SUBMIT YOURSELVES TO EVERY HUMAN AUTHORITY FOR THE LORD’S SAKE
Peter’s exhortation to his readers to abide by governmental laws is a good reminder to those believers who tend to overemphasise God’s power to achieve their own purposes, without discerning the situation...
As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’
Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and, ‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the message – which is also what they were destined for.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honour the emperor. 1PETER 2:4-17.
The Lord spoke to Peter in Mt.16:18,
You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it
and used two different Greek words to describe ‘Peter’ the rock: ‘πέτρος’ (small stone), and ‘Christ’ the Rock: ‘Πέτρᾳ’ (rock). Peter uses the same metaphor to explain the intimate communion between the Lord and believers in the passage quoted in the beginning.
Christ is the living Stone. Every believer in Christ is also a living stone, which is quarried from the Rock by grace. The living Stone, Christ, has life in Himself and gives life to others. Each individual is to enter into personal and vital relationship with this ‘Living Stone’. While people in the world rejected Christ, God had chosen Him as precious. Likewise, Christians may be rejected by the world but should be reminded of the knowledge that they are valued and elected by God.
Believers, identified with Christ as living stones will be built into a spiritual house, whose base is the living Stone, Christ. Now that all believers are priests, they no longer need a mediator other than Christ to directly approach God. A cornerstone provides visible support, upon which the rest of the building relies for strength and stability. Although Christ was rejected by the builders of the world, He is to be the precious cornerstone in Zion.
Here Peter encourages his readers with a scriptural promise of ultimate victory for those who trust in Christ and who keep themselves holy. On the other hand, he warns those who do not receive Christ as their Saviour of the judgment they will have to face one day because of sin and disobedience.
God’s purpose of choosing believers for Himself is so that they may declare His praise before others as witnesses of the glory and grace of God. For this reason, believers should live godly lives in a pagan society. In other words, Christians should be discernibly different, behave differently, which Peter spells out in verses 11 to 17.
Christians are those whose values and beliefs are rejected by the world, so they are to live as a pilgrim and a stranger to this world, which means to live apart from sinful desires not only for their own spiritual well-being but also in order to maintain an effective testimony to this world, hopefully to convict it of its sin.
Peter’s exhortation to his readers to abide by governmental laws is a good reminder to those believers who tend to overemphasise God’s power to achieve their own purposes, without discerning the situation:
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority.
Submission to lawful authority does not negate Christian liberty but rather, it is in accordance with the will of God, who ordained human government, as long as those laws do not conflict with the teaching of Scriptures. Christians can freely enjoy their freedom only when they submit themselves to God and live as His servants.
I agree with the following article entitled “We Must Stop Looking to Politics for Answers to America's State of Crisis”, issued on 16 Feb.’21, in which a journalist and former lawyer Michael Snyder shares that the only hope for the US to be turned around is in Christ through repentance but not by pursuing a political solution:
We can all agree that America is hurting. Headlines reveal that the pandemic lockdown as well as mass civil and political unrest have left us in a state of financial, mental and emotional distress. "There's not going to be a political solution in this country," author, political commentator and end-times expert Michael Snyder tells… the church has been looking in the wrong place for answers. "Over the past four years, in the evangelical movement, we've been worshipping politics and politicians and thinking this is how we're going to turn the country around," he says. "No matter—even if we won every political race, even if we were successful in politics. On every level there, we're not going to turn the country around without God, without repentance. And that's what we need." We must repent, Snyder says, because "We really are in the end times. The judgment of America has begun, and it's going to accelerate and get even worse. Very, very difficult times are ahead of us, and it's because as a nation, we have rejected God; we've turned our backs on God. Even throughout the past four years, the American people have continued to race after sin." But there is hope, Snyder says. Despite these trying times, those who put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ "will always have hope" and know that, at the end of everything, God wins.
(For more from Michael Snyder about how we can cope in these days of end-times warning, listen to the entire episode of Greenelines here)