1 PETER 2
In the first verse of this chapter we see all the things that are rife in the world — malice, envy, hypocrisy, evil speaking; the world is full of these things. If a person is being led on, he begins by attachment to Christ, he believes in Christ, and then he is brought into the Christian circle and out of the worldly system. If people are simple and the truth reaches them that has been their history. In the great systems of Christendom people cannot grow up to salvation, the things in which they are entangled prevent it. They remain in the great worldly systems, and in that way are kept in attachment to the world, and the world is kept in contact with them.
The foundation of the exhortation in the first verse is in the preceding chapter. The apostle is looking at things from the divine side. He looks at the saints as an election of Jews, called, redeemed, and born again, and as new-born babes he urges them on that ground to desire the sincere milk of the word, that they may grow up to salvation. Salvation is the emancipation side. We are never fully in salvation until we are in the land. When we are in heavenly places, then it is that the reproach of Egypt is rolled away, and it is said, “By grace ye are saved”. Israel was saved from the power of the enemy when brought through the Red Sea, but it was not realised until they got to Gilgal.
[p. 25] It is a remarkable expression that is used here. We are to grow to salvation. All are not prepared to be relieved from the reproach of Egypt; the bulk of Christians are attracted to things in Egypt. Israel, at the Red Sea, was delivered from the power of the enemy, but they were not saved from themselves. So too we are introduced into the kingdom by faith, but then we are tested. Are we going to yield ourselves to the Spirit, or to assert the flesh? Israel fell by the flesh in the wilderness. It is a great thing for us to come to the consciousness of what we get in Romans 7, that my greatest enemy is myself. But the point to come to is that by the Spirit I am prepared to put that man off, and this latter involves my preparedness to go on to the purpose of God.
The proof of vitality is desiring the sincere milk of the word, as naturally in a babe the proof of vitality is that it desires milk. You want food. It would not be a good sign if a newly converted soul did not crave for food — not intelligence, but food.
By the Spirit, God has a living voice to us, and I want to hear that voice. We come into the kingdom, and the fact of being there brings us to the house, and then I am conscious that there is a living voice that speaks and that brings me to the assembly. Where there is natural vitality there is power to throw off humours, and so, spiritually, there is the power to throw off spiritual humours, malice, guile, hypocrisy, etc. We have to see to the building up of spiritual affections; then by the sincere milk of the word food becomes assimilated. The Holy Spirit came to establish the kingdom, i.e., the sway, the domination of grace, but as He did not become incarnate He must have a dwelling-place, and therefore He formed the house. Both Peter and Paul preached the kingdom. It began to be announced by the Lord. There is power down here to maintain the kingdom, because the Holy Spirit is here, and if He is here we have the [p. 26] house and the living voice of the Holy Spirit. God is speaking, He is not silent now. We have the scripture, but we get also a living voice; so he that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
There would be no kingdom here if there were not a power here commensurate with the authority at the right hand of God. The kingdom is the education for the church. The saints in early days were taught of the Holy Spirit before they had the written word; the living voice of the Holy Spirit was here. Everything has to be tested by Scripture; your appeal has to be to the law and the testimony, and all that is not according to the scripture has to be refused, but I do maintain that there is the living voice of the Spirit to be heard. Think of the mighty voice of God in His house in the early days of Christianity! The power is there still, but the vessel is marred, and therefore the effect of that mighty voice is less apparent. A distinguished servant like Timothy had to learn how to behave himself in the house of God; great as he was, he had to order his conduct according to the house.
It is well to raise the question, Is the kingdom still here, is it a reality, or is it a mere statement of terms? It is a great point to get back to the kingdom. It is not in word but in power; it is of the greatest importance to come back to that. Until the presence of the Spirit is recognised you cannot get the truth of the church. It is a grievous thing to ignore the presence of the Spirit. The grandest day of the kingdom was when Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee”. There was a wonderful witness to the power of Christ in raising up the lame man. He was a witness to the kingdom, he was walking and leaping; he had come manifestly under the sway of grace. The testimony and force of miracles was that there was a power here which was superior to all the power of evil. So there is a power [p. 27] now present which is spiritually above all the power of evil.
Tasting that the Lord is gracious is the sense of coming under the sway of grace. Grace is reigning through righteousness unto eternal life. We never could touch righteousness till grace reigned. We could never have come to self-judgment save in the sense of grace. Our first sense of God is grace. Repentance, I admit, is in a sense righteousness, but we can touch righteousness as to the application of it when grace is known. Grace which brings salvation teaches us to live righteously. It is the obligation of a man who knows grace to walk in self-judgment. I wonder, is there any limit to the grace of the Lord? Of His fulness have all we received and grace upon grace; there is no limit! The grace of the Lord acts in this way, it exposes what is contrary to the will of God in order that we may judge ourselves in regard of it. People do not give themselves unreservedly to the Lord. If you did, His grace would expose in you whatever is contrary to the will of God, and if it is exposed it is to be judged.
