By Hoyt Wilson
Pastor, Flatwoods Baptist Church, Holladay
Charlie Brown said to Lucy: “Lucy, wouldn’t it be great, knowing what we know now, to get to live our lives over?” Lucy responded: “Charlie Brown, what do we know now?” Not even Christians get to live their lives over, but persons who receive Jesus as their Savior, do get to live a new life.
“Therefore” in I Peter 2:1 refers back to I Peter 1:23: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” The implication is that the new life will be a different kind of life because the Christian is born of imperishable seed. This should remind one of what Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6 NIV). Peter speaks to the change that believers experience when he says: “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good” (I Peter 2:3, NIV).
Just as babies crave milk, new-born Christians should “crave pure spiritual milk” to feed them so they can grow to their potential as children of God. A person recently saved by Jesus does not enter the kingdom of God full grown, but comes in as a baby. The analogy of new life in Christ helps one to understand that a real change has occurred. A new baby in a family changes everybody in the family. A new life in the family of God brings changes also, but the one that changes most is the newly saved person.
The second chapter of I Peter begins with Peter stressing some of the changes that must occur in the new convert. Just as the umbilical cord is cut to separate the infant from its mother, cords of sinful thought and action must be cut before real growth in Christ will begin. Peter lists five things that one must get rid of: malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of all kinds. In like manner, Paul wrote to Ephesian Christians telling them to put off falsehood, anger, stealing, unwholesome talk, bitterness, rage, brawling, slander, and malice (Ephesians 4:25-32). There is more than just putting off that occurs in the new Christian, however. There is also putting on to be done. Paul said: “… put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:22-24 NIV). That is not easy, but it is godly and is a result of being born from above. There is even more one in Christ is to experience as he grows in faith.
As Peter continues to help these spiritual exiles, he changes the figure of speech from a new birth to the erection of a building when he says: “As you come to Him, the living Stone … you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house” I Peter 2:4-5). There is both identity and purpose here. The identity is that the Christian is of the same sort that Jesus is — a stone and the purpose is the building of a building for God. As Christians grow in likeness of Jesus, His church grows in usefulness as a temple of God. Each believer is like a stone in that building. The more one grows in faith in Christ, the more useful he or she becomes. In verse 9 Peter tells the exiles who they are: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”
It takes faith for one to receive Jesus. Faith builds faith. The more one trusts Him and the more one becomes like Him, the more one desires to proclaim His praises. Well, one cannot live his life over, but one can be born again by the Spirit of God to a new life knowing Christ and sharing Christ that others might know Him and be saved.
