1 Peter 2:5

1Pe 2:5. Ye also — Believing in him with a loving and obedient faith, as lively — Greek, ζωντες, living, stones — Quickened and made alive to God by spiritual life derived from him, are built up — Upon him, and in union with each other; a spiritual house — Spiritual yourselves; and a habitation of God through the Spirit. For, according to his promise, he lives and walks in every true believer, 2Co 6:16; and collectively considered, as a holy society, or assembly, uniting together in his worship and service, you are the house, or temple, of the living God, (1Ti 3:15; 1Co 3:16; Eph 2:20-21,) in which he manifests his presence, displays his glory, communicates his blessings, and accepts the prayers and praises, alms and oblations, of his people; a holy priesthood — Not only God’s temple, but the priests that serve him in that temple; that is, persons dedicated to and employed for God. Thus, Isa 61:6, it is foretold that, in the days of the Messiah, the people of God should be named the priests of the Lord, and the ministers of our God; as also Isa 66:21. Christians are called a priesthood, in the same sense that the Israelites were called a kingdom of priests, Exo 19:6. The apostle’s design, in giving these titles to real Christians, is partly to show that they are dedicated to God in heart and life, and also that in the Christian church or temple, there is no need of the mediation of priests to present our prayers to God. Every sincere worshipper has access to the Father through Christ, as if he were really a priest himself. The apostle says, a holy priesthood, because genuine Christians are very different characters from the generality of the Jewish priests, who, though the posterity of Aaron, and dedicated externally to, and employed in, the service of God, were remarkably unholy, yea, very vicious characters; whereas the true disciples of Christ are really holy in heart and life. To offer up spiritual sacrifices — Not merely their prayers and praises, but their souls and bodies, their time and talents, with all their thoughts, words, and actions, acceptable to God through the mediation of Jesus Christ — The great High-Priest over the house of God, whose intercession alone can recommend to the Father such imperfect sacrifices as ours.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Peter

SPIRITUAL SACRIFICES

1Pe 2:5.

In this verse Peter piles up his metaphors in a fine profusion, perfectly careless of oratorical elegance or propriety. He gathers together three symbols, drawn from ancient sacrificial worship, and applies them all to Christian people. In the one breath they are ‘temples,’ in the next ‘priests,’ in the third ‘sacrifices.’ All the three are needed to body out the whole truth of the relationship of the perfect universal religion--which is Christianity--to the fragmentary and symbolical religion of ancient time.

Christians individually and collectively are temples, inasmuch as they are ‘the habitation of God through the Spirit.’ They are priests by virtue of their consecration, their direct access to God, their function of representing God to men, and of bringing men to God. They are sacrifices, inasmuch as one main part of their priestly function is to offer themselves to God.

Now, it is very difficult for us to realise what an extraordinary anomaly the Christian faith presented at its origin, surrounded by religions which had nothing to do with morality, conduct, or spiritual life, but were purely ritualistic. And here, in the midst of them, started up a religion bare and bald, and with no appeal to sense, no temple, no altar, no sacrifice. But the Apostles with one accord declare that they had all these things in far higher form than those faiths possessed them, which had only the outward appearance.

Now, this conception of the sacrificial element in the Christian life runs through the whole New Testament, and is applied there in a very remarkable variety of forms. I have taken the words of my text, not so much to discourse upon them especially. My object now is rather to gather together the various references to the Christian life as essentially sacrificial, and to trace the various applications which that idea receives in the New Testament. There are four classes of these, to which I desire especially to refer.

I. There is the living sacrifice of the body.

‘I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye present’--which is a technical word for a priest’s action--’your bodies a living sacrifice,’ in contrast with the slaying, which was the presentation of the animal victim. Now, that ‘body’ there is not equivalent to self is distinctly seen when we notice that Paul goes on, in the very next clause, to say, ‘and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ So that he is speaking, not of the self, but of the corporeal organ and instrument of the self, when he says ‘present your bodies a living sacrifice.’

