemption at
its very heart, especially when we think of redemption as a saving
mercy from God in Christ. We should always think in this
category, redemption is my release from bondage by the payment of
a price. As surely as the concept of sacrifice
answers to the guilt of our sins, propitiation answers to the wrath-deservingness
of our sin, as reconciliation answers to the alienation caused
by our sin, redemption focuses on liberation from the bondage
effected by our sin. I can perhaps do no better than
read this brief statement of Professor Murray when dealing
with the term redemption. In his classic work, Redemption
Accomplished in Applied Rights, the idea of redemption must not
be reduced to the general notion of deliverance. The language
of redemption is the language of purchase and more especially
of ransom. and ransom is the securing of
a release by the payment of a price. The evidence that establishes
this concept of redemption is very copious, and no doubt need
remain that the redemption secured by Christ is to be interpreted
in such terms. And then he references Matthew
20, 28. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. In the giving of his life, he
is not only a propitiatory sacrifice, turning away the wrath of God,
He is not only the one through whom we are being reconciled
to God, but he's giving his life a ransom price to release us
from our bondage to sin. Ransom presupposes some kind
of bondage or captivity, and redemption, therefore, implies
that from which the ransom secures us. Just as sacrifice is directed
to the need created by our guilt, propitiation to the need that
arises from the wrath of God, and reconciliation to the need
arising from our alienation from God, soul redemption is directed
to the bondage to which our sin has consigned us. This bondage,
of course, is multi-formed. Consequently, redemption as purchase
or ransom receives a wide variety of reference and application.
Redemption applies to every respect in which we are bound, and it
releases us unto a liberty which is nothing less than the liberty
of the glory of the children of God. Now that's the heart
of the biblical concept of redemption. If you get nothing else as you
sit here this morning, I trust when you go out that I'll be
able to ask any child, any adult, what's the heart of the biblical
concept of redemption as used by Peter? It's release from bondage
by the payment of a price. So as Peter summons these believers
to a life of appropriate fear, He underscores that the second
major reality that will produce and condition that fear is the
constant remembrance that they are a redeemed people. Knowing
that you were redeemed, knowing, holding in the faculty of your
understanding the constant remembrance that you are a people released
from bondage, by the payment of a price. So much, then, for
the concept of redemption. Now, secondly, note from the
text the context of our redemption. Our text says, knowing that you
were redeemed, and drop out the next clause, not with corruptible
things with silver and gold. Knowing that you were redeemed
from your vain manner of life. You were redeemed from, literally,
out of your vain manner of life. You see the concept of release
and deliverance? He says your vain manner of life
was the context in which God's redemptive grace came to you,
and when it did, it liberated you. It released you. It took
you out of the sphere in which it found you. It found you in
a vain manner of life, and redemption has delivered you out of it. Now, as I already mentioned earlier,
a comprehensive study of the doctrine of redemption would
make clear that we are also in a context where the curse of
a broken law is upon us. where the tyranny of the devil
is over us, and the power of sin enslaves us, and there are
passages which say, in redeeming us, we have been delivered out
of those realities as well. But I'm not here bringing a topical
message on redemption. I'm trying to expound 1 Peter.
and how it is that knowing something of this redemption in this specific
context in which Peter describes it is to feed into and condition
and shape this holy fear that is to mark us through all of
our pilgrimage. Now, it's an interesting thing.
Here in our English Bibles, most translations, it takes eight
to nine words to even begin to give something approximating
a translation of three basic Greek words that Peter uses.
When he is describing the context of these first century believers,
the spiritual context in which the grace of God came to them,
and out of which they were redeemed by that grace, he first of all
says that they were redeemed from their entire former lifestyle. Knowing that you were redeemed
from your vain manner of life. That's one of Peter's favorite
family of words again. It's that anastrophe again. He
used it up in verse 15. Be holy in all manner of living. We saw last week he uses it in
the verbal form, if you call on him as father who without
respect of persons judges each man's work, pass your sorrow
journey, conduct the entirety of your life in fear. Peter says, in describing the
context in which redemption came to these people, that it was
their entire former lifestyle out of which they were redeemed.
