By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an
inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for
you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
God is giving us a
new birth. The implication is that the
old one is all messed up. Peter is
writing to a Jewish audience in the First Century. What was the expectation of the “old birth”? What was the expectation of the “living hope”? There was not the distinction of Christian
thought and Jewish thought at that time as there is today. How do we understand this?
There are
expectations of a Messiah throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. Peter’s familiarity with that book (the New
Testament had yet to be written) draws a consideration of basing these
understandings on what he would have understood.
A new birth
contrasts to the old birth. The old
birth returns to the beginning of Genesis, to the creation of humanity-its
birth, and its fall and separation from God.
Under the ‘old birth’, was there hope in making things right with
God? Yes, through the Law of Moses. There was a system of animal sacrifice, blood
for blood, to provide a substitute to atone for sins committed. The ‘living hope’ seems to a sacrifice that
continues to live. And Jesus is the
provider of both, as we are to see in the next phrase.
But this is the
foundation of interpreting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The foundation is that in God’s great mercy,
God gave a new birth and a living hope.
At the time of its writing, these expectations were drawn from the
Jewish audience to whom Peter is writing.
These expectations were not made up by Peter as he wrote.
What disturbs me,
as a Christian, is the divide we have today from the roots of our faith. That divide makes Christians responsible for
horrible atrocities committed against our Jewish brothers and sisters. But without God’s covenant with and care of
the Jewish faith, we Christians would have nothing.
I thank the Lord
for the gift of the whole of our Scripture, the entire unfolding of Your will.
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