Of course, the central idea of sacrifice is surrender to God; and, of course, the place where that surrender is made is the inmost self. The will is the man, and when the will bows, dethroning self and enthroning God, submitting to His appointments, and delighting to execute His commandments, then the sacrifice is begun. But, inasmuch as the body is the organ of the man’s activity, the sacrifice of the will and of self must needs come out into visibility and actuality in the aggregate of deeds, of which the body is the organ and instrument. But there must first of all be the surrender of my inmost self, and only then, and as the token and outcome of that, will any external acts, however religious they may seem to be, come into the category of sacrifice when they express a conscious surrender of myself to God. ‘The flesh profiteth nothing,’ and yet the flesh profiteth much. But here is the order that another of the Apostles lays down: ‘Yield yourselves to God,’ and then, ‘your members as instruments of righteousness to Him.’

To speak of the sacrifice of the body as a living sacrifice suggests that it is not the slaying of any bodily appetite or activity that is the true sacrifice and worship, but the hallowing of these. It is a great deal easier, and it is sometimes necessary, to cut off the offending right hand, to pluck out the offending right eye, or, putting away the metaphor, to abstain rigidly from forms of activity which are perfectly legitimate in themselves, and may be innocuous to other people, if we find that they hurt us. But that is second best, and though it is better in the judgment of common sense to go into life maimed than complete to be cast into hell-fire, it is better still to go into life symmetrical and entire, with no maiming in hand or organ. So you do not offer the living sacrifice of the body when you annihilate, but when you suppress, and direct, and hallow its needs, its appetites, and its activities.

The meaning of this sacrifice is that the whole active life should be based upon, and be the outcome of, the inward surrender of self unto God. ‘On the bells of the horses shall be written, Holiness to the Lord, and every pot and vessel in Jerusalem shall be holy as the bowls upon the altar’--in such picturesque and yet profound fashion did an ancient prophet set forth the same truth that lies in this declaration of our Apostle, that the body, the instrument of our activities, should be a living sacrifice to God. Link all its actions with Him; let there be conscious reference to Him in all that I do. Let foot and hand and eye and brain work for Him, and by Him, and in constant consciousness of His presence; suppress where necessary, direct always, appetites and passions, and make the body the instrument of the surrendered spirit. And then, in the measure in which we can do so, the greatest cleft and discord in human life will be filled, and body, soul, and spirit will harmonise and make one music of praise to God.

Ah! brethren, these bad principles have teeth to bite very close into our daily lives. How many of us, young and old, have ‘fleshly lusts which war against the soul’? How many of you young men have no heart for higher, purer, nobler things, because the animal in you is strong! How many of you find that the day’s activities blunt you to God! How many of us are weakened still under that great antagonism of the flesh lusting against the spirit, so that we cannot do the things that we would! Sensuality, indulgence in animal propensities, yielding to the clamant voices of the beast that is within us--these things wreck many a soul; and some of those that are listening to me now. Let the man govern and coerce the animal, and let God govern the man. ‘I beseech you that you yield your bodies a living sacrifice.’

II. There is the sacrifice of praise.

Of course, logically and properly, this, and all the others that I am going to speak about, are included within that to which I have already directed attention. But still they are dealt with separately in Scripture, and I follow the guidance. We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise unto God continually--that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks unto His name.’ There, then, is another of the regions into which the notion of sacrifice as the very essence of Christian life is to be carried.

There is nothing more remarkable in Scripture than the solemn importance that it attaches to what so many people think so little about, and that is words. It even sometimes seems to take them as being more truly the outcome and revelation of a man’s character than his deeds are. And that is true, in some respects. But at all events there is set forth, ever running all through the Scripture, that thought, that one of the best sacrifices that men can make to God is to render up the tribute of their praise. In the great psalm which lays down with clearness never surpassed in the New Testament the principles of true Christian worship, this is declared: ‘Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me.’ The true offering is not the slaying of animals or the presentation of any material things, but the utterance of hearts welling up thankfulness. In the ancient ritual there stood within the Holy place, and after the altar of burnt-offering had been passed, three symbols of the relation of the redeemed soul to God. There was the great candlestick, which proclaimed ‘Ye are the light of the world.’ There was the table on which the so-called shewbread was laid, and in the midst there was the altar of incense, on which, day by day, morning and evening, there was kindled the fragrant offering which curled up in wreaths of blue smoke aspiring towards the heavens. It lay smouldering all through the day, and was quickened into flame morning and evening. That is a symbol representing what the Christian life ought to be--a continual thank-offering of the incense of prayer and praise.