And he says that lifestyle from which you've been redeemed has
two fundamental descriptive aspects to it. Look at them. First of
all, as to the nature of that lifestyle, he says it was vain
or futile. And I love the English pronunciation
better, futile. It just sounds more futile than
futile. Futile. That's the nature of it. And
then he says, as to the origin of it, it's a futile lifestyle
handed down from your fathers. All of those words trying to
render one compound Greek word. So let's think for a moment.
And we've got to think, dear people. I don't know how to expound
without thinking. I don't know how to teach you
without demanding you think. And remember, this was not written
to theologians. It was written to common, ordinary
believers whom Peter assumed would welcome anything that would
keep them stable. as they made their way on their
earthly pilgrimage to that blessed inheritance reserved in heaven
for them. So gird up the loins of your
mind and think with me, because this is a description of what
we were in when the grace of God came to us. The lifestyle
from which they'd been redeemed. Look at the twofold description.
The nature of that lifestyle, he describes it as futile. He could have used the word empty,
but that would not have been as accurate, for their lives
were very full. If you read over in chapter 4,
you'll see what their lives were full of. You should no longer
live the rest of your time in the flesh. to the lust of men,
but to the will of God. For the time past may suffice
to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles to have walked in
lasciviousness, lusts, wine-dippings, revelings, carousings, and abominable
idolatries wherein they think it strange that you run not with
them in the same excessive riot speaking evil of you." They were
very, very active. They had an active life. that
Peter says that lifestyle from which they were redeemed was
futile. This word means useless, having
no goal, no purpose, leading to no good end. Like ants chasing
one another around the rim of a jar, going nowhere and accomplishing
nothing, but wearing out their little ant legs. Peter says,
your entire lifestyle, as to its nature, was futile. It was useless. It had no noble
goal, no substantive purpose. It led to no good end. Perhaps some of you have heard
that in the concentration camps during the Second World War,
there were many things done to try to break the spirit of those
who were held captive. And I've read how that in one
situation they would have people on one end of an enclosed area
surrounded with barbed wire and guards. The people would have
to pile rocks into a wheelbarrow and wheel that rock-filled wheelbarrow
all the way across to the outer perimeters of that enclosed yard
and dump their rocks. Then come back to another rock
pile and fill their wheelbarrow and go back again. And when they
had transported all the rocks from one side of the yard to
another, then they had to reverse the process and start filling
the wheelbarrow, rock by rock, pile by pile, for no specific
constructive end. They were not building anything.
They were not destroying anything. They were engaged in this arduous
activity that if Peter were describing it, he would call it futile. No end, no terminus, no goal,
no purpose leading to no good end. Utterly futile. Or perhaps
the illustration that is stuck so in my own mind, and it may
be because of the peculiar chemistry of my brain. Dr. Van Til used the illustration
of trying to imagine a bottomless, shoreless ocean of water. And in that bottomless, shoreless
ocean of water is a man made of water. We can think of that
a lot better now with computer imaging. Can you picture a man
who's made of water? A creature that has the outlines
and contours of a man that is made of water? And this man made
of water, in this bottomless, shoreless ocean of water, is
desperately trying to climb out on a ladder made of water. Can you picture it? His watery
foot comes up on the first rung, and the moment he puts pressure,
water flows into water, and he makes no progress. He seeks to
bring up his other watery foot, and water flows into water. That's
futility. A man in a shoreless, bottomless
ocean of water, made of water, trying to climb out of the ladder
of water, harassed, sunken eyed, psychologically battered prisoners
of war pushing their wheelbarrow across the yard and dumping their
rocks, only to fill the wheelbarrow and push it back and dump the
rocks. Peter says, the lifestyle from
which you were redeemed as to its nature, it was futile. And as to its origin, look at
the text. He said it is the lifestyle that
was handed down from your fathers." Now, once in a while we preachers
get charged with using big words. Well, Peter would be charged
with using one here. Fifteen letters. It's a compound
word, and it takes four or five English words to translate it.
