May I encourage you to turn with
me in your own Bibles to 1 Peter, 1 Peter and chapter 3. And follow please as I read beginning
in verse 13 to the end of the chapter. As Peter begins this section
that constitutes the real heart and the focal point of his burden
in this letter, he begins with the question, and who is he that
will harm you if you be zealous of that which is good? But even
if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed are you. And fear
not their fear, neither be troubled, But sanctify in your hearts Christ
as Lord, being ready always to give answer to every man that
asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet
with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that wherein
you are spoken against, they may be put to shame who revile
your good manner of life in Christ. For it is better, if the will
of God should so will, that you suffer for well-doing than for
evil-doing. Because Christ also suffered
for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he
might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
made alive in the Spirit, in which also he went and preached
unto the spirits in prison, that aforetime were disobedient, when
the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the
ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved
through water, which also after a true likeness does now save
you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,
but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God through
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God,
having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being
made subject unto him. Now let us again pray and ask
that God, by his Spirit, will help us in understanding his
word. Let us pray. Our Father, we would again own
from the depths of our being that we do believe the words
of our Lord Jesus, who said, without me, you can do nothing. We acknowledge that we cannot
draw our next breath unless you give it to us. We cannot think
a rational thought unless you enable us. We cannot speak in
an understandable way unless you enable us to do so. Lord,
we repudiate all creature confidence and look out of ourselves to
you, trusting you to help us to understand your word, to help
me to teach and preach it as I ought. Come to us. Oh, God,
come. Come yourself, we pray, in the
preaching of the word. Through Christ our Lord we plead. Amen. At one time or another, in one
way or another, to one degree or another, every real Christian
will suffer for the sake of Christ. Not only does the Apostle Paul
make this fact abundantly clear, as he does in three texts that
we looked at last Lord's Day in one of the introductions to
our exposition of this passage, Romans 8, 17, if we suffer with
him that we may be glorified together with him, 2 Timothy
3.12, all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer
persecution. And Philippians 1 and verse 29,
it has been given to you on the behalf of Christ, not only to
believe on him, but also to suffer for his name. But that is not
only the teaching of the great apostle, it's the clear teaching
of our Lord in those familiar words of the Beatitudes. When our Lord is describing the
character traits of all the sons and daughters of the kingdom,
and pronouncing them blessed or happy, covenantally fulfilled
and enriched, blessed are He moves from that foundational
characteristic of all the sons and daughters of the kingdom.
They are poor in spirit. They have been stripped of all
creature confidence in themselves. They have been brought to see
that they are nothing and have nothing and can do nothing but
sin, apart from the grace of God. that the crowning blessed
is the double blessed pronounced upon those who suffer for righteousness'
sake. And as surely as our Lord envisions
no sons or daughters of the kingdom but those who are poor of spirit,
he envisions none who do not suffer for righteousness' sake. Only such are the blessed ones. And this being true, that at
one time or another, in one way or another, to one degree or
another, every real Christian will suffer for the sake of Christ,
then no Christian has the luxury of being indifferent to this
portion in Peter's epistle in which he is concerned primarily
to give instruction concerning the issue of suffering for righteousness'
sake. He is concerned to enlighten,
to comfort, and to strengthen the people of God in the face
of their present and their future suffering for righteousness'
sake. Four times, up until chapter
3 and verse 13, the verb pasco, to suffer, has been used by Peter. But starting in chapter 3 and
verse 14 to the end of the letter, eight times that verb is used. So that the total of the twelve
uses of that verb exceeds the entire use of that verb in all
the other epistles of the New Testament combined. It is Peter's
tremendous pastoral burden to write to the people of God concerning
how they are to react to suffering for the sake of Christ. And therefore,
not to absorb into our spiritual bloodstream the teaching of this
section in Peter's epistle is to promote in ourselves a form
of spiritual anemia, that will leave us unprepared to face what
we will inevitably face at one time or another, in one way or
another, to one degree or another, namely, suffering for righteousness'
sake. Now, having set before these
believers in the five provinces of Asia Minor the basic perspectives
regarding suffering for righteousness' sake that they ought ever to
keep before them in verses 13 to 17, beginning in verse 18
through verse 22, Peter goes to the very heart of this issue
by treating the subject of suffering for righteousness' sake in terms
of bringing into the crosshairs of their spiritual vision the
great sufferer himself, even the Lord Jesus. For verse 18
begins with the words, Because Christ also suffered Or, as many
of the manuscripts have it, Christ also died, suffered with the
suffering that issued in death. And he is concerned that the
suffering saints remember certain facets of the suffering of the
Lord Jesus that they might be enlightened, comforted, and strengthened
in the face of their own sufferings. Now what we did last Lord's Day
in our initial study of verses 18 to 22 was to consider the
basic similarities between the sufferings of Christ and the
sufferings of his people. And this is pressed upon us by
the language of the text because or for, not merely, Christ suffered. That would be pointing us to
put all of our attention upon Christ as the great sufferer.
