New Thoughts: (11/23/13-11/26/13)
Verse 9 is packed, isn’t it? It is loaded with Old Testament citations, and also with terms that we might easily fail to properly understand. I think particularly of the familiar KJV rendering of this with its phrasing of ‘a peculiar people’. A flag was raised for me when I arrived at the Douay-Rheims, where I read “a purchased people.” Another flag was thrown when I saw this in the Good News Translation. “But you are the chosen race.”
So, then, a situation I still find rather surprising when dealing with Peter, the simple fisherman turned preacher: It seems that nearly every word in this passage deserves a look, to make certain of his meaning. But, let me deal with these first two issues. As to being the chosen race, rather than a chosen race, my first observation is that there is no article there, anarthrous or otherwise. As such, it would seem odd to suppose the presence of ho. I see that the majority of translations supply the more reasonable ‘a’. Honestly, when I read that the way the GNT phrases it, it makes me think of history, of a time when Germany arose with this heightened, exaggerated sense of themselves as the perfect race. Oh, yes. We are the chosen race. All others are clearly inferior. But, such a mindset is excluded for the people of God. Indeed, we know better than any that our status as a chosen race is not due to anything in us that might recommend us to God’s attention, but wholly because of His choice, His will, His mercy. I could almost suspect that this is why Peter continues with verse 10. You were once not even a people at all (rather, many different and distinct peoples), but now you are God’s people, united. You had never known mercy, but now you have received mercy. Those two go hand in hand, don’t they? You would not have been made part of God’s people apart from God’s mercy. It’s not what you deserved or earned. It’s what you received gratis.
As to that first bit, about being a peculiar people, I think maybe the authors of the KJV were concerned about a certain potential squeamishness on the part of their audience, particularly, we might suppose, James himself. The Douay-Rheims is much nearer the mark with this rendering of ‘a purchased people’. This, too, reinforces the fact of God’s control of the situation, and removes any leg pride might stand on. You are a nation, now, but only because God bought you. Yet, there is this: He bought you for Himself. Yes, you do well to consider yourselves bondservants in His household, especially when you consider the price He paid for your person. Yet, bear this in mind, as well, lest you become abject in your service: You are a chosen race. That much still applies.
Let me unpack that just a bit. You are elected. In other settings, we might say you have been culled out as best of breed, but I don’t think we want to go there in this case. No. It’s more the fact that whereas your ethnicity is an accident of birth, and to some degree your nationality is likewise merest coincidence of locale, your inclusion in this race, a new genus, is by choice. It is not your own choice, no, but it is by choice. God has selected you for inclusion. He has demonstrated this through that rebirth of which Jesus spoke. “Unless a man be reborn, he cannot see God’s kingdom” (Jn 3:3). Do you see the significance of this? Called to become a new genus, a new race, even a new species, how else can this come about except through birth? We do not choose to be in this race, we are elected to it, chosen for it, appointed to it. Roman citizenship could come either by birthright or by purchase. Kingdom citizenship comes solely by election, and election solely by the grace of God.
So: We’ve made it through the first clause. On to the second: You are a royal priesthood. Here, again, we suffer a bit of confusion. What does this mean, ‘royal priesthood’. Are we intended to think about that age-old division of priest and king, the role only united together in Christ? In Him alone do we see the office of the King joined together with the office of the High Priest. To be sure, we also see in Him the Chief Prophet, but it is the two former offices that are set before us here.
The question that comes to mind is whether Peter intends to say that we are such a priesthood as is suited to the king’s house, or in this case, the King’s house. Or, does he indicate a theocratic rule being set up with us at the helm? It is one of those phrases that make us feel all warm and fuzzy, yet when it comes to setting forth what it means or what it entails, we are at a loss. Fortunately, we have access to lexical experts who can help us get the intended meaning straight.
Turning to my usual sources, I find a couple of points made about this particular combination of words which are truly striking. Zhodiates tells us that this really does present us with a priesthood ‘called to royal dominion’. So, then, we are the Christian equivalent of the mullahs over in Iran? We are setting up yet another theocracy? Well, no. We are not setting up anything. We have no King but Jesus. The last thing we need is a bunch of partially matured Christians with delusions of grandeur being inflected on the earth. No, and yet, yes. Thayer offers this point. We are a priesthood exalted to such degree as ‘exempts [us] from the control of everyone but God and Christ’. Inasmuch as this keeps us mindful of our true King, I am thankful for it. Inasmuch as it proclaims the true freedom of Christian conscience, I am thankful for it. To the degree, however, that our fallen natures take advantage of the truth of it to allow for all manner of spiritual abuse, I find it disturbing.