It's found only here in the New Testament. And as you look at
the different elements in the word, it means exactly what our
English translations say. It is a futile lifestyle, and
where did they get it from? It was handed down from their
fathers. Now, whether these were Gentiles
or Jews, in their pre-Christian days, he says that the origin
of their lifestyle, characterized by futility, was to be found
in this. generations of cumulative human
opinions, standards, goals, and perspectives. Were you to tap
one of these elect sojourners of the dispersion sitting in
one of the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia,
And you were to ask them, why did you live the way you lived
before the gospel came to you in power, as Peter describes
it in verse 12 of this chapter? Before you were begotten again
by that living Word, as he will describe their experience in
the latter part of the chapter? Before you became newborn babes
in Christ, why did you live the way you lived? They would have
answered, because that's the way I thought you were supposed
to live. And where did you get those notions? Well, that's the
way my father lived. And that's the way his father
lived. And he tells me that that's the way his father lived. You
mean you were living by no other authority and standard than those
things passed on by your fathers? Oh yes. There's a great sense
of security in living out family traditions. There's a great sense
of stability in living by the accepted canons of behavior and
the norms that have formed, as it were, the stuff of society
around us. But Peter describes such a lifestyle
which has no other origin than the traditions, the cumulative
human opinion standards, goals, and perspectives as a futile
lifestyle, which is nothing less than the worst kind of spiritual
bondage out of which God in redeeming grace delivers us by the payment
of a price. So in summary, we say Peter describes
the context of their redemption as a futile lifestyle, handed
down from their fathers, and in a real sense, and some of
the commentators pick up this strand, it could be a veiled
illusion that takes us all the way back to our first father,
Adam. For ultimately we all trace our
lineage back to Adam and to Eve. And in doing this, Peter is affirming
something that was nothing short of radical in his day, and it's
radical in our day. He was affirming that God's redeeming
work breaks the tyranny of the godless traditions of families,
societies, and of nations. even when those traditions are
encrusted by the sanctity of generations of commitment. Do you hear me? Do you hear what
Peter's saying? And in a society, and we're told
from secular writers that in that society, in that day, there
was a tremendous sense of respect for the traditions and for the
patterns of the fathers, not only within Judaism, and you
know how they were in terms of protecting the traditions of
their fathers, so much so that they would preserve those traditions
at the expense of the Word of God, and Jesus had to rebuke
them again and again for this. But even in secular society,
and for Peter to say to this new humanity in Christ, you have
been redeemed out of a bondage, a bondage that marked your whole
lifestyle, which as to its nature was futile. It led nowhere. It had no noble end. It brought
no ultimate accomplishment. And it was as to its origin,
that which was described as the antiquity of tradition, nothing
more. Well, having considered briefly
the biblical concept of redemption. Secondly, the context of their
redemption. Now notice what is the heart
of the text, the cost of our redemption. The cost of our redemption. If redemption is securing release
by the payment of a price, then surely the question is raised,
what was the price paid for our redemption? If redemption is
securing release from bondage by the payment of a price that
is called a ransom, what was the ransom? Well, Peter answers
very clearly. And as any good teacher will
do, he answers, first of all, negatively in order to isolate
his answer. And then he answers positively.
Notice, first of all, negatively, what the cost of our redemption
was not. And in the original, the negative
is placed forward for emphasis. If we were giving a more literal
rendering of the text, we would translate it this way. Pass the
time of your sojourn in fear, knowing that not with perishable
things, silver or gold, were you redeemed, The negative even
comes before the main verb. Knowing you were redeemed, Peter
says, knowing that not with perishable things, silver or gold, were
you redeemed. So in the negative he describes
that by which we are not redeemed as corruptible. That refers to
anything and everything connected with this world and this life
as it now is. You remember concerning our inheritance,
the first thing Peter said about it in verse 4? We are begotten
to a living hope, to an inheritance incorruptible. That's our word
with a little negation at the front of it called the Alpha
Primitive. That's the same word. Our inheritance is incorruptible. Why? It's our heavenly inheritance.
