Last week we looked at 1 Peter 1, and this week, we’ll look at 1 Peter 2. We also took a bite from Paul’s plate last week, and we’ll do the same a little bit today as well. It’s hard not to; like I said last week, Paul did write half of the New Testament. So having said that…
We have two scriptures. The first is from Galatians 2:15-21; then we’ll look at what Peter had to say––ironically, also to the Galatians as well as other churches spread throughout the Middle East and Asia, in 1 Peter 2:21-25.
So if you have your Bible and you want to follow along, it’s Galatians 2, and then 1 Peter 2.
As you’re turning there, we pick up in Galatians at a point where Paul is telling them about a confrontation he had with Peter. If you read a few verses above, Paul uses the name Cephas, which is the Aramaic name for Peter.
So, Peter went to Paul’s church in Antioch and feared certain Jewish elite Christians and what they thought about these Gentile Christians. So out of fear, Peter separated himself from the Gentiles and sat with only the Jewish Christians because the Jewish elite Christians believed they were truly saved because they not only believed in Christ but also followed the Jewish law of Moses to add to their salvation. And so others there were following Peter’s lead, including Barnabas, Paul’s closest friend. As you can imagine, Paul wasn’t too happy about this because not only was it sinful, but it happened in Paul’s home church and so it shamed Paul.
And we pick up in the middle of Paul’s story that he was giving to the Galatians about this confrontation he had with Peter. The point isn’t the confrontation, but what he said to Peter. And he wanted to get that same point across to the Galatians. And the point is, no matter how much you adhere to the laws of God, you are still not considered righteous. It’s the cross of Christ that makes us righteous.
Scripture: Okay, so let’s go to our scripture verses this morning and take a look at that. The first is out of Galatians 2, verses 15-21:
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. 17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
I’ll get back to that in a few minutes, but let’s get straight to our second set of scriptures from 1 Peter 2, verses 21-25:
21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Central Truth: The cross is not just the way in which Jesus died. It’s not just the unfair treatment of God’s only son. It’s not just a tragic irony or some historic story in the Bible that we remember with holidays. There’s a greater purpose to the cross.
As Paul told the Corinthians, “we preach Christ crucified.” That’s the wisdom and sign that the Jews and Gentiles were looking for, but to them, it was considered foolishness.
Through the cross we are free to live as God intended––not absolutely perfectly, but the cross is the means to what sets us free and forgiven and have a right standing with God. It allows us to start a new spiritual life, and step by step we can be the type of Christian that can live through Christ, for Christ, and not try to fight so hard to live strictly by ‘the law’ or God’s laws, but through a new spirit of righteousness.
I was watching an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast where he had a Canadian Christian YouTuber, and this YouTuber is absolutely brilliant when it comes to historical and theological aspects of Christianity. And it seems as if Joe Rogan is almost there–almost ready to believe, but he just can’t quite grasp the concept of surrendering his whole life over and committing to these rules. Please pray for Joe Rogan because, if he only knew–and I don’t think it was explained to him–that it isn’t about submitting to rules and not doing things you want to do–which, even Paul admitted is sometimes a struggle; but through the Spirit, we’re changed to not want to do those things we used to do. And we live through The Spirit, not through just obeying spiritual laws.
Going back to Galatians again, Paul said, “We…know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
How many people, even today, believe that they are justified through being good? Oprah Winfrey, from the same Youtuber on Facebook, said that she calls herself a Christian, but Jesus is not the way, the truth, and the life. All faiths point to God. It reminds me of what Paul said to Timothy, that in the last days, there will be people who have a form of godliness but deny its power.
On the contrary, I have no doubt that Billy Graham believed 100 percent that he stood righteous before God. That he entered Heaven hearing the words, “Well done my good and faithful servant.” But, he said in an interview one time with Diane Sawyer that he was actually afraid that he might not hear the words, “well done, good and faithful servant.”
Do you see the two different attitudes there? Billy Graham knew salvation, but he also feared God. He knew that his belief in God and his works were not enough to produce salvation.
So Paul, knowing what some Jewish Christians might say in opposition to his statement regarding the cross as the only means of salvation, makes a rhetorical question here. If we are saved by Christ alone, then does that mean that Christ condones sin?
Enduring Word Commentary puts it this way: As the men from Jerusalem saw it, the idea that we are made right before God by faith in Jesus alone wasn’t enough. After all, Christians still struggled with sin. How could they have the “accepted by God” issue settled if they still battled sin? In their thinking, this made Christ… “a minister of sin” because Jesus’ work of making them right with God apparently didn’t make them right enough. In other words, “If God justifies bad people, what is the point of being good? Can’t we do as we like and live as we please?”
