Peter uses the phrase -by whose stripes ye were healed- to summarize and label all the work of Christ in saving and sanctifying His people by His cross-work.----We are healed by Jesus bearing our sins in His Own body on the tree, resulting in our being dead to sin and alive to righteousness. Our crimes are imputed to Christ, and His perfection is imputed to us.----But next, Peter continues to quote from Isaiah 53 when he adds, -for ye were as sheep going astray.-----This was our former condition, from which Christ's stripes have healed us-----Sheep wander away, conduct foolish investigations into dangerous things, are disobedient and stubborn and cantankerous, and become lost and in great danger.----That is why we have fences, and sheep dogs, and shepherds.----Note the gentleness of the Biblical metaphor used to describe God's lost people gone astray. It is a kindly, helpless, melancholy description of real danger to the sheep.----We are foolish, rebellious, and disobedient to God in our lost conduct.----The metaphor of sheep and shepherds is widely used in the Old Testament to picture the Lord's people. No doubt Israel loved this metaphor, because it gives comfort to know that God is so concerned with our well being.----Mostly in the Old Testament, the blame for why the sheep are scattered and lost and endangered is placed upon wicked rulers, false prophets, and foreign despots.----It is comforting to think that our wandering and lostness is someone else's fault-----This is emphasized in Ezekiel 34, where the Lord denounces the false shepherds, and promises to send a good shepherd, David's descendant, to rescue His sheep, heal them, guard them, and feed them-

Peter has quickly laid down the great truth of the saints' redemption and sanctification by the death of Christ in our place, and for our sins, which He bore on the cross.----By His dying, Jesus has made us dead to sin, and alive unto righteousness.----Our sins were imputed to Jesus, and His righteous obedience is imputed to His people by faith.----But now, Peter quotes another phrase from Isaiah 53 to summarize all that he has taught- -by Whose stripes we are healed.-----Many have puzzled over the meaning of this prophecy.----In Isaiah, there is much said explicitly about Jesus being our sacrificial lamb, and being punished in our place when our sin was laid upon Him.----But the consequences of these acts are mostly implicit- that Christ will perfectly fulfill the types and figures of the Old Testament sacrificial system.----Jesus will finally make Himself the perfect sacrifice as God's Lamb, which alone can fully atone for His people's sin. All that went before merely pointed to the offering of Christ on Calvary's tree.----And thus, as Hebrews explains to us, those who trust in Jesus' sacrifice will be forever purged of sin- We will be forever perfected by the offering He made for us.----Christ's death restores peace with God for His poor sinful people.----In Isaiah 53, there are only two explicit statements of the benefit of Christ's death for the Lord's people.----First, that by His dying He justifies us, because He bore away our sins in His Own body on the tree. This is that great act of imputation by which He carries away our crimes from us forever-----Second, there is this plain promise- by His stripes, we are healed.----This is the promise that Peter now invokes.

Peter teaches us that, because Jesus in His Own self bore our sins in His Own body on the tree, we are dead to sin, and alive to righteousness.----This is a statement of fact- in Christ, all who trust in Him died, and rose again in new life in Christ. Sin no longer has dominion over the saints. Paul puts it this way- -Being made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness,- and now -you have your fruit unto holiness.-----So Peter's teaching is not only about the fact, but also the future of sanctification and conformity to the image of Christ finally at the resurrection.----But there is another, more fundamental way in which believers are alive unto righteousness- Christ's perfect righteousness has already been imputed to us by faith-----It is important to remember that Jesus' death no only took away our sins, and quieted God's wrath and judgment against our crimes, because He was judged for our sins placed upon Him at Calvary.----But the perfect obedience of Jesus has been counted unto us for righteousness-----Jesus fulfilled all the law for us as our federal head, just like Adam broke God's law when he represented all mankind in the Garden of Eden at the Fall.----At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus identified Himself with His people at His baptism unto repentance at the Jordan River. He told John the Baptist that His baptism was necessary -to fulfill all righteousness.-----Jesus had no sin of His Own to repent of, but He identified Himself with our sins, and showed a proper righteous acknowledgment of our sins, and the requirement of repentance.----God His Father was well pleased with the Son's entrance into His great work of redemption as God's Lamb.