But he says, because Christ also suffered. If I say to you, Mary
also came to your house, you have every right to ask, well,
who else came? If Mary also, someone else was
there. If we say John also had the flu,
we mean somebody else had the flu. Or we would simply say John
had the flu. Mary came to the house. So when
Peter writes, for Christ also suffered, The other part of the
also is the suffering saint in Asia Minor. He's been speaking
about their suffering. And if you suffer for well-doing,
take comfort. Christ also suffered. You have a fellow sufferer. You
have a companion in suffering, even your Lord Jesus Christ. And then we looked at three lines
of truth concerning the similarities between the sufferings of Christ
and the sufferings of his people. He suffered in the way of righteousness. He suffered the righteous one. He suffered in the path of securing
the highest good, even the salvation of his people. And his suffering
led to exaltation and glory. And in those three areas there
is a blessed similarity between the sufferings of Christ and
the sufferings of his people. In fellowship with Christ, they
too suffer in the way of righteousness. In fellowship with Christ, their
suffering results in good to the souls of others. In fellowship
and communion with Christ, their sufferings will, as with His,
lead to exaltation and to glory. But now we come back to the text
this morning to consider those aspects of the sufferings of
Christ on behalf of his people in which they have no share whatsoever. Christ's sufferings are not only
the pattern and the framework in which the people of God share
in the sufferings of Christ, there are dimensions of the sufferings
of Christ that are utterly exclusive to Him. And this morning we're
going to consider those exclusive aspects of the sufferings of
Christ on behalf of His people. And what Peter is doing here
in verse 18 is not different from what he did earlier in chapter
2. For in giving instruction to
these suffering house slaves who were being abused by their
unreasonable masters, Peter had told them in verse 21, For hereunto
were you called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving
you an example that you should follow his steps. He is saying
there are aspects of the sufferings of Christ that are exemplary
to the people of Christ. But having highlighted certain
aspects of the sufferings of Christ that are an example to
the people of Christ, he then goes into dimensions of the sufferings
of Christ that are exclusive to himself. Verse 24, who his
own self bore our sins in his own body up to the tree. That is a suffering in which
we do not share and in which we do not follow the example
of Christ, but in which we rest upon Christ and in Christ and
draw from Christ the grace and the pardon secured by his sufferings
on our behalf. And so we come back to the passage
this morning and consider those aspects of Christ's suffering
on behalf of his people that are exclusive to him. Look at
the text with me. because Christ also suffered
or died for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he
might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but
made alive in the spirit." Note with me briefly the precise identity
of the one who suffered, the one who died, and I will continually
use the two terms. Textually, there is even more
weight for died if we look at the external witness of manuscripts,
but in terms of internal witness, most of the translations use
the word suffered because it fits more to the overall motif
of Peter's thought, but either one has strong textual attestation
And we know that it was a suffering that issued in death, because
there's no textual variant. When we come to the end of the
verse, he suffered how? Being put to death, being murdered,
being killed, perhaps would even be a more accurate rendering. So the suffering was a suffering
that issued in death. So whether we translate because
Christ also suffered or Christ also died, it is suffering that
issues in the cruel, shameful death of the cross. And note
with me, first of all, the precise identity of the one who suffered
and died. Peter writes, because Christ
also suffered. Now, for many of us, when we
read the word Christ, we read the word Jesus, we often think
that they are both names of our blessed Redeemer. And we fail
to remember that the term Christ is not a personal name. Rather,
it is the identification of an official title and position. When we say, President Reagan,
the word President is not a part of the name that is on his birth
certificate by which Ronald Reagan is identified from any other
Reagan, but President Reagan points to an official title of
an official office. And likewise, when we read Christ,
it is not a personal name. Jesus is his personal name. Christ is a title of official
identification of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, as the long-promised
Messiah, as the Mashiach of Israel, as the anointed prophet, priest,
and king. Now stop for a minute and think,
what did it mean for Peter to write without his pen stopping
in mid-sentence, for Christ, Messiah, also suffered or died
for sins? What did that mean for Peter?
