Chapter # 1 Paragraph # 4 Study # 2
May 31, 2009
Lincolnton, N.C.
1769 Translation:
18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things,
as silver and gold, from your vain conversation
received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
1901 ASV Translation:
18 knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers;
19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb without spot,
even the blood of Christ:
20 who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of times for your sake,
21 who through him are believers in God, that raised him from the dead, and gave him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God.
- I. Peter's "Motivation" Principle.
- A. Redemption is cast by Peter into the mode of being the thing "known" that creates the motivation to "live in fear" while in this world.
- B. There must, therefore, be a significant "link" between "redemption" and "motivation".
- 1. The verb rendered "redeemed" is only used three times in the New Testament. The noun from which it springs is only used twice. Both Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45 record Jesus as saying, "...the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."
- 2. The use of the term by Jesus to declare His "purpose for coming" is highly significant because both of the aforementioned references are dealing with the same issue: the disciples' hot debate over which of them is "the greatest" and its consequent action by James and John to preempt the debate by simply getting Jesus to "appoint" them as "right hand" and "left hand" in the Glory to come. The debate, and Zebedee's sons' attempt to get around the opinions of their fellow apostles, was so completely out of order in respect to "Kingdom Truth" that Jesus felt compelled to lay out what the Kingdom was really like. He did it by telling them what the King of that Kingdom was like: a servant who came to make Himself a ransom for others. This can only mean one thing: being a "ransom" is the most significant characterization of the "Servant Kingdom" that Jesus could surface. In this "most significant" declaration, it is the "giving of the life" that constitutes both the "ministry" issue and the "ransom" issue. The King did not give His life so that others would not have to give theirs; rather, He gave His life as the clearest manifestation of what the "ransomed" were to do with theirs. As the days roll on, humanity gets to be more and more Narcissistic and that effectively translates into the perversion of the Gospel into "God pays the price and we get the benefits so that we may indulge our lusts to the max." Peter, in direct contradiction, says that, "Since God paid the price, we can do no less: He is the standard of what ought to be, and must come to be."
- C. The characteristics of the "redemption" principle.
- 1. It considers "silver" and "gold" as contemptible things. This is the automatic result of being "corruptible". Corruptible ultimately means "crawling with maggots". There are few, indeed, whose stomachs are not turned by that vision, but they seldom, if ever, see "silver" or "gold" in that light.
- 2. It considers the life that is fixed upon "saving" oneself from sacrifice a "vain" thing.