1 Peter 2:4-10

In addition to the individual identities each of us have, we have many corporate identities. We are members of groups, nationalities, ethnicities, and at times these corporate identities overlap, but none claims any precedence over the other by necessity.

But our corporate identity as Christians outstrips all other corporate identities. No where is this made clearer in Scripture than in 1 Peter 2:9,10.

Our Identity

1. You are a chosen people. Peter’s language has specific reference to Isaiah 43:3-4, 19. In this context God is addressing the people who will be rescued from exile in Babylon. They have sinned and fallen into idolatry, but God will blot out there sin. They still remain His chosen people. And all of this so that “they may proclaim my praise.” This truth is grounded in the entire flux of the OT narrative. At the beginning Abraham does not volunteer to choose to start a new race. There is a choice principle built in. Peter applies this language directly to his Christian readers. People in the Roman Empire were very much interested in what class or race you belong to.  We are God’s chosen people in contradistinction from those he identifies in v. 8 as those “destined to disoby the word.”
    
2. You are a royal priesthood. Now Peter reaches farther back than Babylon. He reaches back to Exodus 19:5,6. In the NT the antitype of the Aaronic priest is one of two things: either Jesus Christ himself, our sovereign high priest, our sole mediator, or alternatively all of us are priests. Why does the OT stipulate that there is a special class of priests and you can’t volunteer for it, it’s God’s sovereign choice, but clearly in Exodus 19 one can think of all the people being priests? Functionally priests are mediators by definition between a deity and human beings who take God’s instructions, and his ceremonies to God’s covenant people, and they take the sins of the people and bring them before God. They are meditators. Paul picks up this theme in Romans 15 when he speaks of his “priestly service.” We become priests as we mediate the grace of God to those outside of the church, and in our prayer and petitions we pray for those who are outside. This is part of our priestly ministry. Every time you pray for others or talk about the gospel with an unregenerate neighbor you are mediating as a priest. Priests were in ancient Israel especially sanctified and particularly set aside for God. All of God’s people now are to pursue all the sanctification and consecration as priests who enter into the most holy place, into God’s holy presence. God help us when Christians start saying, “It’s natural for the pastor to be holy, but I don’t have to be.” To introduce this double tier makes no sense this side of the cross and resurrection.
    
3. You are a holy nation. The language is drawn from Exodus 19. The contemporary notion of “nation” is an 18th century creation. The word “nation” as used in 1 Peter is actually our word “ethnicity.” In English it is a geopolitical entity. In the OT it was ethnic diversity. What kind of ethnicity do we belong to? Peter says, “You are a HOLY nation.” What does that mean? We must distinquish between the communicable and noncommunicable attributes of God, and therefore there is no scripture that says, “Be ominipotent as I am omnipotent.” Where does holiness fit in to this? It is a communicable attribute. It has concentric rings of meaning and right at the very center what does it really mean? Holy does not merely mean separateness, or morality. At its core, holiness is almost an adjective for God. God is God. And God is Holy. And that which peculiarly belongs to this God is said to be holy, as in the shovel that takes the ash from the altar. The shovel is said to be holy, not because the shovel is separate or moral, but because it belongs exclusively to God. The manner in which we belong to God affects our manner and behavior. What God’s image bearers can reflect of the Master’s holiness. This holiness of God’s people runs in one of two directions: definitional – we are set aside by God, and behaviorial we become holy at a functional level. At it’s core I am tempted to say that holiness is an incommunicable attribute of God. Only God is God. But the entailments of his holiness wash out in peculiar ways and God in his infinite holiness dares to call us a holy people, a holy nation, a holy priesthood. Inevitably if this really is our identity this will set up conflict with other corporate identities to which we belong. How we resolve them will turn on whether or not these identities are of transcendental importance.
    
4. You are God’s possession. Not in the sense that God disqualifies his possession of all things. All ethnicities are owned by God, and yet Israel is God’s unique, special possession. It is a spectacular notion that should instill in us a sense of awe, especially when we consider that this special possession is by God’s initiative. What is said of God’s covenant people under the terms of the old covenant is exactly what must be said of God’s covenant people under the new covenant.

These categories are not discrete. They overlap. In each case their is an accent on God’s initiative. Over against every other form of self-identity, we are God’s people. This is our identity.

Our Purpose: “that you may declare the praises of him who called you”

This language again is founded in Isaiah 43:20,21. Peter here has one of two things in mind in his use of “declare the praises”: the ground for our praise or the praise itself. We have received these priviliges in order that we may declare his praises. Not to promote pride or a sense of intrinsic superioty or one-upmanship.

Two details are crucial:

1. The sheer God-centeredness of this purpose. Amongst human beings anyone who wants to have all of the attention and all of the praise, that person would be thought massively ego-centric. Is God ego-centric? He keeps demanding that we praise him all the time. It is true to say that God is more than we are, but this response is not sufficient. There’s more yet. Because we have been made by this God and for this God, because our very self-identity is to love him supremely and to love and adore him, it is a supreme act of love on his part to keep demanding it because it is for our good. It is an act of supreme love that he keeps directing attention to himself, not only because he is God, but precisely because it is for our good. There is no insecurity in this God. He has no needs. God is not demanding that we love him so that we can meet the needs of his psychological profile.
    
2. The sense of sheer privilege of our purpose when we see what he has done. He has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now we are tied into the entire story line of the Bible. We are the people who rebelled against God in the Garden, and God has rescued us from this darkness and brought us into wonderful light.
    

Our Foundation: v. 10

The language Peter is using is tied to Hosea 1:6-8 and Hosea 2:23.

Those who are declared not to be loved and not to be God’s people are all Israelites. 

Come to the way Paul in Romans 1:18 and Peter quote these verses and the application is to Gentiles who were not God’s people who are now declared to be God’s people. Paul’s point and Peter’s point that once Israel has been judicially declared by God, “Not my people,” they are indistinguishable from the pagans. The point is regardless of whether you are of Israel or not, we are all declared Not God’s People. They are all dead. They are all lost. It is by God’s sovereign grace that he takes those who are not his people and declares them to be his people without regard to whether they are of Israel or pagans.

We are called back to remember the opening lines of the first chapter of 1 Peter: “who have been chosen, through the sanctifying work of the spirit, sprinkled with the blood of Christ.”

Everything that we enjoy as God’s people has been secured by the Cross, by the sprinkled blood. The Holy spirit, the forgiveness of sins secured by the cross. It is the cross that has made you a people. It is the cross that has poured out the mercy of God on you.

Once our self-identity is established in these terms as the Church of the Living God, this is the end of racism. This is the end of nationalism. Such unity is grounded in what God has done in Christ Jesus, and as a result we become so God-obsessed, so Christ-obsessed, so Cross-obsessed, that all of our other identities become part of the spectrum that brings glory to our redeemer, this holy diversity in the church of the living God.