We have plenty of believers today, and I will even allow that they are true believers, who lay hold of this exemption from control to justify all manner of behaviors which, if not outright sinful, are surely offensive and obnoxious. All manner of restraint is shaken off as legalism, and no thought at all, it seems, is given to the unchanging Law of God. It’s a Spirit-led free-for-all, in which whatever seems good to a man, so long as he can lay claim to having felt God said to do it, is done. If the leadership of the local body does not concur, they are clearly hide-bound and all but dead, having lost their first love. After all, what right does one servant have to bind the conscience of another? And, more in keeping with this current clause, if I have royal dominion, answering to none but God and Christ, why should I listen to you? Go rule over your own domain and leave me to mine.
But, stop! While this seems the likely outcome of a body of believers caught on the clause of the royal priesthood, Peter in no wise leaves the door open for such thinking. He moves immediately to clause number three: “a holy nation.” We’ve moved from genos to ethnos. We are a race, as Strong’s tells us, with the same habit. It’s not just birth location. Here in the US, we have the law stating that any child born within our borders is thereby a citizen of this nation. Whatever his parents’ situation, he is an American. This is distinct from genos, which is a matter of race. And, that distinction is rather important in this context. It is particularly poignant as applied to those the letter first addresses. You are in many kingdoms within Asia Minor. You come from many distinct racial backgrounds. You don’t look the same. You didn’t grow up with a common history, a common social structure. But, now, you are first one genos, a new race as I spoke of above, but you are also a single ethnos, a nation sharing common habits, history, and norms.
I was reading an article from R.C. Sproul last night, and he wrote about the experience of preaching in Eastern Europe, in countries freshly released from the enforced atheism of Soviet Russia. There, in a place where language prevented verbal communication, where thoroughly orthogonal threads of experience, and diverse conditions prevented any normal sense of sameness, yet there was a common bond. That common bond had nothing to do with society or with social status. It had nothing to do with national boundaries or politics. It had to do solely with the love of Christ, the bond of the Spirit; with being members of the same chosen race, the same holy nation. He wrote of exactly what Peter describes here.
Now, having noted that ethnos is indicative of a people with common habit, what is that habit in this case? It’s clearly specified. They are holy. They are, as I have often noted in regard to that word, set apart for God’s exclusive use. They serve no other, will be used by no other. They are His and His alone. And, to stress that point, Peter moves on to his fourth clause. You are God’s own possession. Why? Because you are a people paid for by Him. He has purchased you. Let go of that idea of being peculiar, especially since we generally associate that word with being weird. You are not called to be weird. You are called to be holy. You are called to God’s service, not silliness.
But, understand, too, that Peter has once again shifted terms here. We started as a genus, a race reborn. We were formed into an ethnos, a nation defined by the common characteristic of holiness. Now, we are a laos, a people of one stock, one language. We are a people not only with common habits, but with common bonds. Whereas ethnos, on the Jewish tongue, would typically indicate the Gentiles, the heathens, laos was the term for themselves, God’s chosen people. See, where Peter is going with this. YOU are God’s chosen people. Now, then: We know from Paul’s accounts the degree to which this message faced opposition from the local Jewish populations. So, Peter, the Apostle to the Jews, brings forth proof for his point from the Prophets. Indeed, the great bulk of this passage strings together a combination of Law and Prophets, and a bit of the Writings mixed in. But, here: “You once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” Laos.
This is straight out of Hosea, who had prophesied when Israel was returned from Babylonian exile. Yet, those who returned from that exile were already, by common understanding, the people of God’s own choosing. They had known this for centuries, and would continue to know it for centuries hence. Indeed, to our own day, they continue to know this. But, they fail to note that this message from Hosea was not simply for them. It was pointing forward, as Table Talk has been discussing this month, to a time beyond what was, in reality, the continued exile of Israel, even though in their own lands. A light shines in darkness. A people sitting in great darkness has seen a great Light. Their prophets were forever pointing beyond the national boundaries, proclaiming with great clarity that God’s choice extended beyond the twelve tribes, that He was, is and ever shall be the God of all peoples, all nations, all the earth, all the universe. And, if there is something beyond the universe, some multiverse such as certain folks propose, He is God throughout that spectrum as well.