This is the Peter you'll remember if you turn back to Matthew 16.
who having identified Jesus of Nazareth in his true identity,
who do men say that I am? Some say John the Baptist, some
Elijah, some Jeremiah, Matthew 16, 15, but he said to them,
but who say you that I am? Simon Peter answered and said,
you are now notice you are you Jesus of Nazareth. You are the
Christ. You are the Messiah. And as Messiah, as to the identity
of your person, you are none other than son of the living
God. You are Messiah, God's anointed
one, who in your person are nothing less than God the Son. You are Messiah, Son of God. And the Lord says to Peter, blessed
are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood is not revealed
it unto you, but my father who is in heaven. And then he goes
on to say that Peter will, along with the others, be part of that
church that he's going to build upon the foundation of his identity
as Messiah, son of God. And Peter will have a special
place of influence, particularly in the early days of that construction. But now, verse 21. From that
time began Jesus to show unto his disciples how he must go
to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief
priests and the scribes and be killed. And the third day he
raised up. Here's Peter. The words of the
Lord are ringing in his ears. Blessed are you, Simon, son of
Jonah. You have rightly identified me. I am Messiah. I am God's promised
prophet, priest, and king. I am Son of God. Flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you. My Father has. This has come
by supernatural revelation. You know my identity and my person,
my identity and my position. But in my identity as son of
God, and in fulfillment of my messianic mission, I must suffer,
I must be killed. And Peter says, No way, Lord. Verse 22, Peter took him and
began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from you, Lord. This
shall never be to you. Suffering and being killed doesn't
fit my idea of Messiah, Son of God. I have no Mashiach who suffers
and who dies. I have a Messiah who conquers
and who triumphs over his foes. This shall never be to you, Lord.
And that disposition followed Peter right up until the eve
of our Lord's crucifixion. When they came to apprehend our
Lord, what did Peter do? He took out the sword and he
went for the servant's head, and thankfully he ducked quick
enough to lose only an ear. He could not abide the concept
of a suffering Messiah. Now that same Peter is writing
to a group of believers in Asia Minor seeking to enlighten, to
comfort and strengthen them in the face of suffering and he
says, it's better if the will of God should so will that you
suffer in the way of doing what is right than doing what is evil
because Messiah Christ, the anointed one, my Messiah, Son of God,
suffer it. And his pen does not get stuck
on the parchment. It flows freely. What in the
world happened to him? Well, you just turn to Luke chapter
24 and you get the answer. Luke chapter 24. After his resurrection, In one of the post-resurrection
encounters of our Lord with the disciples, verse 44 of Luke 24,
and he said unto them, and you look back and the context is
clear, it's the gathered disciples to whom he is speaking. These
are the words which I spoke to you when I was yet with you,
that all things must needs be fulfilled that are written in
the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.