It is mental milk, it is in contrast to the natural; it is food for the mind in contrast to milk. It is intelligent, that is the meaning of mental.
People want good food; children need good food and healthy conditions; people do not disregard these things for their children, but these are what we need spiritually. You get the best of food in John 6 — bread which came down from heaven. We need, too, the healthy atmosphere which is found in the Christian circle; if people have these they will have good constitutions. The mental milk is the living bread which came down from heaven. It is a great thing to have tasted it. If grace has touched us, we want to taste it as food to build up the constitution. If a man is to be built up in grace he must eat the food. When a man is converted, he needs to be led on from believing [p. 28] in the grace presented in Christ to be established in the reality of the covenant — of God’s disposition towards him. We have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and we need to be established in grace more and more. We want to get more and more into the light of the covenant, that leads us to coming to the Living Stone.
Many are puzzled by the expression, “grow up unto salvation”. I do not enter into privilege, i.e., what is connected with Christ, unless I have grown up unto salvation, which refers to all that is connected with myself. When we come to Christ as the Living Stone we come to what is connected with Him. We have each individually to come to it — “to whom coming” — but in coming you come to what is collective — a spiritual house, a priesthood.
Salvation is what has been effected for us, but growing up to salvation is our entering into what has been effected. All against us has been annulled in the death of Christ, but to come into the realisation of it is another matter. The Lord put things before His disciples as they were able to bear it; so we grow up to salvation, but we are supposed to have had a taste of it, we have tasted that the Lord is good. “Good” is in the sense of kind, it is not the ordinary word for ‘good’. It is the same as in Ephesians 2, “His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus”. “To whom coming” is pretty much the same as “All therefore that have heard and have learned of the Father come to me”, John 6: 45.
It is in the Lord that we learn the great salvation. He has ascended up on high. He went into death, exhausted and annulled it, and now has gone up on high, and He is good. We taste this to begin with. Here it is the newborn babes growing up to salvation. The full grown man grows up in Christ. Here, it is the getting out of the state of being a babe. You have to come. It is a great point, you are attracted; it is the apprehension of what He has effected for man that [p. 29] draws you to Him; you see the retrieval He has effected for man, that He has actually come down to remove everything under which man lay, and now man is at the right hand of God. The ground of His claim is what He has effected. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be anathema maranatha”. It is wonderful that He should come forth in the sovereignty of grace and retrieve man, and that in Him man should have such a place before God. He was rich, and for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. It is this which draws our hearts to Him. The figure in the apostle’s mind (1 Peter 2) is Israel’s salvation; they were delivered from Pharaoh and the Egyptian. I rejoice in the Lord because He is the One in whom man is retrieved. “Evil workers”, “the concision”, would set the first man up again. I was a long time converted before I had any idea of two men and the significance of it. The whole ground of Christ’s Lordship is His rejection here. The One who was crucified was made Lord and Christ. There are four things; you believe in the Lord, you love Him, you rejoice in Him, and then you love His appearing.
Now (verse 4) we come to another point, the Living Stone. It is Christ dead and risen. The work of the Spirit in saints is to bring them into accord with Christ, as Christ now is, dead and risen. It is a great thing to apprehend Christ as the Living Stone, disallowed of men but chosen of God. When we are in accord with Christ we are led on by the Spirit to realise that we are dead and risen. Our ability as the holy priesthood, the worshipping company, depends upon our being in accord with Christ. We are dead and risen with Christ.
In testimony, Christ is presented as a point of attraction for all men, but as the Living Stone He is presented more as the centre of the priestly company. “To whom coming as unto a living stone”. When we [p. 30] apprehend Christ thus, we begin to apprehend Him according to divine purpose, and to understand what God is going to establish in Christ. We do not however begin there; we begin by seeing Christ as presenting the grace of God to man. What we get here is in advance of that.
“Disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God”, is death and resurrection; in coming to Him as the Living Stone who is “disallowed”, but “chosen”, we are in association, in accord with Him. He is precious to us. It is the apprehension of Him as the Son of God; not as Son of Abraham or Son of David, but as of the divine nature. All who have heard and learned of the Father come to Him, that is, to the Son of God. Many Christians do not come at all. If we come to the Living Stone, we have to come to Him where He is. As to coming to the Saviour, the truth is, He comes to you where you are. Then you learn that the One who attracts your heart, your Saviour, the One who is good to you, is disallowed indeed of men.
That He was “chosen of God” was always marked, but it came out fully in resurrection.
