1 Peter 2: 9-12 A Royal Priesthood

Introduction

Peter’s purpose, as we get to this point in the epistle, is to instruct Christians in their important and wonderful role in God’s kingdom. It gives us valuable and useful insight into the plan and purpose of God. Peter focuses on the now, and the future. This is an epistle addressed to new, Jewish Christians (everyone was a new Christian in A.D. 60) who needed instruction on what was expected of them. They were living in various places around the Roman empire and they were beginning to experience suffering and persecution because of their faith. This suffering and persecution would build from social persecution to systematic government persecution over the next few years. This life was not easy for them - they may have expected something different as a result of their new relationship with God, but they were still living in a world that was in total rebellion against God and genuinely hated Him. The world hated Him because they knew, deep down, that they loved sin and they wanted to continue to wallow in it without fear of accountability. The small, but growing and evangelistic community of Christians reminded them of their lost, fallen, and ultimately condemned state, and they resented it. Christ was the perfect man and they hated Him because He was the light, and that light showed their sin and iniquity in stark relief. The gentiles would rather stay in the dark, but God would not have it. After Christ ascended, Christians reflected the brilliant light of Christ, and so the world began to direct their anger and resentment toward them. The Christians to whom Paul was writing were already beginning to feel like social outcasts for being His disciples and they likely did not know how to respond to their situation.

Key question/interrogative: As members of the kingdom of God, what is our role and responsibility?

Answer: We are of a chosen, royal heritage, a priesthood, saved by the grace and mercy of God, and we need to act in accordance with our station.

1 Peter 2:9–12 NASB95

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Transition

We can summarize Peters message in three points, 1) What were we?, 2) What are we?, and 3) What shall we become? To the first point:

Point 1, v. 9: What are we?

1 Peter 2:9 NASB95

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

Read the verse. What Peter is saying is the same as Moses and the prophets passed down for thousands of years.

Deuteronomy 7:6 NASB95

“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

This is what Moses prophesied to the Hebrews, God’s covenant people. He explains further in Dt 14:2:

Deuteronomy 14:2 NASB95

“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

Isaiah passes down this message in Is 41:8,9:

Isaiah 41:8–9 NASB95

“But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, Descendant of Abraham My friend, You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.

Matthew Henry makes the point that Paul was writing to Jewish Christians, and that as Jews, they considered themselves highly privileged, since they were the chosen people of God. The argument Peter brings here is that this privilege and responsibility has passed on to Christ’s followers. All the true servants of Christ are a royal priesthood.

Another commentator notes that Peter is expressing that through Christ, these Jewish followers have recovered the great honor and dignity from which the the Jewish people had fallen. These Christians were called out of the Jewish nation, which God had called out via Abraham, when He called him out of Ur.

Paul builds on these prophesies in Romans 11:5–6 “In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”

He goes on to say in 2 Timothy 1:8–9

2 Timothy 1:8–9 (NASB95)

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,

Titus 2:11–14 NASB95

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

All Christians are members of a holy nation, which Peter is picturing as the new temple of God, in the verses above.

Rev 20:6 John says: Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Christians, as God’s faithful are a chosen race, in a covenant relationship with God. That’s like a permanent contract. God initiated this covenant with Abraham in Gen 15, it is a covenant to redeem, forgive and bless His people - a covenant He made with Abraham, and confirmed with Isaac, Jacob, and re-affirmed with the prophets. It is a covenant that was confirmed by the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus Christ, when He died to atone for the sins of His chosen people. God called Abraham out of Ur to sanctify a people to Himself and He continues to call His people out of the world to sanctify them as His people.

Atone: to make amends : to provide or serve as reparation or compensation for something bad or unwelcome

—usually + for

He wanted to atone for his sins.

Now, during the Exodus, God called out the tribe of Levi to minister as priests in the tabernacle. When Peter proclaims that Christ’s followers are a royal priesthood, he is putting it in the context of the Levite tradition. Like the Levites, Christians are chosen out of the world to worship God and to intercede for the people. Like the Levites of the nation of Israel, Christians bring the world to Christ. Because we are the priests, and Jesus is our great, high priest, there is no longer any call for a separate priesthood to intercede for God’s people. We, as Christ’s followers, have an open door to approach the Lord ourselves, through the mediation of Christ.

What is their priestly duty? It says they proclaim the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness and into light.

This word translated “Proclaim”, in the greek, means to make a report or to report on. Christians are to make an accurate report of the Gospel to those who will listen. They are expected to report on the “excellencies”” of Him, meaning the Lord. Excellencies, in the greek, means excellency of character. The Lord’s priests call people from from darkness to light. Darkness refers to the ignorance, sin and iniquity that characterizes the world. Light is for the Christ and His righteousness, which light the world. In other words, Christians are to tell others of the excellency of character of Him (Jesus), who called them out of darkness and into His marvelous light.