It is not a part of this earth and of this parenthesis that
we call time. And he says the cost of our redemption
is not anything corruptible, even the most enduring of the
things that are in this sphere of the corruptible, namely precious
metals such as silver nor yet gold. And imagine what this would
have brought to the minds of some of these readers. No doubt
they had seen or known of friends and relatives who had been redeemed
out of slavery, out of some form of military or political captivity. Someone had been willing to take
silver coin, gold coin, and place it on a negotiating table. And
someone was willing to sign a release secured by silver and by gold. But Peter says, you were redeemed.
you were ransomed, not with perishable things such as silver and gold."
Psalm 49, 6-9 is the inspired commentary on the reality that
no sinner can ever be redeemed from his bondage by any amount
of human wealth of any kind. Psalm 49, 6, They that trust
in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches,
none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give
to God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their life
is costly, and it fails forever, that he should still live always,
that he should not see corruption. Who can come up with a ransom
price that will secure everlasting life? And the psalmist says none
can do it. Is Peter echoing the very sentiment
of this psalm when he says, with respect to the cost of our redemption,
negatively, not with perishable things, silver or gold, but positively. And here he uses a very strong
adversity. But here is the cost. The heart of the positive statement
is found in the words, but with the blood of Christ. All the rest are modifiers. It is with blood of Christ. Blood of Christ. It is not the
perishable silver or gold, but it is the blood of Christ. That is the life of Christ, poured
out in a violent, sacrificial death. And there again is a basic
biblical concept I want you to grasp. When the scripture speaks
of the blood of Christ being the ground of our salvation,
What is the Bible conveying to us? What it is conveying is this,
the life of the flesh is in the blood. The pouring out of his
life is the shedding of his blood, but not the shedding of his blood
in any way, but in a violent, sacrificial death. That's why
Jesus said, I came to give my life a ransom for many. The life of the flesh is in the
blood. And when the redemption price
is said to be the blood of Christ, it means nothing less than his
violent, sacrificial death on behalf of sinners. And notice
the two things that Peter highlights about this cost of our redemption. As to its worth, he calls it
precious blood, and as to the specific character of the one
whose blood it is, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. As to its worth, he calls it
precious blood. And if you were to look up the
use of this word, precious, in the New Testament, you would
find that most frequently it's used to refer to what we call
precious stones, precious gems. It's used in 1 Corinthians 3.12,
that familiar passage, if any man build on this foundation,
wood, hay, stubble, he'll suffer loss. If any man builds upon
it, gold, silver, here's our word, precious stones. Five times in the book of the
Revelation, this word is used with regard to what we would
call exquisite gemstones. And here Peter says, it is precious
blood. That blood that is the cost of
our redemption is precious blood. And what is it that makes it
precious? Well, surely it is the dignity of the person who
shed it. He who shed it was not mere man,
or merely sinless mere man, but he who shed it was the God-man. It is the blood of Jesus. It is the blood of Christ. It is the blood of Emmanuel,
God with us. It is precious blood. because
of the dignity of his person and because of the majesty of
his position. He sheds that blood as the Christ,
as the anointed Messiah, God's final prophet, priest, and king. From time to time on a Lord's
Day morning, in order to have my own heart fixed afresh upon
the very nerve centers of our faith, I will take one of the
gospel records and read the account of the crucifixion and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus. And as I did that this morning
and tried to bring before my mind's eye afresh the gruesomeness,
the double R rated account of our Lord's treatment at the hands
of sinners. The crown of thorns, the reed
in his hand, stripped and clothed in mock royal majesty, buffeted,
maligned, false witnesses rising up on the left hand and on the
right, the horrible scourging that left his back one massive
bleeding mess of torn flesh, the horror of crucifixion, the
dehydration, all of the agonies of that cross. Who would have ever thought?
This is incarnate deity. This is the most glorious king
who was ever crowned. The most insightful prophet who
ever spoke. The glorious, the true high priest. But Peter says, knowing that
you were redeemed with precious blood of Christ, Messiah Jesus
as to its worth. It is precious blood, but then
as to the specific character of the one whose blood it is.