It is a wonderful thing to come to Christ with the sense that He is of the nature of God morally. God is love, and Christ is of the nature of God. This is the Living Stone, the Son of the living God. It is a point at which the soul arrives when you reach the sense of privilege. You may lose the sense, but you have known it. There can be no real apprehension of Christ until we receive the Spirit. “Come unto me” in Matthew 11 is not to the Saviour but to the Son; you must look at the passage in its connection. “Take my yoke upon you”, was spoken to those who laboured and were heavy laden, in bondage to the existing state of things. When Christ was rejected in His official character, He falls back upon the truth of His Person; He falls back upon the thought of Christianity. The point in connection with “a spiritual house” is love;
[p. 31] we come under the sense of His love, and we love Him because He first loved us. What marks the Son of the living God is love, and we come under the influence of His love, and we love Him, and we love the saints too. A bishop or church official is no good in this. We begin to be formed by the influence of love, and this is a great advance on the tasting that the Lord is good. The reason of the Lord’s love to us is that we are drawn to Him of the Father, but when drawn to Him we begin to love. We are no good to the assembly unless we are under the influence of love. 1 Corinthians 13 proves this to me. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
It is a spiritual house that is being built up; everything about Christ was spirit. His words were spirit and life. It is a great thing to apprehend that everything in Christ was morally new; it was all from heaven. He took the form of a man, but we want to see the spirit that gave character to the form; that is what we want to apprehend in Christ.
I think the Lord said that His words were spirit and life in contrast to what the people were saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They were so material. The point to apprehend in Christ is that all in Him was divine. Where was there ever a man before He came, who was meek and lowly in heart and superior to every influence here? It is only in Christ you can learn that what is essentially divine can adapt itself to the state of things here. That is what we learn in Him; but that One is disallowed indeed of man, who is proud and haughty in heart.
We never could have known God if Christ had not died. He came into the place of our judgment that God’s righteousness might be vindicated, and that in the same place He might reveal the love of God. The love of God came out fully at the cross. The death of Christ is that which is appealed to as the great proof of divine love.
[p. 32] In this chapter Christ is presented in a different light from the previous one, where His sufferings, His resurrection, and His appearing are spoken of. Here it is as a Living Stone; it is connected with the revelation to Peter in Matthew 16. It brings to light this great truth, that in the ways of God, everything proceeds from God; the real source of everything is God Himself. Christ is the Son of the living God. The One who is to fill all things, who is the centre of the moral universe, has come forth from God, He has proceeded from God.
“Marvellous light”, is the light of the full revelation of God. No truth came out after Christ, it all came out by Christ. Indeed, this is self evident, because Christ was the truth. There is no addition after Christ. We have been accustomed to think certain truths came out afterwards by Paul: but I do not think so now, otherwise the Spirit coming would have sealed an incomplete testimony. The Spirit sealed a complete testimony, and this is the force of what we get in John’s epistles. “I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it”. The testimony was complete. John writes to show that what came out in Paul’s testimony had come out in Christ Himself. After the seal came upon the testimony, it could not be added to; Paul could not add anything to what had come out by Christ; had he done so, I think the twelve would have been warranted to reject it. Nothing was communicated to Paul that had not come out in Christ. Take eternal life: Paul was an apostle according to the hope of eternal life, but Christ was that. Paul was used to develop that life by the Spirit, but in the ministry of Christ it all came out. The Lord made known to Paul the bearing of facts, but you get no more facts; the twelve gave the facts (see Luke 1: 1, 2), but Paul gave the bearing of these facts. Many things came out by Christ which were not ministered at first by [p. 33] the apostles. Eternal life, for instance, did not at first come out in public testimony. You have to distinguish between what came out in Christ and what was presented in public testimony; the latter came out gradually. The twelve speak of the fact of the Spirit’s presence, but Paul develops what was consequent upon His presence. That the Gentiles were fellow heirs, and the truth of the house were opened out by Paul, but all had, in principle, been set forth in Christ. Even the Lord had said, “Other sheep I have that are not of this fold”. The truth of the body had been set forth in Christ, and the Spirit sealed a complete testimony. It is most important to see this. So John tells us to beware of anything being added to the testimony of Christ as presented by the apostles. The twelve had a place which Paul had not, they were eye-witnesses and attendants on the Word. They had been companions of Christ; they will have a special place in the heavenly city. We have been inclined to depreciate the ministry of the twelve to make much of Paul, but the more I go on, the more importance I attach to the place they had. But the twelve could not have developed all that was involved in the testimony of Christ; in public testimony Paul completed the word of God. Christ at the right hand of God was the testimony of the twelve by the Holy Spirit. Paul saw Him there. The gospels were written after Christ was risen and glorified, and were no doubt given as safeguards. You cannot find any truth which is special and peculiar to Paul, that did not come out in principle in Christ Himself.