Gotquestions.org said:
Our salvation is not the result of any of our efforts, abilities, intelligent choices, personal characteristics, or acts of service we may perform. However, as believers, we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works”—to help and serve others. While there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, God’s intention is that our salvation will result in acts of service. We are saved not merely for our own benefit but to serve Christ and build up the church (Ephesians 4:12). This reconciles the seeming conflict between faith and works. Our righteous acts do not produce salvation but are, in fact, evidence of our salvation (James 1:22; 2:14–26).
In the end, we must recognize that even our righteous acts come as a result of God within us, not of ourselves. On our own, our “righteousness” is simply self-righteousness, and vain, hypocritical religion produces nothing more than “filthy rags.”
And so Paul then famously says the following: 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
In other words, when Christ died on that cross, he took all of our punishment for us. When we accept Christ’s sacrifice, we have, in essence, died on that cross too. God himself exchanged our penalty for sin. That whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
Going back to gotquestions.org again, it said, Jesus Christ died in our place when He was crucified on the cross. We deserved to be the ones placed on that cross to die because we are the ones who live sinful lives. But Christ took the punishment on Himself in our place—He substituted Himself for us and took what we rightly deserved. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
If we go to our second set of verses out of 1 Peter, we read in verse 24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” Here again we see that Christ took the sins we committed onto Himself to pay the price for us.
Isn’t it interesting? You can see here how Paul’s reprimand hit Peter (as it should). Peter wrote this about 15 years after Paul’s letter to the Galatians, so Peter certainly had time to correct himself and repent of his thinking and actions. The truth of Christ not only corrects our understanding, it makes us bold, too. Peter didn’t fear what others thought by this point.
If we flip to the next chapter, in 1 Peter 3:18 we read, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). Not only do these verses teach us about the substitute that Christ was for us, but they also teach that He was the atonement, meaning He satisfied the payment due for the sinfulness of man.
This is why I believe we will be raptured before God pours out his bowls of wrath in Rev. 16. Since Jesus bore God’s wrath on the cross, we who have received that salvation through faith do not have to endure God’s justice on the earth in the same way the Hebrews didn’t in Egypt, Noah’s family didn’t during the flood and Lot’s family didn’t in Sodom and Gomorrah.
For us, the cross completed it all. Peter used the phrase “once for all” sacrifice. No more sacrifices at the temple, and no more being made righteous by the strict adherence to laws that no one could adhere to anyway. The cross satisfied God’s wrath. And through the cross, we have right standing with God. Our righteousness comes through the cross and the grace of God.
We read this from the Prophet Isaiah: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5–6)
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:10–11)
1 John 4:9-10 says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (or appeasement) for our sins.”
Enduring Word once again says “Peter reminds us that when Jesus died on the cross, we also died to sins. Our life is permanently changed by our identification with Jesus on the cross, even as the Apostle Paul described in Romans 6.”
And what does Romans 6 say? It’s a very similar statement that Paul made to the Galatians. He said, beginning with verse 1:
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
And if you want to read more on that, Paul talks about this subject throughout the entire chapter of Romans 6.
But Peter, here, talks similarly as Paul did about dying to ourselves or dying with Christ on that cross. We have died to sins in the sense that our debt of sin and guilt was paid by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. When we died to sins with Jesus on the cross, it means that He paid our debts.
I remember to this day when my mom wrote the last check for their house payment. It took them 25 years to pay off that debt. And she seemed so relieved. I think we went out to Pierri’s to mark the occasion. Remember Pierri’s in Corning? I think it was where the Corning Credit Union main building is now if I remember. It was a pretty fancy place for a kid.
That’s how we are with the cross of Christ. Our debts have been paid in full. We should rejoice, we should be relieved.
Charles Spurgeon said, “He who bore my sins in his own body on the tree, took all my debts and paid them for me, and now I am dead to those debts; they have no power over me. I am dead to my sins; Christ suffered instead of me. I have nothing to do with them. They are gone as much as if they had never been committed.”
We have died to sins in the sense that now a greater passion fills our life – a passion for the Lord Jesus Christ that is greater than our previous passion for sin.
Like Paul pointed out, we are not completely devoid of sin, but a greater passion for righteousness fills our life, rather than a passion for sin. And through the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to conquer the sinful desires that we still battle with. It’s not through works, it’s through The Holy Spirit working within us that we can be more than conquerors. But it doesn’t end with the cross. Because of the resurrection, we have a living savior, a living God, a Holy Spirit that dwells within us, and a hope for our own resurrection at the end of the age.
Featured Image by TopSphere Media on Unsplash