Notice what Peter tells us, as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot. Now I confess that until I did
serious study of the passage, I thought what this passage was
saying is that Jesus died in likeness to the blemishless,
spotless, paschal Lamb. Now, that certainly is a wonderful
truth, but that's not what Peter is saying. He doesn't say, knowing
you were redeemed with precious blood like that of a Lamb. No, the language and the construction
means as being a Lamb, without blemish and without spot. In other words, Peter is affirming
that rather than Christ shedding His blood in likeness to the
old paschal Lamb, he is saying that Christ sheds His blood as
the true and substantial Lamb, who is morally without blemish
and without spot. He is affirming that Christ is
the true Lamb. And all other sacrificial lambs
were but shadows. And as I said, Lord, how can
I make that plain to the children, to your people? The only illustration
that registered was that of my hand. And I was hoping I could
get a shadow on the wall. I can't get a vision. I've got
shadows on the floor. You can't see the shadows on
the floor? There's one on the wall. See the shadow on the wall?
There's the shadow. Now what is substantive and what
has reality? Is that shadow that I may try
to reach out and grab, does that have flesh and bones and sinews
and blood vessels and tendons? No, it's a shadow. The substance
is this hand. It has the bones. It has the
muscles. It has the sinews. It has the
blood vessels. It has the skins and the nervous
system. It is the substantial hand. Any
shadows are just that. They are merely shadows of this
reality. They may give you some idea,
because this reality is determining the shape and the contours of
the outline of the shadow on the wall. Now that's what you
have in all of the Old Testament sacrificial systems. In the mind
of God, Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
He has substantive reality as the true Lamb from all eternity. He alone is the sinews and the
bone and the muscle and the tissue of true sacrifice that will satisfy
God. And God takes that substantial
reality and with the light of revelation through prophet and
through type and shadow, God puts these shadows in the Old
Testament that are not pointing forward to Christ, but are derived
from Christ. They are the shadows. He is the
substantive reality. In the mind of God, there was
only one Lamb in His sacrificial system. When he came, John pointed
to him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world. He was always the Lamb, the only
substantive, true Lamb. And when God said, as He did
in Exodus 12, in preparation for the Passover, you are to
go out and find the Lamb four days before Passover day. It
shall be such and such a Lamb, no blemish, no spot. God was
not accumulating all of this to have some kind of a picture
that would tell us of Christ. No, what God was doing, God is
setting forth Christ and saying, here are the things that in some
little way are pointers toward Him because they draw their contours
from Him. And now Peter says, you who have
lived at this side of the cross, you were redeemed and the cost
of your redemption was not perishable things, silver or gold, but it
was the blood of Christ, precious blood, blood that he shed in
his unique identity as the one true Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world. And I wonder again for Peter
as a kosher Jew, what it must have meant for him when he wrote,
as a lamb without spot, oh I'm sorry, without blemish and without
spot. The word without blemish is used
again and again in the Old Testament ritual. And in the Greek translation
of the Hebrew scriptures, it's found again and again there in
Exodus and in Deuteronomy. But the word without spot is
not found anywhere with reference to any land that was but a shadow
of Christ. It points to his true, essential,
moral purity. And think what this must have
meant for Peter. He was a fisherman. Most likely he learned the fishing
trade from his father there in Galilee. That being so, he wouldn't
have had his own flock of lambs. And like any good Jew in preparation
for Passover, somebody had to go to market and find a lamb
without blemish. I wonder how many times Peter
had gone with his dad as he's training him in good Jewish style
to be a good leader in his Jewish home. Remember, Peter could say,
I've never eaten anything unclean. He knew how to separate kosher
from non-kosher food. His father reared him well in
Jewish traditions. How many times did Peter look
through someone's little group of lambs in the bazaar, in the
marketplace, and went over its entire structure, looking for
any abnormalities, any sign that bones had been broken, any spots
upon the flesh, until he found a lamb that he could say, Dad,
this looks like a lamb without blemish. And the father's trained
eye might, after closer inspection, say, ah, but son, look at this.
