Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, look on us and have mercy on us, you who are both victim and priest, reward and redeemer; keep safe from all evils those whom you have redeemed, O Savior of the world.[1]
Precious blood and the living Word
1 Peter 1:17-23 NASB
If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you 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. Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
The Venerable Bede
The greater the price of your redemption, the more respectful to God you ought to be, and not risk offending your Redeemer by falling back into your previous life of wickedness.[2]
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
Fear is not here opposed to assurance, but to carnal security: fear producing vigilant caution lest we offend God and backslide. “Fear and hope flow from the same fountain: fear prevents us from falling away from hope” [Bengel]. Though love has no fear in it, yet in our present state of imperfect love, it needs to have fear going along with It as a subordinate principle. This fear drowns all other fears. The believer fears God and so has none else to fear. Not to fear God is the greatest baseness and folly. The martyrs’ more than mere human courage flowed from this.[3]
Stephen Motyer
The mind that is girded up, redirected by the Scriptures, will begin to think in a new way. However threatening the present, the fully girded-up mind will set its hope “perfectly” on God’s grace. The redirected mind will focus on God’s priority, holiness. At its heart holiness means separateness: God calls us to be different, because he is different. Peter’s readers must not worry about their distinctiveness that provokes such hostility from others. It is inevitable! If we are God’s, we will begin to bear his likeness in every aspect of life.[4]
Heidelberg Catechism[5]
Question #37
What does [The Apostle’s Creed] mean that [Christ] suffered?
That all the time He loved on earth, but especially at the end of His life, He bore, in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race, in order that by His passion, as the only atoning sacrifice, He might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation and obtain for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.
Question #70
What is it to be washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ?
It is to have the forgiveness of sins from God through grace, for the sake of Christ’s blood, which He shed for us in His sacrifice on the cross; and also to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, and sanctified to be members of Christ, that so we may more and more die unto sin and lead holy and unblameable lives.
Almighty God, you gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin and an example of godly living: Give us grace thankfully to receive his inestimable benefits, and daily to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.[6]
Nothing But the Blood
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.[7]
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Corinthians 4.15).
[1] Old Gallican Missal, Ancient Christian Devotional Year A, p. 105.
[2] “On 1 Peter,” Ancient Christian Devotional Year A, p. 112.
[3] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 501.
[4] Stephen Motyer, “1 Peter,” in Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, vol. 3, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995), 1165.
[5] G. I. Williamson, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Study Guide, 1993, p. 69.
[6] Collect for the third Sunday of Easter, Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 2019, p. 612.
[7] Ephesians 3:20-21 NRSV