So, then, you up there in Asia Minor, you here in America, you over in Africa and Asia; the geography doesn’t matter! The political boundaries don’t matter. The linguistic barriers don’t matter. You are, by God’s choice, one race, one nation (God’s Kingdom), one people. Wherever you were born, however you grew up, whatever your past; your present is this: He bought you. He redeemed you. He saved you. He sanctified you. He adopted you! You are now part of this new genus for whom not only have geographical, societal and racial boundaries been erased, but even temporal boundaries do not truly separate us. We are part of that community of true faith which extends all the way back through history, and which will extend right up through the day of Christ’s return.
When I attempted my own paraphrase of these clauses, I arrived at the following. You are an elected family, a priesthood “called to royal dominion,” exalted to such degree as ‘exempts them from the control of everyone but God and Christ’, appointed a people or nation joined by common bonds. Elected family: Not an accident of birth, as if there were any such thing. No. Your Father, God Himself, decided He wanted you in His family – you personally! As a priesthood, we have no King but Jesus, answer to no voice which is not His. This is not to say that we ignore our elders, or those set as shepherds over us. Far be it from us! The preacher preaches under the hand of the Holy Spirit. Shall we despise to be guided by him? The elder serves, as best he may, under the guidance of that same Holy Spirit. Insofar, then, as our leaders follow God and Christ, we who are exempt from any control but God and Christ can hardly suppose ourselves exempt from those He authorized as our leaders. We are a people, a nation, joined by the common bond of that holiness which God both has produced in us, and is producing in us. We are united by our unfinished state. We are united by our burning desire to be nearer daily to that which God would have us to be.
Now, I think, we can finally move on to the second half of the verse, for there is yet another thing that unites us: We were bought for a purpose. We are priests with a message. We are chosen, Peter says, to proclaim. The NCV actually starts a new sentence at this point to help drive the message home. “You were chosen to tell.” Here, there is a clear echo of the short ending of Mark’s gospel, as Pastor Dana was preaching yesterday. “Go, tell His disciples”, that He is alive and will see them. “And they went.” But, “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mk 16:7-8). And here is Peter, the presumed source of Mark’s information, telling us, “You are a God’s own possession, having been bought by Him, and He paid for you for a specific purpose: To proclaim His excellencies; to declare the great good news of Him who called you out of darkness; to tell those still in the dark that there is a Light.” Go! Shout for joy! Tell them how you who were once no people are now God’s people. Tell them of the mercy you received from on high. Let them taste and see that the Lord is good by what they see in you.
Here, the New Living Translation puts a slightly different slant on the thing. “As a result, you can show others the goodness of God.” There is that. Apart from God at the helm, apart from His election, His salvation, His sanctification, we are in no position to advertise His goodness. Our best efforts, to the degree that they are our efforts, are yet of no more value than filthy rags. But, as He works in us? As He shines abroad in our hearts? As He pours out His love into these frail vessels? Well! His love cannot but overflow from us into the world around us. His Light cannot but burst forth from our beaming faces. You and I both know it ought not to even cross our minds to try and hide away our faith, and yet we also both know that we do just that. We know, deep down, that the effort is not only futile, but downright rebellious, and yet we do it. But, we do it with utmost ineffectualness. God’s Light cannot be hidden. His call cannot be silenced.
I like this about the NLT’s offering. It does not say that you do show, but that you can. Because of God, you are able to represent God. Because He is in you, you can show Him outwardly. Because He has cleaned the inside, is constantly cleaning the inside, you have the possibility of showing a clean exterior to a world accustomed only to dirt. You don’t have to be peculiar / weird. You just have to be, as best you can, a true representative of the heavenly courts, a truly royal priest, answering to God’s call, directed by His impulse. The world will see, and amongst those who see, there will be those who hunger after more.