Peter touches the truth of the church, the house. All hung upon a special revelation to Peter which he apprehended, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Where God is brought in as a living God, then all must proceed from Him, and the first thing is the Son of the living God; then we get the house which is the church of the living God. (As the [p. 34] Son of promise, Christ was Son of Abraham and Son of David.) Then we get living stones. It all depends on the apprehension in our souls. We realise that we are the people of God, redeemed — as the boards of the tabernacle were established on sockets of silver — and then, in the apprehension of Christ as the Son of the living God we come to what is life. I am so conscious of being in a world of death — no life in it at all. Death is upon the best and the worst! The idea of the living God is that God Himself has come out as the Prince of life. “As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself”. “They that hear shall live”. Life was not recognised in Old Testament times. There was a work of God in saints, and faith; but the Lord said, I am come that they might have life. As long as God was going on with man in the flesh, He did not come out as the Source of life. It is an unvarying principle in God’s ways that He will preserve a remnant, He will have a tenth; “In it shall be a tenth”, Isaiah 6: 13. The Lord had the tenth leper.
“Them which were disobedient”. Disobedience is marked when you are under command; so Adam was disobedient and Israel was disobedient, but from Adam to Moses it was lawlessness, people had broken away from rule.
Everything for every one hangs on Christ; He is the Head of every man. The moment Christ became man, He became the Head of every man, and thus He became the test for every one. Simeon said, “This child is set for the fall and rising up of many in Israel”. “A light for the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel”. Then again, in Romans 11 the fall of the Jew is the riches of the world, and the casting away of them the reconciling of the world. And how? Because God has introduced a new Head, and as a consequence everything was put on a different footing. Christ is Head of [p. 35] every man for God; the point is, will you have the Head? Man says, No; the scientist, the philosopher, each wants to be head to himself and head for a few more, if possible.
The corner stone is the most conspicuous stone; it is called the head of the corner. In resurrection, Christ was proved to be elect, holy, and beloved; but He always was so. I do pity the man who does not accept Christ as Head. Men have great confidence in their own heads, and they are not prepared to adopt this new Head. Christ is the righteous One, and He has borne man’s liabilities and has gone to the right hand of God. That is the new Head for man. If God does not allow lawlessness in the physical universe, how will He allow it in the moral universe? Righteousness, on the part of God, is the assertion of rights, but righteousness, on my part, is the admission of rights. God has rights over me, I admit them. Every relationship here has a claim upon me, and I admit those claims; that is righteousness as regards us. God has taken up man wholly on other ground. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. The introduction of a Head involves that the Head is placed in relation to men. That is the wisdom of God. In thus taking up things, God was enabled to take up man on an entirely new footing. He could have nothing to say to man but judgment, but Christ came in as a new Head, and He takes up the liabilities which lay upon man, and then God is enabled to present His righteousness to man; therefore it is by faith of Jesus Christ. If you bow to Him and then submit to God’s righteousness He can then assert His right of mercy, but apart from Christ He could but assert His righteous judgment.
When offences and sins are spoken of, I think it is the transgression of those who stood in relation to God, but in the death of Christ you get the termination [p. 36] of man in the flesh, and then Christ is a new Head for man. God allowed Christ to be presented to the Jew, but there was no thought that He would be accepted. Simeon said, “This child is set for the fall ... of many in Israel”. There was a great effort on the part of Herod to cut Christ off even as a babe. Israel had been accustomed to sacrifices for sins, and therefore a testimony to them as to forgiveness of sins was welcomed, but the divine way in regard to the Gentile who had never stood in relation to God, is that God raised up a new Head for man, who has borne the liabilities which lay upon man, and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins are preached among all nations. This is the broad ground which applies to the Gentiles. We are not so much a people as children of God, but here (verse 10) Christians are spoken of as a people of God, that is, they had taken the place of Israel.
The thought of unity comes out in the thought of priesthood. It is not priests, but a priesthood. We have come into the place which was foreshadowed in Israel. Israel was to have been a holy priesthood. It was God’s thought in regard to the nation that they should be a holy nation to show forth His praises. We have come into these things in the meantime, spiritually, we take up Israel’s privileges in a spiritual way. We cannot at present enter into the purely heavenly things in actuality, but God calls us to be faithful in the things to which we are called as being down here, and that qualifies us for entering into what is purely heavenly by-and-by.
The Corner Stone is laid in Mount Zion. The only way in which you can get a true idea of Mount Zion is in a risen Christ. Men forfeited everything in regard of God when they crucified Christ, but resurrection brought Christ back to man in virtue of redemption. Everything is restored to man. Israel forfeited everything when the ark was carried captive,
[p. 37] but the ark was brought back to Mount Zion. It prefigured Christ brought again from the dead. We have come to Mount Zion in coming to a risen Christ. God brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ. He came out in the new covenant. It was in the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Mount Zion has bulwarks, and palaces, and towers, and we ought to be well instructed in these. Mount Zion is to be the joy of the whole earth; it is beautiful! It is the place which was the witness to the faithfulness of God when the people had lost all.
