I'm taking these Sunday meditations in a different direction: a study of 1 Peter. I've been working on a study of 1 Peter off-and-on for the past two years, and in the process I've fallen in love with this little (yet bombastic!) letter. For the zero people interested in "background information" to 1 Peter, I've thrown together a 24-page document "setting the stage" for 1 Peter, and you can read it HERE. And now, without further (and unnecessary) ado, here's the first installment: 1 Peter 1:1-2.
1
PETER 1:1-2
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who
are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and
Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the
sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling
with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
St. Peter
begins his letter as all ancient documents
begin: a greeting including a mention of the Sender and the Recipient. He is
the Sender, and he identifies himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle
simply means “one who is sent,” and he is an apostle of Jesus Christ because it
is Jesus Christ who has sent him. We find this in several texts, not least in
the Great Commission at the end of the Gospel of Matthew: Jesus instructs his
disciples (of whom Peter is one), “Therefore go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matt
28.19-20, N.I.V.) This became Peter’s mission: to go and make disciples of
Jesus, which includes both being baptized and obeying Jesus.
Peter identifies himself as an apostle,
one sent with a mission, and he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. “Christ” is not Jesus’ surname, as if, in modern
times, he would be known as Mr. Christ. No, “Christ” is derived from the Greek
noun Christos, and it is the Greek
equivalent of the Hebrew “Messiah.” Jesus (of Nazareth) is the Christ (the
Messiah): the Christian conviction. Jesus is Messiah, and Peter is one of his
emissaries and ambassadors. After Peter identifies himself, he identifies those
to whom he writes.
Peter writes to the Christians in
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These were all eastern Roman
provinces, encompassing what in modern-times is Asia Minor (Peter’s Asian
recipients don’t stretch all the way to China). These provinces lie south of
the Black Sea and west of the Taurus Mountains, and the order in which Peter
writes these provinces is telling: if he were travelling from Rome, he would
reach Pontus first, Galatia second, Cappadocia third, and so on, reaching
Bithynia last. Most likely the bearer of the letter (St. Peter didn’t actually
go to these churches and read his letter; what point would writing a letter
then serve?) would’ve left Rome (from whence Peter wrote), sailed across the
Black Sea, unloaded at a port in Pontus, and gone province-to-province,
visiting the churches and reading the letter, then continuing on.
It’s interesting, to say the least,
that Peter doesn’t just say “to the Christians in the area of Asia Minor.” It
seems as if he is over-the-top extravagant in his identification of the
Christians: elect exiles, chosen according to God’s foreknowledge, in the
Spirit’s sanctification, for obedience to Jesus Christ (and for sprinkling with
Christ’s blood). Quite the mouthful! It would be easy if Peter just addressed
the letter to the Christians in Asia Minor and then trudged on to the “meat” of
his letter; but though there is more difficulty in understanding what he’s
saying, there are also rewards in the pursuit. What we find in 1 Peter 1.1-2 is
a lesson in Christian Identity.
* * *
The Quest for
Identity. We live in
a day-and-age when identity is the hippest fashion. Thanks to existentialist
philosophy, our western world is infatuated with identity and living in
accordance with that identity. “Authentic Living” is a phrase that means living
in rhythm with one’s identity. Not too long ago people took their identities
for granted, being given their identities by the groups and societies to which
they belonged, what sociologists have called their social identities. Now, however, people are on an ever-elusive
search to “find themselves.” We take this quest for granted without realizing
that, outside of the western world, it’s borderline unheard-of. The Quest for
Identity can easily become a god whom we worship, an idol which saps life from
our veins; and the quest can consume us to the point of absolute misery and
anxiety. If we are to humor the existentialists, we can one-up them: while most
people are left to their own devices to truly “discover themselves,” Christians
are given their identity, what we might call a metaphysical identity, from God. These are big words, so let’s
spell them out:
Metaphysical Identity. Our metaphysical identities are our identities at their
truest levels. One’s metaphysical identity is thus his truest identity. The
ancient Jews divided peoples’ metaphysical identities into three different
categories: (a) the people of God, (b) God-fearers (pagans who were favorable
towards Jews and their God), and (c) the Gentiles (the pagans, the citizens of
foreign nations, who worshipped other gods). Christianity divides peoples’
metaphysical identities into two categories: (a) the children of God and (b)
the children of darkness; it’s a contrast between those who are the people of
God in Christ and those who aren’t the people of God by virtue of not being in
Christ (be they Jew or Gentile). The New Testament uses all sorts of different
phrases to speak about these polar opposite identities, but the contrast
remains concrete. When we read 1 Peter 1.1-2, we find Peter addressing the
Christians in terms of their ultimate
identity, an identity defined by God, who—by virtue of being God—is the one
who determines peoples’ identities.
