The Most Dangerous Words In Theology?

1 Peter 1:20

He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.

We puny humans have a terrible conundrum in trying to understand God and God’s control over everything.  There are these two multisyllabic theo-babble words that get thrown around, “predestination” and “foreknowledge”.  Both leave God flapping in the breeze-morally speaking.

“Predestination” (see the word ‘destiny’ in there?), God has set everything in motion because God is in control.  Great, except when one starts to consider evil, poverty, genocide, epidemics, disasters, wars, death, and destruction.  If God Predestines the good stuff, God also Predestines the bad stuff.  Taken to an extreme, “double predestination”, some of us destined for heaven, others of us destined for hell.

“Foreknowledge” is a theological concept that implies ‘plausible deniability’ for God.  God knows all, but God does not command all.  So God truly gives us free will, something impossible under predestination, but still knows everything that is going to happen.  So, instead of controlling evil, poverty, genocide, epidemics, disasters, wars, death, and destruction, God knows about it and lets it happen.  That leaves us with two possibilities.  One, God is too weak to control what God knows is going to happen.  Two, God is morally ambivalent and appears not to care what is going to happen.

“He was destined”, Jesus was destined.  Left to our own devices, we are taking the world into hell by ourselves.  We don’t need predestination or foreknowledge or any theologically-nimble shade in between.  What we need is salvation.  What we need to know is that God put the solution into play and it is up to us to share that joy with the world.  “Pre…” and “Fore…” are human attempts to understand divine attributes.  They are limited because we are limited.

Praise God that Jesus is not so limited.

Timing Is Everything--1 Peter 1:20

1 Peter 1:20

He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.

Thus far, Peter is reaching out to the exiles he’s previously preached to.  He has provided a recap of salvation history and what Jesus has done for them, drawing on the past, looking to the future, preparing for the present.  It is all being done to call these exiles to continue in service to the Lord Jesus.  They can invoke the Father, they are reminded of their winning through the precious blood of Jesus. 

In verse 20, it appears that timing is everything.

He was destined—This is not accident, this is not done on the fly, this has the authority of having been planned

before the foundation of the world,--From a time before creation itself, this plan was in the mind of God.

but was revealed—But like a play being performed, not everything is shown all at once.  

at the end of the ages—We need to realize that this was the end of the world as Peter knew it, and he seemed to feel fine.

for your sake.—This is a personal and not an abstract play put on by the Creator. 

Gathering It All Up Into One Sentence

1 Peter 1: 18-19

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

So we know that we have been ransomed, rescued, broken the pattern of the lex talionis, life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.  This ransom takes us away from the system that was in place before, the system of sacrifice, of our guilt being placed upon a beast sacrificed in our place.  Nothing, not even the most precious things we can imagine, gold and silver, can bring to us this ransom.  Rather, it comes in the death of Jesus, his blood shed on our behalf, the perfect sacrifice that brings the grace of life.  He is the lamb without blemish, the Passover lamb.  As the angel of death passed over the Israelites before the Exodus to strike down the firstborn of the Egyptians, so the angel will pass over the judgment of death upon us because we have been saved by the blood of Jesus.

The Angel of Death Might Come For Us All

1 Peter 1: 18-19

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

This is straight out of the Old Testament.  Exodus 12, the first Passover.  The blood of a lamb without defect or blemish was painted onto the doorposts and lintels of the Israelites and the angel of death passed over those houses while it proceeded to take the lives of the firstborn of the Egyptians.  It was the tenth and most terrible plague, the one by which the people of Israel were finally freed by Pharaoh. 

It was a ransom, blood for blood, blood of the lamb for the blood of the firstborn.  And Jesus is both the Lamb of God and the Firstborn of God.  Like the lamb, he was slaughtered that the angel of death, the punisher for our sins, might pass over us and we might live forever by the grace of God. 

It is the language of triumph out of sacrifice.  This is the way with humanity.  Talk only of the good, the joyful, and the wondrous, and we are flighty optimists.  Humanity is defined by pain.  We are defined by what bends us, threatens to break us.  So Jesus went to that place where we might be most broken, in death and hell, and from there came back to bring life to us all.

A lot of Christians spend a lot of time talking about how one must be ‘right with Jesus’.  See how far Jesus went to be right with us.

Blood, Jesus, and All That Yuck

1 Peter 1: 18-19

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

The early church was accused of cannibalism because of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  Eating the body of Christ, drinking his blood, what was a good pagan to think?  Because let’s face it, we are rather preoccupied with the blood of Christ as a religion. 

Consider the Holy Grail, according to legend, it was the cup used at the Last Supper when Jesus said the wine was his blood, then later used to really catch the blood as it flowed from the wound in his side.  Kind of gross if you think about it.