Nor that only, brethren, but also there is another shape in which our words should be sacrifices, and that is in the way of direct utterances to men, as well as of thanksgiving to God. What a shame it is, and what a confession of imperfect, partial redemption and regeneration on the part of professing Christians it is, that there are thousands of us who never, all our lives, have felt the impulse or necessity of giving utterance to our Christian convictions! You can talk about anything else; you are tongue-tied about your religion. Why is that? You can make speeches upon political platforms, or you can discourse on many subjects that interest you. You never speak a word to anybody about the Master that you say you serve. Why is that? ‘What is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.’ What is deep in the heart sometimes lies there unuttered, but more often demands expression. I venture to think that if your Christianity was deeper, it would not be so dumb. You strengthen your convictions by speech. A man’s belief in anything grows incalculably by the very fact of proclaiming it. And there is no surer way to lose moral and spiritual convictions than to huddle them up in the secret chambers of our hearts. It is like a man carrying a bit of ice in his palm. He locks his fingers over it, and when he opens them it has all run out and gone. If you want to deepen your Christianity, declare it. If you would have your hearts more full of gratitude, speak your praise. There used to be in certain religious houses a single figure kneeling on the altar-steps, by day and by night, ever uttering forth with unremitting voice, the psalm of praise. That perpetual adoration in spirit, if not in form, ought to be ours. The fruit of the lips should continually be offered. Literally, of course, there cannot be that unbroken and exclusive utterance of thanksgiving. There are many other things that men have to talk about; but through all the utterances there ought to spread the aroma--like some fragrance diffused through the else scentless air from some unseen source of sweetness--of that name to which the life is one long thanksgiving.

III. There is the sacrifice of help to men.

The same passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, to which I have already referred, goes on to bracket together the sacrifice of praise and of deeds. It continues thus:--’But to do good and to communicate forget not.’ Again I say, logically this comes under the first division. But still it may be treated separately, and it just carries this thought--your praying and singing praises are worse than useless unless you go out into the world an embodiment and an imitation of the love which you hymn. True philanthropy has its roots in true religion. The service of man is the service of God.

That principle cuts two ways. It comes as a sharp test of their prayers and psalm-singing to emotional Christians, who are always able to gush in words of thankfulness, and it confronts them with the question, What do you do for your brother? That is a question that comes very close to us all. Do not talk about being the priests of the Most High God unless you are doing the priestly office of representing God to men, and carrying to them the blessings that they need. Your service to God is worthless unless it is followed by diligent, fraternal, wise, self-sacrificing service for men.

The same principle points in another direction. If, on the one hand, it crushes as hypocrisy a religion of talk, on the other hand it declares as baseless a philanthropy which has no reference to God. And whilst I know that there are many men who, following the dictates of their hearts, and apart altogether from any reference to higher religious sanctions, do exercise pity and compassion and help, I believe that for the basing of a lasting, wide, wise benevolence, there is nothing solid and broad except Christ and Him crucified, and the consciousness of having been--sinful and needy as we are--received and blessed by Him. Let the philanthropists learn that the surrender of self, and the fruit of the lips giving thanks to His name, must precede the highest kind of beneficence. Let the Christian learn that benevolence is the garb in which religion is dressed. ‘True worship and undefiled ... is this, to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction.’ Morality is the dress of Religion; Religion is the body of Morality.

IV. Lastly, there is the sacrifice of death.

‘I am ready to be offered,’ says the Apostle--to be poured out, as a libation. And again, ‘If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice with you all.’ And so may

‘Death the endless mercies seal,

And make the sacrifice complete.’

It may become not a reluctant being dragged out of life whilst we cling to it with both our hands. It may be not a reluctant yielding to necessity, but a religious act, in which a man resignedly and trustfully and gratefully yields himself to God; and says, ‘Father! into Thy hands I commit my spirit.’