The holy priesthood is more that we appreciate the revelation. All the light and glory of God were in the house; so, coming to the Living Stone, we are built up a spiritual house. It is a great comfort to me that in such a day as this we can enter into privilege by the power of the Spirit. The danger and tendency with us is to set up something outward. In a day of ruin we do not want to set up anything, but to go on with what is spiritual and privilege, and leave Christendom to its responsibility. There is every encouragement to Christians to enter into the privilege to which we are called, and that without any outward pretension. People have a very poor idea of coming to the Living Stone and being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood; there is such a mockery of it in Christendom.
A sacrifice, as I understand it, is a sacrifice; it is that which costs you something. Sacrifices never went into the temple, and therefore I hesitate to connect the thought with the sanctuary. It is akin to the sacrifice of praise in Hebrews 13. Priesthood in verse 5 of this chapter, is an offering priesthood. I question if Peter carries us as far as the sanctuary. He prepares us for it. The priests had the charge of the sanctuary, but they also had the offering of the sacrifices, which were all outside the sanctuary. Sacrifice is connected with our individual path in the wilderness. “Strange fire”, in the present day, is whatever is not of the Holy Spirit.
There is no access to God except by Jesus Christ; there must be the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ.
The corner stone is the most conspicuous stone; it is not the crown.
It is most important to have the sense of having come to the Living Stone; it lands you outside of this world and its religion. It is strange that the same Person to some is precious and to others a stone of stumbling. It can only be explained by the work of God. Christ reveals God, and all that is of God is repugnant to the natural heart, and therefore He becomes a rock of offence.
Verses 9 and 10 give us the idea of the witness that Christians are called to be in the world; it is analogous to the teaching of Paul. On one side they are one body, and on the other they are Christ’s body, the vessel in which Christ is displayed. We find first the idea of a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, and then a chosen generation and royal priesthood. I understand this latter to be the vessels in which His excellencies are to be displayed. We do not get the one without the other. If God does not get His part there will not be much in the presence of men. “Holy priesthood” is a question of approach. In “royal priesthood” the idea is taken from “a kingdom of priests”; He has made us kings and priests. What we get in verses 5 and 9 is what really belonged to Israel. In a way, they were a holy priesthood, and so too a peculiar people — a vessel in which the character of God was displayed, not the idea of testimony or preaching, but what is moral — His virtues coming out in us. We are to show them forth. The essence of God’s call is that it is out of darkness into light. We are viewed Godward and manward — inward and outward — to God and from God; this is the holy priesthood and royal priesthood. It is analogous to Paul saying, “Ye are Christ’s body”, the vessel in which the character of Christ was displayed. Christianity was not only to give us privilege, there is also what is to come out in us, a witness to the virtues of God. It is the conduct of Christians morally. We were chosen for the purpose of showing forth the virtues of Him who has called us. If we do not enter into privilege, we shall not get the witness side. One body, is what we are to God; Christ’s body is the vessel in which He is displayed. It is just the difference between our being in Christ and Christ being in us. “We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world”. This is the witness that is committed to the whole company. Christ had come to Israel according to promise; He was the Minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers. Had He come to make good their fleshly hopes and anticipations they might have accepted Him, but in His coming God had other purposes to give effect to, and thus He became a test to the nation. The building of the church had to take precedence of the establishment of the promises to Israel. The lesson Israel had to learn was that God is sovereign, and can do as He pleases. Christ was the Messiah of Israel, and was presented as such to them, but there were deeper things to accomplish and this was a test. Even in Romans we find that the church took precedence of Israel. Romans 1 - Romans 8 speaks of the church. Then, too, in John to we get that the Lord comes into the fold to lead out the sheep and then to form something quite new — “one flock”. In this chapter we get the same thing coming out, “a spiritual house”. The quotation in the sixth verse is only to give the character of the Stone — elect, precious — it does not go into the question of what was to be built upon it.
The principle of divine sovereignty was what Israel’s position as a nation depended on. There were deeper [p. 40] purposes in connection with the coming of Christ into the world, but God will be faithful to His promises, though if He pleases He can give the first place to these purposes. This is the key to the Epistle to the Romans. The Living Stone was much more than the Son of Abraham or of David, He is a Man come in from God and of Him; then, all that is of man must go. The Living Stone indicated that God had other purposes than merely to establish the promises. Man is gone for God, but he has to go for me — that is, I have to get the consciousness of it. The great difficulty for us is to arrive at having put off the old man; God removed him at the cross. The truth in Jesus is that the old man has been put off for God; then we have to come to it in mind, and then to be consistent with it. The conclusion we have come to is that we are of God and the whole world lieth in the wicked one. People may think that very uncharitable, but it is what you are compelled to come to if you come to Christianity; there is nothing for God here but Christ. The beginning of it was the Living Stone, but now the truth has gone a point further, and we are living stones, we are of God. What Christ quickens is after Himself, and is after God.
