John Mark Hicks

This salvation, for which we bless God, in which we rejoice, and which fills prophets and angels with wonder (1 Peter 1:3-12), is the foundation and ground for everything else Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:13-2:10. “Therefore” (1 Peter 1:13) introduces the first section of the letter’s main body and roots it in God’s saving work. This salvation gives believers a startling identity; an identity that places a demanding call on their lives.

Five imperatives in 1 Peter 1:13-2:10 stress the ethical nature of this high calling. Elect exiles may be exiles (resident aliens in their culture) but they are nevertheless elect (chosen, given an identity, and called for a purpose). The five imperatives are:

• Set your hope on the grace that is to be revealed (1:13).
• Be holy in all your aspects of life (1:15).
• Live in reverent fear during the time of your exile (1:17).
• Love one another deeply from the heart (1:22).
• Crave pure, spiritual milk (2:2).

These imperatives characterize the kind of life into which God has called “elect exiles.” Hope. Holiness. Reverent fear. Love. Passionate Desire. These virtues not only flow from their election but they also testify to their identity as God’s children.

The elect are God’s children, and they invoke God as “Father” (1 Peter 1:14, 17). This is their fundamental identity. Though aliens in their culture, they are beloved children of God. As children of God, they are called into a particular way of life. Since God has rebirthed them—they were born into the family of God, they are called to mirror God’s life in their own lives. “Therefore,” because of “this salvation,” Peter directs them toward a particular way of living in their exile.

1 Peter 1:13-2:10 easily divides into three sections:

• Identity as God’s children (1 Peter 1:13-21).

• Identity Empowered by the Word of God (1 Peter 1:22-2:3).

• Identified with Israel (1 Peter 2:4-10).

The first section calls them into a new life, the second urges growth in that new life, and the last identifies this new life with God’s ancient people, Israel.

Following Joel Green (New Horizons Commentary), one may read 1 Peter 1:13-21 through the lens of how Peter locates these “elect exiles” within God’s history. Green identifies six moments in time, though I have renamed and adapted them into five moments:

• Christ is foreknown before creation (1:20).

• Unbelievers lived in an ignorant, empty life l (1:14, 18).

• Christ appears at the “end of the ages” (1:20).

• Believers presently live as exiles (1:17-19).

• Christ is revealed in the last times (1:13).

This time sequence locates the readers within the story of God, between God’s eternal intent (God’s foreknowledge of Christ) and the second coming of Jesus. The redemptive-historical frame moves between creation and new creation with the appearance of Jesus the Messiah within history occupying the middle. With the appearance of Christ, humanity experiences redemption but the redeemed live an exilic life in a hostile culture. Christ is foreknown, manifested in the midst of history, and will be fully revealed in the last times. This places Christ at the beginning, middle, and end of history, and our story rests within his. God has acted in Christ to liberate humanity from its empty way of life and now calls redeemed humanity to live a life that mirrors God’s own.

Three imperatives, in three separate Greek sentences, direct the lives of these “elect exiles.” 1 Peter 1:13-21 is only three sentences in Greek.

Set your Hope on the Grace to be Revealed (1 Peter 1:13)

The first sentence directs believers to fix their hope on the future grace (probably referring to the salvation already described) that Jesus will reveal when he comes again. That future grace is the Christian’s hope.

Surrounded by a hostile and suspicious culture, Peter advises hope—to fully (teleios, completely) hope in God’s grace. While they live as marginalized exiles, they hope in God’s favor, which is assured to them by their own experience of grace in Jesus the Messiah. They are an elect, rebirthed, and sanctified people, and therefore they hope in future grace (salvation).

This complete fixation on hope, however, involves discipline. It is all too easy to lose hope or to become discouraged by their surroundings. Two participles modify the verb “set your hope,” and these describe the circumstances in which hope might have its fullest effect within the community. It is a disciplined community—their minds are prepared (they have girded up their loins, that is, they are ready to run), and they are sober-minded or self-controlled.

They have a purpose, and they are committed to the values of this new community. Ready, disciplined, and hopeful, they are prepared to fully lean into a new way of life.

Be Holy as Obedient Children (1 Peter 1:14-16)

The second sentence directs believers to live holy lives as children of God.

Peter draws a contrast between a past way of life (“desires of your former ignorance”) and their new way of life (“to be holy in all your conduct”). In the past they lived an empty or futile life in ignorance (cf. 1 Peter 1:18), but now they live with a clear identity as children of God. The “empty” or “ignorant” nature of their previous life reflects a purposelessness or a meaninglessness. Life, ultimately, had no value or significance because they had no firm or lasting identity, and they had no hope. They did not know God (thus, “ignorance”).

