First Peter 1:7-9 says, “At the revelation of Jesus Christ; whom having not seen, you love; into whom though not seeing Him at present, yet believing, you exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” The Lord is with us today (Matt. 28:20) but in a hidden, veiled way. His coming back will be His revelation, when He will be seen openly by all.
Although we have never seen the Lord Jesus, we love Him. At present we cannot see Him, yet we believe in Him. It is a wonder and a mystery that the believers love One whom they have not seen. We love Him whom we have not seen because of believing, that is, because of the faith that has been infused into us through our hearing of the living word (Gal. 3:2).
According to 1 Peter 1:8, the believers “exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.” Joy full of glory is joy immersed in glory. We exult with a joy that is immersed in glory. This joy is immersed in the Lord as glory; thus, it is full of the expression of the Lord. This joy is also unspeakable; it is a joy that is beyond our ability to utter. Things that are wonderful are also unspeakable. By believing into the Lord and loving Him, we obtain great joy. The normal condition of a Christian is to “exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.”
The salvation in verse 9 is full salvation, the salvation which is in three stages—the initial stage, the progressing stage, and the completing stage. We are of three parts: spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 4:12). Our spirit was saved through regeneration (John 3:5-6). Our body will be saved, redeemed, through the coming transfiguration (Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:23). Our soul will be saved from sufferings into the full enjoyment of the Lord at His revelation, His coming back. For this we must deny our soul, our soulish life, with all its pleasures in this age, that we may gain it in the enjoyment of the Lord in the coming age (Matt. 10:37-39; 16:24-27; Luke 17:30-33; John 12:25). At the Lord’s revelation, through His judgment seat, some believers will enter into the joy of the Lord (Matt. 25:21, 23; 24:45-46) and some will suffer in weeping and gnashing of teeth (25:30; 24:51). To enter into the Lord’s joy is the salvation of our souls (Heb. 10:39).
In 1 Peter 1:9 the salvation of our soul is the end of our faith. Although in our spirit we have been saved, in our soul we are being saved day by day. Our salvation has not yet reached its completion, that is, the end of our faith, the salvation of our soul. This means that at the second coming of Christ, our soul will be saved to the uttermost and will be brought into a higher enjoyment of Christ. According to Matthew 25, Christ at His coming back will say to the believers who are faithful slaves, “Enter into the joy of your master” (vv. 21, 23). To partake of the Lord’s joy with Him in the coming millennial kingdom is the salvation of our soul. Although the unbelievers freely enjoy all the pleasures of the world, we believers cannot. In this sense, our soul is suffering. But when the Lord comes back, our soul will be saved into His joy to enjoy Him to the uttermost in His kingdom. That will be the end of our faith, the consummation of the process of our faith.
In 1 Peter 1:18-19, Peter says, “Knowing that it was not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ.” According to these verses, the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, redeemed us from our vain manner of life. This is the redeeming aspect of the blood of Christ. The first aspect of Christ, as the element of Christian experience revealed in 1 Peter 1, is His sprinkling blood, which brings the believers into the blessing of the new covenant. The blood of Christ is also the redeeming blood that redeemed us from our vain manner of life, bringing us out of the vanity of human life.
The vain manner of life is in contrast to the holy manner of life in verse 15. Our old manner of life, a life in lusts (v. 14), had no meaning and no goal; hence, it was vain. But now our goal is to live a holy life that we may express God in His holiness (vv. 15-16). As a general principle, the blood of Christ has redeemed us from sins, transgressions, lawlessness, and all sinful things (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:15; Titus 2:14). Here is an exception: Christ’s blood has redeemed us from our old, vain manner of life, because the emphasis here is not on sinfulness but on the manner of life. First Peter 1 emphasizes the holy manner of life which God’s chosen people should have in their sojourn. Not only is the Spirit’s sanctification for this; even Christ’s redemption is for this—to separate us from our vain manner of life handed down from our fathers. Knowing that this was accomplished with the highest price, the precious blood of Christ, we should pass the days of our sojourning in fear (v. 17).
In order to pass the time of our sojourning in fear, we need a deep realization concerning the redemption of Christ. Today many Christians are living in a loose way because their understanding of Christ’s redemption is shallow. The blood that redeemed us is an extraordinary kind of blood—the blood of the God-man, Jesus Christ, the man whose life reached the highest standard. The Lord Jesus is a man mingled with God. Therefore, when this man died on the cross, God also passed through death. No human words are adequate to explain this. Only the blood of Christ was qualified and sufficient to redeem us, to purchase us.
