The Principle and Pattern of Submission — Part Three

Let’s take our Bibles and turn once again, this morning, to 1 Peter chapter 2. Last time—actually, two weeks ago—I thought that we were going to be able to arrive at 3:1 right in line for Mother’s Day, and it just seemed appropriate that we would be able to address the whole question of wives. However, that has not happened, as we didn’t get beyond 2:20 last time, and so we’re going to pick up our studies with verse 21.

We are now in our third study looking at Peter’s instruction regarding the nature and necessity of submission. And I wonder: Have you stopped just to recognize what we’re doing in these studies? That is, have you stopped and thought about it for a little while? Here we are, as dwellers in the late twentieth century, taking an ancient text which is actually first-century in its origin—it was penned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit by a Galilean fisherman—and what we’re doing is we’re coming every Sunday morning, and we’re opening our Bibles at this text, and by doing so, we’re saying, “This is supremely important.” It is supremely important that, twenty centuries later, we understand what’s being said and we face the implications of its instruction.

And as if that were not enough, we discover, as we open this text, that we are confronted by an approach to life which largely flies in the face of contemporary wisdom. It’s not as though we have unearthed truth from the first century that just seems so right and along the lines of the way twentieth-century man is thinking. But actually, not at all! It challenges the way twentieth-century man is thinking, and it forces us as believers to wrestle with the implications of what we’re saying as we do this. We are not coming on the Lord’s Day simply to hear a man talk. We are coming on the Lord’s Day, as we do on other days, to have God speak through his Word.

And as we do so, implicit in all of this is our understanding of what Peter said in his second letter. And I want you to turn to it for just a moment with me, to 2 Peter 1:16, because this is the claim of Scripture, and this is the conviction which validates what we’re doing this morning. We’re not taking an ancient book and wondering if somehow we can knock it into line with contemporary thought, but we are taking this divine source, and we are asking God to knock us into line with its timeless truth. And the two things are very, very different. And sometimes I think it’s possible for us to assume that the latter is taking place when, in point of fact, in our experience, it is only the former.

Now, notice Peter’s conviction—2 Peter 1:16. The man who’s writing this letter says, “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s what modern man says: “Why do you go and study that Bible? Why do you go and listen to all those stories that have been made up? All those clever inventions?” Peter said, “We [are not dealing in clever inventions], but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” And then he goes on to describe the scene surrounding the transfiguration. And in verse 19 he says, “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” Now notice the next phrase: “Above all”—beyond everything else, says Peter—“you [need to] understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation.” We are not dealing with a book which originates in the minds of men. “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Now, all that by way of introduction this morning, to remind one another what we’re about: we’re about the task of, together, applying our hearts and minds to this book, through which God speaks to us because it is his timeless Word. We’ve already noted that he has been giving instruction concerning submission in the civil realm of government and in the realm of everyday employment, from verse 18 on. And he’s going to go in, in 3:1, to address the nature of submission within the family unit. And in the midst of all of that, he provides us with the supreme pattern and example by calling, as it were, to the witness stand one who by his life and death presents unassailable evidence as to the nature and significance of submission.

Now, this in itself is quite a wonder. Because if you remember the Gospel records at all, you will know that Peter didn’t always feel this way about submission. Indeed, when Jesus explained to Peter—after Peter in Matthew 16 (you can check it) had made that tremendous statement, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,”[1] and Jesus then went on to explain that he must go to Jerusalem, and he must suffer at the hands of wicked men, and he must die, and he must be raised[2]—Peter breaks into the conversation and says, “No way! Jesus, this must never happen to you! No suffering for you, Jesus! You must never suffer!” And Christ turns to him, and he said, “Get behind me, Satan! You’re now speaking like a man. You are not speaking in the way that God illuminates the heart.”[3] And so it’s an amazing transformation in Peter’s life that he who would run away from suffering, who would run away from the nature of submission, now finds himself bowing beneath that same principle and describing its practice for his readers who would follow him.

Peter provides us with the supreme pattern and example by calling to the witness stand one who by his life and death presents unassailable evidence as to the nature and significance of submission.

If it was a lesson that Peter needed to learn, it is a lesson that the twentieth-century church must certainly need to learn when it is tempted to take up the weapons of coercion and manipulation—when it presents itself to the world in terms only of power, in terms of success, and in terms of victory. And by and large, the media representation of the church is in all of those great and glowing, triumphal, transcendent terms. And we need to take that and assess it against the instruction of Scripture. Was Jesus a triumphalist? Was Jesus a success from human terms? Did Jesus ever get on by lording it over others? Did Jesus establish his own way? Was Jesus consumed with his self-esteem? Did Jesus give to his followers an example that is akin to much that we see around us, represented in our culture? Well, the answer to that will be discovered by faithfully reading our Bibles.

