And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
1 Peter 1:17
The first chapter of 1 Peter underscores several “positional” realities that the Christian enjoys. One, God has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Two, we have an inheritance guarded by omnipotence. three, though tested, our faith is proven to be authentic. Four, we were literally gifted salvation, something that is the envy of the prophets and the angels. The fifth comes from the present verse, and is a startling reality: because of election, we call Almighty God our “Father.” These positional realities call for a practical response on our part, and that is to what we are exhorted in 1:17: “live throughout the time of our exile in the fear of the Lord.”
Fear is not some leftover vestige from the Old Covenant, but the studied conduct of the wise, the Christian who knows that while God’s revelation is progressive, He Himself is unchanged and unchangeable. He is the eternal, immutable, and infinite holy God. No wonder sinners are condemned when it says of them that “there is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18).
We are to approach God with neither a casual familiar nor with a cowering fright. The former does not describe true faith and the latter does not describe true fear. Those who walk in cowering fright do so out of neglect of Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Those who walk in casual familiarity neglect 1 Peter 1:17. The Father’s election is by unmerited favor, but His judgment is without favoritism. A healthy fear of God’s categorical, penetrating, incorruptible, and definitive judgment of our lives should be basic to us as the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7).
Neither carelessness nor indifference becomes those who, through infinite grace, are privileged to call God, Father, but reverent fear, lest we grieve His heart and reflect discredit upon His name.
H. A. Ironside
Further informing the wisdom of humble reverence toward God (“fear”) is the realization of the price that was paid for our redemption. That is Peter’s very point in the next two verses:
knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
1 Peter 1:18-19
Peter speaks of the Christian’s “inherited futility.” For the Jews among his readership, that might be Pharasaic Judaism. For the Gentiles, pagan idolatry. Both are futile. Neither self-appointed nor false religion provides us with the slightest merit before God (Col. 1:20-23). Religion without Christ is not man’s sincere attempt to do his very best to seek and find God. On the contrary, manmade religion is a flight from God resulting from the willful suppression of what we know to be true (Romans 1:18ff).
We were, however, ransomed from these futile ways. And not by a bag of gold or silver coins, but with the innocent blood of Jesus, the Son foreknown by the Father (1:20a) but “made manifest in the last times for [our] sake” (1:20b). Note that Jesus was “made manifest” or as Jesus said of Himself repeatedly in the Gospel of John, He was “sent” (see also Gal. 4:4). That is, the existence of the Son of God did not begin with the incarnation. True, the incarnation is the moment in which the Son of God (permanently) took on a human nature. But the Divine Son of God, the Word who existed at the beginning, has no beginning Himself. So he was “made manifest” for our sake, to redeem us from our futile way of life, the broad road leading to our everlasting destruction, and so that He may now be known by us.
Godly fear is not some “mere” Old Testament reality. It is the considered wisdom of the one who takes the time to soberly and carefully consider the grace and mercy of God in Christ on us perishing sinners, what Hebrews calls “so great a salvation.” To God be the glory, great things He hath done!