As children of God—with a firm identity—their lives have meaning, but it also has a calling, a vocation. As children of God, they must become like God. Instead of conforming to past desires, which resulted in an emptiness, they are called to embody the holiness of God in their new way of life.

This vocation—to be holy as God is holy—is Israel’s vocation, and Peter quotes Leviticus 19:2. These “elect exiles,” mostly Gentiles, have the same vocation as Israel. Indeed, we might say that this is fundamentally a human vocation since all human beings—made in the image of God—are called to become like God. This is part of Israel’s creation theology, and it was Israel’s own identity. Now, we see, it is the identity of these Gentile “elect exiles” as well.

Live in reverent fear as people who call God “Father” (1 Peter 1:17-21).

The third sentence directs believers to “live in reverent fear during the time of [their] exile.”

“Fear” is an important motivator in 1 Peter (my friend Van Robarts wrote his thesis on this at Harding Graduate School of Religion in Memphis). It also appears in 1 Peter 2:17; 3:2, 14, 16. We miss the point if we think of “terror” or “being afraid.” Rather, this language arises out of Israel’s wisdom literature and its liturgy. In particular, as Jobes points out, this language probably reflects the context of Psalm 34, where Israelites as exiles (paroikias in 1 Peter 1:17 and Psalm 34:6) are ransomed (lutroo in 1 Peter 1:18 and Psalm 34:22) as people who hope in (elpizo,1 Peter 1:13 and Psalm 34:22) and fear (1 Peter 1:17 and Psalm 34:7, 9, 12) God. Further, Peter later quotes Psalm 34 extensively in 1 Peter 3.

“Fear,” in 1 Peter, is thoroughly saturated with a Hebrew theology and meaning. The word reflects a basic trust, awe, and wonder. It is a word that encompasses worship, fundamental (“gut-level”) orientation, and reverence. “Living in fear” in 1 Peter is not about living a terrified existence waiting for the next shoe to drop. Rather, it is a fundamental description of how human beings relate to a transcendent God in trust, hope, and worship. As Hebrew wisdom says many times, the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” or authentic knowledge (Proverbs 9:10; cf. 1:7). A holy, reverent, and obedient life begins with a basic awe, wonder, and trust in the God.

Just as God called us into a holy life, so we call upon God as “Father,” and those who call God “Father” must orient their life around the “fear of the Lord,” just as the wise ages of Israel advised.

Peter, once again, situates his readers (“elect exiles”) in the story of Israel—they are to live out the values of Israel’s wisdom. But more than that, they are also a liberated (ransomed) people, just as Israel was. They, too, have experienced an exodus—a liberation from bondage, from slavery.

“Ransom” is the language of slave manumission where slaves could buy their own freedom. In this case, however, God buys the freedom of these exiles, a freedom from a past way of futile living. The price is the blood of Jesus, rather than silver or gold. The language of “blood” and “lamb” as well as “ransom” evokes images of the Passover liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage. In other words, the “elect exiles” are a liberated people—free from futility and ignorance and free to live holy lives as God’s children.

This liberation is no momentary decision on God’s part. Rather, God has “foreknown” this moment when Jesus would liberate people from their futile ways. This was God’s intent from the beginning, even before the creation of the world. Even as God foreknew that humanity would sin, so God also knew that Christ would redeem them. God has taken the initiative, from the beginning, to ransom humanity from their own self-inflicted wounds and bondage. God revealed this intent in the work of Jesus the Messiah.

Faith and hope, when set on God, are the means by which the work of Christ becomes ours. Just as God raised him from the dead (liberating him from the bondage of death) and gave him glory (exalting him to the right hand as King and Lord), so God, through faith, will raise us from the dead and exalt us when we reign with Christ in the new heaven and new earth. Even now, however, we experience this grace of God as we live in reverent fear and reign with Christ as a priestly, royal nation (cf. 1 Peter 2:4-10).

Conclusion

Discouraged? Oppressed? Feel like an alien?  Peter’s advice is:

Hope in the grace God will reveal.

Become holy as God is holy, as children of God.

Live in reverent fear, as a people liberated through faith.

This entry was posted on June 11, 2015 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Biblical Texts. Tagged: 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1:13-21, Fear, Holiness, Holy, Hope. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.