In the first part of the epistle, we have had before us the great elements of salvation, the first of which is being brought into attachment, and thus being delivered from lawlessness. The second is being brought out of the world into the Christian circle. It is in that way that we get the reality of salvation. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, who was fore-ordained for us. God has raised Him up from the dead and given Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God. It is by Christ we believe in God, that is, we are brought into attachment. Then afterwards we get the other point, we are brought into the Christian circle, which delivers us from the world. Being brought into the circle of love is what [p. 41] delivers from this world. The salvation is in that way complete. It is difficult to realise it in our days. Everything is so dimmed, we are greatly affected by the existing state of Christendom, and therefore it is difficult to realise these things, and to find the Christian circle. We are to follow righteousness, faith, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart, and that, when things have fallen into decay. We have a good deal of Adam and Cain about us, and we have to escape from both (i.e. from lawlessness and hatred); and how? We escape from Adam by being brought into attachment to Christ, and we escape from Cain by being brought into the Christian circle; we escape from hatred by love. It is difficult practically to get the Christian circle, but it is a great thing to get into the thought of it, for then you are not disposed to go on with that which is a denial of it. There is no idea of the Christian circle in the great systems around us. We are in danger of getting into brethrenism, of looking upon “Brethren” as the circle.
All that comes out in the early part of the second chapter is to strengthen the bond. You begin by loving the brethren, but then you are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood; then to you that believe is the preciousness. That is, as we get increasing light as to Christ, we become more knit together; the bond is increased as we get more light in regard of Christ. We thus not only get the Christian circle, but we get the spiritual house, the one priesthood, the one generation and one nation; the bond is strengthened.
Israel had been the house, but now it is a spiritual house. The more apprehension we get of Christ, the greater the effect in binding us together, and the more unity is promoted. When divisions come in among us and we are broken up, it has not indicated increasing light with regard to Christ, for light in [p. 42] regard to Christ tends to build up and unite. These Jews had an apprehension of the Christian circle, they loved the brethren unfeignedly, and they were a spiritual house, a chosen generation; it tended in the direction of promoting unity. It is a very important principle that light does not tend to disintegration but to unity, and I believe that is the true way of unity. We all beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image (see 2 Corinthians 3: 18). The effect is produced upon all of us; we all feel it. It brings us together, and nothing else will. There is only one house and one priesthood. The Spirit produces an apprehension of Christ, and it tends in the direction of unity, and the effect is that God shines out. We are a chosen nation to show forth the praises of Him who has called us. It was not God’s thought that one Israelite should witness to God; it was that the nation should do so. So too in regard of the church, it was to be a witness to unity. The state of Christendom only proves how little Christ is known. We get in this the completeness of the salvation. Once we are instructed as to our links, then we are prepared for the individual path which is the subject in the next section of the epistle. Unless we are in the reality of our relation to Christ and of the Christian circle in unity, we cannot go out rightly in our individual path in this world.
A “virtue” is what has moral excellence; that is really what is of Christ. The source of virtue is not in oneself. The great point for a Christian is to know what the Lord was down here. We have all His course given to us, and we are called to walk as He walked. It takes a good deal of grace to follow in His steps. People do not care for obscurity. There was nothing about Him which sought prominence except the good He did. Imitating Christ is not the same as learning of Him. Walking as He walked is the effect of being under His testimony and hearing [p. 43] His word. The testimony of Christ brings you under the influence of all that God is. Very few people know what it is to be in God’s marvellous light, and yet they may have a great knowledge of the letter of Scripture. I think people make Scripture too much a text-book. Scripture is the record of the revelation rather than the revelation of God. The great point is not to be detained by the letter, but to get to that which the letter makes known. God’s marvellous light is a great reality. It is being in the presence of all that God has been pleased to make known of Himself. I believe the cross is where the light of God comes out; He was fully revealed in the death of Christ; it came out, not in statements but in facts, in righteousness and in love, in all that He is. It is wonderful the way God has taken to make Himself known. Righteousness was met according to its measure and declared, but His love is immeasurable, and to be in the presence of these is to be in God’s marvellous light. Man was under death, and the law brought home to him the sense that he was rightly under it. It is right for God to say, “Thou shalt not covet”, and if a man does covet he must feel he is rightly under the sentence of death. Some people say that Christianity is a question of opinions, others of forms; but I say, it is light. God has revealed Himself in the death of Christ as love. He commends His love towards us. People are not consciously in God’s marvellous light. If they were it would have a very wonderful effect upon them down here. The whole spirit and character of the world is just the opposite of the love of God, and if we are under the influence of the world we cannot keep ourselves in the love of God. It is difficult to get free of the contagion.