In verse 18 Peter says that we were redeemed “not with corruptible things.” The blood of Christ is a material substance, yet its effectiveness, function, worth, power, and authority are eternal and incorruptible. The blood of Christ, by which we are sprinkled and thus marked out from common people, is more precious than silver and gold. The highest price has been paid for our redemption that we might be redeemed from a vain manner of life to a holy life (vv. 18, 15). For this we should have a holy fear, a healthy, serious caution before God that, as God’s elect, redeemed with such a high price, we would not miss the purpose of this most high redemption of Christ. In verses 18 and 19 we have a comparison between gold or silver and the Lamb. Gold and silver are valuable, but they are lifeless and inorganic. A lamb, however, is living and organic. Through this comparison, Peter indicates that the price paid for us by Christ was related to something of life and to something organic.
Christ is both divine and human. Christ’s divine nature is mingled with His human nature. When He died on the cross, He died as a man. Nevertheless, God was involved with this death. Because Christ is both God and man, His person is unique, and His blood also is unique. No other blood can redeem us. Only the blood of Christ is sufficient for this. His blood is unique because His person is unique. Because He is precious, His blood is precious. The Bible even tells us that today the blood of Christ still speaks for us in the heavens (Heb. 12:24).
First Peter 1:19 says, “With precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ.” It is important to understand what Peter means by blemish and spot and to know the difference between them. Blemish is a term often used for impurities, foreign bodies, or elements of mixture found in precious stones and gems. A spot is a scar that comes from a wound. If we have a wound on our hand, eventually that wound may develop into a scar. Such a scar is a spot on our body. God created us pure, but the fall has brought many foreign bodies, blemishes, into us. All these foreign bodies are of the devil, Satan. Furthermore, in our natural life we have been wounded.
We can see from the typology in the Old Testament that the animal sacrifices were to be without blemish and without spot. For instance, suppose a sheep was to be offered as a sin offering. That sheep had to be without blemish, without mixture; it also had to be without spot, without any wound. The sheep offered as a sin offering had to be pure and perfect.
Among all the human beings who have ever lived on earth, there has been only one man—the Lord Jesus Christ—who is without mixture or blemish. Furthermore, He is the only man who has not been wounded morally and ethically. We all have received many wounds to our ethical and moral being; we all must admit that we have not been preserved perfect. Our person and character have been wounded in many ways. As fallen human beings, we have many blemishes and wounds.
Jesus Christ is the only person without mixture and without spot. He does not have any blemishes or wounds. Actually, the expression without blemish and without spot is an Old Testament term used with respect to sacrifices offered to God. Any Jew reading the first Epistle of Peter would realize this. Because Peter was writing to Jewish believers, he used terms that were familiar to them. In other words, this verse indicates that Jesus Christ is the real sacrifice to be our sin offering and trespass offering. Christ is the real Passover lamb.
The lamb sacrificed at the time of the passover had to be without blemish and without spot. Furthermore, this lamb had to be kept for four days in order to be carefully examined. Before the lamb could be sacrificed, it first had to be without spot. This is what the Lord Jesus experienced in Jerusalem during the days before He was crucified. Day by day He was examined by the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the elders, and the priests. They did their best to find a fault of some kind in Him. However, according to their law, they could not find fault with Him. Then they handed the Lord Jesus over to the Roman rulers, to Pilate and Herod. But neither could these Roman rulers, according to Roman law, find any fault in Him. For this reason, Pilate declared, “I find no fault in Him” (John 18:38). Therefore, according to both divine and secular law, the Lamb of God was examined and found to be without mixture and without spot. Only this unique person is without blemish and without spot.
Peter refers to the Old Testament typology, while simultaneously indicating that Christ is the real passover Lamb. He is our sin offering and our trespass offering, the One offered for the propitiation of the sins of God’s people. As the Lamb without blemish and without spot, He shed His precious blood to redeem us. We all need to know that we were redeemed from our vain manner of life by the precious blood of Christ.
We need to spend a substantial amount of time alone with the Lord to consider the precious blood of Christ shed for us on the cross. This will give us the desire to have a holy manner of life in fear. We will want to become holy in all our manner of life and to pass the remaining time of our sojourn in fear. If we would live in this way, we need to realize that we were redeemed, purchased, with the high price of Christ’s precious blood. This realization will cause us to have a living in a holy manner of life, for we will realize that Christ’s precious blood redeemed us from the vain manner of life. No longer will we want to live in a way that is vain. A vain manner of life is not necessarily sinful. Rather, in certain respects it may be quite moral. Nevertheless, it is still vain—having no goal, aim, or purpose. Anything without a goal or purpose is vanity. Now we should live a life without any vanity. Everything we do and say should have God’s goal in view. This kind of life is weighty and full of content. It is a life with purpose, goal, and aim. Let us all spend time to consider Peter’s writing concerning the precious blood of Christ so that in a practical way we may become holy in all our manner of life and pass the time of our sojourn in fear.