The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 73

fear_first when _he thinks of the life he lrn~ C$Capc,.1, nnd also when he thinks of the cost of Ins red(•mpt1on. (1) The fear of the life escaped. "From your vain manner of life han,1cd dow~1 !'r:m1 your fathers." The life of sin is a •1:ain manner of life, i.e. e111pty of the holy ac11nt1es and pleasures which are the contents of a true life. 'l'he life of sin is here viewed as inherited. When, as in heathenism, wrong ideas and customs are h1mded down from generntion to generation, deliverance presents appalling difficulty. The redeemed to whom Peter wrote had reason to fear, when they saw in the heathen around them what they once had been. \Vhen the man rescued sees the bridae or ledge on which he lately stood toppling into the abyss, his first feeling is that or°fcar, So have we not reason to fear when we think of the life of sin in which we were once im·olved, or when we see in the sinful lives of men around us what we miaht 0 have been? (2) The Je,ar of the manner in which 9·edemption has been effected. The cost of redemption. "But with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without ~pot, even the blood of Christ." ·we were redeemed not with corruptible thinas but with precious blood (which therefore is to be ranked with incorruptible things' and marks inconuptibility as a chief element of the preciousness). "Precious blood" is a description of tbe blood of Christ, i.e. of him who was the Anointed of God for his redeeming work. He is here represented as offering himself a sacrifice in the way of redec:ming. The main point in which his sacrifice differed from all previous sacrifices was that it was no mere prefigurement, but was the real transaction with God on behalf of man. lt was no unconscious victim, but conscious, free, morally characterized life in the nature identified with the sin, There is also the representation of the innocent being offered for the guilty and vile. There are two words used to express innocence, Bengel is probably right in the distinction-has not blemish in itself, nor bas con- tracted spot from without. .As applied to Christ as a sacrifice, the meaning is, that he had no pollution in himself, neither did he take pollution from without. In his sacrifice we see the required physical immaculateness of the animal sacrificed rising into 'TMral immaculateness. "That he who sought to give himself as a sacrifice to free the world from sin should have been conscious of being himself a sinne?·, or felt himself to be in any one respect unclean before God, would have been not merely a contradiction, 1t would have been a gross impiety" (Ullmann). The two epithets w;ed are negatives; but we must for a full conception think of there being on the positive side absolute excellence. He yielded complete obed.ience to the Law of God under which he was placed, and, in the result, carried our nature forward into a state of perfection. It was only by his offering life on which God could look with the highest satisfaction that our redemption could be effected. Have we not, then, reason to fear when we think of the precious blood, the incorruptible reality, that has obtained redemption for us? "You have felt, when some blessing came to you, a. sort of pain at the thought of your own unworthiness. The kindness of God has made you ashamed, It did not make you glad, a.s you expected. It rather made you sad and afraid lest you should prove unworthy of it all. So it is with redemption. It shows so grandly and tenderly the love of God; it shows so powerfully God's desire to have you, his deter- mination to win you by love, his resolution that no barriers shall be allowed to stand between you and him. H shows a God so intensely in earnest, both for happiness and holiness, that yon feel afraid. He is so much in earnest, and I so careless ; he so intent on my salvation, and I so dull and indifferent. He so anxious for me, he the Infinite One so intent on having me, and I, poor worm, so cold about him who is in himself all wealth and glory and blessedness. Such love, such intensity, such sactifice for me. I am ashamed and I fear-I fear lest l should not respond to all this. What a devotedness and thoroughness, what a living existence it would take to be at all in harmony with such love I And I, shall I be able to come even near to such a course? n (Leckie). The sphere of its operatiori. Redeemer provided from eternity. "Who wns foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world." 'l'here is similar language in Rev. xiii. 8, "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 'l'ho purpose was formed, and the fact taken into account from eternity, that the Second Person of the Godhead was to be sent forth as Redeemer. And therefore, when the world was fou1,ded, it was not without respect to redemption. God planned and acted beforehand, as thuugb redem1,tiuu bad taken place-throwing a ~plendour over material creation, gid.Dg a d,1y ol grace t,., men, bendir,g forth redeeming power upon mcn'B souls and, in ou, 1. 1-25.] THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. 67