[sunday meditations]

1 PETER 2:4-5

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

PETER LAYS THE FOUNDATION, so-to-speak, for what is to come. He’s about to look at the Christians’ social situation in the midst of persecution from a reworked point-of-view, shedding light on what’s going on as persecution draws near. How the Christians perceive themselves as persecution grows influences how they will hold up when the crap hits the fan. Thus far throughout the letter, Peter has been striving to orient the Christians’ mindset and behaviors around the death and resurrection of Christ and what that means from a cosmic perspective; he’s been encouraging the Christians to look at their world in a different light, a world in the light of the gospel. This world isn’t some pie-in-the-sky existence but a world that’s in the process of being reborn; not all is well, but the promise that it will be stands. It’s easy for Christians to waver under persecution when their worldviews haven’t been reshaped by the victory of Christ, and a healthy understanding of a world wedged between Easter and the Consummation gives strength to sturdy hearts. It’s for this reason that St. Peter looks at the Christians’ social situation from a renewed perspective, where one of the Christians’ greatest concerns—honor and shame—is both satisfied and vindicated.

1 Peter 2.4-10 is a goldmine ready to be plucked, if only we stop for a few moments to listen to the dimming echoes. Many commentaries skim over this passage, pointing out a scant few items-of-interest before getting into the “codes of conduct” coming on the heels of this text. While glossing over things we don’t understand can be tempting, we do so to our own disadvantage; and if we take the time to look at the passage in a fuller sense, not only do we find gems worth treasuring, but the rest of the letter begins taking on a new shape. Because there’s so much here to look at, we’ll be taking these verses in bits-&-pieces.

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“AS YOU COME TO HIM…” Peter isn’t addressing individual Christians but the church as a whole. He’s pointing to all the churches in Asia Minor, the Christian communities facing the onslaught of persecution, and he’s envisioning them as a single organism standing before God. The Greek verb he uses literally means “to approach or come near”, and in a strict sense it refers to someone approaching or entering a deity’s presence. The Septuagint used this word to describe the priest’s act of approaching God to worship and perform the priestly duties. In a more secular sense, however, the language swallowed up a “royal” tone, which isn’t surprising, since the Emperors welcomed (and, at times, demanded) worship as gods. The “coming near”, then, can be read in both a religious and political context. Which is it? The answer is both.

In the religious sense, the church comes before God as a body of priests. What this means will be fleshed out shortly, but a word: many commentaries will equate this “coming before” as a reference to acts of prayer, quiet times, and the like. Though these are all valuable practices, Peter envisions something much larger. The Greek verb is present-tense, indicating that this coming near to God is a habitual thing; not to say that it’s habitual in the sense of sporadic or scheduled, but that it is a continual and unbroken act. Any idea that the religious sense of this phrase is lost under the shadows of the political must make sense of the fact that in the same breath Peter identifies the church precisely as a holy priesthood.

This isn’t to say that the political sense of the word should be tossed aside. Remember that the gospel is primarily a kingly message: it is an announcement that Jesus Christ has defeated evil and death, that he is the King of the World and his kingdom is coming and is unstoppable. The political nature of the message can’t be lost: at the simplest level, if Christ is King, Caesar is not. And proclaiming that is High Treason. The royal images invoked by the Greek phrase take us straight to the royal throne room, where we’re kneeling before Christ who is King. Notice that Peter doesn’t say we’re coming to God but to Christ; we’re coming before the one who defeated death and evil and who stands over the kingdoms of the world. This “coming to Christ” is an act of submission, an act of professing our loyalty to him and his kingdom. It’s no accident that St. Peter takes the “holy priesthood” in 2.4 and reworks it into a “royal priesthood” in 2.9.

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THE RIDDLE OF THE STONES. Throughout this passage, Peter will draw out the metaphor of the stones from multiple angles (Christ is the Living Stone; he is the Corner Stone; and the church is comprised of living stones being built into the cornerstone). The repetitive use of the word “stone” (he uses it, or a variation of it, seven times) invokes the image of a building, and Peter narrows this focus down to the church as a “spiritual house”. With the priestly echo throughout all of this, it’s almost certain that Peter is referring to the church not simply as some “spiritual structure” as a nice analogy but, rather, to the church’s truest eschatological identity.

The structure Peter’s envisioning isn’t the Jerusalem temple built of brick and mortar but the temple reworked around Christ. On Messiah’s to-do list was the rebuilding of the Temple, and this “rebuilding” took place in a way wholly unexpected. All along the Temple pointed to Christ: Jesus didn’t rebuild it brick-by-brick but, rather, consumed the Temple in himself. The Temple with its sacrificial system pointed to him all along: the Temple was the place where God dwelt, the place where forgiveness of sins could be experienced, the place where God’s healing went out to the world. After Easter, the Temple served no purpose; its purpose and function had been swallowed up in Christ, and thus it was both rendered invalid and doomed to destruction for all the corruption that had happened within it (a destruction wrought-out by the Romans in A.D. 70). Now, the place where heaven and earth meets is Christ and, in a strange way that must be felt out with much fear and trembling, the church as well.

