In the previous message we considered what it means for Christ to be our model. We saw that He is the master copy, the original copy, and that through a process of spiritual xeroxing we are becoming a reproduction of Christ. In this message we shall consider other matters in 2:21-25.
First Peter 2:21 and 22 say, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving you a model that you should follow in His steps; who did no sin, nor was guile found in His mouth.” It is not an easy matter to have no guile in our mouth. Consider how many mistakes you make in one day because of the things you say. Because we in ourselves cannot be without guile, Peter specifically says that no guile was found in the Lord’s mouth.
In verse 23 Peter goes on to say concerning the Lord, “Who being reviled did not revile in return; suffering, He did not threaten, but kept committing all to Him who judges righteously.” According to the usage of the verb “kept committing” in Greek, “all” needs to be inserted here as its object. This word refers to all the sufferings of the Lord. He kept committing all the insults He suffered and all His injuries to Him who judges righteously in His government, to the righteous God, to whom He submitted Himself. This indicates that the Lord recognized God’s government while He was living a human life on earth.
I am somewhat concerned that in your reading of this verse you may not pay attention to the word “judges.” We are accustomed to saying that we commit things to the Lord who is faithful or merciful or kind. Have you ever said, “I commit everything to God who judges righteously”? I do not think that many of us have had this practice. The reason we do not pray like this is that our prayer, expression, and utterance are still too traditional. This keeps us from applying many of the thoughts and utterances in the pure Word. Therefore, in reading a verse such as 2:23, we may take it for granted and fail to get into the real meaning.
While the Lord Jesus was on earth suffering, He kept committing all to the One who judges righteously. This brief word indicates not only that the Lord lived a life that was a model for us, but also that He lived a life absolutely under God’s government. He Himself was always under the government of God, and He committed everything related to Him to God’s judgment.
Peter has already referred to God’s judgment in 1:17: “And if you call upon as Father the One who without respect of persons judges according to each one’s work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.” Here Peter “is not speaking of the final judgment of the soul. In that sense ‘the Father does not judge anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son’ (John 5:22). The thing spoken of here is the daily judgment of God’s government in this world, exercised with regard to His children. Accordingly it says, ‘The time of your sojourning’ here” (Darby). This is God’s judgment on His own household.
Since these two Epistles are concerned with the government of God, the judgment of God and of the Lord is referred to repeatedly (2:23; 4:5-6, 17; 2 Pet. 2:3-4, 9; 3:7), as one of the essential items. It began from the angels (2 Pet. 2:3-4), and passed through the generations of man in the Old Testament (2 Pet. 2:5-9). Then in the New Testament age it begins from the house of God (1 Pet. 1:17; 2:23; 4:6, 17) and continues until the coming of the day of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:10), which will be a day of judgment on the Jews, the believers, and the Gentiles before the millennium. After the millennium, all the dead, including men and demons, will be judged and perish (1 Pet. 4:5; 2 Pet. 3:7), and the heavens and the earth will be burned up (2 Pet. 3:10, 12). The results of the varied judgments are not the same. Some judgments result in a disciplinary dealing, some in a dispensational punishment, and some in eternal perdition. However, by all these judgments, the Lord God will clear up and purify the entire universe so that He may have a new heaven and a new earth for a new universe filled with His righteousness (2 Pet. 3:13) for His delight.