1 Peter 2:1-5

1 Peter 2

1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

The Living Stone and a Chosen People

4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by human beings but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.



Dig Deeper

For many years the United States dominated international basketball. In 1992, they sent a team, forever known as the Dream Team, to the Olympics. That team was quickly hailed as the greatest team ever assembled, winning its games by an average of 37 points. In the 2004 Olympics and the 2006 World Championships, however, the tune changed quickly. The United States Found that it could no longer just send a bunch of individual players and overwhelm the rest of the world with their talent. They had to become something more. In 2007, they set about doing things radically different. The United States basketball committee set about finding players who understood that they needed to give up their own individual identities and become part of something much bigger than they could be by themselves. It soon became obvious in the 2008 Olympics, in which they won the gold medal, that they had succeeded in doing exactly what they had set out to do. They had joined together and become what no individual could ever become on their own, a team.

The popular concept of Christianity that most people buy into today, at least those in westernized cultures, is that being Christian is an individual venture. Our salvation, we assume, is an individual choice with individual effects and that joining a church is an individual decision based on what is best for the individual. In this view of things, church becomes little more than a convenient option, a gathering together of people of like minds. This is not the biblical view, though, and certainly not what Peter presents in his first book. Rather than just a gathering together of individuals that remain autonomous from one another, Peter sees something far grander for those in Christ. He sees them being joined together and becoming what no individual Christian could ever become on their own, the people of God.

Peter beings this section by saying, therefore, which tells us that what he is about to say, is based on his previous statements. Because they have experienced the new birth into a new sonship and new community through the resurrection and the imperishable word of the living God, this will effect their behavior. Someone who claims to know God but whose life looks no different than it did before, does not truly know God. Yet, Peter is a realist and knows that humans, including Christians still experience the misconduct of sin their lives. Because of their birth into the life of Christ, however, Peter reminds his readers that they have an opportunity that those who are still stuck in their empty way of life (1 Pet. 1:18) do not have. Christians have the power to rid themselves, or literally "put off" acts of the sinful nature like deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. This brings forth the image of putting off the old self like dirty, unwanted clothing. This is very similar to Paul’s theology in Ephesians 4:22-24 when he urges Christians to put off the old man and put on the new life of Christ. In Romans 6, where Paul recounts the common Christian experience of dying to self and entering through baptism into the death, burial, and resurrection of the life of Christ, Paul says that "our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin" (Rom. 6:6-7). Christians have the opportunity to rid sin from of our life by walking according to the leading of the Spirit rather than choosing to follow the desires of the sinful nature. This is why Peter urges them to put off the life of sin and Paul says that sin might be done away with. It is ultimately the choice of the Christian.

Because the ability to obey God by doing His will and living the life of Christ is within the choice and ability of the Spirit-led Christian, Peter urges his readers to crave pure spiritual milk the way that newborn babies crave their mother’s milk. Peter likely uses the analogy of the word of God being like milk, because milk is not only known for it’s life-building and life-promoting qualities but it also serves as an allusion to the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. It is in craving for and taking in the word of God that believers will put off the old man and experience spiritual growth. Growth is usually a sign of good health and is absolutely vital in one’s spiritual life. The individual believer that does not mature and grow is as much of a monstrosity as is a baby who never grew. Peter desires for individuals to grow, but his primary concern here is with the church as a whole learning to desire spiritual nourishment and growth. He is not referring, to numerical growth, which comes at the will of God. Peter here speaks of spiritual growth. Sadly, we must admit that often times churches have pursued numerical growth at the expense of church depth and nourishment.

Peter says they should desire to throw off the old and put on the new in increasing maturity because they have tasted that the Lord is good, a direct quote from Psalm 34:8. In Greek, this sentence becomes a nifty play on words, as the Greek word for "good" is chrestos, a play on Christ, which is Christos. The fact that he says they have tasted of the Lord would no doubt bring to mind an allusion to the Lord’s Supper, but continuing to feast on the word of God is Peter’s primary thought. It might seem unthinkable, now that they have experienced the divine love of Jesus Christ, that any believers would be tempted to slide back into their old way of life, but that is a very real possibility if they don’t continue to crave spiritual milk and experience the subsequent growth.

Peter seemingly shifts suddenly and without much connection from milk to stone, which is true unless we understand a bit of Hebraic thought. In the Hebraic mind, however, the shift is from babies to building, a common connection in Jewish thought. The Hebrews often spoke of having children as being built through them into a house, such as the "house of David." To become a house meant that you had been built through children, so Peter’s jump makes perfect sense.

Matthew (21:42), Mark (12:10), and Luke (20:17) all record that Jesus believed that Psalm 118:22 was a prophecy pointing to himself. In addition to this, in his commentary on 1 Peter, Norman Hillyer says, "A . . . christological application of the stone theme is based on the foundational cornerstone of Isaiah 28:16, cited by Peter in verse 6; it recurs in Paul (1 Cor. 3:11; Eph. 2:20; cf. Rom. 10:11). [Another] application is made on the basis of Isaiah 8:14, quoted by Peter in verse 8 (and also found in Rom. 9:33), and concerns those who reject God’s choice and so find that the Stone is to them one that ‘causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’"

If Jesus is the living Stone, according to Peter, the One rejected by human beings but chosen by God, then it follows that His followers would be considered to be living stones like Him. In the Jewish mind, what was true of the king was true of his people, so if Jesus was the living Stone that was precious to God, then the same could be said of Christians because we have the life of Christ in us and are being remade into the image of Christ. It is God, then, who takes each individual and transforms him from an individual into a living stone that is being built into a spiritual house holy priesthood. It was Jesus himself who promised that out of stones, God could raise up children for Abraham (Matt. 3:9), and certainly Peter feels that He has done just that. It is vital that churches in Asia Minor, to whom Peter is writing (and all other churches for that matter) see themselves as living stones cast in the likeness of the living Stone and so unify themselves into a true spiritual house and royal priesthood. By using this language, Peter demonstrates that he clearly sees the church as replacing Israel in their function as the people of God (cf. Ex. 19:6).

Peter notes that the function and result of being a spiritual house and royal priesthood is that Christians, like the Levitical priests, offer spiritual, rather than physical sacrifices to God. But what does Peter mean when he says that these sacrifices are offered to God through Jesus Christ? His point is similar to Paul’s in Romans 12:1 in which Paul says "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship." The Christian who has died to themselves and continues to constantly choose to sacrifice their lives, living the life of Christ can rightly be said to be giving an acceptable offering to God through Jesus.



Devotional Thought

The interesting marker of a living sacrifice is that it must willingly remain up on the altar in order to be a sacrifice. Do you continue to die to your self and remain a spiritual sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God? Or do you have a tendency to try to squirm off the altar and return to some aspect of your old life?