And here, then, our focus is upon this Christ. Christ—mentioned in verse 21 and presented for us by Peter in three dimensions. We’ll look at each in turn: Jesus presented as our example, first of all; Jesus presented as our Sin-Bearer; and finally and briefly, Jesus presented as our Shepherd.

Jesus Our Example

First, then, Jesus presented by Peter as our example. Verse 21: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example.”

Now, the word which is used here is a very graphic word, hupogrammos. It’s the word that would be used of the letters given to schoolchildren that are already printed out on a sheet and over which there is a piece of tracing paper, and the responsibility of the child, initially, is to take their pen or their pencil and not to launch into making letters of their own but to faithfully trace over the image from the underside. So they make their a’s and their b’s and their c’s. No one’s looking for originality. There will be some, but that’s not planned. What they’re looking for is a faithful commitment to the image which is underneath. If you were using that word in Greek, it would be the word hupogrammos. It is this word here for an “example.” It might similarly be used of an architect’s sketch or drawing. It is a similar picture to what you get at Christmastime in those little boxes that they used to have, at least, called painting by numbers, where you’re not supposed to be launching into flights of fancy, but you have to painstakingly do the number threes and the number fives, and if you’re like me, you get sick of it after a while, and you just paint it all in a wash of blue or green and wait for someone else to show you how it should be done.

This is what he’s saying: in Jesus, we have this hupogrammos. He is an example for us. And he is using the example of Jesus supremely in light of his instruction concerning submission. He says we are to “follow” him. We are to “follow,” actually, “in his steps”—not just to follow vaguely in his track. Not that, as it were, he charts a course in a general direction north-northwest, and then he suggests that others could vaguely follow along north-northwest, but rather that he walks, as it were, along the sand of the seashore, and as he leaves an imprint in the sand, so he expects us to be close behind him putting our feet where he puts his feet.

And again, realize that what Peter is doing here is he is using Jesus in this way as an example of submission. As an example of submission. Peter, you see, knows from personal experience that attachment to Jesus Christ begins with his call. You go back to Matthew’s Gospel, the opening chapters, and there Peter with his brothers and his father is about his everyday routine. And something happened to him that changed his life forever. What was it? Jesus called him. Jesus said, “Hey, Peter, leave your boat. Follow me.”[4] And Peter, along with others, gathered up what had represented their lives, set it aside, and continued from there. And in this letter already, Peter has told us in 2:[9] that God, in his call upon us, has called us “out of darkness into his wonderful light.” He also, in 5:10… And these are two references easy to remember: 2:10, “Called from darkness to light”; 5:10, “called,” you will discover if you notice it, into the “eternal glory” in Jesus. Okay?

So, what is true of us as believers this morning? Well, God has called us. Called us to what? Called us from darkness to light; called us into eternal glory in Jesus Christ. We’re going to shine as the noonday sun. We’re going to shine and never go out. We’re going to wander all over heaven, praising God for eternity and eternity and eternity. That is our calling. It is certain. And we like that! “Out of the dark and into the light.” Super! “From dust to glory.” Fantastic! But notice also here the calling of the Christian: “To this you were called.” To what? To the experience of abuse. To the experience of suffering. To the unjust criticism of men and women. To the rebellious barbs of humanity as it looks on us and sees something of Christ and says, “I hate that about him,” or “I hate that about her.”

And Peter wants us to understand that he needed to understand this. In fact, in that Matthew 16 encounter, where Jesus says that he’s going to suffer, and Peter says, “No, you’re not,” and Jesus says, “Yes, I am,” and Jesus sorts him out, you will notice he then goes on immediately to explain the nature of following Jesus Christ. And what does he say? He says, “If a man or a woman comes after me, this is what they must do: take up their cross every day and follow me. For he who would save his life will lose it, and he who for my sake will lose his life will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”[5] And this Scripture, loved ones, I think flies in the face of a contemporary message from the church, in certain dimensions, which calls men and women not to die. It calls men and women to gain the whole world and keep their soul. It’s different from what Peter is saying here: “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example.”

Now, in what respect are we to emulate the example of Christ? Well, he tells us, in three dimensions.