That includes Psalm 22. That includes Isaiah 53. He showed him how these things
had to be fulfilled. Verse 45, Then opened he their
mind, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto
them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer. and rise again from the dead
the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be
preached in his name unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem,
you who are witnesses of these things. Then he promises the
coming of the Spirit Many of the promises given in the upper
room discourse concerning the Spirit's ministry as the illuminator
of the minds of His people, the testifier of Jesus, are now fulfilled
so that this Peter who says, I cannot abide a suffering Messiah,
now writes to suffering Christians and says, look to your Messiah. Look to the Christ who also suffered. That's the precise identity of
the one who suffered and died. But then, more importantly in
this setting, look at the precise nature of the sufferings and
death he endured. The precise nature of the sufferings
and the death he endured. And many commentators have noted
that in this text we have one of the richest, most comprehensive
statements of the nature of the sufferings and death of Christ
to be found anywhere in the New Testament. Every word is pregnant
with meaning. And I want you to note with me
four things that are clearly packed into this one verse concerning
the nature of the sufferings and death that he endured. Things
that were utterly exclusive to our Lord, though they had relevance
to suffering saints. The first is this. Look at the
text. Because Christ also suffered for sins. His death was penal. And I want to encapsulate in
each of these phrases of the text one word to pass on the
heart of its teaching. Christ suffered for sins. His death was penal. Christ suffered with reference
to sins. That is, his sufferings have
as their reference point the horrible reality of those thoughts,
those words, those attitudes, those dispositions, those deeds,
those relationships, Everything that is a deviation from the
absolute standard of God's holiness as expressed in his law for his
creatures, these things are sins. And we are told in the text that
Christ suffered, that is, Christ suffered unto death for sins. His death was penal. If we do away with the fact of
God as Creator and God as Lawgiver, man as morally accountable to
God, sin as a real offense against God and worthy of punishment
by God, then the sufferings of Christ are at best an unanswerable
riddle, and at worst a cruel and a sadistic joke. Can I repeat
that? Do away with God as creator,
God as lawgiver, man as morally accountable to God, And every
deviation from the law of God as that which provokes God's
wrath and anger deserves punishment. That's the significance of penal
penalty, that which warrants punishment, that which is punitive. Take away that reality and the
sufferings and death of Christ at best are indeed an unanswerable
riddle, and at worst, a cruel and sadistic joke. For our text says Christ suffered,
Christ died, perihamartio, in conjunction with, in relationship
to, on behalf of, sins, plural. Now that phrase, perihamartias,
is the technical term used for sin offering in a passage such
as Leviticus 5, 5 and 6, and Psalm 40 and verse 6. And some
suggest that we ought to read into Peter's use of it, though
he uses sin in the plural. And I'm not convinced that the
evidence is compelling, but this much is clear. You cannot make
sense of Jesus' sufferings if sin is just a notion imposed
by preachers to put people on guilt trips. How could we ever
work backward from the perverse desire of preachers to send people
on guilt trips to the Son of God, as God's anointed Messiah,
dying on a cross? There's no way, no way the perverse
desire of preachers in the 20th century could somehow be worked
backward that Almighty God would give his Son up to the cruel
suffering of the cross. And I wonder if we contemplate
how cruel it actually was. There have been recent studies
by responsible scholars who, in their examination of the facts
emerging from secular historians, give us insights as to what a
cruel and shameful death crucifixion was. They write it was an exquisitely
designed means of bringing total humiliation and shame upon the
accused as they slowly made their way toward death. It entailed
public status degradation, destroying every vestige of a person standing
in society before he actually died. The intent of crucifixion
was to strip its victim of every last vestige of human dignity
and to make him know it before he died. It's crucial to grasp
There's a lot of talk these days about the man on death row who's
going to be executed by lethal injection. And perhaps you have
seen the very clean sheets on the neatly arranged pallet on
which he will be placed and strapped. And you've been told that within
one minute of the initial injection, he will know nothing. As much
human dignity is preserved up to and even into the act of execution. Crucifixion is the exact opposite.
Every last vestige of dignity was stripped from the man before
he was ever put to death. And in the process of death,
that dignity was further stripped, if at all possible. Listen to
what he said. The condemned frequently were
flogged as a prelude to crucifixion. It was true of our Lord. And
perhaps blinded to underscore their helplessness. Not true
of our Lord. They were forced to carry the
cross beam upon which they would die. True of our Lord. which
added insult to the injury they were about to sustain. Their
clothes were parceled out to others, true of our Lord, so
that they had to bear the humiliation of being naked in public. And there's no evidence that
they made an exception for our Lord. Once nailed, they were
exhibited as powerless, true of our Lord. And this provided
much public entertainment, true of our Lord. Ha ha! You saved others! Come down from
the cross! Throw the leaf! Pull your hands
out of the nails! If you can. And even in the beginning, the two
malefactors crucified with him, it says, they cast the same in
his feet. mockery from the front as they
passed by and looked upon him in shame and nakedness. Mockery
from the left and mockery from the right. The victim was ridiculed,
true of our Lord, and the possibility of vengeance which might have
rectified such dishonor was publicly withheld. He had no desire for
vengeance. He said, Father, forgive them
for they know not what they do. The humiliating bodily contortions,
no evidence he was exempted from them, and excretions, no evidence
he was exempted from them, were in public view, and often the
bodies were not buried but left on the cross until the birds
had done their work. Thank God not true of our Lord. Crucifixion meant death with
great dishonor. with public degradation. And
that's what the book of Hebrews has in mind when it says Christ
endured the cross, despising the shame. Christ suffered for
sins. I challenge you this morning
You who would deny the reality of sin, you who would regard
it with indifference, you who would face it with denial, you
who would laugh at it and mock at it, plant yourself six feet
in front of the cross if you dare. Plant yourself there and
look up at the naked immolated, blood-soaked, battered body of
the Son of God, Messiah. And ask yourself this question.
