1 Peter 1:19

1 Peter 1:19. but with precious blood, as of a lamb blameless and spotless, to wit Christ's. The construction here is doubtful and difficult, owing to the term ‘Christ's' being thrown to the end. The view which is adopted of the peculiar arrangement of the words in the original affects our understanding, not indeed of the main idea, but of the exact relation which the two terms ‘lamb' and ‘Christ' are intended to occupy to each other, and the precise force of the ‘as' by which they are connected. The clause may be construed (so Steiger, etc.) thus ‘with precious blood, as if with the blood of a lamb... to wit, Christ;' or (so Lillie, etc.), with the precious blood, as of a lamb... of Christ;' or, ‘with precious blood, as of a lamb... the blood of Christ' (so Beza, Alford, etc., and substantially Wiesinger, Huther, and the R. V.). The first of these explanations gives greater importance to the idea of the ‘lamb' than to the mention of ‘Christ.' The second is urged on the ground that blood is not of itself a true contrast to ‘corruptible things,' and that neither blood of itself nor the blood of a sacrificial animal, but only Christ's blood, has value in redemption. The third is both simpler and more in harmony with Peter's style, as this is not the only instance of terms introduced in antecedent opposition (cf. 1 Peter 2:7). Hence we have the cost of redemption defined here first as ‘precious blood,' and not any ‘corruptible thing' (the Old Testament view of the life in the blood giving reality to the contrast), then as Christ's blood, and further as blood with the ethical value of blood shed by One in the character of spotlessness and blamelessness. The ‘as,' therefore, is not a mere note of comparison, but an index to the quality of the subject, and to the worth of the life surrendered. The point of the statement is not to institute a direct comparison between Christ and a lamb, nor to represent the means by which the redemption was effected as comparable in value to the blood of a stainless lamb (Schott, etc.), nor to explain why the blood of Christ is precious beyond the preciousness of all corruptible things, namely, in so far as it is the blood of the Christ who is distinguished as the perfect Lamb (Steiger, etc.), but to exhibit the cost of the redemption from the heathen life of sin as nothing less than the surrender of a life of sinless perfection. A death was endured by Christ which had in it the ethical qualities figured by lamb-like blamelessness and spotlessness, and only such a ransom could bring in a new constraining power sufficient to break the thraldom of the vain hereditary manner of life to which these Gentiles had been helpless slaves. The reference to a lamb in this connection has an obvious fitness on Peter's lips. It was in the character of the Lamb, as that name was proclaimed by the Baptist, that Simon, by his brother Andrew's intervention, first recognised Jesus to be the Messiah (John 1:35-42), and the impression of that first recognition of the Christ could never be effaced. The terms ‘blameless' and ‘spotless,' too, are terms applicable to the lambs of the Old Testament system, with which every Israelite was so familiar. The former represents the usual Old Testament phrase for the freedom from all physical defects which was required in the sacrificial victims (Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 22:20, and cf. Hebrews 9:14). The latter, though not found in the New Testament, except in a moral sense (2Pe 3:14; 1 Timothy 6:14; James 1:27), and applied properly only to persons (except perhaps 1 Timothy 6:14), expresses summarily other ceremonial perfections which were necessary in the offerings (Leviticus 22:18-25). The lamb particularly in Peter's view here, is variously identified, as e.g. with the Paschal Lamb (Wiesinger, Hofmann, Alford, etc.), with the lamb of Isaiah 53 (Schott, Huther, etc.), or with the general idea signified by the various lambs of the Old Testament service and realized in Christ. The dispute is of small importance, as it is not probable that these different lambs would be sharply distinguished in the consciousness of the Israelite. The fact that Peter is dealing here with the question of a ransom from a certain bondage makes it reasonable to suppose him to have before his eye some lamb that occupied a well-understood place in God's service under the old economy, and points, therefore, to the Paschal Lamb, which was associated with the release from the bondage of Egypt, and was also the only animal that could be used for the service to which it was dedicated. On the other hand, it may be urged in favour of the lamb of Isaiah 53:7, that Peter elsewhere seems to have that section of prophecy in view, that the Old Testament itself (in the Greek Version) employs a different term for the Paschal Lamb in capital sections, and that the New employs statedly another word than the one used by Peter for the Paschal Lamb. In either case the lamb is introduced here not with immediate reference to its sacrificial character, but in respect of those ethical qualities which are expressed by the adjectives. The expiatory or sacrificial value of Christ's death is no doubt at the basis of the statement, and the idea of ransom from sin as a power is not disconnected from the idea of a ransom from sin as a penalty. But the redemption which Peter deals with here, being a redemption from the spell and thraldom of a vain mode of living, is an ethical redemption, and Christ's death is presented immediately here as a spiritual power breaking a certain despotism. How Christ's death carries this weight with it is not explained, except in so far as the whole statement suggests qualities in it which made it a new and supreme constraining power.