You failed to know. Oh, dad, I'm sorry. The next
time I'll look for that. How many times had Peter, this
is only conjecture, but it's not baseless conjecture. How
many times had the concept of a lamb without blemish been impressed
upon the mind and the soul of this little Jewish boy from there
in Upper Palestine? And now that he has seen the
Lamb of God, and that was the context of his first introduction
to Jesus in John 1, verse 29 and verse 36, John points to
him as the Lamb. And as Peter begins to understand,
slowly at first, remember how slowly, the Lord says, I'm going
to go to Jerusalem and there I'm going to die. And Peter says,
no, no, Lord, what have we to do? You don't accomplish your
work by dying. Yet be behind me, Satan. But
now Peter's eyes have been opened and he understands that every
time he went out as a little boy with his daddy to find the
lamb without blemish, that was just the shadow on the wall and
now the substance had come. And he had come to see in the
Lord Jesus that true lamb. He who shed his blood that Peter
calls precious. He did so in the character of
the Lamb without blemish and without spot. God's truth. God's only Lamb that bears away
the sin of the world. It's interesting when you turn
to the book of the Revelation where we are given more pictures
of the eternal state and what we will do and be in that eternal
state. More than two dozen times our
Lord is described in the book of the Revelation as the Lamb. It's the Lamb in the midst of
the throne. It's the throne of God and of
the Lamb. They sing the song of Moses and
of the Lamb. Now do you see why Peter says,
pass the time of your sojourning in fear, knowing that you were
redeemed with precious blood as of a lamb, without blemish
and without spot. Well, I've sought to bring into
focus the basic concept of redemption. It's release from bondage by
the payment of a price. We've looked at the context of
redemption. It is being redeemed out of a
total lifestyle marked as to its nature by futility, its origin,
inherited tradition. And then we've looked at the
cost of that redemption negatively, not silver or gold, positively. precious blood, blood of God's
true, spotless, blemishless Lamb. Now then, what does all of this
say to us? Well, in the moments that remain,
let me underscore first of all, by way of application, remember
the intimate connection between this rich instruction on the
doctrine of redemption and the summons to a life of appropriate
fear. Peter is not sitting there, most
likely in Rome, saying, well, there are a number of basic doctrines
that I need to introduce to these relatively young believers way
out there in what is now Turkey, and I think I'll say something
about redemption. No, that isn't the way it works.
He has just exhorted them to a life of steadfast hope, a life
in the pursuit of universal holiness, and now to a life of appropriate
fear, and he says that fear is conditioned not only by the reality
of an accessible Father who is an impartial judge, But by the
fact that you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible
things such as silver and gold, from your vain manner of life
handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, even
the blood of Him who is God's true Lamb. Now what's the connection? The best thing I can do to help
answer that question is to quote the old Bishop of London, as
I've done and will continue to do, God willing, throughout this
course of expositions, Bishop Leighton, who writes, if you
would increase in holiness and be strong against the temptations
to sin, this is the only art of it. View much and seek to
know how much you can know. of the death of Jesus Christ.
Consider often at how high a rate we were redeemed from sin, and
provide this answer for all the enticements to sin and the world. And God help us to lay hold of
this. In all my reading and preparation,
this was one of the most profound statements I found in human authors. Listen to what Bishop Lighton
says, learn to say this in your own struggles with sin in the
world. This is what you say, whenever
sin makes a proposal, The world bears its pie and seeks to seduce
you into spiritual adultery. This is what you're to say. Except
you, sin or the world, except you can offer my soul something
beyond that price that was given for it on the cross, I cannot
listen to you. Unless you can offer me something
beyond the price that was given for me at the cross, I cannot
listen to you. Far be it from me, will a Christian
say, who considers this redemption, that I should prefer a base lust,
or anything in this world, or all of this world, to him who
gave himself to death for me, and paid my ransom with his blood. His matchless love has freed
me from the miserable captivity of sin, and has forever fashioned
me to the sweet yoke of his obedience. Let him alone dwell and rule
within me, and let him never go forth from my heart, who for
my sake refused to come down from the cross." Dear people,
that's the connection. Pass the time of your sojourning
in fear. Fear of the sin that would grieve
so gracious a father. Sin that would provoke so righteous
a judge. Sin that would be a denial of
my appreciation that I'd been bought at so dear a price. Precious blood, blood of Him
who was God's true Lamb, not only immolated upon a cross in
a shameful death, but inundated with the billows of divine wrath.
