“For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”
HIS EXAMPLE OUR EXAMPLE
I will have to ask you to forgive me if it seems that I refer too often to the difference between the pre-Pentecost Peter and the man that the Lord eventually made of him.
But you see, each time I come back to the book of the Acts and then especially to these letters of the Apostle to the churches, written in the final years of his life, I have to be once more astounded and give praise to God for His power to make all things new.
It may be that the transformation in the Apostle Peter touches me the way it does because I was very much like the old Peter. In fact, I am still too much like the old Peter and not as much like the new as I should be; as I would like to be. But I too know what it’s like to make vows to the Lord that I would later break, and to turn my back on the Lord when He had been so good and so gracious to me, and to be restored by His love and called back to service for Him because – as I said – of His power to make all things new.
So when I think of the Peter who chided Jesus for talking about going to the cross, and of the Peter who brashly chopped off the ear of a servant more in a panic than out of courage, and of the Peter who declared he would follow His Lord to the death and then denied Him repeatedly in His darkest hour, and then come to these epistles and read words such as these we are looking at today it touches me every time and fills my heart with praise and thanksgiving to the same Lord who in His infinite mercy and grace chose me and set me apart for Himself.
You can rejoice too, if you are a believer in Christ. Whether you were brash and impetuous or whether in your basic nature you were soft-spoken and shy or somewhere in between, still you were lost and without hope and without God in the world. You were dead in trespasses and sins and destined for an eternity separated from God. But the very same provision that was made for Peter was made for you and by it He redeemed you and sanctified you and the day is coming when you will see Him with glorified eyes.
Peter finally understood this. It was the Holy Spirit in him that led him into all truth and caused him to understand these things and turned him into a servant of God, peaceful, contented, committed, faithful, and able to follow in the footsteps of His Lord, not swinging a sword, but entrusting himself to the One who judges righteously.
So the post-Pentecost Peter, having been sifted and the chaff removed, is now able to call us to follow where Christ has gone; indeed, where Peter has followed and soon will follow again; and that qualifies him to exhort us to these things.
In Foxe’s Book of Martyrs there is recorded the end of Peter’s earthly life according to tradition. By saying that it is tradition we mean that It is not scripture, but has been handed down by men through time and although it may or may not be accurate it seems consistent with the relationship between Peter and his Lord as is revealed to us in scripture, and is also a good illustration of Peter’s exhortation in these verses. This was provided by an early Christian writer named Hegesippus, and here I quote Foxe’s Book of Martyrs:
“It seems that when Peter was old, Nero planned to put him to death. When the disciples heard of this, they begged Peter to flee the city, which he did after much pleading by the disciples. But when he got to the city gate, he saw Christ walking toward him. Peter fell to his knees and said, “Lord, where are you going?” Christ answered, “I’ve come to be crucified again.” By this, Peter understood that it was his time to suffer the death by which Jesus had told him he would glorify God, so he went back into the city. After being captured and taken to his place of martyrdom, he requested that he be crucified in an upside down position because he did not consider himself worthy to be crucified in the same position as his Lord.”
Christians, Peter had long since earned the right, even if he had not had the commission, to write to the church that she should be willing to suffer without defense and without striking back, in the steps of Christ her example. He had endured scourging and beating and imprisonment and hardship for his Lord.
But looking back and seeing this report that eventually he died the same death as Jesus, faithful to Him to the end, enduring his final suffering with grace and humility and obedience to his calling, how encouraged should we be, to read these words and determine in our own hearts, asking for His strength in our spirits, to walk the same path, entrusting ourselves to Him who judges righteously?
OUR JUDGMENT HIS JUDGMENT
In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul said, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin…”
This only serves to magnify the infinite separation between sinful man and holy God; that we see sin as something that happens to us – something that happens in our lives – or in our most honest moments, something we did in a moment of weakness. Yet He, eternal God who knows not sin and who lived in the flesh for 30 plus years on this earth and never committed sin nor had any sin in Him, was willing not to confess sin, but to become sin so that He might bear it all to Calvary and take it away in His own body for us.
We can barely find it in us to confess sin to Him, while He willingly became it for us. Infinite distinction.
In verse 23 Peter says that during Christ’s trials and beatings He offered no return insults and made no threats, but entrusted Himself to Him who judges righteously.
Now modern man, looking solely at the historical circumstances, would be shocked and outraged at this travesty. He would ask, ‘How is it that this Judge would be called righteous, when he has willingly punished an innocent man for the crimes of others, letting them off the hook entirely?’