Christ's suffering was not merely to leave us an example, but rather it had a far greater purpose.----When Jesus died for us, He redeemed us from the justice and wrath which we were due from God for our crimes against Him. Jesus was our substitute, God's Lamb slain in our place, that we might be set free-----But at the end of 1 Peter 2, the Apostle announces another, astounding consequence of Christ's bearing our sins in His Own body on the cross- all who trust in Jesus, by His dying for us, are now DEAD TO SIN, and alive unto righteousness-----So Christ's sacrifice does not merely provide an example, but it also justifies us, and not only that, it changes us immediately to be dead to sin, and alive to righteousness.----Peter had before outlined other benefits of Christ's sacrifice- redemption by His blood, the gift of faith, an incorruptible inheritance, a glorious resurrection, everlasting life, and full salvation-----But now Peter tells us, that Christ's death changes us. We are now dead to sins, and alive unto righteousness-----This is a statement of fact, not a mere aspiration. Christ's saved ones are dead to sin- We are alive to righteousness-----These are truth and facts, not just something we long for.----What a powerful sacrifice our Lord Jesus delivered up for us at Calvary-----Peter is declaring as truth what Paul spent several chapters in the Epistle to the Romans to flesh out - this reality of -dead to sin- and -alive to righteousness.-----Paul describes the fact of these changes, and also discusses the desire to live these truths out in our mortal bodies, which are always fighting against the Spirit.----But the Spirit works in us to obey these truths-

We have come to the end of Christ's example of suffering for believers, and now Peter moves on to explain how what Jesus did at Calvary makes possible our obedience in all these matters.----Christ did not suffer primarily to leave us an example. There was a far greater purpose for His sufferings, and now Peter announces that greater purpose.----Recall that Christ did no sin as He suffered, as Isaiah had foretold, and neither ought we. He uttered no falsehoods, and neither should we. He didn't revile or threaten when His persecutors reviled Him and did Him harm, and neither should we.----Instead, Christ committed Himself to the One Who judges righteously, and so must we-----God His Father would set all things right for His Son. The Father would vindicate Jesus for the cross. The Father would do justice to Christ for dying for His people's sin.----We trust in God's righteous judgment also. He will avenge all the wrongs against His loved ones-----And God will be just in justifying those who trust in Jesus, because Jesus has satisfied all the demands of divine justice in our place, and for our crimes.----But now, Peter explicitly states the grand purpose of Christ's sufferings- Jesus His Own self bore our sins in His Own body on the tree-----The prior mentioned sufferings of Jesus were undertaken in such a manner as to provide a perfect Lamb of Sacrifice to bear our sins at Calvary-----Peter's text is Isaiah 53, and Isaiah had promised by the Spirit of Christ that Jesus would behave in precisely these ways as He suffered, so that He might be punished by God for our sins laid upon Him.----It pleased God to crush Jesus for our sins on the cross. He bore them in His Own body.

On July 4th, Americans celebrate Independence Day, and the blessings of liberty.----But we ought to recall what our Founding Fathers were concerned to stop- shutting down newspapers, stifling free speech, taking private property, violating the privacy of our papers and records, politicizing stands against the government as if they were treason, defacing religious liberty.----So they wrote a Constitution with rules to check such wickedness.----Sadly, little by little, the government has engaged in each of these sins that our forefathers tried to stop.----As for the evil of slavery, sadly, they failed to stop it, and though it was ultimately outlawed, yet the poison of the enslavement mentality persists today.----Today, what was unthinkable has now taken hold- that it is perfectly proper to direct and order about free people, and seize their labor and money by regulation and taxation.----And so a once free people have become slowly bound in the chains of pernicious laws, regulations, rules, and taxes.----Jesus confronted enslavement in His ministry, when He promised that the truth will set men free.----His Jewish listeners objected, that they had never been slaves at all. Rather than call them out on that falsehood - remember Egypt, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and now the Romans - Jesus cut to the heart of the matter.----Christ was speaking of the bondage of sin.----The law places a hammer of judgment upon all poor sinners, causing us to slavishly seek to obey, all the time rebelling against the law, and shrinking from the dread of its due punishment at the hand of a holy and righteous God.----Slaves to sin are constantly being flogged by the justice of the law.

God's stern justice against sin is the saints' exceeding comfort, because that justice has been executed against God's Lamb at Calvary, and has been completely satisfied by Jesus, and therefore, God is strictly just when He declares His people justified, without fault entirely, for Jesus' sake-----At the Lord's Table, we observe the gravity with which God takes our sin. He delivered up His Own Dear Son to save us from sin, which proves there was no other way to forgive us, or to redeem us.----If God could have forgiven sin without the satisfaction of His divine justice - in other words, if God could have broken His promise of divine retribution for sin - He would not have delivered His well beloved Son unto the death of the cross.----In Christ's death, we find a unique confluence of sin and wickedness and judgment.----Whenever the State puts someone to death, it is always on account of wicked sin.----But we ought never to assume that the evil and sin involved in an execution is that of the one put to death. So many people have been murdered by governments throughout history, and most people merely assume those murders were completely justified.----When a person is wrongfully put to death, there is evil and sin involved to be sure, but it is the wickedness of the government and of its leaders and agents.----The martyr Stephen was put to death, not for any evil or sin in Stephen, but because the rulers of Israel were wicked and evil in stoning Stephen.----In the case of Jesus, there were three loci of evil and sin involved.----First, there were the false accusations against Jesus. The rulers accused Him of blasphemy for telling the truth that He is the Christ of God.

