A Short Reflection on 1 Peter 2:21-251: Suffering Righteously

In 1 Peter 2:21-25, Peter encourages his audience to rejoice and persevere through
“various trials” (1.6), and are admonished to not retaliate if they are reviled, insulted, and
maligned (2.12; 3.9; 3.16; 4.4; 4.14) as “evil doers” (2.12) but to bless those who offend
them. Peter’s primary aim for his audience is succinctly expressed in the first imperative
of the letter—“set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ (1.13).”
The actions and dispositions that Peter encourages in 2.21-25, for example, of not
reviling back when one is reviled, are repeated in other places within the text of 1 Peter
(2.9; 2.18; 4.1; 4.13-16). Such hostility against Peter’s audience probably occurs at the
informal level, instigated by locales against their Christian neighbors, or at the imperial
level, where Rome’s claims to sovereignty are being challenged by Christian claims of
Jesus Christ as Lord (Horrell 57-58). Other evidence within 1 Peter also indicate that
Christians might not just be experiencing social and verbal malign but may also be
paying the price with their physical bodies. Peter urges his audience to not suffer for
being a “murderer,” “thief,” “evil doer” or a “meddler” (4.15), which leads to the
inference that some Christians had probably being physically attacked without any crime
of theirs. In 2 Peter 2.20, it is also plausible that Peter addresses slaves who may have
endured suffering by way of physical persecution for legitimate wrongs done to their
master. Even our primary text for discussion in this paper (1 Peter 2.21-25), which urges
Christians to follow in the footsteps of Christ who certainly paid the ultimate price to
redeem them from their sins, opens the possibility of Christians who may have to go
through the same ordeal in a social environment hostile to the Christian faith.
Scholars have identified 1 Peter 2.21-25 as the heart of the theological argument
of 1 Peter2. 1 Peter 2.21-25 lies in the middle of an argument that Peter starts to make
starting from 2.13. The overall argument of Peter starts from the beginning of the letter,
which starts by orienting its audience to adopt a particular understanding of their identity.
Peter’s audience is described as “elect sojourners,” whose life is directed according to the

1
Scriptural quotations in this paper are taken from the ESV unless otherwise stated.
2
For example, Howard Marshall refers to 1 Peter 2.21-25 as the “theological center” of
the whole book, “providing basis for all Christian behavior (91).”
work of the three persons of the Triune God: the foreknowledge of God the Father, the
sanctification of the Spirit, and the obedience of Jesus Christ. Thus, the starting place for
describing the identity of the audience is grounded in the large reality of work of the
Triune God in the world. 2 Peter 3:1-12 goes to begin to give more details to this
theological identity that Peter wants to ground his audience in. Peter’s audience are told
that they are born again, loved, saved, and being guarded by God so that their faiths do
not end in up in ruins. Their hopes of eternal bliss are anchored in the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead (3.1), awaiting ultimate consummation. Because of such a
bright future, they are to rejoice during this period of liminality, although such a period
may be filled with various trials that will test and hone their faiths. In addition to the
bright future awaiting their audience, they are to see themselves as the recipients of the
good news prophesied by the prophets of Old. God’s promises for his people, Israel, are
being insinuated here—the promises of shalom and the restoration of dynasty—pointing
to the faithfulness of God to his people. Of course, the implicit narrative embedded here
is that Christ is the fulfillment of the hope that the prophets prophesied of.
Because of the hope that is already theirs and yet not quite fully realized (1.3),
Peter instructs his audience to continue to keep their minds and their hearts fixed on the
hope that God has for them, abstaining from their former hopes and desires, and to live
their lives completely oriented towards God’s will for them. Peter’s uses of terminology
such as “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers….with
the precious blood of Christ(1.18)” in describing what God has done for his audience is
evocative of Exodus imagery, placing his audience in the stream of the story of God’s
redemptive for the world, starting with Israel.
Again, Peter continues to focus on the theological identity of his people, using
words reminiscent of the vocation YHWH ascribed to his people, Israel, in the Old
Testament. In 2.4-10, Peter stresses that the identity of God’s people comes with a
vocation, designated as a “royal priesthood.” As priests of God, they are to orient their
whole life and take up space in such a way that it reflects the purposes of God in the
world, according to God’s timing, per God’s purposes for the world. Although Peter’s
audience, who are Christians in Asia Minor, might face rejection from their non-Christian
neighbors, they are not to depend on the perception or judgment of their surrounding
neighbors, but are to accept God’s designation of and vocation for them as his own
vocation.
Following 2.11-12, and similar to 1.14-16, Peter urges his audience to abstain
from their former, worldly, wayward lifestyles grounded in their own passion and desires.
However, in living a new lifestyle that is different from their non-Christian neighbors,
they are not to misconstrue this as a chance to be conceited, or complacent in their
relationships with their non-Christian surroundings. Instead, they are to keep their way of
life “honorable” in the sight of God among the Gentiles (2.11). This “honorable” way of
life is expounded in the context of a panoply of relationships involving relations with
political leaders, members of households, slaves and masters, church elders, and
members of the church. At the center of this web of relationships lies 1 Peter 2.21-25
wherein Peter enunciates for his audience, a particular kind of life—grounded in Christ’s
suffering for them—which serves us the wellspring for the dispositions and way of life
enumerated in the book. Evidence for this can be seen from the critical observation that,
while Peter has before talked about his audience going through diverse trials, the first
place in which Peter mentions that Christ did suffer for them lies in 1 Peter 2.21-25.
