1 Peter 2.18-24, doormats (2)
1 Peter 2:18-24 is addressed to slaves, to people
stuck in a situation they can’t change. And what does Peter tell them?
He tells them (1:1-2) that they’ve been chosen by God and covenanted in
Christ by the Holy Spirit and that they are to live that identity and relationship out in their present situation.
The reality they are caught up in is enslavement and for many
of them it is enslavement to a harsh and abusive master. It would have
been an insult to them as it would be to people in our 21st
century world who are trapped in horrible situations they can’t
change—it would have been an insult had he spoken glibly of those
crushing circumstances as "a challenge".
That’s not what Peter did with the slave’s situation! He laid their
crucifixion alongside the crucifixion of their Lord and Master and said,
"See? A match!" He did them the honour of describing their sore trouble in Christian
terms. He placed the suffering God called them to endure with patience
and trust alongside the suffering he called Jesus to bear with patience
and trust (2:20-23 and see 3:17-18, 4:12-13,19).
It doesn’t offend me that some poor soul that is daily being
stretched on somebody’s wrack, says that such talk doesn’t ease the
pain. Why would it offend me or even surprise me? Read the
psalms—agonised protest didn’t offend God.
But listen, what if it’s the will of God, as Christ’s suffering was
the will of God? What if—and this must surely have been difficult for
the Philippians to swallow—what if your trouble and your very difficult
life is a gift of God (Philippians 1:29-30)? Paul told these people that
God had given them a double gift. "It has been granted [echarísthe,
which has "charis" at the heart of it, so, graciously given, gift-like]
to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to
suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I
had, and now hear that I still have."
And though such truth might not ease the pain, doesn’t it transform
it? If you fervently believe that the hurt being laid on you is linked
to Paul’s, to the Philippians’ and ultimately to Christ’s—does that not
give it glory? Compare 1 Peter 4:14. There are those that want to reduce
all the talk of suffering in the NT to direct persecution for the
faith. They’re wrong! Not only are they wrong they leave
countless poor beaten souls with nowhere to go with their pain! Stanley
Hauerwas, for example, leaves us speechless in the presence of suffering children and their anguished parents. But Christ saw all
suffering as interwoven with the sin of the world, with God’s redeeming
judgement, his own cross and his presence in the elect as in and
through them he continues to bear the suffering of the world.
But should the abuse that Christians suffer be linked with Paul’s and Christ’s? Why would we doubt it?
Is it because much of the abuse has nothing to do with the Christian’s faith? First of all, we can’t know that.
Who knows enough to deny that the very presence of faith generates some
below-the-surface sinful stirrings? And do you think that everyone that
hated and abused the Christ did it for religious reasons or religious
convictions? "I hate him because he teaches error!" Is that what the
guards that beat the blood out of him were thinking? This we know, abuse
heaped on anyone is villainous and rises out of hearts and
societies that oppose what Jesus Christ is and stands for. And abuse
heaped on Christ’s followers is abuse endured by Christ.
Peter’s words to those that couldn’t change their circumstances
changed their circumstances. They were not doormats! Whatever their
abusers thought, when they beat defenceless Christians they were
repeating what the world did to Jesus Christ.
But Peter and others made it clear that what was happening was a lot
more than the world’s abusing Jesus Christ, a lot more than the world
abusing the people of God. The world was exposing its heart and nature
and demonstrating why God could/would not allow it to continue as is.
And as astonishing as it sounds ("Who has believed our message?"—Isaiah
53:1) it was and is in the persons of the abused that redemption and
life is offered to the world. Kings and nations and even the people of
Israel (see Isaiah 49:6 and Acts 13:47) are astonished when it dawns on
them that the disfigured Israel that trudges home is the means by which
the world can be saved (Isaiah 52:13-15 and see John 4:22). This
suffering experienced by Israel that comes to its redeeming fullness and
efficacy in Jesus alone is carried on in the "body of Christ" (the
church).
No one is a "doormat" who by God’s holy grace chooses to be part of
Jesus Christ’s body in and through which Jesus suffers still as he
rehearses his redemptive and saving life and death and exaltation.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.
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