Isaiah 60:2 NASB95

“For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the Lord will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.

Put simply, Christ’s followers are to glorify God. But we don’t need to embellish or exaggerate. As God’s priests, we simply proclaim the good news from His word, and our own experience.

Point 2, v. 10: What were we?

To make this point, Paul draws on an OT story from Hosea 1 and 2. God instructed the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute who fathered two children. One of the children was to be named “not my people” and the other i “no mercy”. This was an analogy of God’s relationship with his covenant people (Israel), who had become rebellious and sinful and the result - children that are cut off from God and who are entitled to no mercy. But God then goes on to declare in chapter 2, that He loves His people, and He will not abandon His people, but He will have mercy on them and He will forgive them.

Peter, as he writes these Jewish Christians, is applying Hosea’s prophesy. God created Adam and Eve in His own image, and blessed them mightily. They had free will, but within days of their creation and blessing, they allowed themselves to be seduced by Satan and rebelled against God. They lost their trust in Him and violated His commandment. God saved a people for Himself, through Abraham, who then lapsed into sin and idolatry. We are the children of Adam and Eve and we inherited the guilt not only for their sin, but a sinful attitude and have committed our own sins against God and each other. We are as guilty of idolatry, envy, adultery, and of spiritual fornication, as was the wife of Hosea. Yet God had mercy on His people, and has continued to redeem a remnant of people for Himself. First by sending a saviour, and then by turning them in faith, to that saviour.

Make no mistake about it, Christ did not call us through any righteousness of our own and no one deserves mercy; we are descended from a corrupt and sinful line. Out of an abundance of love, He showed mercy on us and adopted us into the royal line. He died, that we might obtain His righteousness, a righteousness alien to our nature.

This brings us to point 3.

Point 3, v. 11, 12: What shall we be?

God called us out of our sin and rebellion and we must fight never to return to it. Peter uses the term “beloved” - Their relationship must be filled with love for God and love for one another as they struggle in a cruel world, motivated by Satan, that seeks to drag them back down into sin and mire.

We ask the Father, in the Lord’s prayer, to lead us not into temptation, but we God did not intend us to to be passive. Here Peter tells us we must struggle, we must abstain from the passions of flesh, since Satan uses those passions to destroy us. We must flee from sin and this is a constant struggle. We will sometimes fail, but in those times, we need to remember that God saved us for a purpose, and seek His forgiveness.

Abraham is an example of “sojourner and exile”, having come out of Ur to Canaan, living among pagan Canaanites and Hittites. Like Abraham, these Jewish Christians were scattered about a pagan empire in their little communities. Because of their station, they had to remain separated.

They have to beware of fleshly lusts. The world will be watching them, criticizing them, accusing them, reviling them.

Illustration: VP Mike Pence and his chaperone policy. He will not have a meeting with a woman not his wife, unless others are present. This is a good practice, since it restrains temptation and avoids even the appearance of sin. He has been criticized for this, by a world that at the same time is lamenting the #metoo movement, a movement that rails against toxic, abusive, predatory masculinity.

VP Pence practices a lifestyle that seeks to avoid sin and temptation. The word conduct, in this passage, might be better understood today as lifestyle - As the Lord’s chosen people, Satan and His followers seek any reason to accuse you.

Lastly on this point, they are to continue in this mission until the day of visitation.

Luke 19:43–44 NASB95

“For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

From this we can understand that the day of visitation is the day the Lord returns in glory and judgement. God’s people then can look forward to joining Him in glory.

We are to represent the righteousness of Christ to an ungodly world until his return.

Conclusion

The story of Hosea helps us to understand that Christians are the “bride of Christ” but we should never lose sight of the fact that we are “damaged goods”, horribly flawed with a promiscuous history. As the KJV puts it, we have gone awhoring after other gods. Christ called us out of countless sins to be a special, “peculiar” people. He did it all for us, and Peter, here tells us what we have become, and what we are to be: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession. But we cannot forget that we were a flawed people, and so we cannot be proud or prideful. Because of this, we can relate to those we witness to, and can comfort one another. We are truly a people who can proclaim the goodness and wonder of a God who made the ultimate sacrifice to save sinners - He let His Son be sacrificed on a Roman cross, to atone for their sins. That is the gospel and that is the good news we are charged to proclaim.

Gospel Appeal

If you are not a Christian, God has not brought you here by accident. and you now have a wonderful opportunity. Christ calls you, He invites you to join His priesthood. To do so, you need to put your faith in Him, turn from you sins, and He will bless you with His own righteousness. You will no longer need to fear death and judgement - when your sojourn here on Earth is over, you will join Him in heaven, for eternity.