Social Identity. Our social identities are our
identities within culture. Different social identities exist in every culture
and subculture, and they encompass everything from one’s age and gender to
one’s occupation and social status. For instance, my current social identity is
a single, lower-class, 27-year-old male, a college graduate working in the
arena of social work. Our social identities change depending upon both culture’s
obsessions and with our circumstances. How does this relate to our metaphysical
identities? Our metaphysical identity is our truest identity; our social
identity is how people perceive us. Comparing me with the atheist across the
street, our social identities may be virtually identical, but our metaphysical
identities are polar opposites. One’s social identity isn’t intricately tied to
one’s metaphysical identity, though one’s metaphysical identity can influence
his or her social identity. The Christians in Asia Minor enjoyed a metaphysical
identity of being the children of God; but their social identities remained
integrated with Greco-Roman society, in the sense that they most likely worked
full-time jobs, had families, were of various social classes, male and female,
young and old, etc. We note, however, that there would be differences between
their social identities and those of the unbelieving populous by virtue of
their strange behaviors and refusal to worship pagan gods.
“Why in the world,” you ask, “is this
relevant?” It’s relevant because St. Peter is addressing the Christians of Asia
Minor in accordance with their metaphysical
identities. He does this because he recognizes that one’s metaphysical
identity is what matters; though one’s social identity may change (as we can
assume it would during persecution), the metaphysical identity remains intact.
Also, St. Peter encourages the Christians to understand themselves in light of
their metaphysical identities. He addresses them in this manner so that they will perceive themselves in the truest light. Again: how we
perceive ourselves directly influences how we conduct ourselves, and St.
Peter’s thoroughly practical admonitions find their roots when lived out from
the realm of metaphysical identity. Now let’s examine the key terms, and answer
the question, “What is St. Peter telling the Christians—and us—regarding their
metaphysical identity?”
* * *
An Exilic Sonnet. First, Peter
identifies the Christians in Asia Minor as “elect exiles.” Both of these words carried connotations obvious to
first-century hearers steeped in Jewish thought and stories, connotations which
are often lost to us today. The first word—“elect”—conjures up images of John Calvin and Reformed theology; but
what would it have drawn forth in the minds of the Asia Minor Christians?
To be “elect” means to be chosen by God; the Jews were God’s elect people
(Deuteronomy 4.37). God chose a people group—the descendants of Abraham—through
whom he would deal with the problems of the world. This people group—the
Jews—were chosen by no merit of their own but only by God’s uninfluenced
decision. Thus to be “elect” means to belong to the people of God, God’s chosen
people, the people whom God has chosen for himself and through whom he wishes
to effect change in the world. As we see again and again throughout the New
Testament, “The People of God” is reworked around Jesus; here we have the
Jewish designation of being “elect” being transferred to those—both Jew and
Gentile—who are in Messiah. By calling them the elect, Peter isn’t emphasizing
that God has chosen them (though this is certainly true) but that they are now the renewed people of God reconstituted
around Jesus the Messiah. This is their identity, and it is theirs
precisely because of their relationship with Messiah. All the titles and claims
previously enjoyed by the Jews by virtue (they assumed) of their ethnic
heritage have been shifted onto those who are now in Christ. The priviliges,
blessings, and (dare we say it) responsibilities formerly belonging to the
Israelites have now become centerpieces of Christian identity.
The second word—“exiles”—invokes
images of the previous Jewish captivities, namely the Egyptian captivity prior
to the Exodus, as well as the Babylonian captivity several centuries earlier.