In the end God didn’t intend to rebuild Solomon’s Temple; no, he was going to replace the entire system with a renewed humanity in Messiah. In 2 Corinthians 6 St. Paul identifies the church as the new Temple, where God dwells in the Spirit, a people redefined around Jesus and hailing from all sorts of backgrounds. It is almost certain that this vein of thought is what Peter’s after, since the reworking of the entire sacrificial system around Christ is integral to what happened with the cross and resurrection.

Beginning here and all the way through verse 10, Peter takes language formerly applied to Israel and applies it to the Christians in Asia Minor. This harks back to his identification of Christians as “elect” in 1.1: Israel hasn’t been dismantled, nor has it been left untouched: it has been reworked around Jesus Christ, and the church is now Israel. The wording for “living house” can also refer to a large family or community, such as “the house of Israel”. Most likely Peter is playing on both the senses of the church as the temple and the church as a household (such as we find in 2 Samuel 7.5-16, a prophecy pointing towards Christ’s messianic rule). Taking Israel’s vocation and relocating it on the church in Christ, Peter writes that the Christians—living stones being built into a spiritual house—are to be a holy priesthood.

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THE CHURCH AS A HOLY PRIESTHOOD. The doctrine of the priesthood of believers is rarely addressed in Christian communities, and when it is, some parts of that doctrine are emphasized far more than others. Grasping the ins-and-outs of this doctrine can only be done when we grasp what it means to be a priest in the Jewish sense, since it is from this background that Peter writes.

Harking back to ancient Judaism, we find that priests served as mediators between God and the people of Israel. The functions of priests were many, but at the top of the list was the role of offering sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. While there were plethora priests in ancient Israel, there was only one High Priest, and this person would enter into the holiest section of the Temple and slay a bull for his own sins and a goat for all Israel, and he would sprinkle the blood throughout the Temple. At the heart of what it means to be a priest was to offer sacrifices on behalf of someone else (most Israelites made their own sacrifices and offerings for their own selves, but priests were those who interceded for others). In this sense priests were mediators between God and the people, standing “in the gap” as it were, between God and the wider world.

When we come to the New Testament, this train-of-thought isn’t abandoned but reworked. All those in Christ are priests, and Christ is the High Priest (Hebrews 4.14), since he offered to God the sacrifice of his own perfect self, so that he could make atonement for humanity and “bridge the gap” between God and the world. Peter’s identification of the church as a holy priesthood is yet another example of how defining “the people of God” has been wrapped around what Christ has done and will do: the original bearers of the title “kingdom of priests” were the people of Israel (Exodus 19.5-6), and now that title has been applied to those who are members of Christ.

Thus we have the doctrine of the priesthood of believers working on at least two levels: (1) the role of priests in the strictly religious sense, and (2) the nature of what it means for Israel to be a “kingdom of priests” and what that means (in both identity and practice) for Christians today. Fearing that I may be too brief, here are three different ways this doctrine fleshes itself out in the church:

Equal Access to God through Christ. Christ is the only mediator between God and man, and it is for this reason that Hebrews calls Jesus the supreme “high priest” who offered his own self as the perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 7.23-28). Christ’s sacrifice was a once-for-all sacrifice; because his sacrifice was perfect, it doesn’t need to be redone year after year as it was with the original system (which pointed to Christ all along, as it were). Because Christ’s sacrifice was perfect and complete, it guarantees that all those in him now have equal and unburdened access to God. All those in Christ are invited, even summoned, to come before God’s throne, without fear or terror, but with humble confidence and Christ-centered boldness.

Standing in the Gap. Looking at all Israel as a whole, we see that their identity as a “kingdom of priests” and as a “holy nation” (from Exodus 19) came with a certain responsibility, that of acting as God’s emissaries in bringing the world to God. In Romans 2.17-20, St. Paul draws upon this in his labels of “the Jew”: they were guides to the blind and lights to those in darkness. These identifications (or, rather, functions) are drawn from Isaiah 42.6-7 and 18-20: these are things the Israelites ought to be doing! “Salt of the Earth” and “Light of the World”: these weren’t pretty figures of speech invented by Jesus but ideas integral to Jewish identity. The people of Israel were to stand in the gap; like priests standing between God and the Israelites, so Israel as a whole was to stand between God and the wider world. God chose the people of Israel not just so he could have a people of his own possession (as if he were lonely and aching for friendship) but that so he could bring justice and healing to the world through them (as an aside, the Israelites failed miserably, and that’s one of the key reasons Jesus came: he was the perfect Israelite, doing for the world and for God what Israel was supposed to do but consistently failed to do). Christians with the privilege of access to God through Christ also have the responsibility, precisely as a holy priesthood, of standing between God and the world, inviting the world back to God. This is, in one sense, a call for evangelism; and in another, it is also a call to advocate justice and political responsibility.

