“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
1 Peter 1:22-25 ESV
It isn’t customary to think that understanding the nature of our salvation and the inevitability of judgment both combine to provide for our sanctification. It’s almost a bizarre thought to the human mind and yet, alas, it’s exactly for this reason that we’re commanded throughout the New Testament to “think on these things,” to “set our minds on the things of the Spirit” and to be “transformed by the renewal of our minds.”
Faith is not, therefore, a feeling, though it fills the deepest wells of one’s soul to overflow. Biblical faith is the loving trust of the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Savior. To live is to have faith (Romans 1:17) and this faith is in the One who is King and Lord and Savior. One must know to love; one must have an object of trust for faith to be more than just a word.
Today’s passage speaks of our obedience because to be saved by the precious of blood of Jesus is to be transformed in an instant. That’s justification. But it’s this act of justification that leads invariably to our sanctification – that is, our bearing of fruit because of God’s work in us. To be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29) is the goal of the work of Jesus Christ. Christ didn’t live and die because it was a cool thing to do or some such nonsense as that. According to the inexhaustible foreknowledge of God you were set apart before the foundation of the world to be brought to Him in faith. Not faith “in general” but trust in the Person and work of Jesus Christ. To have faith is to know, believe, and love the gospel. There is no such thing as faith without true knowledge of what God has done in Christ Jesus for all who believe.
We say it again: to be saved is to brought to Christ through faith and this faith is “true knowledge of the gospel.” The gospel is not only the work of Christ, but its necessity due to sin, and His motive for it. This true knowledge of the gospel is not a work, but a gift from God and the source of faith. It then sets in motion a love…yes, a love, for God who first loved us in Christ Jesus, and a progressive sanctification in our personal lives. In other words, we grow to deeper and deeper levels of faithful intimacy with Him through the Spirit-led understanding of God’s amazing love.
Yes, it’s love…all about the love of God poured into our hearts through Christ Jesus. This is the “gospel logic” of it all and exactly why we’re to abound in thanksgiving to Him for all that love…and then the heart that knows such undeserved love is pierced so much that it bleeds out both great and petty sins because of it.
Sanctification is not either “continuing in sin so that grace may abound” nor dry, arid legalism. It’s the robust response of a man or woman whose heart has been captured by God’s love. Think of it…really chew on it deep, down to the bone. How is it possible for you with your sins, some public and known, and so many others that you hide, unknown to all eyes but His, to be in right standing with the thrice holy God?
To truly think on this changes us because the meditation should cause us two reactions.
First, terror.
In today’s passage Peter isn’t saying that the grass withers and flower fades as a way of joking about all of us getting older. No. The logic is that gospel logic again. He’s saying that we’re all going to give an account on the Last Day and there’s simply no escape from that appointment. It’s a Day to which all are born…to die…to face judgment. The Judge is the holy, holy, holy God who created us and everything else. He demands a perfect, personal and perpetual obedience. These are the stakes: to sin against the Holy Creator God is to commit cosmic treason and this demands the death penalty. But since God is eternal and created in us souls as well as the physical body, the punishment for this rebellion – even one infraction – is an eternal punishment. A fully conscious and never-ceasing torment awaits the person who dares to defy the living God!
Oh…yes, the terror!
But it’s to this that the gospel says, “repent, believe, and be saved” and faith moves us to throw ourselves at His holy feet. And there we cry, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner (Luke 18:13).”
So, the reaction of terror gives way to the outpouring of love and love and love for the God who saves us. Sanctification is that process in which a Christian loves God more and more through the reading of His holy word, hearing the preaching of it, and following of the prompts the Spirit provides through that. We will grow. We will learn. We will become more and more like Him and bear Him fruit because it’s impossible for God’s love to fail. However uneven this process is in the bumpy lives of living sacrifices (Romans 12:1) who keep crawling off the altar, it will be done.
To think of what’s been done for us in Christ (justification) and to then think forward to that Day when God judges the secrets of men in Christ Jesus (Romans 2:16) is to find the motivation for practicing personal holiness. How can we hate, how can we stay unwise, greedy, spiteful, or jealous, when we take the time to set our mind on what’s been done for us in Christ? How, when we know that we have fully security in Him and salvation by faith alone, can we fail to love each other who are in Christ?
This is the logic of the Christian life.
“Therefore there is now no condemnation [no guilty verdict, no punishment] for those who are in Christ Jesus [who believe in Him as personal Lord and Savior]. [John 3:18] For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do [that is, overcome sin and remove its penalty, its power] being weakened by the flesh [man’s nature without the Holy Spirit], God did: He sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful man as an offering for sin. And He condemned sin in the flesh [subdued it and overcame it in the person of His own Son], [Lev 7:37] so that the [righteous and just] requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not live our lives in the ways of the flesh [guided by worldliness and our sinful nature], but [live our lives] in the ways of the Spirit [guided by His power]. For those who are living according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh [which gratify the body], but those who are living according to the Spirit, [set their minds on] the things of the Spirit [His will and purpose].”
Romans 8:1-5 AMP
To be in Christ is to grow.
To be in Christ is to learn to truly love because love, like faith is only real when He is the ultimate source and object.
The principle of Christian living is to grow into deeper understanding of what’s been done for you by God and, likewise, to consider this truth in light of the Day of Judgment wherein you won’t just be declared “not guilty” but be fully adopted as a son or daughter of the holy God. The holy God who loves you.
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