Thus, from here onwards, Peter makes repeated references to Christ sufferings, (3.18;
4.1; 4.13) and urges them to live in the way Christ’s suffered for them.
As Peter encourages his audience, one of his goals is to provide a framework for
how his audience are to cope with the harsh reality of Christian suffering. Part of this
framework includes a theological perspective or rationale for the reason why Peter’s
audience are suffering in the first place. Green notes that the theological rationale given
in 2.21 and 2.24-25 is this—“you have been called to live patterned on the obedience of
Christ, and have indeed been transformed through the work of Christ from a past life of
sin so that you may live today as Christ lived (83).” In other words, if Christ obeyed God
by suffering, then why may his followers not be demanded to pass through the same
experience? However, the image for following Christ is not merely imitative, but one of
“improvisation,” or “performance,” which accentuates the “creative fidelity” that
seriously follows the core script of Christ’s life while leaving room for adjusting to the
particularities of one’s experience (Green). The mode of performance may be said to be
normative, not prescriptive.
 Thus Peter not only reads Christ’s work on the cross as a doctrine of
substitutionary atonement but the overall basis for all Christian behavior (Horrel 91).
Peter does not merely give a doctrine of the person and work of Christ, but connects
doctrine to ethical formation (Jobes). Such an assumption is staggering since many
scholars have noted clear affinities between the description of Christ’s work in 2.21-15
and the Suffering Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 53, wherein the Suffering Servant is in no
way, shape, or form, characterized as a paradigm of living life for YHWH’s people.
Moreover, it is only in 1 Peter 2.21-25 wherein Christ’s passion is conspicuously
discussed in terms of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant (Jobes). But if it is
agreed that Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2.21-25 have an intimate connection, what sort of
relationship by this be?
Jobes makes the key point that Isaiah 53 is not merely being used as proof
text for a prophetic prediction of the Christ’s sufferings, but a tool in Peter’s hands to
help him explain the significance of Christ’s particular way of redemption (Jobes). Thus
the significance of Peter’s use of Isaiah 53 lies in the fact that it “reminds it readers that
Jesus’ unjust suffering did not mean that God had abandoned him; to the contrary, unjust
suffering was God’s mysterious way to accomplish the redemption of humanity.” In
addition, Jobes also notices that Peter draws from several places in the Old Testament to
explicate the nature of Christ’s sufferings for his people. For instance, in commenting on
the use of shepherd language as the overseer of souls in 2.25, Jobes notes that it is
possible that the shepherd language may also have been borrowed from LXX Ezekiel
34:11-13, and the Psalms. An examination of these shepherd traditions tradition reflects a
Jewish tradition about God’s tenacious care for his people.
Similar to Green’s thoughts, Liebengood states that in 2.21-25, “Peters
exposition regarding the suffering of Christ primarily functions as the paradigm for
Christians to follow (189).” For Liebengood, Peter not only provides his audience with an
understanding of Christ’s suffering and death, but more specifically, suffering incurred
from one’s allegiance to Christ—that is, “why Christian suffering is necessary and to be
expected in spite of the fact that, according to early Jesus followers, Jesus is the Lord’s
Messiah (188)”. However, Liebengood continues to develop his argument by saying that
the reason why Peter understands Christian suffering to be necessary goes beyond the
fact Christ left an example for reconciled sinners to imitate. In addition to that, it includes
“when” his audience are (190). Liebengood’s unique suggestion here is that, 2.21-25 as a
paradigm for Christian living, is in line with the eschatological program in 1 Peter which
has its original substructure in the eschatological program of Zechariah 9-14, read in light
of the death and resurrection of Jesus (176-180). According to Liebengood, Peter has
reinterpreted Isaiah 53 in the light of the wider context of Zechariah 9.14 to mean that his
audience, who have now been returned to the slain-shepherd king of Zechariah 13.7, must
undergo a period of suffering in the same manner in which Zechariah 13.8 has a
transition period consisting of fiery trials after the death of the shepherd-king. Just as this
time of fiery trials in Zech 13.8 are likened to a new exodus (Zech 10.8-12), Peter’s
audience are in a time where the fidelity of God’s people is being tested while they
participate in a second exodus towards an inheritance reserved from them (190).
The main theological point to be absorbed from this passage concerns itself with
the non-retaliatory disposition that Peter is calling his audience to embody as a primary
way of pattering their lives according to the life and witness of Jesus Christ. Peter’s
audience are to cultivate as of prime importance, an attitude of grace that is informed by
Christ’s suffering for them. Just as Christ has suffered for them, they are to relinquish
their desire of revenge and retaliatory violence in the midst of unjust suffering. They are
to entrust themselves to God, knowing very well that God surely cares for them and will
judge righteously.