Some have speculated that Peter calls them “exiles” because they are, in the
strictest sense of the word, “exiles”: because of the persecution they endured,
they were cast off to the margins of society. While this may very well be
happening, it makes better sense to pay attention to the multiplicity of
biblical echoes and allusions, especially to the Exodus (which we will see) and
to the Babylonian captivity (let’s not forget Jeremiah 29!), from which we
understand Christians to be “exiles” in light of their eschatological
situation.
When we bring both “elect” and “exiles” together, as Peter does here, what
do we have? We have the identification of Christians—both those in ancient Asia
Minor and ourselves in the 21st Century—as God’s chosen people who
are exiles in this present evil age. This leads right into his next
identification of Christians: they are of the dispersion.
* * *
Christians: The Re:worked Dispersion. The “dispersion” was a term
used to describe the faithful Jews who have been scattered outside Palestine.
In other words, it’s about the Jews who are living outside their true home,
Jerusalem, where God’s Home, the Temple, resides. Because of this, some
scholars have determined that the people to whom Peter is writing are chiefly
Jewish Christians scattered outside Palestine. However, we must keep in mind
that of all the apostles, minus St. Paul, Peter was the one with the most
outward-looking (i.e. Gentile) focus. The regions of Asia Minor to whom these
Christians reside weren’t Jewish regions but Gentile regions; while there
would’ve most certainly been Jews in these Christian congregations, these
churches wouldn’t have consisted entirely
of Jewish folk. A better route would be an awareness to how the early
Christians took Jewish titles and phrases and reworked them around Jesus (as
St. Peter did with “elect”), and to look for similar uses with the word dispersion. How might this apply to
Christians when reworked around Jesus?
Christians are “scattered” in the sense that they’re not living in their
true home, Heaven (which isn’t just the place we go when we die but the
“dwelling-place” of God, which he intends to wed with earth in the coming
future). Christians, scattered throughout a world which has yet to be wholly
redeemed, take on the title of the “Dispersion.” This grants us insight into
Christian identity: Christians find themselves truly “at home” not in this
current world, a world plagued with death and decay, suffering and loss, but in
the coming world, where Heaven and earth will be fused together in such a way
that all the evil, pain, and miseries of the present order will be done away
with once-&-for-all. One might say that Christians are “homeward-bound”:
not a reference to the popular talking-animals movie that everyone loves but to
the fact that we’re not yet home but journeying in that direction. Pretending
otherwise—claiming, as it were, that this world is, as it stands, our home—is
to connive with the forces of death and destruction.
At this point, Peter has addressed the Christians as those who are chosen
by God, scattered about this present evil age and living as exiles in the
region of Asia Minor. He goes on to say that they are chosen (“elect”) by the foreknowledge of God the Father.
* * *
A Territorial Morass. Here we are
again, waste-deep in a territorial stand-off. The recent divisions between
Calvinists and Arminians erect wildly different understandings regarding what
it means to be chosen by God’s foreknowledge. One’s leaning towards the camps
of “predestination” (in the Calvinist sense) and “free will” (in the Arminian
sense) influence how one understands this text. The unfortunate reality is that
when it comes to determining which persuasion is correct, no one really knows:
both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps a better route
would be that of “calminianism”: the belief that God chooses us and we choose
God, and the ultimate question—“Who chose whom?”—is done away with as a
nonsensical question, similar to the chicken-&-the-egg conundrum. The
overarching point Peter’s making is that the Christians’ identity isn’t
determined by what society says about them—a good lesson in light of the common
slanders hurled at them—but by what God
says about them.
Society often assumes it has the authority to determine one’s true
identity (and, likewise, we often
assume we have the authority to determine our
own identities), but God trumps both society and ourselves, because he is
both (a) the ultimate Knower of our true selves (enough introspection reveals
we really don’t much about who we really are; our hearts are deceptive, and who
can know them?); and God is (b) the one who holds the power not just to
identify one’s identity but also to change
one’s identity. Because God is the ultimate Knower, and because his very speech
brings something out of nothing (creation ex
nihilo, anyone?), he is the one who has the sole authority to determine
one’s identity.
