1 PETER 1:17–21
REDEEMED WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST
17 And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:
18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
— 1 Peter 1:17–21, KJV
Peter has just written:
“Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
Now he explains why Christians should take that call seriously.
These five verses bring together Father, Judge, fear, redemption, blood, sacrifice, God's eternal purpose, resurrection, faith, and hope.
And Peter connects all of them.
“IF YE CALL ON THE FATHER”
Peter begins:
“And if ye call on the Father…”
The word “if” does not necessarily suggest doubt, as though Peter were uncertain whether his readers prayed to God as Father.
The sense is closer to:
Since you call upon Him as Father…
Peter has already used family language.
God has:
“begotten us again” — 1:3
and Christians are:
“obedient children” — 1:14.
Now Peter says they call upon God as Father.
That is an extraordinarily intimate relationship.
But Peter immediately prevents us from turning intimacy with God into casualness toward God.
The Father is also the Judge.
THE FATHER “JUDGETH”
Peter describes God as the One:
“who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work.”
This deserves careful attention.
Peter does not say:
Because God is your Father, your conduct no longer matters.
Nor does he say:
Because God judges your works, you must earn your salvation.
We should allow Peter to say exactly what he says without forcing either conclusion upon him.
The God Christians call Father is also the God who judges impartially.
“WITHOUT RESPECT OF PERSONS”
The expression means that God does not show favoritism.
The underlying Greek idea is that God does not judge according to a person's face, status, position, nationality, wealth, reputation, or outward standing.
Peter had learned this lesson dramatically.
At the house of Cornelius he said:
“Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:”
“But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”
— Acts 10:34–35, KJV
That was a major moment in Peter's own life.
A Gentile Roman centurion was standing before him, and Peter realized that God did not judge people according to the ethnic boundaries Peter had previously assumed.
Now, years later, Peter writes:
“without respect of persons.”
The lesson stayed with him.
“ACCORDING TO EVERY MAN'S WORK”
This is one of those phrases we should not hurry past because it may not fit neatly into a theological formula.
Peter says God:
“judgeth according to every man's work.”
The New Testament repeatedly speaks this way.
Paul writes:
“Who will render to every man according to his deeds.”
— Romans 2:6, KJV
And:
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ…”
— 2 Corinthians 5:10, KJV
Jesus Himself repeatedly connected final judgment with what people actually did.
None of this means human beings purchase salvation from God by accumulating enough good deeds.
Peter has already grounded salvation in God's:
mercy,
new birth,
resurrection of Christ,
power,
and grace.
But neither does Peter conclude that behavior therefore becomes irrelevant.
The same Peter who celebrates grace can say:
God “judgeth according to every man's work.”
Perhaps our theology should be large enough to retain both truths, just as Peter does.
“PASS THE TIME OF YOUR SOJOURNING HERE IN FEAR”
The word “sojourning” takes us back to the beginning of the letter.
Peter addressed his readers as:
“strangers scattered…”
They are living as people whose ultimate identity does not come from the society surrounding them.
Their present life is a sojourn.
So how should they live during it?
“in fear.”
What does Peter mean?
WHAT KIND OF “FEAR”?
Peter is not telling Christians to live terrified that God might unpredictably destroy them.
The word phobos can describe fear, but context determines its character.
Here Peter has just called God Father.
Yet this Father is holy and judges impartially.
So there is both intimacy and reverence.
Christians do not approach God as frightened slaves hiding from a cruel master.
Neither do they treat the Creator of the universe casually.
Peter will later write:
“Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.”
— 1 Peter 2:17, KJV
Notice that Peter does not say:
Fear the king.
He says:
Honor the king.
But:
Fear God.
Peter knows where ultimate authority belongs.
“YE WERE NOT REDEEMED”
Now Peter tells them why their lives matter so much.
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed…”
The word translated “redeemed” carries the idea of being released or set free by payment of a price.
The language could be used in the ancient world for freeing someone from slavery.
The Old Testament also had a rich vocabulary of redemption.
God redeemed Israel from Egypt.
A family redeemer could recover property or rescue a relative from certain circumstances.
So when Peter says Christians have been redeemed, the picture is liberation at great cost.
The obvious question becomes:
Redeemed from what?
Peter answers it.
“FROM YOUR VAIN CONVERSATION”
Again, conversation in the KJV means manner of life or conduct, not merely speech.
They had been redeemed:
“from your vain conversation…”
The word translated “vain” carries the idea of something empty, futile, or without lasting purpose.
Peter is describing their former way of life.
Christ did not merely come to forgive people while leaving them comfortably imprisoned in the same life.
Redemption involves liberation from something.
They had been rescued from a futile way of living.
“RECEIVED BY TRADITION FROM YOUR FATHERS”
This phrase deserves special attention for TEXT B4 TRADITION.