Or how about the question of stigmata, the wounds to the hands and feet and side of the Lord Jesus when he was on the cross.  There are people who will bleed from these places spontaneously as some kind of tribute to Jesus.  Patricia Arquette was in a movie of that name, dealing with the same kind of stuff.

We get some of the lex talionis back in here again, life for life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, blood for blood. 

The precious aspect of Jesus’ blood is that it is the blood of the innocent, the blood of the perfect, the blood of God incarnate.  This is the ransom that Peter speaks of, something more valuable than perishable gold and silver.  It has to do with sacrifice, harking back to the futile ways of their ancestors, something we consider next.

Jesus Versus Silver & Gold

1 Peter 1: 18-19

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

“Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee.  In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk…”  I think that is how the song goes.  Based on Acts, a crippled man healed by Peter and John.  In the early chapters.  I think it was Peter and John. 

It makes the point that Peter is trying to make here.  I wonder if Peter had that incident in mind when he wrote these words.  Silver and gold were the most precious metals of that time.  They are still precious, the bases of commodity trading.  Survivalists talk about getting your money converted to gold, as that will hold its value when the end comes. 

Except, in the divine order, they are perishable just like everything else.  Money is paid in ransom, silver and gold.  But in this context, they are not enough.  They are not anything in point of fact, except something perishable.  If they are perishable, what then is imperishable? 

God is imperishable.  There is a Creator/creation distinction going on here.  Gold and silver are part of the creation, therefore perishable in ultimate terms.  God is not perishable.  Neither then is Jesus, the Son of God, the Incarnation of God.  It is all part of God’s plan. 

Peter is setting riches side by side with Jesus.  He is calling upon us to choose.  Well, he is not really setting them side by side.  He’s declared the loser in the match.  And that is the silver and gold.

Fulfillment Brings With It Futility

1 Peter 1: 18-19

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

There is a story in Acts where, in a vision, Peter is offered to eat all the animals previously declared as unclean according to the law of Moses.  When Peter refused to eat them, the Lord told him that it was the purview of God to declare what was clean and unclean to eat, and that a new commandment was given.

Those laws were inherited from their ancestors and a new way had been given.  The ransom through Jesus lays out even more futile ways the Jews practiced their faith.  It used to be that the system of animal sacrifice was the way that the people were made right with God once again.  This continued to be the practice in Jerusalem up to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. 

The precious blood and the lamb will be talked about, but the ransom of blood provided for in the law of Moses is here fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  His sacrifice is the perfect one, the final one, the forever one, adequate for the sins of the people.  The readers are called to practice their faith in a new way, laid upon the foundation that Jesus makes them right with God, not an animal sacrifice. 

Theirs is a new way.

Did You Know You Were Ransomed? Do You Know What For?

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

            Ransoms are connected to kidnapping, something paid for to get a loved one out of danger.  Sometimes, it happens without kidnapping.

            There is one latin phrase I remember from Seminary, among the many that I am sure I was taught from the history of theology.  It is “lex talionis”, and I am not even bothering to check to see if I have it right.  It means “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in the popular saying.  It is the basis of the sacrificial system under the law of Moses, ‘blood for blood’.

            This has to do with the perfection of God.  What you mess up, you pay for at an equal rate.  Paul gives us a succinct summary of what that means for us.  “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  That is the ransom that Peter is referring to.

            Jesus sacrificed his own life on the cross as a ransom for us all.  It is ‘blood for blood’ according to the ‘lex talionis’.  And his is innocent blood, the blood of the human without sin, the fully human fully God that is Jesus.  It works out on a supernatural level of divine legalities that I can try to describe, but never fully explain.

            The process is not so important as the result.  “You know that you were ransomed…”  The reader knows what Jesus did for them.  We know what Jesus did for us.  It is nothing less than being made right with God.  It is a gift for the whole world.  It is what Peter is sharing with his readers and pressing them to share that gift with the rest of the world.  It is the gift shared with us, one we too are called to continue to share.

1 Peter 1: 18-19 What Did Jesus Do For Us?

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

What makes his readers different from those who surround them?  What is the change wrought among them by Jesus?  Peter has just spoken of the ‘reverent fear’ they must live in the ‘exile’ that they are enduring.  What has happened to them to bring about this thing?  When they invoked the Father, what happened?  In this sentence, Peter answers that question, speaking of The Event, the life, death, and new life of Jesus, spoken of in the context of the Jewish law.

You know that you were ransomed:  How do we understand the events of the cross?  Peter refers back to what he has taught them about Jesus at the cross.

from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors,:  There was a way of doing things as was done from of old, but it is in contradistinction from the new way taught in Christ.

not with perishable things like silver or gold,:  What is the measure of true value in creation?  Not with the most precious things we believe we find in creation.

but with the precious blood of Christ,: It is human sacrifice, but in a way that carries on and fulfills what was commanded in the Old Testament.

like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.: This was the lamb called for in the sacrifice of the Old Testament, putting the death of Jesus in the line of the entire law as handed down from Moses to this time in which Peter and his readers are living.