If sin's not a real thing, what in God's name is He doing there? If sin is not an ugly thing,
what is He doing there? If sin is not a wrath-deserving
thing, what is He doing there? Gaze upon him with the blood
streaming down from the crown of thorns. Gaze upon him with
the blood mingled with the spittle of the raw, coarse soldiers. Gaze upon him with the bruises
and contusions from the blows from the hands and rods of which
Scripture speaks. But worse than all that horrible
physical sight, look upon him. as feeling in his soul the weight
of the world's sin, a weight so heavy that as it pressed in
upon him in those three mysterious hours when the heavens were shrouded
in inky black darkness, he cried out, my God, my God, why, why
didst thou forsake me? My friend, if you can look at
that, Throw your hands up and say,
what sin? God have mercy on you. You may be beyond mercy. That's
frightening. Christ suffered for sins. His sufferings were penal. His sufferings were the just
venting of God's holy wrath against sins. The wages of sin is death,
and the essence of death is separation. And what he experienced was not
merely cast out by society and publicly shamed, but I say it
reverently, for a period of time, as it were, cast out from heaven
itself. My God, my God, why did you forsake
me? Do you see the relevance of this
for suffering saints in Asia Minor? In the midst of their
sufferings, feeling the pinch of being wrongly accused for
doing well, being reviled, eventually perhaps some of them physically
abused, perhaps some of them eventually experiencing martyrdom,
what comfort they would derive from these words. Christ also
suffered, not only as the fellow sufferer in whose sufferings
you have koinonia, Philippians 3, but he suffered for sins,
a suffering you will never have to know, because he suffered
for sins. None of your sufferings are penal
in nature. They are disciplinary, they are
paternal, they are calculated by God to accomplish many things,
but there is no penal stroke of divine justice upon any of
the sufferings for righteousness' sake in the lives of his people. And furthermore, how loath they
should be to sin and deny their Lord because of some reviling,
because of some unjust treatment, because even of martyrdom itself. Why should they sin against one
who suffered for sins? But then I must hasten on and
note the second thing in the text. Not only does it tell us
Christ suffered for sins, His death was penal, but Christ suffered
for sins once, His death was final. His death was final. In the Greek text, the word hapax
is placed forward. This comes out in your New King
James translation, which reads, For Christ also suffered once
for sin, The Greek text says, because also Christ, once concerning
sins, suffered, so that the once-ness of his suffering is indeed placed
forward to underscore Christ suffered for sins once, his death
was final. This word, once, hapas, means
at least, at the minimal sense of its meaning, the actual number,
once, preceding twice, excluding thrice. He suffered once. Paul says he was stoned once,
2 Corinthians 11.25. It is appointed unto man once
to die, Hebrews 9.27, once and not twice. so that the most limited
sense of the use of this word would underscore that his death
was final. He suffered once, and there will
be no twice. We learn from the analogy of
Scripture, but this is the very word used in Hebrew, in Jude
chapter verse 3, where Jude says, contend earnestly for the faith
that was once, and most Bibles translate that use of hapox,
once for all, The faith which was once for all, never to be
delivered again, it is the once for all delivered faith. And
this word with a prefix is used in Hebrews 10.10 to speak of
the sacrifice of Christ that is once for all. And Romans 6.10,
His death that is once for all. And it is once for all because
it is final, and it is final because It is fully satisfactory
to the ends for which he underwent that death. The language of Peter
is simply the logical extension of the cry that our Lord uttered
as recorded in John 19, 30. Knowing that all things were
accomplished, the telestai, used in verse 28, Jesus said, And after receiving what was