The tenth verse is quoted from Hosea. What the nation had lost, these Jews of the dispersion had come into, but in a spiritual way. They really were [p. 44] not a people, and yet now had become the people of God. The truth is set forth in a Jewish light in connection with the government of God. Israel had lost their opportunity, they lost it in rejecting Christ, and I do not believe they ever regain what they have lost, i.e. the presence of Christ among the people. He was as a root out of a dry ground, but they did not appreciate Him. He will come again, but they will see Him only in the church. I do not believe they ever will have Christ among them again. In the church God will show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. He will come to be glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe. The kingdom now, is that we should be under divine sway here; it is what fits for the heavenly city. The point is, are we prepared to suffer now? We shall not defer to man here, nor accept his support, if we recognise the claims and rights of Christ at the right hand of God and the Holy Spirit here. The kingdom now is a very great test. Who is to rule me, Christ or man? Are we to have recourse to human expedients instead of the support of the Holy Spirit? The kingdom would be worth nothing if there was not power here to maintain it according to the authority at the right hand of God. Every kingdom upon earth has in itself the principle of decay, but I see a kingdom which because of its moral perfection will never decay.
The apostle is addressing Jews very particularly, “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles” (see verse 12). It is important to remember that the special work of Peter was to serve the remnant. The Lord says to him, “Feed my sheep”, and then He reveals to him his death. Peter was to pass off the scene. Gentiles were never as sheep going astray, they never were sheep. Israel were the sheep of His pasture. In the tenth of John, the “other sheep” were only sheep in purpose then; they are not viewed as sheep till they are brought; “them also I must bring”; the Lord was gathering up everything for God. Now, there is one flock and one Shepherd; this is what is peculiar to Christianity. Peter passes off the scene — that is, his ministry passed off. His mission was to the Jews specially. In John 21 we get Peter and John, but no mention of Paul. He comes in between. Peter’s ministry was to the remnant. Paul carries the church up to heaven as Christ’s body, and John brings in the Only begotten into the world again, and therefore he remains until the end.
“Lo-Ammi” was written upon Israel from the time of the Babylonish captivity. A remnant was brought back, to whom Christ was presented, and it is interesting to notice that Stephen says they would be carried away beyond Babylon; that refers to the present time. For a time, God specially concerned Himself about the Jews, but that came to an end. Paul knows no difference. He does not recognise any difference between Jew and Gentile. It is confirmatory to faith to see the Lord revealing to Peter and John their respective place, and then Paul coming in between. The keys of the kingdom were given to Peter to let the Gentiles in, and that was to maintain harmony, but the exception proves the rule. Peter’s ministry came to an end when he passed off the scene, it was not put aside by Paul being taken up. They all fully recognised each other’s apostleship.
We are to be in the reality of the Christian circle, and then we come out as strangers and pilgrims. The world is an uncongenial circle. You find fleshly lusts all around you in the world; they war against the soul, and we are to abstain from them. They may come out in dress, houses, tastes, but they war against the soul. We are all prone to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. They are in the world and we are very prone to them. We do [p. 46] not want to encourage what wars against the soul; if you do, you encourage the enemy. The tendency is to sail as close to the wind as possible. What goes on amongst us is that where people have the means they go as close to the world as they can, and yet connect it with a certain consent to the truth. If that is allowed, no progress is being made in the soul.
Young people run after one thing and another, they go and see pictures and the like. They say there is no harm in them, but I say these things war against the soul, and people who go in for them are not going on. It is a grave question with all of us who have to do with young people. We have our responsibility in regard to it. They look up to us, and we have to seek to influence them. In natural things we do not give our children poison instead of good food, and so I think spiritually we ought to try and keep our children from poison. We have often been exercised as to how little we are able to influence them, but still I do not think we should be discouraged, but set the example. We ought to lead the van as a pattern of good works.
In verses 13 - 17 we get an idea of good works. Submit yourselves to every human ordinance. Kings and rulers are not looked at as divine appointment; it is a human ordinance. David and Solomon were God’s anointed; now, kings are a human institution and it has to be submitted to. It is the times of the Gentiles, and so kingship is a human ordinance. When God recognised Jerusalem and David, it was divine appointment. God now gives divine support to these human institutions. It makes the path very simple — you can accept a republic as easily as a kingdom. You submit yourself to it for the Lord’s sake, namely for conscience towards the Lord. It is very important to see that government is maintained simply on account of the testimony. 1 Timothy 2 shows this. God has no real interest in the course of the world, it is the testimony which interests God.
[p. 47] Christ is Head of every man, and the testimony of that goes forth, and government is upheld in connection with the going forth of the testimony. I am quite sure God does not uphold government in connection with the glory of man.
In the day when Peter wrote, the state figured by the “mustard tree” had not set in; it has altered things on the face of the world, it has complicated matters and made them more difficult for us. A king reigning in this country, reigns “by the grace of God”, and this is the mustard tree, it is the shape it takes. The consequence is that in the minds of most, human institutions get mixed up with the thought of divine authority. David was anointed with the holy oil and took the place of a king, but he could not take the ground of being a king by the grace of God. The great point for us is to disentangle the human institutions from the divine authority, so that we may be able to regulate our conduct in regard of them. Government is an institution recognised of God from Noah downwards; the only thing is, can a king take the ground of reigning by the grace of God?
