1 Peter 1:18-23
Today’s passage talks about our being redeemed from an “empty way of life” by Jesus’ death on the cross. The word redeemed carries the idea of buying back something that had been previously lost. For example, the payment for buying someone out of captivity or slavery.
The Apostle Peter is using a powerful metaphor about the liberty God has brought us in Jesus. Peter seems to have two different pictures in mind. When he says that we were redeemed by something more valuable than gold or silver he may be thinking about kidnappings.
Pirates roamed the Mediterranean Sea and often kidnapped people for ransom. Julius Caesar before he became Rome’s supreme ruler, was kidnapped by pirates as a young man. A large sum was paid for his release. Peter is perhaps saying that as costly as a ransom to pirates was, God paid much more for us.
Peter also compares Jesus to a sacrificial lamb without defect or blemish. Here he’s alluding to the Passover liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. You may recall the Hebrews sacrificed a lamb and spread its blood on the doorposts of their houses in preparation for God’s great deliverance.
With these two illustrations, Peter is telling us that God paid a great price for us. Greater than gold and silver, greater than the Passover lamb, greater than any other imaginable payment.
Throughout the church’s history Christians have tried to explain how Jesus’ death brought about our freedom from captivity to sin and death. Some of these explanations have been more helpful than others. But what they all have in common is that the cross was God’s supreme expression of love for human beings.
It was no ordinary love that rescued us. As one writer has said, it was “a harsh and dreadful love.” God’s love for us endured both the horrific pain of crucifixion, and the crushing weight of the sins of all humanity.
We can perhaps relate to that kind of love in a small way, since for us too, loving others is not always easy. At times loving someone costs us a lot. For us too, love can sometimes be a “harsh and dreadful” thing, like God’s love for us on the cross.
I don’t think that Peter is telling us this to make us feel bad or guilty. Rather, it’s to let us know how precious we are to God. We are so valuable to God has he paid the highest price for us.
It is sometimes said that Christians have a low view of human value, since we sometimes talk about being unworthy sinners. But in truth Christians have the highest possible view of human beings’ worth. We are so valuable to God that he became incarnate as one of us and died on a cross for us. We are so valuable to God that he is transforming us to be like Jesus. As amazing as it may be to imagine, God is making us to be like Jesus in his resurrection glory.
The Christian writer C.S. Lewis wrote that if we could see each other now as we will be in glory, the very least among us is someone we would be tempted to bow down and worship. “When Jesus appears,” the Apostle John writes, “we will be like him.” There is no higher view of human value than that.
It is not just human beings in general that are valuable to God, but each one of us individually.
St. Augustine, one of the great Christian theologians of all time, wrote, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” C.S. Lewis added, “When He died . . . He died not only for humans, but for each human. If each human had been the only human made, He would have done no less.” To God each one of us is as important as all of us together.
Jesus tells us that in his parable about the shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to go rescue the one lost. And about the woman who scours the floor looking for one lost coin. Each one of us is of inestimable worth to God. That’s something to remember when we’re feeling negative about ourselves.
In this passage Peter also talks about what we are redeemed from and what we are redeemed for. We are liberated, he writes, from “an empty way of life.” Each of us may have a story about a former empty life. Some of us were redeemed from alcohol or drug addiction, some from bigotry and hatred, some from selfishness and greed, some simply from a sad, loveless, and purposeless life.
Yet it’s also obvious that many people who don’t know Jesus personally have lives that are happy and constructive. They’re not addicts or hateful or greedy. Indeed, many people have lives which are healthier and more just and loving than many who profess Christ. What are they rescued from?
St. Augustine wrote, “you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Each human being, however good, moral, and just they are, and however happy their circumstances, has a restlessness, an inner longing, sometimes barely noticeable, for something beyond what this world can satisfy.
That restlessness is a signpost pointing each person toward God. Human beings are made for intimate communion with God. And no matter who we are and what we have, our life will only be complete in union with God.
That’s what we are redeemed for, Peter says. We are redeemed for a life of loving union with God and with other people. Everything we do as Jesus-believers is for the purpose of helping us grow in love with God and in Christlike love for others. Prayer, fasting, Bible study: these are not ends in themselves. They empower us for a greater purpose – the love of God and neighbor.
We know, however, that learning to love is challenging. We are so often unloving. And our many failures to love can be very discouraging. We can feel like giving up trying to be a better person. I’ve certainly felt that way at times, and maybe you have too.
But what I’ve learned is that I have to accept that I’m imperfect, that I often fail, and not let it discourage me. We are not who we want to be in Christ. Yet God still loves us and we’re precious to him even in our imperfections. We learn to forgive ourselves for our failures and not give up. And as we accept that we ourselves are imperfect, we can learn to not demand perfection of others.
One of the verses in the book of Proverbs says that the righteous person falls down many times, but each time rises up again. Despite our frequent failures, let’s not get discouraged. Instead, let us keep working to do better by God’s grace and the help of the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul talks about that in Philippians: I have not arrived, I’m not yet who I want to be, he says, “but what I do is this: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal” of being the person God has called me to be.
Brothers and sisters, let us be confident that even with our shortcomings, failings, and the dark places in our hearts, we are incredibly precious to God. As we keep looking to Jesus and trusting in him, he will work in our lives to mature us in the likeness of Christ.
So don’t give up. Be assured, as Scripture says, that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. That’s God’s promise.
That’s the promise of the One who loves us, who values us, and who paid the highest price for us.
Marty Shupack, 4.19.2026