given to him, it says, he then spoke the words, It is finished,
the Telestai, again used by John. It is finished. And he bowed
his head and yielded up his spirit. It is finished. The work is accomplished. So that here, Peter, isn't it
interesting, Peter, the first so-called Pope, puts a word in
his letter to these saints in these provinces of Asia Minor
that forever bars the door to the blasphemy of the doctrine
of the Mass. A doctrine that says that Christ,
in a bloodless way, is really and truly offered up upon not
a communion table, but what they properly call it with their theology,
an altar. offered up. And if you don't
understand official Roman Catholic teaching, you need to understand
it. At its heart, there is the teaching that when the priest
utters the words of consecration, the wafer and the wine actually
become the body and blood of Christ. which body and blood
are now offered up in the Mass by the priest as a sacrifice
to God, extending and continuing, not merely remembering, the once-for-all
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. Listen to the official Roman
Catholic teaching post-Vatican II. People say, oh, Vatican II,
everything's different. No, it's not different. It just
may be more subtle in certain areas, but listen to the official
Roman Catholic statement. Hence the Mass, the Lord's Supper,
is at the same time and inseparably a sacrifice in which the sacrifice
of the cross is perpetuated For in it Christ perpetuates in an
unbloody manner the sacrifice offered on the cross, offering
himself to the Father for the world's salvation through the
ministry of priests." Then the Council of Trent states,
and it's never been rescinded, that all of us who say that the
communion service is nothing but a remembrance of a once-for-all,
non-extended, non-repeated, non-perpetuated sacrifice, let him be anathema.
We will come to the table tonight under the curse of the Church
of Rome, under their anathema. Now, you didn't know that? That's
true. And why do I speak so passionately about it? For the simple reason,
therefore, that though we grieve, as we did in our prayer together
today, over the erosion of common decency and morality on every
hand, there are voices that say, at least there are Catholics
who are committed to standards of morality and they're against
abortion. Let's lock arm in these causes
and forget our differences. My friend, listen! We dare not
forget that which is central to the faith of Christians. Christ
died for sins once for all. By one offering He has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. And it is in the once-for-all-ness
of His death that we find our life and our salvation. We delight to look back, not
merely with sentimental glances backwards, but with the eye of
faith, and see him writhing in agony, crying, Tetelestai! It stands accomplished, bowing
his head and yielding up his spirit. coming out of the grave
on that third day to go back to the right hand of the Father,
not to be humiliated to death again and again and again on
Roman altars. In one of Mother Teresa's meditations,
she speaks of the loveliness of Christ's humiliation. He is
willing to be humiliated to the point where he comes down to
the size where a priest can hold him between his two fingers.
She believed her theology. The priest has Christ in his
fingers. Peter says no. He suffered once
for all. His death was final. But thirdly,
note what Peter says. Christ suffered the righteous
for the unrighteous. See how every word is pregnant
with significance? He suffered the righteous for
the unrighteous. His death was vicarious. Vicarious simply means something
in the place of another thing, vicar, in the place of. His death
was vicarious. He suffered the righteous for
the unrighteous. In most of our translations,
there's the article before the righteous and the unrighteous,
the just, the unjust. But again, in the original text,
there is no article. There's a purpose for that. When
a Greek writer would leave off the article, when using words
that highlight a certain character trait or quality, leaving off
the article highlighted the quality. So we could read it this way.