Although we’re getting ahead of ourselves, in 1 Peter 2.9 Peter identifies the church as a royal priesthood and as a holy nation (harking straight back to Exodus 19, emphasizing again the point that the privileges and responsibilities of Israel have been relocated on Christ and those who belong to him). These royal undertones carry much meaning, and we’ll address them when we get to that part of the passage. Suffice it to say for the moment, the doctrine of the priesthood of believers involves not only privilege but also responsibility.

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OFFERING “SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES”. Christians are a holy priesthood, being built up into a spiritual house, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. When it comes to the nature of these spiritual sacrifices, there’s much ambiguity, and biblical scholars often find themselves overwhelmed by Peter’s vagueness. Traditionally-speaking, there have been two different takes on the sacrifices that Peter envisions.

Good Words. Looking forward to 1 Peter 2.9, we find that being a part of the royal priesthood and holy nation isn’t a private affair. Thus reducing the doctrine of the priesthood of believers to the single point of unfettered access to God through Christ misses the mark. Christianity has never been about a privatized, existential religious experience; it’s about the public proclamation of a historical event that has changed the course of world history, and Christians are to make this known. Christians have been compared to “trumpets and newspapers,” living and breathing news agencies proclaiming what’s happened in history, what that means for us in the present, and what that means for us (and our world) in the future. The spiritual sacrifices may very well be referring to the act of heralding the gospel.

Good Works. The ambiguity of Peter’s speech leads many scholars to embrace the phrase as a “blanket term” referring to one’s lifestyle. One of the responsibilities of kingdom-membership is the responsibility of embracing a new kind of living. This isn’t done simply to please God (as if by adhering to arbitrary rules and regulations we could appease him); while honoring God in our lives is certainly important, in the sense that our obedience does please God, living a holy lifestyle reaches beyond heaven’s doors and spreads throughout our own fallen world. The Christian lifestyle—mocked by some, despised by others, and cherished by fewer—ought to make people turn their heads, scratch their beards, and wonder what’s going on. When God’s people live out their identity in Christ, the end result is (hopefully) non-believers glorifying God on the day of his visitation (1 Pet 2.11-12).

While these two takes on “spiritual sacrifices” are wholly important, there’s a third option that’s been growing more popular: that this “spiritual sacrifice” is, quite literally, the sacrifice of one’s own mortal life. Thus far throughout the letter, Peter has spoken much of both Christ’s suffering and subsequent glories. These aren’t by-the-wayside quips but echoes of the Christians’ impending future: the onslaught of suffering with the promise of glory on the other side. We’ll do well not to forget the reason Peter’s writing this letter in the first place: to encourage and prepare the Christians for the impending persecution. In 2.20-25, he’ll write that Christians are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps; this isn’t so much a call to holy living as it is a call to suffering. As Christ suffered, so, too, his people will suffer; and when that happens, it isn’t something that should cause us to question God’s love: it is an unfortunate reality of what it means to be a person of God in a world that remains, for the most part, hostile to God and his ways. Much of the latter part of the letter, following the “codes of conduct” on the heels of 2.4-10, involves what it means to partake in both Christ’s sufferings and glory. Thus the “spiritual sacrifice” that Peter’s speaking of may very well be the sacrifice of one’s own life (with the promise of glory on the other side).

While it’s tempting to try and figure out which sense, exactly, Peter’s taking regarding “spiritual sacrifices”, the reality is that we simply don’t know. His language is vague, and it’s possible that Peter’s ambiguity is intentional, begging itself to be worked-out by those to whom the letter was written.

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We’ve covered much in 2.4-5, and there’s more to come. A synopsis of sorts would be beneficial, but for fear of being long-winded, perhaps it’d be best to simply (and humbly) rewrite 1 Peter 2.4-5 in a language we can understand:

As you kneel before King Jesus, who was rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s eyes, you are being built up together as a new temple, as a new community reworked around Christ, and your identity is Israel: a holy priesthood. As the reworked Israel, your privilege of covenant-membership comes with the responsibility of proclaiming the gospel, living a renewed lifestyle, and (if it comes to it) following in Christ’s footsteps by offering your own lives in obedience to God: for just as Christ suffered and was glorified, so, too, you may be called to embrace the same. (a paraphrase)