How can this be a righteous judge?
It even seems that Peter helps to expose the inequity here in our text where he quotes Isaiah back in verse 22,
“…He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.”
Now when Isaiah uses the word ‘violence’ he is referring to violation of the Law of God. He had done no violence to the Law; eg., He had not sinned.
The Holy Spirit then reveals that application to Peter and so he rightfully substitutes the word ‘sin’ in verse 22.
So even the Apostle is citing the absolute innocence of the One he says is our example. So we go on to examine this further.
The portion of Isaiah he has quoted is chapter 53 and the second part of verse 9. This is what he goes on to say in the first part of verse 10.
“But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering,…” Isa 9:b-10a
So in the portion that Peter quoted and what comes directly after, we see Christ’s innocence proclaimed, and the Father’s willingness to crush Him, that is, put Him to death, if He would offer Himself as a guilt offering for sin.
He did this in order to judge righteously, and still be able to righteously justify us who were the objects of His pleasure.
For clarification let me read a portion from Alan Stibbs’ comments on this same portion of scripture.
“In…the unique instance of our Lord’s passion, when the sinless One suffered as if He were the worst of sinners, and bore the extreme penalty of sin, there is a double sense in which He may have acknowledged God as the righteous Judge. On the one hand, because voluntarily, and in fulfillment of God’s will, He was taking the sinner’s place and bearing sin, He did not protest at what He had to suffer. Rather, He consciously recognized that it was the penalty righteously due to sin. So He handed Himself over to be punished. He recognized that in letting such shame, pain and curse fall upon Him, the righteous God was judging righteously. On the other hand, because He Himself was sinless, He also believed that in due time God, as the righteous Judge, would vindicate Him as righteous, and exalt Him from the grave, and reward Him for what He had willingly endured for others’ sake by giving Him the right completely to save them from the penalty and power of their own wrong-doing.” (“The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, The First Epistle of Peter” – Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971)
In brief, God imputed my sin to Christ’s account so that He could impute Christ’s righteousness to my account.
Christ was judged for all sin. All sin was condemned in Him. Therefore God is righteous in not now judging me since sin’s wage has been paid in full.
Therefore His judgment of sin in the body of His Son was a righteous judgment since He became sin for us (2 Cor 5:21), and the absence of His judgment against me is also righteous even though mine was the guilt, since it was all carried up to the cross and nailed there for me.
I am indebted to Him beyond measure.
HIS WOUNDS OUR HEALING
I want to jump to the final phrase of verse 24 and make sure we’re clear on that, so we can then back up and understand the context of what Peter is communicating.
There have been some, and are some, who take this phrase from 1 Peter 2:24, which is another of Peter’s usages of the prophet Isaiah, since it is borrowed from Isaiah 53:5, and they teach that the scourging Jesus received and the wounds He endured throughout His passion and death provided for our physical healing. So if we claim this one phrase in our praying, ‘by His wounds we were healed, therefore, Lord, heal me of (this or that)’ then we will receive physical healing.
Now I would never deny the power of God to heal the physical body, and I have in fact known of people to be healed of infirmities in answer to prayer.
But the fact that for His own purposes in situations which He chooses He can and does occasionally provide physical healing, does not make that application of this one phrase of 1 Peter 2:24 appropriate.
Peter is not talking about physical healing anywhere in this passage. In fact, this entire passage is teaching that there should be in our lives a willingness to suffer in His name and follow His example in suffering in obedience to Him who judges righteously. It is hardly conceivable that in the midst of this sort of exhortation he would encourage his readers to seek escape and deliverance from suffering by claiming some ‘magic bullet’ way out right in the middle of it all.
Now if we’re clear on what the phrase does not teach, we can reattach it to the previous statements and see what it does teach.
Peter says, ‘…for by His wounds you were healed”.
So back up just to the beginning of verse 24. “…and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,” Now this is very important…
‘…that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;”
Peter did not say that He bore our sins in His body on the cross ‘that we might have our physical infirmities healed’.
The application here is entirely spiritual. We were under an unbearable burden of sin. By unbearable I do not mean intolerable, like we might interchange the words and say, ‘Oh, my stomach ache is unbearable, or intolerable’.
It was literally a burden which we could not bear. It was un-bear-able.
How many sins does it take to make one a sinner? How many does it take to condemn a soul to Hell? How many sins must a man commit before he is rendered unclean and unacceptable to God?
