1 Peter 1:18,19. 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; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
From verse 13 of this chapter, the holy Apostle Peter exhorts, with much earnestness, the Christian converts, to whom the Epistle is addressed, to walk worthy in all respects, of their high privileges and their holy calling; and he makes use of various arguments to enforce this exhortation. In verses 15 and 16 he represents to them the purity and holiness of the divine nature, in order to excite in them more and more the love of holiness, and an ardent concern to resemble their heavenly Father in that perfection: “As He who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation”.
Though they were delivered from the curse of a broken law and the wrath of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, yet he lays before them in verse 17 the consideration of His strict, impartial justice as the Judge of all the earth, in order to work up their minds further to a holy, habitual fear of offending Him: “And if ye call on the Father, who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.” In verses 18 and 19 he urges the same exhortation to universal holiness, from the consideration of the great redemption which had been wrought out for them and of the costly ransom which had been paid for their salvation: “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; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot”.
I propose, through the assistance of the Spirit of God, (1) to show from what they were redeemed, adverted particularly to what is specified here: “their vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers”; (2) to consider the price of this redemption: “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”; (3) to conclude with some reflections naturally arising from the preceding heads.
Note: Calder was minister of Ferintosh, Ross-shire, from 1774 to 1812; This was an action sermon, before the Lord’s Supper – taken, with editing, from Three Sermons by the Rev Charles Calder. His successor was John Macdonald; a sermon of his appeared last month.
1. The evils from which the converts to Christianity are redeemed
not only those to whom the Apostle here writes, but all the people of God in every age.
(1) They are redeemed from the guilt of sin: “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14). And in having the guilt of sin removed, they are delivered from the curse of the law and from the wrath that is to come – from that everlasting misery which is the just wages of sin. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal 3:13). “And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Th 1:10). To the same purpose, the Psalmist says, “Great is Thy mercy toward me; and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell” (Ps 86:13). “Who”, says Paul, “shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again” (Rom 8:33,34).
All who have fled to Christ, and laid hold on Him for life, may find a satisfying answer in His death and resurrection to all the accusations of Satan and of conscience. If then He became the Surety of His people, if He was arrested for their debt, made the prisoner of death, and was afterwards released from the confinement of the grave, this is a certain proof that, by His death, all their debt was paid and a complete satisfaction made to the law and justice of God. His justice and His truth are therefore now as much engaged to receive us graciously when we believe in Christ, as before they were engaged to punish us most vigorously. Thus there is hope in Christ for the chief of sinners, for He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him and that plead His great sacrifice as their passover.
As, on the night fatal to the first-born of Egypt, the blood of the paschal lamb protected the Israelites from the sword of the destroying angel, so the blood of Jesus will prove a certain safeguard from God’s wrath to all those who trust in it alone for pardon and acceptance with God. What a precious, inestimable blessing is the free forgiveness of sin and peace with God! What a value holy David put on it! “Blessed”, he said, again and again; “blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Ps 32:1,2).
When the guilt of sin, this dreadful wall of separation, is removed, all other spiritual blessings flow richly to the justified soul. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God . . . and rejoice in the hope of . . . glory.” The sense of reconciliation to God through Christ adds the sweetest relish to all the comforts of life. It smooths the rugged face of adversity, disarms every affliction of its sting and, like the tree cast of old into the waters of Marah – the bitter waters – it sweetens all the trials and sorrows of life. “Peace I leave with you,” said Jesus to His disciples, “My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (Jn 14:27). As it is said in Job 34:29, “When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?” When He gives to the soul that peace which passes all understanding, what then can annoy it?
(2) Again, they are redeemed from the dominion of sin, from its shameful bondage and its reigning power. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus”, says the Apostle Paul, “hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). Again he says, “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14). It is a truth of undoubted certainty that we are as much indebted to Christ’s precious blood for our sanctification as for our justification. Accordingly He is called, not only “the Lord our Righteousness”, but likewise our “sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). And we are told that He “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tts 2:14). To the same purpose is that grand passage: “If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb 9:13,14)
(3) The people of God shall be redeemed from all the woes and sorrows of mortality, from all the painful sensations and mournful disasters, both personal and relative, to which they are continually exposed in this vale of tears. Here every man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward; but when the ransomed of the Lord shall come to Zion, they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall for ever flee away. Then “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away” (Rev 21:4). They shall be redeemed from the last remnants of sin, which cleave more or less in degree to the best of them in this life.
