Because I Am Holy

The last lesson ended with a command to be holy, because God is holy. This passage tells us what that holiness costs, and what it cost Him. Peter holds two notes together that we often pull apart: a Father we call on with love, and a Judge we approach with fear. The same God is both. And the reason we can live in that holy tension without being crushed is the blood of a Lamb, foreknown before the world began and revealed for us at the end of the age. Read this slowly. It is one of the most Godward passages in the letter.

1. Father and Judge, in the same breath

Peter opens with a pair that should startle us: "if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds" (1:17). The same God is Father and Judge. Some of us so emphasize the Father that we forget He judges. Some so emphasize the Judge that we forget He is Father. Peter will not let either mistake stand. The God we cry Abba to is also the God who assesses every deed, without favoritism, without partiality (Henry on 1 Pet 1:17).

This is not a contradiction. It is the grammar of grace. Grace does not make God careless about our conduct; it makes our conduct matter because He is our Father. A loving father pays more attention to his child's behavior, not less, than a stranger would. So Peter's logic runs: if you call Him Father, then live in a way that remembers He judges every work. The Father's love and the Judge's impartiality meet at the cross and meet in the believer's daily life.

2. Conduct with fear, as exiles

So the command: "conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile" (1:17). Two things to notice. First, the fear. This is not cringing terror before a tyrant; it is the reverent, awed seriousness of a child who knows his Father is holy and is not to be trifled with. Adrian Rogers helpfully distinguishes: the fear of a slave flees God, the fear of a child draws near carefully and would not offend the One he loves (Rogers, on 1 Pet 1:17).

Second, the setting: "the time of your exile." There is the letter's signature word again (cf. sojourner). The believer's whole present life is an exile, a temporary stay away from home. The fear Peter commands is the exile's fear, the careful seriousness of someone who knows this world is not his and that his Father is watching how he lives in it.

3. Ransomed from a futile way

Now the reason, and it is one of the great gospel statements of the letter: "knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot" (1:18-19). Read the contrast carefully.

From what were we ransomed? "The futile ways inherited from your forefathers." These Gentile believers had inherited an empty way of life, passed down for generations, the shape of life without God. Peter calls it futile (mataias), empty, vain, a way that promised much and delivered nothing. That was our old address, and from it we have been bought back.

At what price? Not "perishable things such as silver or gold." Peter sets the most valued currencies of the ancient world beside the blood of Christ, and the currencies lose. They perish; the blood is precious. Guzik notes the deliberate contrast: the most precious thing humans handle (gold) is called perishable, set against the one thing that truly redeems. The price was "the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot."

4. A Lamb foreknown, revealed for you

Then Peter stretches the timeline to its full length: "He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you" (1:20). Two ends of history meet in this verse. Before the world was made, the Lamb was already foreknown, already the Father's chosen provision. And in "the last times," the era inaugurated by Christ's coming, He was revealed. For whom? "For the sake of you."

Read those last three words again. For the sake of you. The eternal plan of God, the Lamb chosen before the foundations, was revealed for the sake of ordinary, exiled, formerly-futile believers in Asia Minor. The cross was not Plan B. It was the plan, older than the mountains, aimed at people like us. Matthew Henry catches the wonder: the Lamb was "designed and fore-ordained" before the world, and "revealed" in the fullness of time, for us (Henry on 1 Pet 1:20).

5. Faith and hope, in God

The passage lands where the whole section was heading: "who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God" (1:21). Through Christ, we believe in God. The resurrection and the glory given to the Son are the ground on which our faith and hope finally rest, and they rest in God.

Notice how Peter closes the loop. He began this section (1:3) with a living hope through Christ's resurrection. He ends it (1:21) with faith and hope in God, because God raised Christ and gave Him glory. The whole arc of 1:3-21 is one movement: from the new birth, through the refining trial, into a holy life, anchored on the blood of a foreknown Lamb and the God who raised Him. Our part is to live in it, with the fear of a child and the hope of an exile going home.

Application — head, heart, hands

Head. Believe that God is both your Father and your impartial Judge, that the cross was God's eternal plan (not Plan B), and that you were ransomed from a genuinely empty life by the only price that could pay, the precious blood of Christ.

Heart. Cultivate the reverent fear of a child who loves his holy Father and would not trifle with Him. Mortify the casualness that shrugs at sin because grace is cheap, and the despair that thinks the empty way still owns you.

Hands. Conduct yourself this week with the seriousness of an exile whose Father is watching. Pick one inherited "futile way," a reflex of anger, envy, greed, or fear, and refuse it on the ground that you have been bought. The blood is the reason you can say no.