We
are now on the trail of 1
Peter 2:25. It is also set in
the context of Christ being our example as recorded in 1
Peter 2:21-25.
As
we have seen in Isaiah
53:6, we were like sheep wandering away from God in that we have made
God to be our enemy. However, God sought
us out and reconciled us to Himself through Christ Jesus. For this reason,
Jesus said in John
15:16 that “We did not choose Him
but He chose us.” Nobody knew that the Creator of the heavens and
the earth is our loving Father until the beloved Son of God came to reveal that
truth in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth.
This is recorded in John
17:25-26.
It
is evident from Ephesians
1:5 that God created mankind to be His beloved children. However, we became His lost children after
what Adam did. As the Chinese saying goes, God’s children 认贼作父 (rèn zéi zuò fù). Literally, it means acknowledging the enemy
as father. The intended meaning is throwing
in one's lot with the enemy.
In
John
8:44, Jesus told the religious leaders of His day that they were of
their father, the devil. When Adam chose
to believe Satan rather than God, he effectively acknowledged Satan as his
father, as a manner of speaking.
2
Corinthians 5:18 tells us that God has reconciled His
lost children to Himself through Christ crucified. And in 2
Corinthians 5:19, we are told that God has given us the ministry of
reconciliation so that by our example we might bring others to Him. Jesus Himself is the example of how God has
brought us to Him; that is, by Him crucified. Therefore, we are tasked to share
with our lost siblings the way to be reconciled to the Father; Christ
crucified. The ultimate example to be
shown to the world is recorded in John
14:6. In other words, “No one comes to the Father but through Jesus”.
That is to say, we can only be reconciled to God the Father through Christ
Jesus, the beloved Son of God in the flesh as Jesus of Nazareth. Amen!
Incidentally,
Jesus made His sixth of the seven memorable “I Am” statements in John 14:6
when He said, “I am the Way and the Truth
and the Life”. Each of these statement is followed by a metaphor
that declared His Messianic identity and relationship to mankind as Savior, the
Promised Messiah.
In
view of the above, the crux of 1 Peter 2:25 is the:
“Return of the lost children to God through
Christ crucified”.
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