Christians are the elect exiles of God solely
by God’s designation. He has chosen Christians, and Christians have chosen
him, and our identities are cemented in what God has declared to be true. This
provides a well of relief to the anxious existentialist who can’t, for the life
of him, determine his true identity. The scriptures tell Christians (and non-Christians)
who, precisely, they are; and Christians are the elect exiles of God, chosen by
him; and their choosing is done in the sanctification of the Spirit.
* * *
The Sanctification of the Spirit. The understanding of this phrase hinges upon both the understanding of
“sanctification” and “Spirit.” Sanctification is a Christian term speaking to
two realities: (a) being made holy and (b) advancing in the practice of
holiness. The salvation of human beings is the rescue and renewal of human
beings precisely as human beings.
Often this point’s forgotten, as if humans are saved just so their souls can go
and be with God following death.
The Real Story goes something like this: God created a strange creature,
Human, whom he created for the sole purpose of advancing his creative and
loving rule through the cosmos. Human rebelled against God and lost the imprint
of Human on its identity; mankind in rebellion against God, foreigners to grace
and mercy and salvation, are sub-human. This is to say that such folk aren’t
fully human, since the essence of humanity involves submission to and loyalty
before God. In Christ, however, there’s rescue and renewal; in a word,
restoration. Sub-human creatures are transformed into fully Human creatures.
This transformation begins at what’s called regeneration: the point at which
God remakes human beings. The language of being “born again” speaks to this
reality. Sanctification involves both one’s status
before God (from which we derive our true identities) and one’s behaviors (how
the redeemed human being lives his or her life). The person who has experienced
regeneration has been sanctified (made holy); but the practice of this new
identity is progressive, so theologians like to call it progressive sanctification.
All that aside, here we find Peter focusing on the first aspect of
sanctification: the “being made human once again” aspect. Progressive
sanctification—living, in greater degrees, as humans were made to live—is a lifelong
process that won’t be completed until the resurrection of the dead. When Peter
identifies Christians as those who are sanctified, he’s saying that Christians
are those who are truly human beings, living in a world full of sub-human human
beings.
This sanctification isn’t accomplished by human beings trying to be better
or by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. This is done, rather, by
the Spirit: God’s Spirit, a.k.a. “The Holy Spirit” or “The Holy Ghost”,
accomplishes this changing of identity, the transformation from sub-human to
human. And while Christians do
participate in progressive sanctification, the Spirit isn’t forgotten: he
remains an integral part of the process. The Spirit is there at the beginning,
in the middle, and at the end, when he’ll breathe over the world once more,
renewing both it and human beings fully and finally.
Thus far we have the identity of Christians as such: God’s chosen people,
living in a world that’s not their eschatological home, and these people are
marked as genuine human beings by virtue of what the Spirit has accomplished.
God’s choosing of Christians is done in the sanctification of the Spirit, and
it’s for obedience to Jesus Christ.
* * *
Obedience: A Word That Makes Us Cringe. The word “obedience” has a jagged history in our individualist,
revolutionary-infused culture, and its abuses have colored our understanding of
the term. The word dredges up images of tyrannical dictators and ruthless
tyrants demanding obedience from their subjects, threatening them with
punishment and even death if they forego obedience; how different is our
perception of God being this Deity in the Sky, demanding we conform to his
rules, the threat of Hell looming over our heads with each misstep?
The language of obedience rightly draws forth royal tones, a king
demanding obedience from his subjects. Messiah is truly the king of the world,
and Christians are his rightful subjects, calling people everywhere to
submission to the true King of the World. At the same time, we must note that
Messiah as king is wildly different from what the world has seen in her kings:
Messiah’s kingship is marked by love and generosity, by faithfulness and
gentleness, peace and justice. Christians are called to obey the king who
sacrificed himself for his rebellious subjects, the king who subjugated himself
to the punishment of rebellion in his own kingdom, the king who continuously
intercedes for his subjects, showering them with grace, grace, and more grace.
This obedience isn’t an obedience to some abstract list of dos and don’ts;
rather, it is an obedience to what it means to be truly human, submitting
oneself to God as is fitting and living as is fitting for genuine human beings.