To do what? not to leave me in my vain manner
of life no longer with fear of death and judgment, no, but to
liberate me out of it, into the liberty of a pilgrim who walks
with a steadfast hope and with a heart committed to universal
obedience. And in that tender fear, it fears
nothing more than offending so gracious a God and so wonderful
a Savior. One author has said, a Christian
cannot conform to the world's ways unless he forgets who he
is and how he became what he is. A Christian cannot conform
to the world's ways. Its ways are described as futile. determined by mere human traditions,
molded in shape by the God of this world and by the lust of
the flesh and of the mind, Ephesians 2. A Christian cannot conform
to this world unless he forgets who he is and how he became what
he is. Who am I? I'm a redeemed slave. How did
I become such because precious blood was shed for me by incarnate
deity, the Lamb of God who bore away the sin of the world. Remember the intimate connection
between the doctrine of redemption and the summons to a life of
appropriate fear. More quickly, consider the frightening
description of the lifestyle of the unredeemed. It's a vain,
futile lifestyle. Again, one has expressed it this
way, it is a lamentable thing to be deluded a whole lifetime
with a false dream. Wouldn't it be tragic if those
people in that concentration camp thought that with every
wheelbarrow full of stones, they were constructing a beautiful
skyscraper. And in their mind, every time
they pushed the wheelbarrow and dumped it, they saw in their
demented mind this beautiful structure rising. Just before
their death, when they fought, they had this beautiful structure.
They returned to sanity and saw nothing but a pile of broken
rubble. My friend, that's your life if
you're out of Christ. Whatever castles you are building
in your dreams of fulfillment and enrichment and meaning, they
are the delusions of a demented mind. It's a frightening thing to be
living a feudal life. And it's from such that Christ
redeems us. And I close by stating perhaps
no question is more quickly calculated to lay bare the true state of
our souls than this question based on our text. What is your
estimate of the blood of Christ? What is your estimate of the
blood of Christ? Do you regard it as precious
blood? but so precious that you gladly
identify yourself in the language of 1 Corinthians 6 20 what do
you not know you have been bought for the price glorify God therefore
in your body which is his what do I think of the blood of Christ
do I regard it as precious blood blood shed to redeem me to release
me from slavery to a futile life handed down from the forefathers
Do I place a worth upon the blood of Christ that causes me to say,
Here, Lord, I give myself away, which is all that I can do? Or do you have the attitude of
those described in Hebrews 10, who count the blood of the covenant
an unholy thing? They trample it underfoot, treat
it as a matter to be despised. My friend, what is your regard
for the blood of Christ? When Peter wrote to that community
of elect sojourners in Asia Minor, calling them to a life of appropriate
fear, he said, that fear will be sustained as you know that
you were redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but
with precious blood, the blood of him who shed it. as God's
true and final Lamb, morally spotless, ethically pure, spotless,
blemishless Lamb. May God grant that we will feel
the constraint of that glorious redemption and be captured afresh
by the love of the Redeemer. Let's pray. Our Father, we do thank you,
we do praise you. Our hearts cannot contain the
things that we've sought to speak about. Will you not by the Holy
Spirit enlarge the narrow chambers of our hearts, that we may drink
in with fresh wonder what it means to be redeemed by precious
blood? And we pray for those, our Father,
who are living in the moral and spiritual madness of thinking
that their vain and futile life is a rich life. Will you not
bring them to moral and spiritual sanity? And may they, seeing
that they are in the city of destruction, flee with the cry,
Life! Life! eternal life. O God, reveal the glory of the
Redeemer and His redemption, and deliver them by grace and
power. Seal now your word to our hearts,
and continue with us throughout this your day, that in all of
our interaction one with another we may be those of whom we heard
in the previous hour, who, fearing you, speak often one to another. May the words of our mouths in
the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.