Death and Resurrection

Introduction:

In recent weeks, we have spent a great deal of time examining 1 Peter 1-2.

We should look at this passage one more time because it will remind us and help prepare us to observe the Lord’s Supper in our evening service.

Peter will continue to stress important themes that we have already become accustomed to hearing him raise.

Today, however, we could also just consider the basic points.

They are relevant for appreciating the doctrine of substitutionary atonement and the doctrine of the resurrection.

If worshipping and obeying God were possible apart from the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus, then there would have been no need for his death and resurrection.

We learned this last Sunday night.

Restoration of a proper relationship with God returns us under His Lordship.

Substitution’s Permanence

It could be the case that Peter brings up Jesus again to illustrate that it can be better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Messiah, he writes, suffered once and for all concerning sins so that he might bring us to God. Here, is the way in which suffering for the will of God can be shown to be better.

But, Peter, perhaps, also wishes to remind his readers of the bigger overall picture, namely, that the right way to think about being a believer in the world is as one submissive to God’s will.

The point of the incarnation and atonement of Jesus was to position us for worship and obedience (more on this below).

In the letter, Peter uses Jesus only 9 times, but he uses Messiah 22 times.

Every time he uses “Jesus” it occurs with Christ. This means the remaining 13 times, Peter uses Christ by itself.

Peter again says Christ “suffered.”

This calls back to the ideas developed in 1 Peter 2 based upon Is. 53 (also Acts 1).

Perhaps the most important word, however, is “hapax.”

The writer of Hebrews also used this word similarly.

Hebrews 9:26–28“ἐπεὶ ἔδει αὐτὸν πολλάκις παθεῖν ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου· νυνὶ δὲ ἅπαξ ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων εἰς ἀθέτησιν [τῆς] ἁμαρτίας διὰ τῆς θυσίας αὐτοῦ πεφανέρωται. καὶ καθʼ ὅσον ἀπόκειται τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἅπαξ ἀποθανεῖν, μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο κρίσις, οὕτως καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς ἅπαξ προσενεχθεὶς εἰς τὸ πολλῶν ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας ἐκ δευτέρου χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας ὀφθήσεται τοῖς αὐτὸν ἀπεκδεχομένοις εἰς σωτηρίαν.”

Righteous one one behalf of the unrighteous many.

Substitution’s Purpose

Peter provides a purpose clause that explains why the once-for-all substitution occurs.

He uses a term we don’t see too often in the New Testament.

Paul uses it in Rom. 5:2 as a noun.

He also uses it in Ephesians 2:18; 3:12.

It can mean “to give safe passage” - the noun form in Rom. 5:2 seems to bring the mental picture of safe access into a harbor. Hence, there it refers to our access/approach to God.

Because of 1 Pet. 2:9 has already borrowed language of Ex. 19:1-4 in the LXX.

Now, this does has well.

Everything about our relationship with God: our sonship/standing, our eternal hope, and our ability to worship Him through obedient living depends upon the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus.

Again, obedience is not a benefit of salvation, it was part of the intention. It is built in or assumed.

Suffering’s Meaning

Peter now describes Messiah in terms that sound very close to words that Paul used in Romans and 1 Corinthians.

He has died in the flesh, by which he most likely means in a fleshly body, but he has been made alive in spirit, by which he means in a spiritual body.

This enables Peter, alá Romans 6, to make an argument for holiness and obedience on the part of those who have benefited from what God has done in Christ.

Worship and obedience are not possible apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We should embrace obeying God’s will. We are enabled to do so by the resurrection itself.