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Healed By His Death1 Peter 2:18-25INTRODUCTION I’m currently in the final stages of getting over a cold. It began about three weeks ago. I could feel it beginning as a minor irritation in the back of my throat one day and then the next my entire head was congested. For three or four days my nose ran, I had difficulty speaking, I felt weak. I went to bed early every night. One morning I had to call and cancel a 6am meeting when I woke up at 5:30am because I felt like I was going to pass out. We all know that a virus caused all of these bodily sensations I was encountering. These physical ailments were the symptoms of my body fighting the virus. There was an unseen force, a disease, at work in my body that created the physical effects. While I was sick, I took medicine that helped alleviate the painful headaches and eliminated most of the congestion for short periods of time. However, the medicine never cured the cold, it only helped curtail the symptoms. Eventually, my immune system produced antibodies, which destroyed the virus, thus eliminating the symptoms. I am not completely healthy yet, but in another week I expect to not have any remnants of the virus’ attack remaining in my body. The Bible, in both the OT and the NT uses illness and disease as a metaphor for sin and its effects upon us. Isaiah 1:4-6 says in part, “Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly… The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and raw wounds…” When the religious leaders ask Jesus as to why he hangs out with tax-collectors and other “sinners” in Matthew 9, he says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick… I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” This is a very helpful metaphor. What humans need is not some medicine to make the symptoms of sin more tolerable but we need the disease of sin cured. When the disease is cured then the symptoms go away over time until we reach full health. Every human religion, the entire therapeutic industry in the U.S., the distractions that money can buy, drugs and alcohol and a million other human devices are merely medicines that humans use to make the symptoms of sin more tolerable. However, there is only one way for sin to be cured and that way is stated at the end of 1 Peter 2:24, “by his wound you are healed.” What we have in 1 Peter 2:18-25 is a description of what health looks like ending in a declaration of where this health comes from. In vv. 18-23 Peter concentrates on what happens in the lives of those who have been cured of sin. In vv. 24-25 he explains how it is that Jesus Christ cured us of the disease of sin. What I want to do this evening is start by showing from vv. 18-23 a portion of the health that Christ produces when he cures our disease. By implication you will see some of the symptoms of sin. Then I will show, from vv. 24-25 how it is that Christ has cured us of the disease of sin. Those cured of the disease of sin increasingly exhibit the marks of health (vv. 18-23) I want to begin by calling your attention to how this passage is structured. In v. 18 Peter tells Christians who are slaves how they are to live. They are to be submissive to their masters, not only to those who are good but also to those who are harsh and unreasonable and cruel. Don’t miss this very important point. These slaves are not suffering because their masters don’t like Christians. They are suffering because their masters are jerks. The suffering that is being talked about in this passage is not just the suffering of persecution but also the suffering that is part of living in a fallen world with other sinners. In vv. 19-20 Peter tells why it is that Christian slaves should submit to unjust slave masters by stating a more general principle of Christian living. He says that God is pleased with Christians who suffer for doing good because they are motivated to please God. He says that when you suffer because you’ve done evil, that is not pleasing to God but when you do good and then suffer and patiently endure it, that is pleasing to God. Then in v. 21 he says, “to this you were called”. Peter uses the verb “to call” as a shorthand way to describe their conversion to Christ. He uses the same verb in 2:9 when he says that God is the one who “called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.” In 5:10 God is the one “who called them into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus.” The life into which God has called every Christian is a life of doing good, suffering while doing good and sometimes because of doing good and then patiently enduring that suffering. This is the healthy life that Jesus produces by curing us of the disease of sin. The implication is that one of the symptoms of sin in the lives of humans is to not bear suffering patiently. Sinners naturally get angry or depressed or fearful or resentful when they are not doing anything wrong, as far as they can see, and yet bad things happen to them. Sin produces people who retaliate against those who harm us, especially when we are doing good. It is natural for sinners to get mad when they are faithfully and competently doing their job and they get fired. It is perfectly sensible for a wife whose husband is an insensitive lout to seek a divorce. It comes natural for friends to stop talking to each other and to gossip about each other when an unkind word is spoken. But when Christ cures us of sin we patiently endure suffering while continuing to do good even when the suffering we experience is the direct result of doing good. Why is this the life to which we are called? Or to use our metaphor, why is this the definition of health? According to vv. 21-22, this is the life we are called to because this is the life Jesus lived. Jesus never sinned. He never lied or deceived anyone. He always did what was good and right in the sight of God. He did all that he did for the good of others (he suffered for us), yet he suffered while he did good and for doing good. The suffering of Christ was unprovoked and undeserved. Jesus was the healthiest person to ever live. Therefore his life is the definition of how God would define health. His whole life, but especially the end of his life, was a life of doing good for the sake of God and others and suffering in it and for it. In v. 23 we are told that when he was insulted he did not insult in return, when he suffered he did not threaten those who caused the suffering. Rather, he trusted God who always judges rightly. Jesus was never defensive. He never sought to punish those who harmed him. He never gave anybody the silent treatment or the cold shoulder. He never cursed at anyone and made an obscene gesture because they didn’t respect him. He lived this way because he knew that God is a perfect judge and will defend him and vindicate him. The point is that we, like Christ, are going to suffer unjustly and we, like Christ will patiently endure it while continuing to do good. Let me try to give some examples of the kinds of things that Christians, who have been cured of the disease of sin, ought to see increasingly but not perfectly, in