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First Peter, part 8

After identifying Peter’s audience with the cast-off Israelites in the prophecy of Hosea, 1 Peter 2:11 goes further, saying,

¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.

This takes us back to his opening statement in 1 Peter 1:1, addressing his letter to “aliens” of the diaspora “who are chosen.” A biblical alien is one who is not in a covenant relationship with God. Most of the foreign nations fit that definition from earliest history, but according to Hosea, the Gomer-Israelites too were cut off from the covenant and thus became aliens in dispersion.

However, Hosea and the other prophets all agreed that God would restore them while they were in the “wilderness” (Hosea 2:14), just as Hosea redeemed his unfaithful wife who had left him to follow false lovers who turned out to be oppressors (Hosea 3:1, 2).

The Promise of God

The promise of God was not to re-establish Israel under the Old Covenant, which had been broken, but He said, “In that day I will also make a covenant for them” (Hosea 2:18), a reference to the New Covenant, as explained in Jeremiah 31:31, 32.

³¹ “Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, ³² not like the covenant which I made with their fathers….”

The difference is that the Old Covenant was man’s vow to God (Exodus 19:8), while the New Covenant was God’s vow to man. Hence, there are no “if” clauses in Jeremiah’s description. It is all about God working in the hearts of men by the power of His Spirit to change their nature so that they could be saved. God was not promising to save them apart from repentance. He was promising to CAUSE them to repent so that they could be saved.

Of course, God has not caused most of them to repent during their time on earth. Most have lived and died without ever being reinstated in God’s covenant. Only a small remnant—such as those who received Peter’s letter—would repent in their lifetime. The vast majority would have to wait for the general resurrection of the dead, when they will be summoned to the great White Throne, where “every knee will bow” (Philippians 2:10) and “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:11).

God will certainly fulfill His vow, for it is not based on the will of man but on God’s will alone (John 1:13). God shows that He is well able to cause all men to repent and to submit to His government, so that they can be re-instated in a covenant relationship with Him. Furthermore, God’s vow (or oath) applies not only to the houses of Israel and Judah but also to all men, as stated in Deuteronomy 29:12-15,

¹² that you may enter into the covenant with the Lord your God, and into HIS OATH which the Lord your God is making with you today… ¹⁴ Now not with you alone am I making this covenant and this oath, ¹⁵ but with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here today.

This includes all mankind, for they were either “here” or “not with us here.” That is all-inclusive. So the apostles interpret it universally, going back to Adam and not just to Israel. Romans 5:18 says,

¹⁸ So then as through one transgression [Adam] there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness [Christ] there resulted justification of life to all men.

Just as Adam’s sin made all men mortal apart from their own will on account of Adam’s sin alone, so also Christ’s righteous act on the cross has promised immortality to all men on account of God’s will alone. We see the same universal promise in 1 Corinthians 15:22, 27, 28, Ephesians 1:22, Colossians 1:16-18, 1 Timothy 4:10, Hebrews 2:8, Revelation 5:13, Habakkuk 2:14, and in many other passages.

Peter’s audience, however, represented the first fruits of God’s New Covenant oath. He wrote to encourage them in their faith in Jesus Christ, for their salvation proved that the dispersed Israelites could indeed be restored, as Hosea had prophesied 700 years earlier. Yet this restoration had to occur within the parameters of the New Covenant, by which men were required to be begotten by the incorruptible seed of the word (gospel) through their ears. Hence, Paul says that “faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17).

Hearing and Obedience

Hearing, however, is based on the Hebrew word shema, which is both hearing and obeying. If a man claims to hear but shows no evidence of obedience, has he truly heard? Jesus illustrated this in a parable of the two sons in Matthew 21:28-31,

²⁸ But what do you think? A man had two sons; and he came to the first and said, “Son, go work today in the vineyard.” ²⁹ And he answered, “I will not;” but afterward he regretted it and went. ³⁰ The man came to the second and said the said thing; and he answered, “I will, sir;” but he did not go. ³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father?...