Peter's readers would have read it this way. Christ suffered
or died for sins. A righteous one for unrighteous
ones. And the emphasis falls upon the
contrast between Christ as a righteous one and we, the beneficiaries
of his death, as unrighteous ones. It highlights the moral
character of the two parties and what Peter is saying using
that little preposition that has become the standard prominent
word to denote substitution in the New Testament. He suffers
for sins a righteous one who pair in the place of on the behalf
of, in the room instead, of unrighteous ones. The same construction is
used in those pivotal parallel texts. Christ has redeemed us
from the curse of the law, being made a curse huper, being made
a curse for us. 2 Corinthians 5.21, He hath made
him to be sin, for us who pair, the one who knew no sin. 1 Corinthians
15 3, this is the gospel Paul said, I received and I delivered
unto you. Christ died for, who pair, our
sins. It is the word of substitution
and liberal theologians have done their best to try to stand
the Greek language on its head, but they cannot do it. Peter's
simple first century Greek forever establishes that his death was
vicarious. It was the death, the suffering
of the truly righteous one. A fully, wholly, undiluted righteous
one for unrighteous ones. Unrighteous in what sense? In
the full sense that you've learned in the adult class in the last
two weeks. in all the horrible panoramic
view of what we are as joined to Adam, in all of our involvement
in his first sin and transgression, and all that has flowed from
it in terms of the depravity and the pollution of our nature,
that's what it means to be the unrighteous ones. And Peter is
saying, Christ suffered a righteous one for unrighteous ones. Rabbi Duncan wrote, the death
could not be inflicted unless the sin was imputed. Christ could
not suffer and die unless the sin became truly his by imputation. So the nature of a sacrifice
is the death of the innocent for the guilty by the transference
of the guilt to the innocent. The guilt is transferred from
unrighteous ones to a righteous one. And when it's transferred
to him, he is dealt with as though he were the accumulation of the
unrighteous ones. The father was willing that the
iniquity should be charged on him, though not as the doer of
it, yet as the answer for it. He was not the doer of our unrighteousness,
but He became the answerer for our unrighteousness. Christ suffered,
Christ died a righteous one for unrighteous ones. And then, fourthly,
He not only died and suffered a penal, final, vicarious death,
but look at the text. Christ suffered four sins once,
a righteous one for unrighteous ones in order that he might bring
us to God. The only way I know to capture
this was in two words. I could not reduce it to one.
He suffered for sins that he might bring us to God. His death
was purposeful and efficacious. Now isn't it a shame that a preacher
dares to use per-pos-ful a three-syllable word and then a four-syllable
word, e-fi-ca-tious. But friends, I've never, never
been intimidated to dumb down the Christian faith to a generation
that has no appreciation for words. And I scoured my synonym
finder and my brain and my dictionary, and I don't know any other two
words more simple and yet more accurately capture what Peter
is saying here. Christ suffered, that is, suffered
unto death four sins once, a righteous one for unrighteous ones, and
it had a distinctive purpose. This is a purpose clause. In
order that And what was the purpose? In order that he might bring
us to God, but it was not only purposeful, it was efficacious. The form of the verb suggests
that he would actually bring a people to God, not merely have
a purpose that some might be brought to God, but that he might
actually bring us to God. That which is efficacious affects
the purpose for which it is given or done. An efficacious medicine
affects the cure that you hoped it would procure and would affect
when you took it. An efficacious death is one that
affects the purpose for which Christ died. And that purpose
is to bring us to God. Now stop and think for a moment.
Was his purpose that there might be a just basis of pardon and
forgiveness, that we might have our sins forgiven and might not
fear the wrath of God? Yes. Was it that we might have
our title to heaven righteously secured by the dying of another? Yes. But none of those things
encompasses this broader perspective. Jesus Christ died. He suffered. for sins, a righteous
one on behalf of unrighteous ones, that we the sinners might
actually be brought to God. This verb, kosago, means to usher
someone into the presence of another. Jesus said, bring him
to me in Luke 9.41. In Acts 16, it is spoken of those
who brought Paul and Silas before the magistrates. They dragged
them in. They brought them in. He suffered,
He died, once for all, a righteous one for unrighteous ones. To
what end? That He might actually bring
us into fellowship and communion with God here and now. and bring
us into the immediate presence of God at the consummation when
the Lord Jesus returns again and even our bodies are glorified
and we in the integrity of a united body and soul will be forever
with the Lord. Now it shows us that in Peter's
theology we do not by nature as it were, grow up in human
consciousness in fellowship and communion with God. He's assuming
the whole biblical doctrine that by nature we are alienated from
God. We are at a distance from God.
