An imperishable redemption for a perishing people!

1 Peter 1:18-25- For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." And this is the word that was preached to you.

When Peter talks about ‘the empty way of life’, he is talking about Sin.

Sin, in all of its expressions, is an empty way of life and we have inherited this empty way of life from our parents, as they did from theirs, so that we are born with a sinful nature.

In Psalm 51, where David is repenting of his adultery with Bathsheba. In verse. 5, he laments; (Psalm 51:5)- Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

In Ephesians, Paul speaks to those who have been redeemed and made alive in Christ. He talks about living in Sin as being; (Ephesians 2:3-) ‘’…gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature…’’.

And so all of us have had a sinful nature handed down to us.

In fact, this inheritance of sin can be traced back all the way to Adam. Romans says; (Romans 5:12-) ‘…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned’

On account of our sin, we perish. Jesus taught this explicitly.

And all of humanity is fallen and sinful; our humanity is ‘perishable seed’. And the point of Jesus’ coming was to redeem us from this life of sin that leads to our perishing.

He was not born into sin.

This is the account of the conception of Jesus.

Luke 1:26-38- In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

If Jesus was not born of a virgin having been overshadowed by the Most High, and Joseph was his biological father, then Jesus was born of perishable seed, like us and He would have been impotent to save us from the outset. But as Jesus was born of a virgin having been overshadowed by the most High, so Jesus was born of imperishable seed.

So when Peter writes ‘for you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers’, what he is saying is this; nothing perishable can redeem us from perishing. In order for us to be redeemed for perishing, the means of this redemption must be imperishable because only the imperishable can rescue us and ransom us and redeem us from this empty way of life that is sin, which leads to our perishing.

And Jesus is the imperishable redemption.

This is the passage that I want to be read at my funeral.

1 Corinthians 15:50-57- I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the imperishable means through which, or rather through whom, we are rescued, ransomed and redeemed from our sin.

1 Peter 1:23- ‘’For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable (seed)…’’

John 3:16 is perhaps one of the most well-known and loved scriptures in the world. It is something of a mission statement from Jesus; where he declares why it is that He came into the world.

John 3:16-17- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him

This arose from a conversation that Jesus was having with a Pharisee named Nicodemus about what it meant to be born again.

John 3:1-3- Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

Nicodemus was immediately confused. He asked;

John 3:4- "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

To which Jesus replied, to clarify;

John 3:5-6- Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

What does that mean- ‘to be born of water and the Spirit’? Commonly people think that Jesus is referring to Baptism here when He says to be ‘born of water and the Spirit’. He isn’t.

When Jesus said to Nicodemus ‘you need to be born of water and the Spirit’, Nicodemus would likely have known, like every Jewish teacher would have known, that Jesus was referring to a very famous passage of Messianic prophecy, which speaks of the Messiah that would come, in Ezekiel 36:25-

Ezekiel 36:25-27- ‘I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.’

So, when Jesus said ‘you need to born of water and the Spirit’, Nicodemus knew that what Jesus was saying is that He was the one that the scriptures that He had been reading and studying all of His life- Jesus was the one that they had been pointing to. Jesus was saying that He was the one that the prophet Ezekiel said would come into the world and ‘wash our hearts, wash our lives, wash our inner man. He was the one through whom, God was going to put a new heart and a New Spirit in us.’ He was the one who would, and has, completely changed everything!

To be born again is to fully respond to the intervention of Jesus and his invitation to let His precious blood wash your sin away.

Peter says that once you have been born again in this way, you ‘have been born again not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed’.

What he’s saying is that in your first birth, you were born of perishable seed- the seed of Adam.

But in your second birth, we have been born of imperishable seed- the seed of Jesus.

Romans 5 explains this beautifully; let’s read verse 17-19;

Romans 5:17-19- For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Let his imperishable life clothe your perishing life today

Steve