Putting It All Together

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

In other words, “It is a dare for us to call down the Creator of all, the one who judges all people with the impartiality of mercy given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, a judgment that will be according to what we do, the choices that we make, to be for or against our God, living in a reverent fear, because who we are in Christ can cause backlash in the community in which we live, especially as we lives our lives in this exile, this expectation of the Second Coming of Christ.”

Living as one who serves God, according to Peter, the one who serves the God who judges people by the deeds they do-as deeds deserving mercy or deeds deserving condemnation-this is a call to beware of this time of exile in a world of those who turn away from God, and deserve condemnation.  It is the time of persecution that Peter and his followers were living under, a time that Peter was seeking to explain to them.

Are We Living in a Time of Exile?

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

What is the time of our exile?  Considering when Peter is speaking.  It is the first generation after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.  Jesus' return is considered to be imminent, quite literally any day.  There seems to be an expectation that this return is somehow hinged to how the message of Jesus will be spread, that, when it hits ‘everyone’, this is a trigger for Jesus’ return.  It is implicit to the message.

The idea of ‘exile’ is central to the mentality of the Jewish faith.  For seventy years, the Israelites were carried into exile in Babylon.  That was the end of Israelite independence.  Under the Roman occupation, to use this word is a deliberate buzz word by Peter to think back to an unpleasant time.

Peter is assuming his readers know that they are in an unpleasant time (his immediate readers, not so much us).  In his theological introduction (through verse 12), there is this immediate sense, that the gifts of Jesus were coming at the end of time, and that end of time was not far away.  Thus, the time until then, Peter’s present, was an exile, not yet arrived at the time of perfection, but looking forward to it.

We have lived in this exile now for two thousand years.  We have learned now not only to survive, but to thrive in this exile.  I am of a mind that the gifts of God, given through Jesus, outlined by Peter, are given to be fulfilled in our lifetimes. 

Sometimes Fear is in Awe, Sometimes It Is Being Scared

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

Oh, I like this one.  Living in reverent fear.  Who are we to be afraid of?  This is the part of the sentence that seems to me to turn the whole thing into fear of God’s judgment, impartial or not.  Reverence, completely understandable, one does not wish to mock on God the Father Almighty.  But fear?  That does not seem to make for a very joyous relationship.

We might need to turn this on its ear, assume that this reverent fear is along the lines of “the Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  But I am not sure that is a fair reading of the text.  Because bringing the fear and reverence does not seem to be happening in a happy time.

The reverent fear is supposed to occur during the time of our exile.  Notice how I am slopping together the readers of Peter in his time and we, the readers of today?  One big happy family, with two thousand years of readers tucked in between us. 

We will speak more of the exile language tomorrow, that ties back into statements that Peter has already made.  But what if living in reverent fear is not concerning our relationship to God?  What if this reverent fear is a question of the believers living in relationship to their current neighbors?

We know from Acts that persecutions were already going on. Paul, when he was still Saul, was a great persecutor of Christians.  But even in his own missionary journeys, Paul found himself the target of persecution in his turn.  Peter himself is recorded as having been arrested and, while chained between two soldiers, an angel came to him, freed him from the chains, and walked him out of the prison (Acts 12).

Against a persecuting background, reverent fear begins to make more sense.  Be reverent, doing according to the things of the Lord.  The idea of the invocation of the Father as judge, that seems to carry with it an implied threat from those who may not appreciate what the readers are doing. 

We know that Peter is preaching to the Jews.  They may be reacting badly to his adding Jesus into the power and might of God the Father.  Adding ‘another god’ to God is a bad thing in monotheistic religions.  The fear may, in fact, be justified.  This time, I think the fear is just being scared.

Are Your Deeds Worthy of the Father?

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

Most often, in my experience, when we are talking about somebody’s deeds, in relationship to God, we are talking about their bad deeds, their naughty deeds, their sinful deeds.  These are the deeds that bring down judgment upon us because we are sinners.  It dates back to Adam and Eve, they sinned, it’s in the DNA or something.

But our deeds are not all bad (thank the Lord!).  Some of the most amazing people I know, when it comes to deeds, are not even of the faith, at least by word.  However, they most certainly look like they are of the faith if you measure them by their deeds. 

I would like to think that an impartial judgment of my deeds would bring me out somewhere in the middle.  I’ve done my share of sinning, not Ten Commandment sinning…well, taking the Lord’s name in vain…but I do not murder, or commit adultery, and I am not always sure if coveting is simply jealousy of someone else’s stuff, or an active desire to steal it.

