The Holiness of the New Birth

Introduction

You’ll recall from a few weeks ago that we discussed the undergirding of 1 Peter as being a kind of chronological progression of the Christian life. Peter describes believers first as being born again in verse 3. This new birth is marked by various characteristics and markers, such as a future-facing hope of eternal inheritance, an unflappable joy in the midst of trials, a thankful reliance on the Scriptures, and a sober-minded discipline that fixes it’s eyes on future grace and glory.

Peter now expands that metanarrative by addressing his readers as children, and in so doing he calls them to one of the principle disciplines of the Christian life: the discipline of personal holiness.

These verses really serve as an explanation of verse 13. What does it mean to fix your hope completely on future grace right now? According to 14-16, it means to walk in holiness. According to 17-19, it means to walk in the fear of God. According to 22-23, it means to walk in love.

So it is to this critical idea of personal, Christian holiness that we turn our attention to tonight.

Our identity: obedient children

Peter again makes a key assumption about the nature of the new birth. If we are children, we are obedient. Peter calls back to his introduction, in which he states our salvation is for the purpose of Christian obedience, for the purpose of obeying Christ. He now returns to the idea subtly, by combining the idea of obedience as an outcome of our salvation in verse 2 and the reality of the new birth in verse 3.

This statement alludes to the law of God as summarized in the 10 Commandments, and also teaches us about Peter’s view of the 10 Commandments.

First let’s examine the allusion. Peter is invoking the fifth commandment here: Honor your father and your mother. While not necessarily linguistically equivalent, the idea of obedience is contained in honoring your father and mother, and the implication is that children are to walk in obedience. This relationship between physical children and their parents teaches us about the relationship between spiritual children and their heavenly Father.

Beyond this, by alluding to this commandment, Peter is making an important assumption: the Law is still relevant for the new covenant believer. This is a critical but often maligned truth of the New Testament. Simply because we affirm and rest in God’s grace does not mean that we are not compelled by the Spirit of God within us to walk in accordance with God’s moral precepts. This was Paul’s great concern in writing Romans 6. The temptation in light of the freeness of grace is to abuse that grace and use it as an excuse to live in wanton moral depravity. “More sin means more grace,” according to these people. “Once saved, always saved, so I can do whatever I want. Got my fire insurance so I can go throw matches at a propane tank!”

Peter thus affirms Paul here as he both explicitly commends Christian obedience and also implicitly directs us to the standard of that obedience: the law of Moses.

Now we must be careful to make a distinction here. Remember Peter’s chronology. At this point in the progression, the indicative statements Peter has made have clearly demonstrated our reliance on God for our salvation. Our salvation is not a reward for our obedience, but rather our obedience is a response to our salvation. We must always be quick and careful to affirm that obedience constitutes zero percent of our right standing before God. We stand in Christ’s righteousness alone. But nevertheless, now that we are in Him, with His Spirit dwelling within us, we are now given the grace by God’s Spirit to walk in obedience to Christ.

We will tease this out more as we move along, but for now let’s keep this in mind: Peter’s assumption is that as children, we are obedient to Christ in the power of His spirit.