The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 45

comequeuces and to break away from its dominion. But besides this implication that all sin is sla,•ery_. '_"hich lies in the idea of redemption, we have here, secondly, the thought tha~ all sm 1s empty and profitless. 2. 'l'here is a whole world of meaning in that epithet "varn." It is the condensat.ion into one little monosyllable of the experience of all the generations. All sin is empty. As one of the Hebrew words for it literally means, it is a missing of the mark. It is always a blunder-no man gets the good which he expected by his sin, or, if he does, he gets something else which spoils it. "It is as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, be eateth; but he awaketh, and is faint." Sin is vain, for it yields no results correspondent to the nature of man, and so does not satisfy him. It produces none corresponding to his obligations, and so in the eyes of God, or wbat is the same thing, in reality, a godless life is a wasted and barren life, however full of fruit it may appear. It produces none that abides. All are annihi• lated by the judgment of God, and survive only in remorse and pain. The devil a'tways plays with loaded dice. A godless life is a vain life. "The man who lives it sows much and brings home little," and" the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." 3. This vain life is the fatal gift from generation to generation. A. two- fold application of the fact that it is transmitted from father to son may be made. This godless course of life has no higher source and sanction than men's notions. It is a poor miserable account for a responsible being to give of bis moral conduct and judg- ments to say," My father did so and thought so before me." In that view this clause exposes the hollowness and weakness of the foundation on which many a godless life is unthinkingly a.nd almost mechanically built. Or the apostle's purpose may rather be to signalize the strength of evil derived from that solemn fact of its transmission from parent to child. "Heredity" is a new word to express an old truth. A man's ancestors live again in him. Moral qualities descend as plainly as physical peculiarities. Alld besides the strain in the blood which affects the moral nature, example and habit tell in the same direction. Thus the evil becomes generic and wraps the whole race in its folds. Hence, too, the need for a new power acting from without if men are to be redeemed from it. There must be a new beginning from au untainted source if the bitter waters are to be healed. He who is to redeem the race must come from outside the race, and yet must work within it. II. So we have here, WHAT WE ARE REDEEMED BY, The apostle employs his favourite epithet in speaking of the blood of Christ. It is " precious." What a profound sense of the worth of that wondrous sacrifice lies in that one simple word, more eloquent and full of feeling than a crowd of superlatives! Our Lord's death is evidently regarded here as sacrificial. The "lamb without blemish and without spot" distinctly refers to the requirement of the Mosaic Law in reference to the sacrifice. It is not merely the sinless purity of our Saviour's life, but that purity as fitting him to be the Sacrifice for the world's sin, which comes into view here. We cannot do justice to the thought unless we recognize the sacrificial character of Christ's death as th.e teaching of this passage. At the same time, we have to remember that redcmptiou here is regarded as deliverance from the love and practice of evil rather than from its guilt and punishment. But while this is true, these two asl?ects of redemption are inseparable. Christ redeems us from the former by redeemmg us from the latter. The sense of guilt and the fearful looking for of judgment bind men to sin, and the only way to wean them from it begins with the assurance of pardon and the removal of the burden of guilt. Unless we have a gospel of atonement to preach, we have no gospel of deliverance from the bondage of sin. Christ makes us free because he dies for us, and in one sheddincr of his blood at once annihilates guilt and brings pardon and destroys the domini~n of sin. That death, too, is the one means for so influencing men's hearts that they shall no longer love evil, but delight to do his will, and by love and fellowship grow like their Lord. Sin's reign has its fortress in our will and affec- tions, and Christ's death believed and trusted changes the set and current of these, casts out tbe usurper, and enthrones JesUB as our rightful Lord. Again, Chris~•s death procures for us the Divine Spirit who dwells in our hearts, ancl by his presence" makes us free from the law of sin and death." So by setting us in new relations to the Divine Law, by taking away the sense of guilt, by bringing to bear a new motive, by procuring a Spirit to ~ive a new life, the sacrificial death of the sinless Christ redeems us from the p;)wer of ;in. on. 1. 1-26,] THE FIRS'£ EPIS'fLE GENERAL OF PETER. 39