Kings have authority to rule, but not in God’s things. You do not get the combination of God and ruler till Christ comes, but we have not far to go to see the attempt that is made in Christendom to combine them. It is a great thing to disentangle in our minds the thought of God’s kingdom and the recognition of human institutions down here.
The heavenly city combines the three great testimonies of God: ruling, for it has the throne of God; then, God dwells there, the Lord God is the light thereof; and then blessing, the river of the water of life proceeding out of the throne. It is exceedingly beautiful, and the one hangs on the other.
The real beginning of the mustard tree was when the church came under the power of the world, and it was sought to combine both. It is remarkable that in [p. 48] Luke the only two similitudes of the kingdom of God are the mustard tree and the leaven; they set forth that things would become humanised; the kingdom is brought down to what suits man instead of being maintained in its own proper divine character, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Nothing can be more important than to recognise the good of government; even in the worst form of government, I suppose there must be at least a show of seeking good and repressing evil. Bad government, therefore, is better than no government at all; nothing can be worse than anarchy. Then it is important to see that this submission must be yielded for the Lord’s sake. No part of a Christian’s conduct should be unsuitable to the Lord. Whether in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus; that is very comprehensive. We should be much happier if we did it. We see in the second chapter of Philippians that the divine glory was secured in a Man at the cross, and now, as a moral consequence, the divine glory and universal rights are set forth in Him. Therefore the bearing of His Lordship is very great upon us; He represents to us all the rights and authority of God, and therefore whatever we do, we are to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Christ went down and became obedient unto death to secure and vindicate the glory of God, and therefore, what is morally suitable is His being highly exalted.
I think if I were a preacher going about I should preach nothing but the kingdom, and for this reason, that people need it, and that there is no possibility of entering the church apart from it. People can make no headway unless they know the kingdom. As being under the sway of grace, and no sin imputed, grace and support are ministered to you. The principle of the kingdom is not exaction but support. Christ is exalted to the right hand of God, and there is a power down here equivalent to that. It is a great comfort [p. 49] that whatever man may make of things down here, the proper character of the kingdom has never been altered, and that is what we have to get back to in a day of ruin.
Ignorance in the things of God is not a commendable thing, at least not as Scripture speaks. “Doing good” is the way you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, it is not by talking good; we are to be zealous of good works, rich in good works. A Christian should be beneficial to man according to the light of God, that is what I should call “good works”. A man of vast resources may be beneficial to man, but what he did would not have the character of good works unless it was in the light of God. The first great thing for a Christian is to take care that he does not falsify the Lord. No matter what people think of me, my demeanour, and ways, and bearing in regard of everything must be that I do not falsify the Lord. We are to be here as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. Lights are very important in a dark world. A Christian, without any assumption, may reflect the light of God. He has brought us into His marvellous light because He has revealed Himself, and it is in reflecting that light, that we are here as lights in the world.
At the present day the principle that animates dissent is radicalism, puffing down, and Christianity is used too to this end. “Honour all” is the disposition that is to be on the part of the Christian, he does not treat men with contempt or disdain. Take a poor man, you are not to treat him with disdain. “Honour the king”, that is by obeying the laws.
Now, in verse 18 we get a word to household servants, not exactly slaves. Verse 19 reads, “this is grace” or “acceptable”; it is the same word as “this is acceptable with God” (verse 20). It is remarkable how much importance is attached to the conduct of slaves and servants. A very special exhortation is addressed [p. 50] to slaves in Titus, and in connection with that there is a striking setting forth as to grace. The lower people are in the social grade, the more opportunity there is for testimony. When a man is wealthy he has to be divested of the thought that it is a mark of divine favour. It is not so, for often we see a very wicked man attain wealth. I think prosperity may be a mark of divine favour, but I question if it ever was the thought of God that man should amass wealth. The prayer of Agur was, “Give me neither poverty nor riches”. The record of his prayer is inspired. Solomon was a man of the greatest powers of observation, and he had abundant opportunity of judging the end of things, and the Spirit of God gives the prayer as wisdom that it may be a help to us. The Lord is given as the example to servants; He came so low in this world that He became an example even to such. The Lord went to the lowest point, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
The Lord did not take things into His own hands (verse 23). He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. If you are aspersed and evil spoken of, you have to leave it. If Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, it is very inconsistent for us to commit them. I think the expression “on the tree” has reference to the curse, “Cursed is every one who hangeth on a tree”. It was the way He bore the curse. In order that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness. It is “dead to sins”, not to sin. Peter does not teach Paul’s doctrine. Christ has borne our sins, and therefore we are to have done with sins; righteousness is to mark us, and the first principle of righteousness has to do with God. Romans 6 is, that you are consistent with the position in which your baptism in figure places you.
Verse 25 could only apply to Jews. They were as sheep gone astray, but were now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls. The position [p. 51] of the Gentiles is not that of coming in as sheep which had gone astray. The Jew had wandered, but the state of the Gentile was that they were lost in the distance.