We are without God and without hope in the world. He views us
all as a race of prodigals in the far country. And Christ died
to make us returning prodigals who, like that prodigal in Luke
15, when he's ready to go home, he doesn't say, now I will arise
and go to my father's desk and find his checkbook and begin
to live the good life again. Nor does he say, I will arise
and go to my father's cupboard and exchange pig's food for the
lavish fare of my father's house?" He says, no, I will arise and
go where? To my father. I'll arise and
go to my father. It's my father's face I want
to see. It's my father's heart that I
want to return to. I will arise and go to my father. And Christ died that when, in
the virtue of his death, we make our approach to God, it is that
we might return to God himself, to embrace him as our God, turning
from our idols, the worship of ourselves and our friends and
our toys and our own ambitions and our own notions of life and
our own standards for life. No, we turn from all of that
and we return to God. 1 Thessalonians 1.9, they themselves
report of us what manner of entering in we haven't, do you? How that
you turn to God from your idols to serve the living and the true
God and to wait for His Son from heaven. When Paul was commissioned
in Acts 26, 18, God says, I'm commissioning you, Paul, and
this is your mission, to open their eyes, to turn them from
darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they
might receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among
those that are sanctified by faith in me. No sinner receives
forgiveness who doesn't return to God. There's all kinds of
sinners, since they snatched at forgiveness, who are living
in the far country. They are self-deluded. And if
you're here, you're deluded, my friend. There's no forgiveness
without returning to God. If you don't believe, you look
at Acts 26 and verse 18. Open their eyes! Turn them from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan unto God, in order that they may receive
forgiveness. If you've not been turned from
the power of Satan unto God, you have no forgiveness in Christ.
God does not forgive rebels who simply nod to the cross and say,
yeah, I'd like the benefits of the cross. That is, forgiveness,
the title to eternal life, and fire insurance. No, the cross
is, according to Peter, the means by which sinners return to God.
He suffered! He died! He died for sins, He
died once for all, He died a righteous for unrighteous ones, that He
might bring us to God. Think what this meant again to
these suffering saints there in Asia Minor. It would immediately recall to
mind what they were in their unconverted state. Yes, they
had no pressure from their friends. He writes about it in chapter
four. They think it's strange that you don't carouse with them
as you once did. And when you were carousing with
them, everybody was locking arms and everybody was praising one
another and everything was fine. And now some of those people
are hurling insults into your teeth. They're reviling you.
They're speaking evil of you. But he says, remember this. when
they were locking arms with you, when you were sitting at the
bar drinking your beer together, and when you were telling your
dirty jokes together, and when you were pursuing your godless
career together, and when you were whatever you were and whatever
you were doing, you were without God and without hope. They would
then reason, well, whatever I now suffer, what is it? compared
to the misery of living without God in time and the horrible
misery and frightening prospect of being without Him in outer
darkness forever. Yes, the suffering pinches the
flesh, but it is suffering that draws me closer in communion
with my God and with my Christ. And I realize more and more in
my experience the very end for which He died that I might be
brought unto God. Well, we come around full circle
and close. See what Peter's done? He's done
what the biblical writers often do. In the most practical sections,
you'll find some of the richest doctrinal statements. And in
the most rich doctrinal statements, you'll find the most practical
directives. Because according to the Word of God, it is the
doctrines of the Christian faith that are the subsoil of all of
the practice And all of the practice flows out of the doctrine, flows
out of the doctrine, has its tap roots in the doctrine. You
can't separate doctrine and practice. So when Peter is giving enlightenment
and comfort and exhortation to suffering saints, he gives this
marvelous statement of the unique aspects of the sufferings of
Christ. He also suffered for sins. His sufferings were penal. Once
they were final. Suffered the righteous for the
unrighteous. They were vicarious that he might
bring us to God, purposeful and efficacious. Do you know the
benefit of his sufferings in your life? If not, I urge you
to go to Christ and lay hold of him as he is so freely offered. in the gospel. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for
your word. Thank you for this portion that
we've been privileged to meditate upon this morning. And we pray
that the Holy Spirit would be pleased to write it upon our
hearts. We pray especially for those
who think of sin lightly. Do not estimate its guilt. We
pray that you would take them, plant them before an immolated,
crucified Savior and there break their hearts and bring them in
penitence and faith unto yourself. Bless, we pray, your people that
we may cherish as never before the wonder that he, a righteous
one, would die for us, unrighteous ones. Receive our thanks and
continue with us throughout the hours of this day. We ask in
Jesus name. Amen.