1 Peter 1:13-25
It’s one thing to talk about the holiness of God. It’s another thing to desire holiness for ourselves. Holiness is an essential of the Christian life. We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is not alone, but is always accompanied by works.
We can be so easily concerned about theological issues and miss the point that the point of all theology os to drive us into a Christ-likeness, into a holiness of life.
Robert Murray McCheyene: “My people’s greatest need is what? My personal holiness.” Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.
1 Peter 1:13 – “Therefore” introduces us to gospel grammar. Peter wants to address sanctification, basing his moral, ethical imperatives in Gospel indicatives. Confuse justification and sanctification and you confuse everything.
Peter’s Gospel Indicatives, things that are true of us as people who have come to faith. He introduces the goal of this letter, that int he plan and purpose of God, in the whole scheme of redemption which begins with foreordination, that God’s plan and purpose is the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ. We are saved to be holy. Notice how trinitarian Peter is.
Peter says three things:
We have been called to
- a living hope
- a indescribable inheritance
- an inexpressible joy
On the basis of what we are in Jesus Christ, be holy. Be sanctified. Be Christ-like. Notice the relationship between the indicative and the imperative. He is not calling on us to be holy in order that we might be holy, but that as a consequence of who we are in Christ and on the basis of that we are to be holy.
Peter says that we are to gird up the loins of our mind. The major secret of holy living lies in the mind. Holiness begins with an epistemological repentance. Begin to think in Christian ways, in biblical ways.
John Owen: What do you think about when you are not thinking about anything in particular? What is the default setting of your mind. What do you revert to when you are not being forced to go in a certain direction. That is an indicator of your spiritual mindedness.
Motivations for Holiness
- The holiness of God (vv. 15, 16). Peter cites the text from Leviticus. This is not only a motivation, but the standard for holy. Because God is holy, he wants his people to be holy. He is our creator who created us so that we might reflect his holiness, and recreated us, regenerated us so that we might be holy, that we might be sanctified, that we might be set apart, that we might reflect something of his moral purity.1 Samuel 1 and Parameters for Holiness in the Life of Hannah. She prays a prayer: “Lord, give to me and I will give him back to you.” In the midst of her trial, in the midst of her pain, in the midst of her difficulty she prays this prayer. Peter is writing in 1 Peter to people in the midst of trial, saying they must learn to be holy as God is holy in anticipation of these trials.What makes it possible for Hannah to pray this selfless prayer? It was the holiness of God that shaped and molded the pattern of her holy living. 1 Samuel 2:2 It may be that the trial is here in order to make you holy. There is an intimidation to holiness, but there is a beauty to holiness (Psalm 29).Peter is saying here, in the context of the on coming trial, in the midst of your pain and difficulty, only God can fully satisfy you. Be holy, because God is holy. God is interested in the state of our hearts and in the state of our souls.
Is that my passionate concern? Is that the one thing that I long for, and pray for, and yearn for: I want to be holy. I want my church to be holy? I want to be known as someone who is Christlike?
- The Gospel (1 Peter 1:17-21). “You were ransomed”The motivation is signified by the language of redemption, that we were bought. We are not our own. We have been purchased. The blood of Jesus had actually purchased Peter so that he was no longer his own, that the blood of Jesus had redeemed him from the empty way of his former life, the vanity of his life. When you purchase something, you have a right to use it in a way that pleases you. Peter is reflecting here on the fact that his holiness is motivated by the fact that he is not his own, he has been bought, and no longer has the right to his own life. If we are to be holy, that holiness of ours is fundamentally related to all that God has done in the purposes of redemptuion in sending Jesus into the world to become incarnate, to die on the cross, to rise again for our justification.What the redeemed soul needs is human holiness, not angelical holiness, but in the humanity of Jesus Christ. The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are one and the same. We are holy in Jesus Christ. Paul’s way of putting is to say that we are in Christ. Peter says that we are “stones,” built up to be the dwelling place of God by the Spirit, in which Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone. we are to be holy because we have been brought by faith into a living and vital relationship with Jesus Christ.
- The Family of God. We are children calling on God as a Father (v. 17). We have been brought into a relationship in which we can call this holy, righteous God, “Father.” We have been brought into the family of God. This is why he goes on in this passage to talk about loving one another. We are to be conscious that we have been brought into a family. Peter is addressing holiness within the context of family life. Remember that you are in the family of God now. We cannot let the family down. We are to love one another with a pure heart. When we sin, when we fall short of God’s glory, we let the family down. We let the Father down. It’s a test of our love for our heavenly Father. Is holiness my overwhelming desire?
- The Judgement of God. Whatever happened to the notion of judgement in evangelicalism, that there will be a judgment according to works? Somewhere in the evangelical church somewhere the idea of egalitarianism has crept in. One of the motivations for holiness is that we must goive an account, that there is a day of reckoning coming.
Peter’s concern for holiness is in the context of fiery trials. Are you passing through difficulty in your marriage, in your work? See that trial as God’s gift to you. Embrace it. Don’t waste your cancer, as John Piper says. Don’t waste your trial, but see it in the purposes of our Sovereign God as the very means to conform you to the image of his Son, that you may be able to say with Job, “That when I am tried I will come forth as gold.”
May I quote Charles Wesley (Laughter):
Finish, then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
“Be holy, for I am Holy,” God says.