In other words, who truly “heard” the word of his father? The answer is plain.

So Peter urged these new believers “to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). The epistle of James, written also to “the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad” (James 1:1), gives them the same message: works are evidence of faith. Hence, “faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself” (James 2:17).

The message is clear: anyone can claim to be a believer (i.e., to have faith in Christ), but if, after a season there is still no change in his/her behavior, then it is evident that such a person is still functioning as a child of the flesh and has not truly been begotten by the Spirit. This is not to say that a true believer has become perfect, for one must allow for spiritual growth. Perfection or spiritual maturity is not achieved at once. Paul himself struggled with the two natures within his own body (Romans 7:15-23). Yet Paul’s conversion radically changed his life.

Good Deeds Among the Gentiles

1 Peter 2:12 says,

¹² Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles [ethnos, “nations”], so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

Those who mistakenly think that Peter was writing to Jews in a foreign land paint a mental picture of Jewish Christians behaving excellently among “Gentiles.” This is not precisely accurate. As ex-Israelites in dispersion, these believers had been cast off from the original covenant and had been gentilized, so to speak. The Greek term ethnos simply means “nation,” having no inherent reference to non-Jewish or non-Israelite nations.

In Luke 7:5 we read about the Roman centurion who “loves our ethnos and it was he who built us our synagogue.” In Luke 23:2 the chief priests accused Jesus before Pilate, saying, “We found this man misleading our ethnos…” In John 11:47, 48 we read,

⁴⁷ Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our ethnos.”

In each case, ethnos refers to the Jewish nation, which is why the translators do not translate the word as “Gentile.” The Greek word ethnos is the equivalent of the Hebrew word goy. This often appears in the plural as goyim, implying foreign nations, but the word itself does not carry that meaning. For example, God told Abraham in Genesis 12:2, “I will make you a great goy.” The translators could hardly translate this as “I will make you a great Gentile.”

In nearly every case, when the Old Testament speaks of the NATION of Israel, the Hebrew term was goy. (See Genesis 18:18; Exodus 19:6; Psalm 33:12; Isaiah 1:4; Jeremiah 31:36; Ezekiel 37:22; Zephaniah 2:9; Malachi 3:9, and many other examples.)

The English term “Gentile” is defined as a non-Jew, but goy and ethnos refer to a nation in general, whether it is a Jewish nation, and Israelite nation, or any other nations on earth. For this reason, I do not think that “Gentile” should be used in any Bible translation. Sometimes the biblical words do point to other nations, as seen in the context, but this is usually plain to see, even if the word is translated nation or nations. In my view, the reader ought to decide for himself what nation the prophets are talking about.

Peter urges these ex-Israelites who are dispersed among the nations, having no national identity of their own, to glorify God by their “good deeds,” as their neighbors observe their behavior.

The Day of Visitation

Peter says that the believers’ “good deeds” may cause the unbelievers to “glorify God in the day of visitation.” The Greek term is ἐπισκοπή (episkopē), “visitation, inspection, oversight.” The root episkop means “to look upon, inspect, or visit with authority.” From this same root comes the word “bishop”(episkopos), as in Episcopal, “one who oversees.”

Thus the phrase literally means “the day of God’s inspection” or “the day when God visits.” John the Baptist was a fruit inspector for the nation of Judea (Matthew 3:8), authorized and sent by God to see if the nation bore fruit that was acceptable to God. When John was executed, Jesus took over those duties (Luke 13:6-9). Toward the end of Jesus’ ministry, the verdict was that the nation was devoid of fruit, pictured in the barren fig tree (Matthew 21:19) which He cursed.

Peter uses the term visitation to show how the unbelievers would inspect the believers to see if they bore the fruit of the Spirit. If they bore witness to good fruit, they would then glorify God, wanting to know how they too could become fruitful.