First Peter 2 24-25

The Nature, Purpose and Result of Christ’s Suffering

1 Peter 2:24-25

            Most of you here this morning had the opportunity to think over last week’s message on the slave/master relationship. Once you grasp what God expects of us, you then begin to understand what Christ suffered for you.

            There was no way I would pass over these last two verses of chapter two, for right at the end of Peter’s section on the slaves, he gives us one of the best theological statements on the greatest servant of all—Jesus Christ.

            We don’t often view Jesus as a servant, but in a great sense he was. When he came to earth he willingly gave up his freedom to undergo the sufferings of the cross. He volunteered to be the servant of the Master’s will. Submission to God the Father was His theme and His life. Phil. 2:6-11

            Jesus was a faithful servant/slave of God the Father. Whatever the will of the Father, He did it and as our passage tells us, it was the will of the Father for His Son to suffer. I would like to draw your attention to three aspects of the suffering of Christ.

            First, the Nature of His suffering (v. 24a)

            Do you realize it was for your sins and the sins of man in all ages that Christ suffered? Sin means to miss the mark as falling short of God’s standard as well as willful disobedience to God’s known will.

            Peter uses the plural “sins” to indicate the vast multitude committed by us. Note Peter puts himself in with us—our sins.

            Jesus alone suffered to deal with those sins because there was no one but Himself who could have one it. Jesus voluntarily took upon Himself the curse that was ours and by His death removed it once and for all. The curse being separation from God.

            This would require a perfect sacrifice to be offered to God and Jesus was the only one who could be that sacrifice. Christ Himself, the sinless one, was the one who took our sins and as our substitute, He bore the consequences of our sins in His own body.

Jn. 1:29, Heb. 9:28, 10:10.

            Placed on Christ, the sinless one, were all your sins and Christ was placed upon the cross/tree. Dt. 21:22-23.

            Second, the Purpose of His Suffering, v. 24b

            There was a glorious, practical purpose behind those sufferings: ‘so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness.”

            What did the sacrifice of Christ do? When a person by faith receives Christ they see that His death on the cross effected the termination of sin’s guilt and its rule in a person’s life. In Christ, the power of sin over our lives has been broken, enabling us to conquer sin and not be mastered by it.

            This redemption from sin has a practical effect in daily life, “that we might live for righteousness.” Simply put, that we would daily live doing what is pleasing to God according to His Word. That is the purpose of Calvary. That you would die to sin and live for righteousness. Rom. 6:1-14, 18, 19; Gal. 2:20, 6:14.

            By the death of Christ on the cross, whoever comes to Him ends his old life and begins a new one devoted to righteousness. We have been set free from the bondage of sin.

            Third, the Result of Christ’s Suffering, v. 24c, 25

            You have been healed! As Isaiah put it, “By His stripes you were healed.”

            Think of how this statement would appeal to a slave who had been beaten or an Apostle who had just been flogged. A believer in Christ knows the bondage of sin in the past and can look at the cross of Christ and know that the wounds that sin had inflicted upon your soul were healed.

            It was around 450 AD that one who came to Christ put it this way, “A new and strange method of healing; the doctor suffered the cost, and the sick received the healing!”

            We were formerly lost sheep; we now have Christ as our overseer. Do you see what all this means? You, if you are a believer, are no longer in bondage to sin. Before Christ you were held by chains but now in Christ your position if totally changed, free to live for your Savior. Our problem is we refuse to believe and therefore do not live according to what the Bible/God tells us.

            Do you know your position in Christ? That a believer is united to Christ and dead to sin? God’s Word is filled with this truth over and over again.

            You can study the Bible and obtain an intellectual knowledge of God but it will do you little good. You need a spiritual knowledge that only comes from the Holy Spirit giving illumination to His Word and understanding to your heart. 2 Cor. 4:6-10

            If your Bible study is teaching you that God’s way is best, if it is causing you to submit with joy to all is commands, if you are enabled to give thanks in all things and die to sin and live for righteousness, then you are profiting from His Word.

            In Xp You are dead to sin and alive for righteousness. Now go and live what you are in Xp. Jesus