This made the Apostle Paul cry out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The answer is, Death shall deliver from the body of sin. Sin brought death into the world and all our woe, and it is the dissolving of the earthly tabernacle that shall first thoroughly cleanse God’s children from the leprosy of sin. This is a consideration which tends greatly to reconcile the believer to the dissolution of the body, because he knows that he shall then be delivered from the very being of sin and made perfect in holiness. Accordingly, we read that Christ “loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:25-27).
(4.) They shall be redeemed at length from the bands of death and from the prison of the grave. It cannot till then be said that they are perfectly redeemed from all the dismal effects of sin. It is then that death shall be swallowed up of victory. That great day of complete redemption is approaching, O believer! Hear your Redeemer’s delightful promise to this purpose; hear, and let your flesh rest in hope: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave: I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction; repentance shall be hid from Mine eyes” (Hos 13:14). Thus also Christ Himself speaks, “This is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn 6:39,40).
How glorious then is that redemption which Christ has wrought out for His people! How happy the people who are or shall be partakers of this great salvation – salvation from sin, from death, from hell and wrath. And we may see who they are by referring to what is here said of them: they were redeemed “from [their] vain conversation, received by tradition from [their] fathers”. By this we are to understand not merely those vain imaginations and superstitious usages which were handed down to them by tradition. But by their vain conversation we are also to understand that foolish, unsavoury, carnal, sinful way of life in which they lived, and which is natural to all the children of men who have not been renewed in the spirit of their minds by the power of divine grace.
This, as well as traditions of a superstitious nature, may very properly be said to be handed down to them from their fathers. Those sinful habits and practices which tarnish and pollute the conversation, are in a certain sense hereditary. At least their root and principle are hereditary, and the strong natural tendency to what is sinful is enforced by bad example, particularly the example of fathers and kindred. How rapidly do men then run down with the stream of sin and folly and become more frothy, vain, carnal and sinful than even those whose worthless manners they had been copying. How mighty then is the power of divine grace, which renews first the heart and then the life in opposition to the strong bias of corrupt nature, the force of example and perhaps the example of parents’ relations, and likewise in opposition to the powerful early prejudices of education.
In opposition to all these, the almighty power of divine grace carries the sincere convert, like Abraham of old, who left his kindred and his father’s house to journey, in obedience to God’s command, towards the land which God had promised him; or, like the fishermen of Galilee, who at the call of Jesus Christ left their all and followed Him. This is, in effect, the language which is spoken to the Church and to every believing soul by the Spirit of God. “Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him” (Ps 45:10,11).
Vain conversation. Well may the ungodly, unhallowed way of life of the unregenerate be termed a vain conversation – vain and unprofitable to those who share in it. If there was nothing more in it than this, the doom of the unprofitable servant is terrible, as you may see in Matthew 25:30: “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. But the vain conversation of unregenerate sinners can scarcely fail to be most hurtful and dangerous, for it cools, it hardens and defiles all who are within its reach; at least this is its natural and evident effect and tendency.
As it is thus unprofitable, indeed hurtful, to others, how fruitless and unprofitable is it to the poor man himself, who toils about in a laborious pursuit of vanity, perpetually disappointed of all that rest, satisfaction and joy for which he so fondly hoped. “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death” (Rom 6:21). It is dismal for anyone thus to dream away his whole life in vanity. It is hard when the hireling toils sore all day and has no wages to look for at night. But what is that to the disappointment of poor sinners at the evening of life, at the end of their days and their vain conversation, when in all their labour there is nothing to give them rest or peace. On the contrary, everything they had been pursuing, idolising and grasping at are seen then and felt then – O how bitterly felt! – to be vanity and vexation of spirit. Their time is at an end and the great work of their life has not yet begun; the copestone should be ready to be put on, but the foundation stone has not yet been laid.
Redeemed from your vain conversation. This intimates to us that they who are under the power of this vain conversation are in a state of spiritual thraldom; they are the most wretched slaves; and yet, alas, they are unconscious of their slavery; they hug their chains; they love their bondage; and they fancy themselves free. They resemble criminals under sentence of death, lying in prison to the day of their execution, who through the influence of intoxicating drink have become unconscious of their misery, who sport with their chains and are quite jovial, as princes in a palace. But surely their case is still far more pitiable and wretched. Thus you will see unregenerate sinners, in their vain conversation, are under the sentence of wrath and also under the dominion of their lusts. And whoever is redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ from the sentence of condemnation and the stroke of divine justice is redeemed also from the dominion of sin and from a vain conversation, for justification and sanctification are absolutely inseparable. Accordingly, the Apostle Paul says, Christ “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit 2:14).