their lives. There is less complaining about mistreatment by others, or bad weather or sick children or broken cars. There is a greater sense of contentment with the circumstances in which I find myself. When others accuse me of doing wrong I don’t immediately accuse them in return or seek to justify myself and prove my innocence. We are finding that we more often take time to understand why others are upset with us rather than immediately striking back or defending ourselves. Increasingly, when bad things happen to us we don’t stop doing good. We don’t use the mistreatment of others or the suffering of hardship as an excuse for our not doing the right thing. We don’t cut people out of our lives just because they have hurt us in some way. We more often cheerfully submit to our employer’s requests and work hard rather than looking for ways to not work or complain about how bad we have it. We use phrases like, “I deserve to be treated better than this;” or “I’m not going to let her get away with that;” or “It’s not fair;” less often. When we retaliate or when we get defensive or when we complain about our lot in life or when we become angry, bitter, resentful or jealous because of the bad things happening to us we increasingly mourn over our lack of endurance and not what others have done to us or what is happening. We more frequently ask others to forgive us when we become defensive. These are some of the marks of increasing health that characterize the lives of those who are healed by Christ. Jesus’ physical death cures us of the disease of sin. It is in v. 24 that we discover the ultimate cause of why we live this radically different life. What Peter says in vv. 21-25 depends heavily upon Isaiah 53. Almost every line is a direct quote or an allusion to some statement in that great chapter. We need to turn back to it and read it so we can see the connections. Read with me vv. 3-9 (p. 523). “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wound we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.” What Isaiah 53 emphasizes and what Peter emphasizes by depending so heavily upon Isaiah is that the death that Christ died was not due to his own sin but to the sins of his people. Jesus, who committed no sin, nor was there any deceit in his mouth, did not die for his own sins. He alone is the only human being who never sinned and therefore who never deserved to die. His dying upon the cross was due to the fact that our sins were put upon him. It is very important to note at this point the use of the pronoun “our”. This pronoun refers to all those who believe in Christ as you can see if you will look back at 2:6-7. Or if you look at Isaiah 53:8 where the “our” in that chapter is defined as “God’s people”. Christ died for the elect. It was all the sins of those who trust in him that were put upon him and that he took to the cross with him. Christ’s dying for our sins results in our being justified before God. We, who are guilty of sin, are declared not guilty but perfectly righteous because he bore our sins in his body upon the tree. Only perfectly righteous people can go to heaven. None of us are righteous in our self. We all like sheep have wandered away from God. We have disobeyed. We have committed sins for which the penalty is eternal suffering in hell. Yet, because Christ never sinned but always obeyed God’s law and because he bore the sins of all who trust in him in his body on the tree, then God pardons us and counts us perfectly righteous. That is the first and basic meaning of the last part of v. 24, “by his wound you were healed.” His wound cured us of our wound, which is sin and its effects. However, Peter, because he is seeking to describe the kind of life we live as Christians, does not describe the purpose of Christ’s death in terms of justification. He is assuming justification as the first effect of Christ’s death by his quoting of Isaiah 53. However, what he wants to emphasize is the fact that by the death of Christ he not only obtained our justification, but also our sanctification. The point he emphasizes by the purpose clause at the end of v. 24 is that when Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree he killed our sins and gave us a new life of righteousness. He bore our sins so that by dying to those sins, we might live to righteousness. He is simply saying what Paul says in Romans 6. “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live together with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again, death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” The death of Christ not only secured our pardon from sin but also broke the power of sin over us. He cured us of the disease of sin. His wound healed our wound, which is sin and all of its effects. We are like people who were afflicted with a debilitating disease, like Multiple Sclerosis or Rheumatoid Arthritis both of which when they are active in your body cause severe and often irreversible damage to muscles and nerves and joints and other organs and systems. However, in both of these diseases sometimes people, without our knowing why, go into a permanent remission. The disease is no longer active in the body. However, it caused so much damage when it was active that often the person spends the rest of his or her life experiencing the pain of that damage and slowly overcoming it. It’s sort of like that with us. Christ, by his death destroyed sin’s power over us and yet we continue to live with the effects of the damage it caused when active. The righteousness that is increasingly becoming a part of our lives is the health that we have received from Christ’s dying the death we deserved. Verse 25 changes the metaphor to one of a wandering sheep that is restored to its shepherd. Being dead to sin and alive to righteousness, being cured of sin and its effects is like being a lost and wandering sheep who returns to it shepherd. We join the flock of which Christ is the shepherd and overseer. We are part of a community of people who are following Christ, who are protected by Christ and ruled over by Christ. We are part of Christ’s flock, all of who are sheep that have been healed by Christ’s death. We are part of his flock, not because we deserve to be but because he freely bore our sins in his body on the tree. It is this death that made us part of the flock and turned us to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. The death we have experienced to sin and the life we are living for righteousness, the health we are experiencing is entirely the result of Christ’s work, not our own. We are sick and dying people until we trust that Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree. At that moment we are cured of the disease of sin and begin the process of living out the healthy lifestyle that his death secures. We, along with all the other sheep, follow our shepherd on the journey to our heavenly pasture. The paths of righteousness along which he leads us include bearing the suffering that comes to us while and for doing good. © Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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