Be Holy
13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person's work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. 18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
Dig Deeper
During my last semester in college I was preparing to spend the entire semester as a student teacher. Before we were given the assignments of what schools we would each be at, however, the head of the education department had a meeting with us. As he began the meeting, he reminded us of what a great privilege it was to even be accepted into the education department at our university. Now we had reached the pinnacle of that department as we were about to head out into our last major opportunity before graduation and the beginning of our careers. Once we had been thoroughly reminded of all of that, our professor went on to tell us how important it was to remember that we represented the university in everything we did. Even the smallest activities during our time of student teaching were important because they reflected the reputation of our university and would all add up to determine what kind of teachers we were going to be. In other words, how we acted was a direct reflection of what we were and what we wanted to be.
Peter has spent the opening verses of his letter reminding and encouraging his recipients that they are indeed in Christ and have an incredible inheritance in store for them awaiting the renewal of God’s good creation. That isn’t just an empty hope or some treat for them in the future that has little to no effect on anything in the present time. Because they are God’s people and will be a part of His restored creation in the age to come, how they act and order themselves in the present matters deeply. They have entered into Christ and that should make an important impact on their ethics and actions in the present. At the same time, because they will continue to be transformed into the people of God until the time when that work is completed at the second coming of Christ, they should live their lives with that constantly at the forefront of how they order their lives. In other words, how they acted was a direct reflection of what they were and what they were going to be.
A great deal of the Christian life has to do with changing how we think. As Paul puts it in Romans 12:2, we must transform our minds. After all, one need not look much past Old Testament examples like Joseph, Moses, and David to see what huge effects can be made by even one small decision to be obedient to God. Similarly, Peter tells his readers that they have minds that are alert and fully sober. What the NIV translates as "alert," literally reads to "gird up the loins of you mind." To put that in today’s vernacular, Peter is saying something along the lines of "lace up the cleats of your mind." The Christian life is a balance between this alertness and preparation as well as the self-control that a sober person demonstrates in contrast to someone who is drunk. In addition, Peter calls them to set their hope fully on the grace to be given to them when Jesus Christ is revealed. When Peter uses the word "hope" he doesn’t mean wishful thinking of the sort that we might in using that word today. When the early Christians talked of hope they referred to the promise by which you ordered your life. Their hope, then, was the grace that God had already given them but that would be fully revealed at the second coming of Christ. Here Peter is likely referring not only to the appearance of Christ, but also the complete transformation of God’s people into the image of Christ (Col. 3:10; 1 John 3:2).
Peter assumes that they are obedient children, by which he means that they have already been converted. The obedience that Peter refers to is the same mentioned in verse 2, which is the response that believers had made to the gospel. This implies, of course, that those that have not entered into Christ live in a state of disobedience. Because of who they already are in Christ, they should not mentally conform (Rom. 12:2) to the pattern of the world, what Peter characterizes here as evil desires. Christians must no longer settle for living in the ignorance of God’s will that they did before entering into Christ, but we have an obligation to walk according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:12) as He forms the life of Christ in each one of us. In other words, Peter is calling them to put off the old self and put on the new man, the life of Christ (Eph. 4:22-24). God expects His people to walk in holiness (Ex. 19:6) because we were made in His image and are being reconciled to that image (2 Cor. 5:17-21) in Christ (Col. 3:10, Eph. 4:24; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10). God calls His people to be remade in His image according to His original purposes (Gen. 1:26-27) because without being holy no one will see God (Heb. 12:14). The new people of God have not been called to follow some abstract set of rules but something more fundamental and far more demanding. We are called to become like God and demonstrate His character and nature in all of our activities and relationships.
Through the work of Christ and the continuing fellowship of the Spirit, Christians now enjoy the sonship that we share with Christ. Anyone who claimed family relationship to a father in the Jewish world had better expect a good deal of discipline. Because God is Father to Christians we do His will which makes us quite different from the world around us. Christians live life knowing that we will face the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), not to determine our fate but this judgment concerns what we have done with our lives since entering into Christ. Christians have already been clothed with Christ and entered into the age to come and so, should live up to that status. When someone lives a life that is concerned with the reality of God’s age to come rather than being consumed by the present age, their life will necessarily look radically different from those around them.
Christians value the life of Christ that has been made available because, as Peter reminds his readers, it was not purchased with things that the present age values such as silver or gold, but with something far more precious. Here he turns to the imagery of the Passover Lamb. Christ was the perfect and spotless lamb that the Passover Lamb pointed to. It was but a shadow of the reality of Christ. Peter points out the importance that this wasn’t something that was just thrown together by God at the last minute. All of history had been crafted and moved according to God’s will so that He could reveal Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is precisely Paul’s point in Ephesians 1:3-14 where he points out that God’s plan all along was to reveal Christ and have a people that would be reconciled to Himself by entering into that life. Peter’s point in saying that he was revealed in these last times for your sake, is not so much that God’s full plan had been concealed up to this point, which it had. His fuller meaning is that all of history had pointed to and led up to the revelation of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the only way, they only truth, and the only life which could bring reconciliation to God.
It is, says Peter, only through him, or through the life of Christ, that anyone can properly be said to believe in God. We are saved by faith but that faith is demonstrated by dying to self and entering into the life of Christ. Faith in anything other than the life of Christ is misplaced faith. This is ultimately the grace of God made available to us. It is, after all, God, in His power, who raised Christ from the dead. When we believe in the life and resurrection of Christ we are demonstrating faith in God because we demonstrate that we believe that God’s promises have all been fulfilled in Christ (Rom. 4:21; 2 Cor. 1:20).
Devotional Thought
Take some time to reflect what it means to "be holy in all you do." Which areas in your life are the most difficult for you in which to be holy, reflecting the nature of God?
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