The Father is going to judge us impartially according to our deeds.  The real deal here, as with anything in our faith, is Jesus.  Coming to him, believing in him, molding our life after him, that is the transformation of our deeds.  It is the transformation of our whole person. 

Peter is calling his readers to be active in carrying forward the word of God.  Now he challenges them to invoke the Father who judges their deeds.  In Jesus, that is a non-issue.  Judgment has already been rendered, and the verdict is mercy.  It was never about balancing the good and the evil. 

Coming to Jesus in good faith, doing deeds according to love of God and love of Neighbor, this should be for us a joy that he judges, not a fear.  To answer the title of this post, yes, in Jesus, our deeds are worthy of the Father.

What is God’s Judgment Now?

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

This is our God, the one who judges all people impartially.  This too is what was passed on to Jesus, judging all people impartially.  And Peter is calling upon his readers to invoke this Father.  What if they screw up?  And, being human, they are going to screw up.  They will be judged, impartially, but judged. 

The readers are being told to gear up to serve the Lord, to proclaim Christ crucified, by whose death and resurrection mercy is granted to all, except apparently to these readers who are called to invoke the God of the impartial judgment.

Now, I am coming at this from a point of view that impartial judgment is bad for us because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Peter did not say that, Paul did.  But what if ‘impartial’ is not a bad thing?

‘The one who judges all people impartially’, what if that is judgment according to the mercy of the Lord?  Judgment was fundamentally changed with the resurrection of Jesus.  Forgiveness came through His sacrifice.  What if the mercy is the impartiality of the Lord?  Then there is not fear but love in the invocation of the Lord.  Might recast the entire verse.

If You Could Call God Down from Heaven, Would You Dare?

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

It is a dare.  It is a dare to invoke the Living God as the measure of their work and worship.  Peter has spoken of the power of Jesus.  He has called his readers to active service.  Now he is daring them to actually take on what it would mean to serve God.  

IF you invoke as Father…  If they dare to walk down this path of holiness that Peter calls them to live, he wants them to understand exactly what path it is that they are following.

If you invoke as Father…  It is a choice that they are dared to make, one they must make if they are going to heed Peter’s call to service in the name of Jesus Christ.  It is not a fool’s errand, it is what is necessary for them, and for us.

An invocation, that is part of the liturgy of the church, calling upon the name of the Lord.  It is used a little more graphically in horror moves when the devil, or Satan, is invoked.  It is not simply calling on the name of the devil, it is calling up the presence of Satan from hell itself to be there, present and at the beck and call of the one foolish enough to invoke his evil name.

To invoke as Father, it is to call down into your presence the Father, to reach up into heaven itself and demand the presence of the Father in the here and now of earth.  It is an arrogant call, but it one that Peter dares his readers to make.

It is a call they must make, if they truly seek to serve the Lord.  Is it a call we are prepared to take as seriously here and now?

There are consequences if we choose to serve the Lord.

1 Peter 1:17

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.

Peter continues in his call to action for his readers.  They have been called upon to discipline themselves, to be holy as their Father in heaven is holy.  Now Peter turns to what it will mean if they will seriously take upon themselves the responsibility of the Father who art in heaven…

If you invoke as Father-  This is the challenge they are called upon to take in order to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.  What does it mean if they dare to follow through?

the one who judges all people impartially-Herein we consider God as Judge.  What truly does that mean in the context of Jesus?

according to their deeds,-Such is the mode of our judgment.  Peter draws back to the earliest of Scripture to lay down who it is that we serve.

live in reverent fear-So then, this is the formula for living if we are willing to invoke God the Father.  Are we willing?

during the time of your exile.-This is a new consideration.  Peter has not yet spoken to us of the consequences of service to our God.  What does it mean to be in exile, in this context?

We have taken the next step here.  Peter opens his letter with a review of who Jesus is and the power contained in our Lord and Master.  Then he offers a call to serve to those to whom he has shared the gospel.  Now we get from him his sense of what it is going to mean for us to dare to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Is it something we are willing to do?

Putting It All Together

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

It is a privilege that the one who calls us is holy.  It removes from us the pressure of perfection, because being called is not about being “God-like” or even “God-worthy”, it is about doing as God would have us do, the rest coming from him.  To be holy in all our conduct is not the challenge of perfection, it is rather putting all that we have and are under the leading of God.  It does not mean we will not fall on our faces, because we will, but the merciful God will be there to pick us up.  This point is not made lightly by Peter, for he appeals to the “Bible”, the “Holy Writ” as he has it for the authority of what he intends to pass along to us.  From the law of Moses, from Leviticus, we learn that our holiness shall come upon us because we follow in the footsteps of our Lord.  Such is not something we have to learn, it is something that God himself, through our Lord Jesus Christ, imparts upon us.

What a wonderful gift to receive for the New Year!