1 Peter 1:19 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Peter 1:19

Comments

It wasn’t with silver and gold and things that can perish that you were purchased but ‘with the precious blood of Christ.’ Only by his taking the punishment due to me for my sin on Calvary’s Cross and belief in that can I be set free, can I be born again and related to God and walk with him. But what is the great incentive after this for holiness? Well, it is that the precious blood of Christ was shed for me. God gave the life of his own Son.Why the blood? It is sometimes said (and it’s well intended) that the blood of Christ is only a way of speaking about his death. The blood is not particularly important, it’s just a symbol. But that is a grave mistake. It is very important. It is more than just a shorthand phrase for his atoning death. It draws attention very much to his humanity. He is God, second person of the Trinity, equal with the Father, but he became man. He entered into human flesh and human personality. It is the blood of the God-man demonstrating to us that in his humanity too, as well as in his divine nature, he suffered for us and felt our pain and died our death. This was the blood of the Creator of the world, after he had come and assumed a human body. There are millions and millions of human beings that have been born and will be born, and they all have blood. But there is only one human being who, at the same time was God: God incarnate, the Creator of all things. We don't suppose for a moment that the composition of the blood of Christ was any difference from the composition of anybody else's blood, but it was different in this respect: it was the blood of the body which enclosed and was coexistent with the eternal Son of God. It is no ordinary blood! It was shed for you! Our redemption could only be accomplished by what has value in heaven and therefore that payment must cost God himself. Grace is so marvellous because it is God who pays the price for those who cannot pay for themselves. It is grace because of course there is no obligation on him to pay but he pays voluntarily for what others ought to pay for. And what does he provide to pay for our release from hell? Not simply something precious, but the thing that is most precious of all – the life of his own Son. He presented himself as a lamb, meek and passive in submitting to his slaughter. He fulfilled all of the Old Testament sacrifices. These had to be without blemish (Exodus 12:5; Lev 1:3, 10, 22:19; etc.) just because they had to be accurate pictures of the sinless Christ, for only a sinless Saviour could make atonement for sin.

Application

Won’t you be holy? Won’t you daily pray for grace and ask for a lively conscience? Fight against sin? Pray for the help of the Spirit to make you a better person in every way and to advance and overcome sin, when the blood of the Creator and the Saviour has been shed for you. It was the blood of the one person in the history of the world who was qualified to be Saviour because he had never sinned, he was unblemished, he was wonderful, he was perfect. By the presentation of that blood, the Father was moved to cancel the debt of sin, which is ours. It is the blood that goes on speaking as Christ presents his finished atoning work in heaven. It is more than merely a symbol. It is the only blood that was ever shed that can affect the lives of billions of people throughout this world.

It is beyond our capacity to understand how much it would cost him for it touches the most precious relationship that exists, a relationship which has been undisturbed for all eternity, the relationship between the Father and the Son. How is it that this is not so personal to God that it is off limits, out of bounds, unmentionable? What sinful creature would have dared to come to God and pleads for this: ‘We have broken your laws which you warned us not to break, and we have committed foul acts which are deeply shameful, cheap acts of sin that bought us only momentary satisfaction and which boosted our little egos and this is the only benefit we got out of it. Now we dare ask that a price, which we cannot conceive of, should be paid to release us from the consequences of our sin. We dare to request that the most precious only begotten Son of God who dwells in the bosom of the Father should be given for us and not only this but should have to be clothed in our shameful sins and made to drink the cup that we should have drunk: the cup of the wrath of Almighty God against sinners. We dare to ask that the Father should seem to hate the Son enough to punish him with our punishment and to appear to have turned against him, and all this in order to save worthless rebels.’

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1 Peter 1:19 Commentary and Bible Study