Well, the answer is, only one. Yet we were burdened down with a weight of many sins. Lost to God and slaves to sin we rose up daily in our sin and added to its weight before the sun went down and the load was no lighter when we rose up the next morning. We were crushed under its weight and incapable of removing even one from the bundle for the slightest moment of relief.
But He bore our sins, all of our sins, your sins and every sin from Adam to the end of time, in His body on the cross. That weight of sin that had the creation itself groaning under the pressure of it, He bore in His body.
So that we could claim earthly wealth? So that we could claim earthly health? No. So that we could follow His example and die to sin and live to righteousness.
“…for by His wounds you were healed.”
He went deliberately to His arrest and suffering and crucifixion and received every wound so that spiritually you and I could be healed.
His wounds meant the shedding of His blood and without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin (Heb 9:22), therefore, it is not the fact of His wounds that is being emphasized in Peter’s words, but the fact of the shedding of His blood unto death, which provided for our forgiveness of sin,…
…which brings us to die to sin,…
…which frees us to live to righteousness!
OUR GREAT PASTOR AND OVERSEER
As he concludes this passage Peter once more refers to Isaiah 53, this time verse 6, so I’ll read that.
“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.”
In Matthew 9:36 the gospel writer tells us that as Jesus looked upon the multitudes He felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.
In John 10:14 Jesus said, “I am the good Shepherd, and I know my own and my own know Me.”
The word Peter uses here for Shepherd is used by Paul in Ephesians 4:11 for pastor.
This word translated Guardian is episkopos, which means bishop or overseer.
Be reminded please, that Peter began this last portion talking to servants in reference to their relationship to their masters, admonishing them to bear up patiently under unjust treatment, enduring suffering for the sake of a good conscience before God.
We are to have this attitude in us which was in Christ Jesus, because our Godly behavior and submission to the Lord’s will even in suffering will shut the mouths of ignorant men and will bring others to do as we have done in repenting and turning to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls.
We never amaze men at how happy and well-adjusted we can be when all is well and we are sailing along smoothly. But those who witness our lives as we bear up with gentleness and patience in the midst of suffering that appears unjust and undeserved will always be amazed.
Because, you see, demonstration of a desire to defend ourselves, to wiggle out of trouble, to seek deliverance, to grope after the slightest handhold to pull ourselves up and out of the situation, always focuses on self.
But when we patiently endure and the peace of God which passes comprehension guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus, (Phil 4:7), we will make them wonder why and we will find opportunities to tell them about the Great Shepherd who bore their sins in His body on the cross so that they might die to sin and live to righteousness.
More than that, we will find favor with God. Now I want to talk just for a minute about that word ‘favor’ back in verse 20 and we’ll close.
The word is charis. It means ‘grace’. It is the exact same word that is used throughout the New Testament for the word ‘grace’, and it is used 12 times as ‘favor’, in most cases in reference to finding favor with God in the sense of pleasing Him, which is the way we take it here in verse 20, which is the proper application as is made obvious in the context of what is being said.
But look at it this way also because this is a valid application.
Whenever God’s people undergo tribulation and trials and testings, and they put their trust in Him to be the righteous Judge and allow Him to be their defense and their vindicator, He will also give them grace, charis, for the moment.
Do not worry about tomorrow. Do not worry about the trouble that may come and whether you will bear it patiently with gentleness as the scripture exhorts you to do. Stay close to the Shepherd and Guardian of your soul, who carried your sins to the wood and took them away forever so that you too could die to sin and live to righteousness. If He has done all of that, surely, in your moment of trial, He will give you abundant grace to endure, and look on you with favor as you follow the example of His Christ
Remember the opening phrase of our text (vs 21a). “You have been called for this purpose”
Hear Oswald Chambers:
“To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God’s will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. Be merciful to God’s reputation. It is easy to blacken God’s character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Beware of the thought that Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from others because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood what He was going through. Notice God’s ’waste’ of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in some of the most useless places. We say, ’God intends me to be here because I am so useful.’ Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him most, and we are no judges at all of where that is.”
Jesus glorified the Father the most in the most unlikely place; He carried our sins to the wood and nailed them there.
In the day to day, moment by moment circumstances of our lives it is foolish to try to judge them by our standards; whether they are a blessing or a curse, whether God allowed them for this reason or that. We only see fragments.
All we can do, all we are called to do, is to say ‘this is what is happening’, or ‘here is where I am’, and for grace for the moment I return once more to the Shepherd and Guardian of my soul. This finds favor with God.
