Peter continued his explanation of Christians' duties as we endure trials and suffering joyfully. He called his readers to do certain things in the world of unbelievers, and he reminded them of certain realities in this pericope. He did so to motivate them to press on to finish God's plan and purpose for them in the world now.
"The great doxology (1:3-12) begins with praise to God, who is the One who begot us again. All hortations that follow grow out of this our relation to God: 1) since he who begot us is holy, we, too, must be holy (1:13-16); 2) since he is our Judge and has ransomed us at so great a price, we must conduct ourselves with fear (1:17-21); 3) since we are begotten of the incorruptible seed of the Word we are brethren, and thus our relation to each other must be one of love, of children of the one Father (1:22-25). So Peter now proceeds to the next hortation: 4) since we have been begotten by means of the eternal Word we should long for the milk of the Word as our true and proper nourishment."57
In this pericope Peter used four different images to describe the Christian life. These are taking off habits like garments, growing like babies, being built up like a temple, and serving like priests.
2:1 "Therefore"goes back to 1:3-12 as well as 1:22-25. To prepare for an exposition of the Christian's calling, Peter urged his readers to take off all kinds of evil conduct like so many soiled garments (cf. Rom. 1:29-30; 2 Cor. 12:20; Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:9-10; James 1:21). The sins he mentioned are all incompatible with brotherly love (cf. 1:22). Malice (wickedness) and guile (deceit) are attitudes. The remaining three words describe specific actions. These are not "the grosser vices of paganism, but community-destroying vices that are often tolerated by the modern church."58
"The early Christian practice of baptism by immersion entailed undressing completely; and we know that in the later liturgies the candidate's removal of his clothes before descending naked to the pool and his putting on a new set on coming up formed an impressive ceremony and were interpreted as symbols of his abandonment of his past unworthy life and his adoption of a new life of innocence . . ."59
Peter here called his readers to put into practice what they had professed in their baptism.
2:2 Next he urged them to do something positive. Since they had experienced the new birth (1:3, 23), they should now do what babies do, not that they were new Christians necessarily. The milk of the Word is probably the milk which is the Word rather than the milk contained in the Word, namely, Christ, though either interpretation is possible.60"Long for"is a strong expression that we could paraphrase "develop an appetite for."This is the only imperative in the passage in the Greek text. God's Word is spiritual food that all believers instinctively desire, but we must also cultivate a taste for it (cf. 2 Pet. 3:18).
"It is sad when Christians have no appetite for God's Word, but must be fed' religious entertainment instead. As we grow, we discover that the Word is milk for babes, but also strong meat for the mature (1 Cor. 3:1-4; Heb. 5:11-14). It is also bread (Matt. 4:4) and honey (Ps. 119:103)."61
Ask God to give you a greater appetite for His Word. God's Word is pure in that it is free from deceit (cf. 1:22-25). "Salvation"here, as Peter used it previously, refers to the full extent of salvation that God desires every Christian to experience.
"The point of the figurative language is this: as a babe longs for nothing but its mother's milk and will take nothing else, so every Christian should take no spiritual nourishment save the Word."62
The "milk"here is not elementary Christian teaching (cf. 1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12-13), in contrast to "meat,"but the spiritual food of all believers.63
2:3 Peter's readers had already tasted God's goodness in their new birth. Greater consumption of His Word would bring greater satisfaction as well as increased spiritual growth (cf. Ps. 34:8).
2:4 Not only is Jesus Christ the source of the believer's spiritual sustenance, He is also our foundation. Peter not only changed his metaphor from growth to building, but he also changed it from an individual to a corporate focus. However unlike a piece of rock Jesus Christ is alive and able to impart strength to those who suffer for His sake.64Builders quarried and chiseled huge blocks of stone to support large buildings in the ancient Near East. Some of the Old Testament writers compared God to such a foundation (e.g., Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30-31; Ps. 18:2, 31, 46; 62:2, 6; et al.; cf. Matt. 7:24-25; 16:18). Peter modified this figure and used it to describe Jesus Christ.65
Here Peter began to give the basis on which the four preceding exhortations rest. These exhortations were: be holy (1:13-16), be fearing (1:17-21), be loving (1:22-25), and be in the Word (2:1-3). They grow out of our relationship to God who has begotten us.
The apostle referred to Psalm 118:22 that both Jesus and he had previously quoted to the Sanhedrin (Matt. 21:42; Acts 4:11).
2:5 Peter saw the church as a living temple to which God was adding with the conversion of each new believer. Each Christian is one of the essential stones that enables the whole structure to fulfill its purpose (cf. Matt. 16:15-18). Later Peter would say his readers were also priests (v. 9), but here the emphasis is on their being a building for priestly service, namely, a temple.
