Fifth Sunday of Easter: Epistle, 1 Peter 2:2-10                      

1 Peter 2:2-10

One of the characteristics of Peter’s writing in my thinking is that he struggles to find the right words to describe our salvation. He’s not incompetent. And it’s not that he’s ignorant of good language and vocabulary. But he is so taken with the person and work of His dear friend, our Savior, that he wants to exhaust every angle. He loves his Bible, which was the Old Testament and he quotes it frequently in his first letter. I think he does that, at least in part, in order to remind us that God has been preparing a people for Himself from the very beginning of creation. Not two peoples, Israel as earthly and the church as heavenly, as is so often taught today. But one people. His “Israel” whose spotless fulfillment is found in the Lord Jesus. He is the true Israel reduced to one perfect Man.

But Peter wants to exhaust all the wondrous language he has to describe God’s work for us in and through His Son. Peter concludes a thought in the middle of chapter two where we are marked out this way: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). There you have it. All the wonderful things that could and should be said about our salvation in Christ is truly summed up here. We are God’s people precisely because we have received His mercy.

There is nothing in us of value before He comes to us, speaks to us, washes us clean through water and the Word, and names and claims us as His own. The work is His. The glory is His. Because the mercy is His. His to give. And He does. God be praised!