First of all, in verse 23, we are to emulate the example of Christ, one, in refusing to retaliate. In refusing to retaliate. Now, hold that thought for a moment. Immediately, we find ourselves saying, “Hey, wait a minute. You have not been in my office. You have not driven in this truck with me and these guys on that building site. You cannot begin to imagine what I go through Monday through Saturday.” Well, if you’re addressing that to me, the answer is yes, you’re probably right. However, the issue is not with one another; it is with the example of Christ. Let us turn for a moment and see what Peter was referring to when he said, “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate.”

Let’s go to Luke’s Gospel. We could go to any of the Gospels, but let’s just go to Luke’s Gospel, chapter 23. What does it mean, “When they hurled their insults at Jesus, he did not retaliate”? Luke 23:35. Now, he’s already been crucified.[6] He already has been beaten with leather thongs with bits of bone or metal in the end of them so that they have torn his body to the point of laceration and welting.[7] He has had a crown of thorns placed on his head so painful and so excruciating that the blood has run down, mingling with the crushing of his body in other parts.[8] They have now hammered him onto this cruel tree. But are they finished? Verse 35:

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.”

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

And get this: “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’”

Now, Jesus had already made it clear that he could have called twelve legions of angels and blew the whole of Jerusalem apart.[9] He wasn’t in need of Peter’s help knocking folks’ ears off.[10] It was not that there was a power crisis for Jesus Christ. All power in heaven and earth was his. But he hanged upon that cross, took their filthy spit and their evil sneers, took it all, and “he did,” Peter tells us, “not retaliate.” And in this respect, he provides an example for us when we receive the cold shoulder from our neighbors, when we receive abuse from those who are our loved ones, and when we are confronted with the challenge of the gospel. How am I to submit to suffering? In a nonretaliatory fashion.

Secondly, I may emulate his example by saying no to threatening behavior. “When he suffered, he made no threats.” Matthew 27:27: “Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.” They’re having a show now. “They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then [wove] a crown of thorns and set it on his head. [And] they put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said. They sp[a]t on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.”[11] Isn’t that the thing that really gets you? You know, you can take it once when somebody does it, and maybe a second time, but not “again and again”!

Where is the triumphalism in this, dear ones? Where is the notion that Christian living is supposed to be supremely wealthy, supremely healthy, supremely successful, knows nothing of difficulties, knows nothing of heartache, knows nothing of abuse? Where in the world did we get this gospel from? Not from the Bible! But we love that gospel! For we may hold our chests out, and we may walk high, and we may ride triumphant into our cities while Christ on a donkey went into his. And despite it all, no threat from Jesus. No word to the soldiers: “I’m going to get you.” No word that said, “Hey, you think you’ve got me now, but you ain’t seen nothing yet!” And in this respect, an example.

Thirdly, we emulate his example not only in refusing to retaliate, not only in saying no to threatening behavior, but thirdly, at the end of verse 23, in displaying trust in the Father. Instead of making threats, instead of retaliating, what did he do? He “entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” Jesus understood what Paul was going to write in Romans 12:19: “‘Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord, ‘I will repay it.’”[12] Jesus understood that the errors and abuses which he was suffering now would not be dealt with in his lifetime. And it is a reminder to us that we need to face the same. This, you see, is the ultimate silliness of liberation theology down in South America: the notion that the gospel somehow is politically triumphant and significant to the denying of the way of the cross and to the exalting of the way of the sword. Until we understand this, we may live with the mythology that one day we will get it all right down here.

The answer, loved ones, is this: that all our errors and all our abuses will not be sorted out, corrected, and rearranged to our satisfaction in our time frame. That is not to say we ought not to work for the good and well-being of various areas, but it is the ultimate recognition. So we need to lift our eyes to another throne. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the” what?

              of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He has [leased] the [fatal] lightning of his terrible, swift sword.
[And] his truth is marching on.[13]

For the Lord God omnipotent reigns today. And he needs no help from us. That’s why he provides us with such an example.

Jesus Our Sin-Bearer

Now, he does that, but he does not only that. And it’s very, very important that you notice one word in the twenty-first verse. It is the word “for.” “For.” Because Peter here is not a moralist. He is not presenting a message which goes like this: “There were a lot of bad people in Jesus’ day who did a lot of bad things to Jesus, and he was real nice to them. And there are a lot of bad people today who will do bad things to you, and you should be real nice to them also.” They said, “Wow! What a lovely message that was this morning.” Yeah, but you could have got that one anywhere, couldn’t you?