"This spiritual house' includes believers in the five Roman provinces of I:I and shows clearly how Peter understood the metaphor of Christ in Matt. 16:18 to be not a local church, but the church general (the kingdom of Christ)."66
"I Peter never speaks of the Church as ekklesia, but uses metaphorical images of OT origin."67
This verse helps us appreciate how much we need each other as Christians. God has a purpose for all of us to fulfill that we cannot fulfill individually. The Christian who is not working in relationship with other Christians as fellow stones, as well as with Jesus Christ as his foundation, cannot fulfill God's complete purpose for him. While every Christian has an individual purpose we also have a corporate purpose that we cannot fulfill unless we take our place in the community of Christians that is the church. Peter explained this purpose more fully below, but here he revealed that it involves worship and service (cf. Rom. 12:1; Heb. 13:15-16; Phil. 4:18).
2:6 Before going on, however, Peter elaborated on the foundation of this building, which is the church. "Zion"is the heavenly Jerusalem. The "corner stone"refers to the main stone on which the building rests. It does not refer to a modern corner stone or to the last stone the mason put at the top of the building, the keystone (Isa. 28:16; cf. Eph. 2:20). In view of this, it seems that the rock (Gr. petra, a large stone) to which Jesus referred in Matthew 16:18 was not Peter (Gr. Petros, a small stone) but Himself. Jesus, not Peter, much less Judaism, is the foundation upon which God has promised to build the church (cf. 1 Cor. 3:11).
Peter clarified two relationships of the believer in these verses (4-6). He rests on Christ as a building rests on its foundation. Furthermore he relates to every other believer as the stones of a building under construction relate to one another. We need each other, should support each other, and should work together to build the church in the world.
2:7-8 In contrast to believers, those who reject Jesus Christ as the foundation find Him to be a stone over which they trip and fall. He becomes the instrument of their destruction. The "builders"were Israel's religious leaders (cf. Ps. 118:22). When they disobeyed Old Testament commands to accept their Messiah they stumbled spiritually and would suffer destruction (Isa. 8:14). This was true of Israel corporately, and it is true of every unbeliever individually. Election results in the salvation of some (1:2), but it also means destruction for others (v. 8).
"In the immediate context it is not so much a question of how Christian believers perceive Christ as of how God (in contrast to people generally') perceives him, and of how God consequently vindicates both Christ and his followers."68
To what does God appoint those who stumbled, unbelief or the stumbling that results from unbelief? In the Greek text the antecedent of "to this"(eis ho) is the main verb "stumble"(proskoptousi) as it is in the English text. "Are disobedient"(apeithountes) is a participle that is subordinate to the main verb. Therefore we would expect "to this"to refer to the main verb "stumble"rather than to the subordinate participle "are disobedient."69God appoints those who stumble to stumble because they do not believe. Their disobedience is not what God has ordained, but the penalty of their disobedience is (cf. Acts 2:23; Rom. 11:8, 11, 30-32).70
". . . the point of 1 Peter 2:6-8 is to demonstrate the honored status believers have because of their relationship with Christ."71
Peter proceeded to clarify the nature of the church and in doing so explained the duty of Christians in the world.
2:9 All the figures of the church that Peter chose here originally referred to Israel. However with Israel's rejection of Jesus Christ (v. 7) God created a new body of people through whom He now seeks to accomplish the same purposes He sought to achieve through Israel but by different means. This verse that at first might seem to equate the church and Israel on careful examination shows as many differences between these groups as similarities.72
"But this does not mean that the church is Israel or even that the church replaces Israel in the plan of God. Romans 11 should help us guard against that misinterpretation. . . . The functions that Israel was called into existence to perform in its day of grace the church now performs in a similar way. In the future, according to Paul, God will once again use Israel to bless the world (cf. Rom. 11:13-16, 23-24)."73
Israel was a physical race of people, the literal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The church is a spiritual race the members of which share the common characteristic of faith in Christ and are both Jews and Gentiles racially. Christians are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. We are not Abraham's literal descendants, unless we are Jews, but are his children in the sense that we believe God's promises as he did.