So, then, we are a holy nation which He has purchased as His own. One cannot consider His purchase of us apart from the price He paid, the death of His own Son, His only Son. We are bought at great price by this holy God, and through Him we are made (not becoming, made) a holy nation. Does that, then, indicate that we are now holy as He is holy? Clearly not. Does it indicate that we should be? Oh, yes! How shall we proclaim His excellencies, who proceed through life as though nothing had changed? If His sanctifying work is not clearly evident in our lives, what cause do we give anybody to believe He is great? No, it is not a question of walking in perfection. It cannot be, for perfection achieved by us would obviate the price He paid for us as having been unnecessary and foolish on His part.
He Who has purchased, though, surely has the right to determine our actions henceforth. Just as our employers are granted the right to determine our labors so long as we continue in their pay, and so long as such determinations are in accord with law; so God, our Lord and King as well as our primary employer, has the right to determine our labors, for He has paid for an eternity of service from us. Our assigned labors have been declared here: Go proclaim. Tell what has been done for you and by Whom. Let the world know that there is hope, that there is mercy, that all is not lost.
And yet, this comes under the introductory point, “You are a royal priesthood.” Two questions arise for me on reading that statement. The first has to do with the office. If we consider the threefold authority structure God has set in place, we have the prophet, the priest and the king. The king is understood to be the civil authority. But, how do we divide prophet and priest, as to their duties? One common understanding is that the priest bears the words, the burdens, and the offerings of the people before God, whereas the prophet speaks to the people on God’s behalf. I have heard it described thusly: That when the pastor prays on behalf of the congregation, he serves as priest, and when he delivers the sermon he serves as prophet.
If this is our understanding, though, does it not seem more fitting that Peter would be speaking of royal prophets proclaiming His glories to the nations? The priest ought rightly to be focused the other way, serving God, praising Him, giving offerings to Him. Can it be that the praises God really desires are those spoken not to Him but of Him? Can it be that the greatest, most pleasing sacrifice we can offer to God is to spend our time reaching out to those still waiting to be a people?
The second question I might ask about this has more to do with my own outlining of the letter. I have set this passage under the head, ‘The Response of Holiness’. How, then, does Peter pointing to my being a priest answerable to God alone, amidst a nation set apart for His use alone impact my response? What would constitute a holy response to this point, to this God? If I bring forward the Old Testament strictures upon the temple and its service, I can certainly say that the priest who would serve a holy God must himself be holy. If we would come into the presence of this God who abides no sin, surely all sin must have been removed from us, else we are dead men.
Praise God we abide in the grace of Christ Jesus, that our Lord God is pleased to look upon us through the lens of His Son, seeing not our own unfinished and unholy state, but the perfection of Christ Himself, the Righteous One Who gave Himself that we might live. Yet, grace did not dispense with the Law, only restored it. Grace does not grant permit for sin, only pardon. We are a royal priesthood. Be very mindful that this is stated as fact. It is as finished as our salvation. It is not, however, any sort of guarantee that we are going to act in ways befitting such a priesthood. Israel had centuries to walk in the knowledge of being God’s chosen nation, yet they failed at every turn to live as proper ambassadors of heaven’s King. We are foolish, honestly, to suppose we will do better unless God Himself does the work in and through us.
The good news for us is that He does just that! Go back to the previous section. He is building the temple, not us. Like the altars of old, where men were instructed not to try and improve on the rocks God provided lest they defile them by their efforts, so it is God, working with the living stones of our lives, Who alone builds His temple. When we attempt to take matters into our own hands, convinced we know better how to shape ourselves for His service; that is exactly when we defile ourselves. It is an odd thing that the harder we work at making ourselves well suited for His use, the less useable we become.
Yet, the fact remains: Representatives of a holy God must themselves be holy, just as the temple of a holy God must be holy. So, then, what is the response of holiness? Surely, it is that we do our utmost to be holy! But, Jeff, doesn’t that run counter to what you just said? Why, yes it does – after a fashion. If, in our pursuit of holiness, we are seeking to be good as we measure goodness in our own eyes, we are all but assured of failure. Our eyes see primarily our reputation, seek primarily our good. That is a very different matter than what God declares good and holy and true. We draw closer to His definitions, Lord willing, but we remain far from marksmen in that respect.