Peter cannot write about these things without writing about the essence of what was happening in the humiliation of Jesus Christ. And he says, “Sure, he has given us an example of bearing up under suffering, but the significant thing is in the word ‘for.’” “To this you were called, because Christ suffered…” Now, notice the next two words. If you take them out, it changes everything. It doesn’t say, “Because Christ suffered, leaving you an example.” It says, “Because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example.” And the “for you” is then commentated on in the twenty-fourth verse, where the significance of what he has done as our Sin-Bearer is borne out.

Now, let me go at this as quickly and as faithfully as I can. “Christ suffered for you.” Significant statement. Verse 24: What did it mean? Well, this is what it meant: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” So we know this: that Jesus did not live and die simply to show men and women how to live a good life. Rather, he lived and he died to bring liberation to the captive, to bring sight to the blind, to bring healing to the broken, to bring salvation to the sinful.[14]

And that is the reason for Peter’s inclusion of verse 22, which you may think we missed: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” Why does Peter write that? Because Peter understood what most of us don’t understand, and that is the instruction of the Old Testament concerning the sacrificial system. You need to take your Bible and delve into Leviticus—that wonderful book that you come to as you read through the Bible, and you make it through Genesis, and you come to Leviticus, and you go, “Man alive! What is this doing in here?” Well, it’s a significant and vital book. And if you read 1 Peter and you don’t read Leviticus, you’ll never understand 1 Peter. And certainly that’s true of Hebrews.

I can’t go back to it this morning, but you need to read Leviticus chapter 4; you need to read Leviticus chapter [16]. And when you read that, you will discover the background in Peter’s mind here—namely, that sin was pictured as a burden. And the priest would bring a pure animal—a lamb or a goat or some other creature—and he would place his hands upon the head of the animal and symbolically transfer either his guilt as a priest or the guilt of those for whom he was representing to this animal, and then the animal would be sacrificed, and that is the way in which God said, “I will deal with the sin problem” under the old covenant in the Old Testament.

Jesus lived and died to bring liberation to the captive, to bring sight to the blind, to bring healing to the broken, to bring salvation to the sinful.

And so the readers of Peter’s letter, many of them from a Jewish background, understood what he was on about here. “He himself bore our sins in his body.” Immediately, the Jewish mind said, “Got it! I understand it. The sacrificial system, the lamb, the scapegoat driven out into the wilderness, the transfer of sin. I’m the sinner. The lamb did nothing. My sin on the lamb. Sacrifice; gone. Now I can go out and live in a different way.” That is exactly the imagery which Peter is using. That’s why in chapter 1 he has described Jesus, verse 19, as a “lamb without blemish or defect.” The sinlessness of Jesus Christ is absolutely fundamental to his sacrifice! For how can someone who himself is tainted with sin offer to bear the sin of those who are around him? Only one who was a man and only one who was sinless could bear the sin of men and women. And so he says, “Here is the understanding of it: Jesus died, and when he died on the tree, he was doing something far more than simply creating Easter stories. He was bearing sin.”

Whose sin? ’Cause he was sinless. He never even was deceitful with his mouth, and you remember James 3 tells us that if anyone one never sins with their tongue, that one is a what? A perfect individual.[15] Jesus wasn’t guilty in even sinning with his tongue. He never sinned. And so for whose sin did he die? For our sin!

You see, loved ones, when we stand and gaze upon the cross of Jesus Christ, whether it is in some of the great artistic works of our day or whether in our mind’s eye we just go to our Bibles, and we conjure up this scene of this Jesus hanging up there, the inevitable question that must come to the mind of a thinking individual is, in one word, “Why?” Why! Why should Jesus die? Why should a sinless man endure such a cruel death?

John Moore, who wrote “Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary,” captured it in a song that went like this:

Why did they nail him to Calvary’s tree?
Why, tell me, why was he there?
Jesus the helper, the healer, the friend,
Why, tell me, why was he there?

All my iniquities on him were laid;
He nailed them all to the tree.
Jesus the debt of my sin fully paid;
He paid the ransom for me.[16]

I wonder this morning: Have you been on the fringes of religion—have you been around, as it were, the corridors of faith—and yet the lights have never gone on within your heart? That you have never come to realize that Jesus died for sinners, and therefore, since you acknowledge yourself to be sinful, he died for you, and that as you would come to him in repentance and in faith and as the transfer of your sin to him would be taking place, so you might go out and live differently?

That’s the implication of verse 24b. Why did this happen? “So that we might die to sins.” In other words, so that we might cease to exist for sins. Man exists for sins whether he acknowledges it or not. And when he comes to Christ, he ceases to exist for sins, and he lives for righteousness.

Things are different now;
Something happened to me
Since I gave my heart to Jesus.