St. Peter adds one more tag-on to his identification of the Christians in
Asia Minor, and we’ll get to that in a moment. At this point we have the
Christians identified as God’s chosen people, living in a world that is not
their own, truly human beings by virtue of the Spirit’s work, and living in
obedience to Jesus Christ. This metaphysical identity should be turned to again
and again as a “refresher” for those of us who are embroiled in existential
angst over truly “finding ourselves,” and also because much of Christian
identity has been boiled down to nothing more than “forgiven sinners,” which is
sad because (a) there is so much more to Christian identity than that (as we
have seen), and (b) how we perceive ourselves influences how we live our lives.
Perception and Praxis (which is the practice of life) are tightly
interwoven. Christians, perceiving themselves as no more than sinners saved by
grace, will often become encumbered by sin; they will indulge sin more and more
frequently, shouting “Grace!” from the rooftops (as some of the Roman
Christians did, only to receive a vicious slap from Paul in Romans 6 and a
reminder of their true identity as God’s slaves). How we perceive ourselves
influences how we live, not least how we live as Christians. St. Peter’s
identification of the Christians in the area of Asia Minor enables us,
centuries later, to rework how we perceive ourselves, with the result that this
tweaking of our perception will influence the manner in which we live. We’re
not merely “forgiven sinners,” we are children of God, elect exiles, sanctified
in the Spirit and to pursue obedience to Jesus Christ. And all of this is a
reality thanks to “the sprinkling of the blood.”
* * *
The Sprinkling of the Blood: The Glue Holding It All
Together. Peter
brings the Christian identity to a head with the cryptic phrase: “for the
sprinkling of his blood.” Scholars virtually agree that this doesn’t refer to
the atonement as such, but is, rather, an echo of Exodus 24, where the covenant
is inaugurated and the people are splashed with the blood of a sacrificed
animal to sanctify them for their service to God. This sprinkling, when applied
to Christians, is a daily event in the heavenly Temple: Christians are daily
sprinkled with the blood of Christ, daily sanctified for their service (that
is, obedience) before God. Guilt-and-Shame hangovers become mere psychological
baggage in the face of this daily sprinkling. As the prophet Jeremiah said in
Lamentations, God’s mercies are anew each morning, and his faithfulness has no
limit. Daily he cleanses our guilt. Daily he cleanses our conscience. Daily he
sanctifies us for his service. To wallow in guilt and humiliation over our
personal failures is to turn a blind eye to God’s grace; the sprinkling of the
blood, with the consequent washing and renewal we experience daily, should
dredge forth from us much rejoicing and gratitude.
This multi-faceted cleansing lies at
the heart of sacrifice, and it is that which sanctifies the Christian and
cements his or her metaphysical identity in Messiah. Christians sin and stumble
and fall all the time, and each time we experience God’s grace and mercy. Our
metaphysical identities are not called into question by our failures to live in
light of our true identities, but this shouldn’t prod us towards flippant
living but to deepening devotion to Christ.
* * *
The Blessing. Peter closes off his greeting by wishing
them both grace and peace. Over against those who claim that, because of
Peter’s use of “Diaspora,” he is writing solely to Jewish Christians, the
incorporation of “grace” into the greeting magnifies that the churches, at
least, have Gentiles within them. “Grace” was a common Greek greeting (as
“peace”, see below, was a common Jewish greeting); by incorporating both, he is
including both Jews and Gentiles as the recipients of the letter, identifying
them both as elect exiles and as
members of the Diaspora. Grace isn’t some mystical, super-spiritual matter that
can be applied to our souls; despite what some might think, it isn’t some sort
of immaterial “stuff.” Rather, it is God’s disposition of mercy and love
manifested in our daily lives. Thus God’s “grace” is his benevolent and loving
disposition towards his people, which is manifested again and again in his
forgiveness, washing, and renewal of our hearts, minds, and souls. Peter wishes
that the Christians will experience, more and more, God’s benevolent
disposition as it works itself out in their own lives. “Peace” is a typical
Jewish greeting at whose heart lies the Hebrew word shalom. It’s been a traditional Jewish greeting since the days of
the Old Testament (Numbers 6.24-26). This peace isn’t just the absence of war
or noise; it is God’s gift of harmony with not just himself, but with others
and with ourselves. Peter’s wish is that all will be well with the Christians,
especially in their relationships with God and with one another—a deeply-felt
wish with persecution rising up like an ominous beast from the sea.
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