God's purpose for Israel was that she be a nation of priests (Exod. 19:6) who would stand between God and the rest of humanity representing people before God. However, God withdrew this blessing from the whole nation because of the Israelites' apostasy with the golden calf and gave it to the faithful tribe of Levi instead (Num. 3:12-13, 45; 8:14; cf. Exod. 13:2; 32:25-29). In contrast, every individual Christian is a priest before God.74We function as priests to the extent that we worship, intercede, and minister (v. 5; Rev. 1:6).75
"Whatever its precise background, the vision of 1 Peter is that the Gentiles to whom it is written have become, by virtue of their redemption in Christ, a new priesthood in the world, analogous to the ancient priesthood that was the people of Israel. Consequently they share with the Jews the precarious status of aliens and strangers' in the Roman world."76
"When I was a pastor, I preached a message entitled, You Are a Catholic Priest.' The word catholicmeans general,' of course. In that sense every believer is a catholic priest, and all have access to God."77
God redeemed Israel at the Exodus and adopted that nation at Mt. Sinai as one that would be different from all others throughout history (Exod. 19:6). God wanted Israel to be a beacon to the nations holding the light of God's revelation up for all to see, similar to the Statue of Liberty (Isa. 42:6). He did not tell all the Israelites to take this light to those in darkness, but to live before others in the Promised Land. He would attract others to them and to Himself, as He did the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10). However, Israel failed. She preferred to be a nation like all the other nations (1 Sam. 8:5). Now God has made the church the bearer of His light. God has not told us to be a localized demonstration as Israel was but to be aggressive missionaries going to the ends of the earth. God wanted Israel to stay in her land. He wants us to go into all the world with the gospel (Matt. 28:19-20).
God wanted to dwell among the Israelites and to make them His own unique possession by residing among them (Exod. 19:5). He did this in the tabernacle and the temple until the apostasy of the Israelites made continuation of this intimacy impossible. Then the presence of God departed from His people. In the church God does not just dwell among us, but He resides in every individual Christian (John 14:17; Rom. 8:9). He has promised never to leave us (Matt. 28:20).
The church is what it is so that it can do what God has called it to do. Essentially the church's purpose is the same as Israel's. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20; et al.) clarifies the methods God wants us to use. These methods differ from those He specified for Israel, but the church's vocation is really the same as Israel's. It is to be the instrument through which the light of God reaches individuals who still sit in spiritual darkness. It is a fallacy, however, to say that the church is simply the continuation or replacement of Israel in the New Testament, as covenant theology does. Hopefully the preceding discussion has made that clear.78
"In the ancient world it was not unusual for the king to have his own group of priests."79
2:10 Peter highlighted the differences involved in our high calling by contrasting what his readers were and had before conversion with what they were and had after conversion. The church is not the only people of God in history. Nevertheless it is the people of God in the present age because of Israel's rejection of the Corner Stone (cf. Rom. 9-11).
"The evidence from the use of the Old testament in 1 Peter 2:6-10 suggests that the Old Testament imagery used to describe the church in 1 Peter 2:9-10 does not present the church as a new Israel replacing ethnic Israel in God's program. Instead, Old Testament Israel was a pattern of the church's relationship with God as his chosen people. Therefore Peter uses various aspects of the salvation, spiritual life, and service of Israel in its relationship with Yahweh to teach his recipients the greater salvation, spiritual life, and service they enjoy in Christ. In his use of the three people of Godcitations in 1 Peter 2:9-10, the apostle is teaching that there are aspects of the nation of Israel's experience as the people of God that are also true of the New Testament church. These elements of continuity include the election, redemption, holy standards, priestly ministry, and honor of the people of God. This continuity is the basis for the application of the title people of Godto the church in 1 Peter 2:1-10.
"The escalation or advancement of meaning in Peter's application of these passages to his recipients emphasizes the distinction between Israel and the church. Israel is a nation, and the national, political, and geographic applications to Israel in the Old Testament contexts are not applied to the church, the spiritual house, of 1 Peter. Furthermore, the initial application of these passages to the church by typological-prophetic hermeneutics does not negate the future fulfillment of the national, political, and geographic promises, as well as the spiritual ones, made to Israel in these Old Testament contexts."80
Christians generally speaking do not understand or appreciate God's purpose for the church that Peter presented so clearly here. Consequently many Christians lack purpose in their lives. Evidence of this includes self-centered living, unwillingness to sacrifice, worldly goals, and preoccupation with material things. Before Christians will respond to exhortations to live holy lives they need to understand the reasons it is important to live holy lives. This purpose is something most preachers assume, but we need to affirm and assert it much more in our day.
"Peter concludes the first major section of his epistle (1:3-2:10) by drawing the lines for a confrontation. Two groups are differentiated--'unbelievers' and you who believe'--on the basis of their contrasting responses to Jesus Christ, the choice and precious Stone' (v 6). The former are on their way to stumbling' and shame, the latter to honor' and vindication. The theological contrast between these two groups, with its consequent social tensions, will absorb Peter's interest through the remainder of his epistle."81