Things are different now;
There’s a change, it must be,
Since I gave my heart to him.

Things I loved before have passed away;
Things I love far more have come to stay.

Things are different now;
Something happened to me
Since I gave my heart to him.[17]

Jesus Our Shepherd

Jesus the example, Jesus the Sin-Bearer, and finally, in verse 25, Jesus the Shepherd.

Put your finger in Isaiah 53 for just a moment, because it is implicit in all that Peter is saying here. Isaiah 53. Look at what he says: “For you were…” Past tense. This is what we were, loved ones. In the past, we “were like sheep going astray.” Not a very flattering picture, huh? You see a crowd of sheep banging their heads against one another and careening all around a meadow, kind of glaikit look on their faces. They don’t seem to understand much except the yapping of dogs at their heels. They get themselves in the most unbelievable predicaments. They go in the dumbest places. They go out in the middle of the road, and you can blow your horn till you’re blue in your face, and still they stand and just stare you down, not realizing the impending doom that awaits them. And Peter says, “Hey, before we came to Christ, that’s exactly what we were like. We were like sheep going astray.”

Isaiah 53:6: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.” The affluent pagan in suburbia has gone astray just as much as the impoverished bum in the streets of our largest city. That’s what the Bible says. So nobody should get in their car this morning and assume that by dint of our background, we somehow have circumvented the ravages of sin. No matter what our status in life, the Bible says we’re just wanderers—like sin taking root, messing up our compass, and sending us all around. That’s why when Jesus looked at the crowds, he saw them as sheep without a shepherd.[18]

I was in a restaurant this Tuesday morning with my wife. I went to the men’s room. I came back. Some young man had sat down next to my wife and engaged her in conversation. I was in immediate concern, so I sat down quickly—didn’t interrupt and found that they were talking about all kinds of things. And the man was just a nervous wreck. I noticed his fingernails were bitten halfway down. He was very nicely dressed, wore a beautiful watch, had a lovely silk tie, sun-tanned, debonair—and yet a wreck. He went on to explain that along with his father—Jewish, merchant banking background: property, real estate, and every other thing. But he’d already begun to tell my wife he just stayed up at night. He couldn’t sleep. He was up all the time. Somehow, he didn’t have any peace, he said. He couldn’t find peace.

So we said, “You know, did you read your Old Testament?”

He said, “No.”

“So why don’t you? Why don’t you read and discover what David discovered. Why don’t you read, and you’ll be able to say, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in still pastures; he leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.’”[19]

Loved ones, today, the people opposite us in the restaurants, the people who ride on the buses and the Rapids with us outside of Christ, are as sheep without a shepherd. They have no goal. They have no guide. They have no guardian. And should we not be compassionate towards them, for such were we? But now we’ve discovered Jesus to be the true Shepherd. He calls us by name, and he goes before us. He knows who we are. And he represents to us the supreme example of what it means to live submissive lives.

Oh, you can look at me, and you’ll find retaliation. I wish it were not so. You can’t play soccer with me without discovering that. You can look at me, and I can look at you, and hear a threat or two. But loved ones, we cannot look at Jesus but discover that he closes all the gaps on us. He is the example. He is the Sin-Bearer. He is the Shepherd of those who would walk out in his footsteps, even today—who would say, “‘Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand.’[20] I don’t care what my colleagues at work say. I don’t mind what my friends may say. I know it might not be cool on my corridor as a student. But hey, I’m going to follow his example. He bore my sin, he’s the Shepherd of my soul, and I love him, and I’m going to serve him.”

[1] Matthew 16:16 (NIV 1984).

[2] See Matthew 16:21.

[3] Matthew 16:22–23 (paraphrased).

[4] Matthew 4:19 (paraphrased).

[5] Matthew 16:24–26 (paraphrased).

[6] See Luke 23:33.

[7] See Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1.

[8] See Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:17; John 19:2.

[9] See Matthew 26:53.

[10] See Matthew 26:51; Mark 14:47; John 18:10.

[11] Matthew 27:27–30. Emphasis added.

[12] Romans 12:19 (paraphrased).

[13] Julia Ward Howe, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862). Emphasis added.

[14] See Luke 4:16–21.

[15] See James 3:2.

[16] John M. Moore, “Why Did They Nail Him to Calvary’s Tree?” (1953).

[17] Stanton W. Gavitt, “Things Are Different Now” (1941). Lyrics lightly altered.

[18] See Matthew 9:36; Mark 6:34.

[19] Psalm 23:1–3 (paraphrased).

[20] Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” (1868).