The plagues of Egypt were a strike against the false gods of Egypt, and against wicked men, who would not let God's people go.----But there is a trap in it all for Israel, to think that because they were enslaved, then the Egyptians were no good. All through history, we objectify those who mistreat us as those wicked people over there, and naturally, but falsely, conclude that we ourselves are virtuous.----And if the Lord delivers us from their hands, that solidifies our false view that we are saved because we are righteous, as against those wicked folks over there.----This faulty analysis distracts us from a correct view of morality and righteousness as seen from God's point of view.----We deduce incorrectly that the Israelites are virtuous, because of their mistreatment, and thus they are exempt from the need for rescue from their own sins and from God's judgment against sin.----In Israel's case, the difference that God put between themselves and Egypt in the plagues of darkness, lice, boils, hailstones, etc., was enough to convince them that they were right with God. An air of superiority begins to take hold in Israel, which comes to take its special treatment by God for granted, all the while looking down on all the others as dirty Gentiles.----Israel failed to grasp the true distinction made between itself and Egypt. In the end, it wasn't the plagues - the hailstones, the darkness, the boils - on Egypt and not on Israel that marked the distinction.----In the end, the crucial distinction was the Passover sacrifice. God saved the people who were marked by the blood of the Passover lamb.----Egyptians weren't judged because of sin, but because they had no sacrifice.

Peter exhorts believers to follow the example of Jesus in committing ourselves to God Who judges righteously.----This is not only in reference to His setting all things right for us at the judgment, but most importantly, in our committing ourselves to the perfect justice of God regarding our crimes against Him.----A right understanding of God's true justice for sin is a real comfort and assurance to the saints, but many of us do not truly grasp the power of this assurance.----Many believers do not understand the sure basis of our salvation.----Some think that our salvation rests in -inviting Jesus into our hearts.-----Others go further, knowing that Jesus died on the cross.----Still others would assert that Jesus died for us on the cross.----But the truth is, that Jesus died for our sins, and was judged by God in wrath for them, and exhausted the just punishment for our sins, so that we are set free-----The problem has always been, that we have all sinned against God our Creator, and He has decreed that the punishment for our sins is death and eternal wrath in Hell.----How can God forgive His people of their sins, when His pronounced judgment has been made abundantly clear to us-----The Old Testament sacrifices pictured God's wrath against sin, that God's justice must be avenged against our crimes, but Hebrews declares that those offerings of animals could never truly take away sin. So where does that leave us-----Some false teachers insist that God doesn't require justice, but instead can simply forgive sin without any satisfaction to His Holiness and Righteousness.----They go so far as to claim that Jesus was not punished by God for our crimes, a terrible thing to say-

In 1 Peter 2, the Apostle exhorts believers to follow after the example of Jesus in suffering. He lists a number of Christ's response, finally observing that our Savior committed Himself to Him Who judges righteously.----Thus, Jesus left up to His Father the settling of scores with His persecutors, the setting of all those wrongs right, and the justice of God in punishing Him for the sins of His loved ones, so that they might go free.----And thus, Peter urges believers to suffer in like manner. We are to leave the judgment of our persecutors in the hands of the God Who judges righteously.----We are to rest in the perfect justice of God to set all things right one day, just like our Savior did-----In the Old Testament, there are many examples of this same exhortation- God will exact vengeance against those wicked men who mistreat and persecute His beloved people-----God's sword, He told Moses, would be glittering with the blood of those who murder or enslave His people- One day His people, and all the world besides, will rejoice in that vengeance, and in God's mercy to His land and His people.----The Psalmist also repeatedly pronounces the saints' expectant waiting on the justice of God, and how it will demonstrate once and for all the power of God, and His reward for the righteous.----God will set all things right one day, and like Jesus, we are to wait for God's righteous judgment.----In the New Testament, Paul exhorted the Lord's people to recall that God has reserved vengeance as His exclusive prerogative, but also His promise that He will avenge His people- -I will repay-- saith the Lord-----In 2 Thessalonians, God promises that His wrath will be epic-