2. The price of redemption.
“Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold.” However valuable silver and gold are in the estimation of men, and however eagerly pursued as if they were the chief good, they are of no avail in this important respect. They are insufficient for what is infinitely less: for redeeming from bodily death, or protracting the life of the body for one day or one hour, or even for relieving it from pain or sickness. Therefore they are far less sufficient to redeem the soul from everlasting destruction. This cannot be done without blood. The Apostle says to the Hebrews: “Without shedding of blood is no remission” of sin (9:22). And with what blood will God be pleased? Will He be pleased with the blood of bulls or of goats? With thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Will He accept the offering of our firstborn for our transgression, the fruit of our body for the sin of our soul? Vain are all such oblations; vain are the sufferings even of angels to procure the remission of sin.
What blood then was sufficient for this great purpose? We are told here that it was the precious blood of Christ, the spotless Lamb, the Eternal Son of God, whose transcendent personal glory has imparted infinite merit to His sufferings, and infinite virtue and efficacy to His sacrifice. But how little can we comprehend of the infinite glory of the Redeemer, before whom Isaiah, in his vision of the upper world, beheld the highest orders of celestial beings veiling their faces with their wings and worshipping with the most profound reverence? Of Him the prophet, rapt in vision of future times, cries out in holy ecstasy: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6).
Had it been only a mere man, a creature though of the most exalted rank, who had condescended to suffer and die for sinners, whatever admiration and praise such friendship might excite, it could afford us no solid consolation, as it could be of no avail to put away the guilt of sin or to obtain eternal redemption for them. The redemption of the soul was precious, and must have ceased for ever, if a ransom of infinite worth had not been provided. It must indeed be a ransom adequate to the redemption of a multitude which no man can number, and each soul of that multitude incomparably more valuable than the whole world in the estimation of Him who best knows its worth. The price by which such a redemption has been purchased must be amply adequate to it. “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28). “Feed the Church of God,” said Paul to the elders of Ephesus, “which He hath purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).
That one of such infinite dignity should humble Himself thus and shed His blood on the cross of shame, for the salvation of guilty men, is indeed altogether wonderful and mysterious. It is a doctrine therefore which corrupt human reason is ever ready to reject as false and absurd. But he who believes that there is a God must believe mysteries. In the eye of sound reason nothing can appear more arrogant than for man to pretend to search out the Almighty unto perfection, and obstinately to reject the clear and express revelation which He has made to us of His nature and of His ways. This is because these are incomprehensible to the poor grovelling creature who is a mystery to himself, and who can no more account for the union of soul and body – two substances yet one person – than he can comprehend this great subject, infinitely beyond the narrow knowledge of the human understanding, even this great mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh.
It is a most comforting truth that the glorious Redeemer is God as well as man; of this we have the fullest and clearest evidence in the Word of God. “Without controversy,” says Paul, writing to Timothy in the passage just alluded to, “great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (1 Tim 3:16). And in his Epistle to the Philippians, he says of Christ: “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (2:6). If the heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament shows His handiwork; if the vast creation bears the stamp of an Almighty agent; if the cherubim and seraphim, who shine and serve around the throne of God, proclaim that the hand that made them is divine, then this honour is due to Jesus Christ; “for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him” (Col 1:16).
Again He is expressly styled, “the Beginning and the End” (Rev 22:13). The Beginning is the efficient cause from which all things proceed, and the End is the final cause to which all things are referred; and nothing higher than this can be said of God the Father. It is the infinite dignity and glory of Christ that imparts infinite worth to His sufferings, and gives virtue and efficacy to His sacrifice, which the sufferings of the whole human race would not have done even if they had been doomed to everlasting punishment. He who humbled Himself for the sake of sinners was higher than the heavens; He who emptied Himself had all the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily; He who endured the cross, despising the shame, was that great and glorious Being whom the highest angels worship and adore. Precious therefore, indeed beyond comparison, is His blood. His humiliation, His poverty, His shame and His sufferings have therefore infinite merit, and are a sufficient atonement for the infinite evil of sin.