Peter says their former manner of life had been:
“received by tradition from your fathers.”
We need to be careful here.
Peter is not saying that everything inherited from previous generations is wrong.
The Bible itself repeatedly tells God's people to teach truth to their children.
Tradition simply means something handed down.
The question is not:
Is it traditional?
The question is:
Is it true?
Some things handed down to us may be completely consistent with Scripture.
Others may not be.
Peter's readers had inherited a way of life from their ancestors that he calls vain or futile.
That means something does not become true simply because:
My parents believed it.
My grandparents practiced it.
My church has always done it.
Everyone I grew up with understood the passage that way.
Neither does something become false merely because it is old.
The test must be something greater than inheritance.
For Christians, that sends us back to the Word of God.
Read first. Conclude later.
NOT SILVER AND GOLD
Peter says:
“ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold…”
This is deliberately striking.
Silver and gold are among the things human beings regard as enduring wealth.
Peter calls them:
“corruptible things.”
They perish.
Remember what he said about the Christian inheritance:
“incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away…”
— 1 Peter 1:4
Now he uses the contrast again.
The inheritance is incorruptible.
Silver and gold are corruptible.
What God has given is more permanent than the things this world values most highly.
And silver and gold could never purchase what humanity needed.
“BUT WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST”
Here is Peter's contrast:
Not silver.
Not gold.
“But with the precious blood of Christ…”
The price of redemption is Christ Himself.
When Scripture speaks of Christ's blood, it is not treating blood as though it were a magical substance.
Blood represents life given in death.
Leviticus says:
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood…”
— Leviticus 17:11, KJV
Jesus gave His life.
Peter's language is sacrificial.
And he makes that explicit with his next phrase.
“AS OF A LAMB WITHOUT BLEMISH AND WITHOUT SPOT”
Peter describes Christ:
“as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
That language immediately takes us into the world of Old Testament sacrifice.
Sacrificial animals were not to be defective.
For example:
“Your lamb shall be without blemish…”
— Exodus 12:5, KJV
That is the Passover lamb.
Leviticus repeatedly requires offerings without blemish.
Peter does not stop to identify one particular sacrifice and say:
This is the only background I have in mind.
So we should be cautious about making the image narrower than Peter does.
But the great sacrificial background is unmistakable.
Christ is the flawless sacrificial Lamb.
PETER HAD HEARD JOHN THE BAPTIST SAY IT
There is an interesting connection worth noticing, although we should not claim Peter explicitly had this particular scene in mind.
John the Baptist saw Jesus and said:
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
— John 1:29, KJV
Peter's brother Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist before following Jesus.
Whether Peter personally heard that exact statement we cannot establish from the text.
But decades later Peter is describing Jesus as:
“a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
The Lamb has become central to Peter's understanding of the cross.
“PRECIOUS”
Peter calls Christ's blood:
“precious.”
That word matters in this letter.
Peter will also describe Christ Himself as:
“chosen of God, and precious.”
— 1 Peter 2:4
And:
“unto you therefore which believe he is precious.”
— 1 Peter 2:7
The world rejected Jesus.
God calls Him precious.
That contrast runs throughout Peter's letter.
What the world considers worthless may be precious to God.
What the world considers precious—silver and gold—will perish.
Peter is teaching his readers to reassess value itself.
“FOREORDAINED BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD”
Verse 20 takes us somewhere astonishing:
“Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world…”
The Greek word is related to the word Peter used in verse 2:
“foreknowledge of God the Father.”
In verse 20, the KJV translates the verb “foreordained.”
Other translations may use “foreknown.”
That translation difference is worth knowing because theological conclusions have sometimes been built upon the English wording.
The underlying Greek verb is proginōskō—to know beforehand or foreknow.
But whatever precise nuance we assign to the word, Peter's larger point is unmistakable:
Christ's saving work was not God's emergency response to an unexpected disaster.
Before the foundation of the world, Christ already stood within God's redemptive purpose.
The cross was not Plan B.
BEFORE THERE WAS AN ISRAEL
Think about Peter's timeline.
“before the foundation of the world”
That means God's purpose in Christ precedes:
Abraham.
Israel.
Moses.
The Law.
The Temple.
The priesthood.
The sacrifices.
Even creation itself.
That helps us understand the Bible's larger story.
Israel had an enormously important place in God's plan.
The Law had an important place.
The Temple had an important place.
But none of them was the ultimate destination.
Christ was.
God's purpose centered upon Christ before any of those things existed.
“MANIFEST IN THESE LAST TIMES”
The Christ who was foreknown before the world's foundation:
“was manifest in these last times for you.”
Notice Peter's language.
He does not say his readers are waiting for the last times to begin thousands of years later.
He says Christ:
“was manifest in these last times.”
For Peter, the coming of Christ has already brought history into its climactic redemptive period.
That does not mean Peter says the final resurrection and judgment had already occurred.