Yet, where our Master is provoking change in us, where He is fashioning the rock of our lives to better fit His plan and purpose, we who would be His holy representatives must surely do what little we can to, if not aid His work, at least try not to hinder His work. We are called to resist the devil, that he might flee. It seems, though, that we expend a great deal of energy resisting God, lest we be well and truly changed. Yet, that change is our greatest desire! We know these things ought not to be, and yet, we know they are this way. We want so much to be the holy representatives God desires, yet we would prefer it if we were somehow not too terribly involved in that business.
Truth be told, we aren’t too terribly involved in that business. Sanctification is as much a monergistic enterprise as was salvation. And yet, it is also our command. Work out your salvation. Labor to be clean. Strive towards the goal. All of these are exhortations to exertion. And all of these are the Word of the very God Who Himself is working in us. Listen! “He gave Himself for us so as to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for Himself a people that are His own, who are zealous for good deeds” (Ti 2:14). See the great truth that He purifies for Himself a people. See the great price He paid to thus redeem us from sin’s dominion. And then see the response of holiness.
Notice this: The response of holiness is not, in this instance, a striving to make oneself holy. No! The response of holiness is zealousness to do good deeds. The response of holiness is to proclaim how great God is. The response of holiness is evangelism. That’s going to make some of us uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. Evangelism requires going out and telling folks about God, folks who by and large probably don’t want to hear it. Evangelism means there’s likely going to be a lot of rejection, a lot of ridicule. At least that is the perception we have, I have.
But, doesn’t that perception fail to take into account the very One of Whom I would speak? If He has sent me, and by His own Word, He promises He shall give me words, is it not quite likely that those efforts will bear fruit? Even if those efforts prove fruitless, I have more than enough from His own teachings to make clear to me that the fruit produced is sufficient, and is pleasing in His sight. Cast the seed. Speak the Word. Be ready in season and out. Be not ashamed of the Gospel, though it is to the lost the stench of death. Yet, it is the power of salvation to those whom the Father is pleased to call.
Evangelism is everybody’s business. To be perfectly honest, I would just as soon not say that. I would rather assign it to those with the particular gift, or those called to that office. I’ll pray for them, help fund them, maybe pick up the discipleship process for those who respond. But, go out there and preach Christ on a cold call? My flesh says no. My Lord says yes. He Who bought us sends us, and shall we deny Him the right? Shall we dictate to Him the schedule? Shall we refuse His command and suppose ourselves yet deserving of His blessing?
This is the very simple statement that seems to me to sum up Peter’s line of thought here. “You are that you may.” You are all these things. God has seen to it. He has decreed it, and it’s backed by the full faith and credit of heaven itself. You are. Not, you are becoming. Not, some of you will eventually be. No! You are. But, it’s to a purpose. It’s not just for the tingly sensations. It’s not, surely not, so that we can boast of our status in His courts. Far be it from us! No, it is very clearly, in order that you may. You may what? You may obey. You may go. You may tell. You may represent.
Back when we were yet in darkness, there was no may. There was no least possibility of granting any degree of service to the God of heaven. There wasn’t any way we were going to go along with any plan of His. It was, quite simply, impossible. We could no more obey Him than acknowledge Him. Martin Luther wrote of the bondage of the will, as things stand before election. Where God has not called, we are blind to all that is good. How could we possibly choose that of which we are entirely unaware. We knew only sin and so sin was the only possible choice for us to make. What else was there? It is only after the blinders have been removed, when the knowledge of good begins to be added to the knowledge of evil; it is only when Light has shone into our darkness; that we see this better way that Christ has opened to us. Now, there is a choice. We may. It is assuredly not guaranteed that we will, not every time. I would say that there is a guarantee that the arc of our growth will trend nearer to doing that which we now may. But, the old man clings. Old habits die hard. Or, if we simply let our own Lord and Master declare it, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41).
But, now we may. Now there is hope. Now there is the chance, the opportunity, that we might serve God in the manner He Himself finds pleasing. You are holy. You are not holy because you have finally got your act together. You are holy because Christ has made it so. You are holy because God has sovereignly determined to make you part of His temple, has sovereignly sent His own Holy Spirit to take up residence in that temple. You are holy because Christ Jesus has paid the full cost of your cleansing. And now, made holy by a holy God, respond.