Obviously he still looks forward to Christ's revelation.
But the last-times era has begun with Christ.
This is important whenever we encounter the expression “last days” or “last times.”
We should allow the biblical writers to define it before importing a timetable of our own.
“FOR YOU”
Two small words:
“for you.”
The plan existed before creation.
The prophets searched into it.
Christ came in history.
Christ suffered.
God raised Him.
And Peter tells ordinary Christians scattered across Asia Minor:
It was for you.
The enormous sweep of God's redemptive plan becomes personal.
“WHO BY HIM DO BELIEVE IN GOD”
Verse 21 says:
“Who by him do believe in God…”
Christ brings people to God.
Peter already said:
“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God…”
— 1 Peter 3:18, KJV
Christian faith is therefore not merely belief about Jesus.
Through Jesus, people are brought into faith in God.
GOD “RAISED HIM UP FROM THE DEAD”
Once again Peter returns to the resurrection.
This is not a minor doctrine in 1 Peter.
At the beginning of the letter he said God:
“hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Now he says God:
“raised him up from the dead.”
Peter's hope is not built merely upon Jesus' teaching.
It is not built merely upon Jesus' moral example.
It is not even built merely upon Jesus' death.
Jesus died—and God raised Him.
Without the resurrection, Peter's “living hope” disappears.
“AND GAVE HIM GLORY”
God not only raised Jesus.
He:
“gave him glory.”
Peter will later say Christ:
“is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.”
— 1 Peter 3:22, KJV
So Peter's gospel moves:
suffering → resurrection → glory.
That is the same pattern he had already described in 1:11:
“the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”
And it becomes the pattern Peter uses to encourage suffering Christians.
Present suffering is not the end of the story.
It was not the end for Christ.
Neither will it be the end for those who belong to Him.
“THAT YOUR FAITH AND HOPE MIGHT BE IN GOD”
Peter ends where this section began.
Earlier he commanded:
“hope to the end…”
Now he tells them where their faith and hope rest:
“in God.”
Not in Rome.
Not in money.
Not in social acceptance.
Not even in their own ability to remain strong.
Their faith and hope rest in the God who:
planned redemption,
sent Christ,
accepted His sacrifice,
raised Him from the dead,
and gave Him glory.
That is why Christians can hope even when circumstances give them very little reason for optimism.
Christian hope is not confidence that circumstances will always improve.
It is confidence in God.
SOMETHING IMPORTANT ABOUT REDEMPTION
Put verses 18–19 together:
“ye were not redeemed with corruptible things…”
but:
“with the precious blood of Christ.”
Peter does not describe Christianity merely as becoming a somewhat better version of the person we already were.
Something much more radical has happened.
We were redeemed.
A price was paid.
A former way of life was left behind.
A new Father is being imitated.
A new hope governs the future.
A new standard determines what is precious.
And the price Peter places at the center of all of it is:
the blood of Christ.
TEXT BEFORE TRADITION
There is an interesting irony in this passage.
Peter actually mentions tradition:
“your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.”
Tradition itself is not the enemy.
Some traditions faithfully preserve truth.
Some do not.
Peter's readers had inherited things that needed to be abandoned.
So the question is never merely:
“Is this what I was taught?”
Nor should we assume:
“If it is traditional, it must be wrong.”
The better question is:
Does what I've always been taught agree with what the text actually says?
And in these five verses the text says some things we should not soften:
God is Father.
God is also Judge.
He judges without partiality.
Our conduct matters.
We should live with reverence.
We have been redeemed.
The price was not silver or gold.
It was the precious blood of Christ.
And all of this was part of God's purpose before the foundation of the world.
That is quite a lot of theology packed into five verses.
QUESTIONS WORTH THINKING ABOUT
Do we sometimes emphasize God as Father while forgetting Peter also calls Him the impartial Judge?
How can salvation be entirely dependent upon God's mercy and Christ's sacrifice while Peter can still say God judges “according to every man's work”?
What does it mean to fear God without living in terror of Him?
Are there beliefs or practices we hold mainly because they were “received by tradition”, rather than because we have carefully examined Scripture?
Why does Peter contrast the precious blood of Christ with silver and gold?
What does Christ being foreknown before the foundation of the world tell us about God's plan of redemption?
When Peter says Christ was manifested “in these last times,” what does that tell us about the New Testament meaning of the “last times”?
Is our faith ultimately in our ability to understand everything correctly—or, as Peter says, “in God”?
NEXT DEEPER STUDY
1 PETER 1:22–25 — BORN AGAIN BY THE WORD OF GOD
Peter is about to bring together obedience to the truth, purification, sincere love, being born again, incorruptible seed, Isaiah 40, and the enduring Word of God.
And there is an especially interesting question waiting for us:
What exactly does Peter mean when he says we are “born again…by the word of God”?
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