Ah! brethren, is not that a better way to die than to be like some poor wretch in a stream, that clutches at some unfixed support on the bank, and is whirled away down, fiercely resisting and helpless? We may thus make our last act an act of devotion, and go within the veil as priests bearing in our hands the last of our sacrifices. The sacrifice of death will only be offered when a life of sacrifice has preceded it. And if you and I, moved by the mercies of God, yield ourselves living sacrifices, using our lips for His praise and our possessions for man’s help, then we may die as the Apostle expected to do, and feel that by Christ Jesus even death becomes ‘an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing unto God.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2:5 God’s people themselves constitute the spiritual temple where God dwells (1 Cor 3:16). Jesus compared his body to a “temple” (John 2:19-22), and the church is called the “body of Christ” (Eph 4:12). God no longer manifests himself in a particular place but in the people who belong to him and praise his goodness (see 1 Pet 2:10). • As God’s holy priests in the new covenant, Christians offer not animal sacrifices but spiritual sacrifices such as praising God, praying, and doing good (see Rom 12:1; Heb 13:15-16).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Pe 2:5. Καὶ) even.—αὐτοὶ) yourselves, partakers of the same name (Stone).—λίθοι, stones) Many names, which belong to Christ in the singular, are assigned to Christians in the plural. Christ is the Living Stone; Christians are living stones. From Him they also are called sons, priests, kings, lambs, etc. So the Shulamite is called from Solomon.—ζῶντες, living) Such persons, living stones, may be at once both a house and a priesthood.—οἰκοδομεῖσθε, are built up) The indicative, as Eph 2:22.—οἶκος, a house) a temple.—ἱεράτευμα, a priesthood) a multitude of priests. This is presently afterwards explained, and (the contrary having been premised in 1Pe 2:8) in 1Pe 2:9-10.—ἅγιον, holy) as belonging to God.—θυσίας, sacrifices) of praise, 1Pe 2:9.—εὐπροσδέκτους, acceptable) Isa 56:7, αἱ θυσίαι αὐτῶν ἔσονται δεκταὶ ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριόν μου· Their sacrifices shall be accepted on My altar.—διὰ, by) Christ is both precious in Himself, and makes us accepted; for He is the altar. See Isa. as quoted above.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Pe 2:5 . Fulfilment of the saying, Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it (Joh 2:19 ). Christians live to God through Jesus Christ (Rom 6:11 ). For this development of the figure of building, cf. especially Eph 2:20 ff. οἰκοδομεῖσθε , indicative rather than imperative. “It is remarkable that St. Peter habitually uses the aorist for his imperatives, even when we might expect the present; the only exceptions (two or three) are preceded by words removing all ambiguity, 1Pe 2:11 ; 1Pe 2:17 , 1Pe 4:12 f”. (Hort). οἶκος … ἅγιον , a spiritual house for an holy priesthood . The connection with priesthood (Heb 10:21 ) and the offering of sacrifices points to the special sense of the House of God, i.e. , the Temple; cf. (1Pe 4:17 ; 1Ti 3:5 ) ναὸς ὅς ἐστε ὑμεῖς , 1Co 3:16 ; Eph 2:21 . So Heb 3:5 f., οὗ ( Χριστοῦ ) οἶκός ἐσμεν ἡμεῖς … Ἱεράτευμα , body of priests , in Exo 19:6 (Heb. priests ) Exo 23:22 ; Mal 2:17 ; Mal 2 Maccabees cf.9 infra . Here Hort prefers the equally legitimate sense, act of priesthood . Usage supports the first and only possible etymology the second. The ideal of a national priesthood is realised, Isa 61:6 . ἀνενέγκαι … Χριστοῦ . to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ . δια Ἰησοῦ Χ . is better taken with ἀν . than εὐπροσδ .; cf. Heb 13:15 , διʼ αὐτοῦ , where the thankoffering is singled out as the fit type of the Christian sacrifice. Spiritual sacrifices are in their nature acceptable to God (Joh 4:23 ) and Christians are enabled to offer them through Jesus Christ. ἀναφέρειν in this sense is peculiar to LXX, Jas. and Heb.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Going forward in the same similitude, he compareth us now to Priests placed to this end in that spiritual temple, that we should serve him with spiritual worship, that is, with holiness and righteousness: but as the temple, so is the Priesthood built upon Christ, in whom only all our spiritual offerings are accepted.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ye also, as lively stones--partaking of the name and life which is in "THE LIVING STONE" (Pe1 2:4; Co1 3:11). Many names which belong to Christ in the singular are assigned to Christians in the plural. He is "THE SON," "High Priest," "King," "Lamb"; they, "sons," "priests," "kings," "sheep," "lambs." So the Shulamite called from Solomon [BENGEL].

are built up--Greek, "are being built up," as in Eph 2:22. Not as ALFORD, "Be ye built up." Peter grounds his exhortations, Pe1 2:2, Pe1 2:11, &c., on their conscious sense of their high privileges as living stones in the course of being built up into a spiritual house (that is, "the habitation of the Spirit").

priesthood--Christians are both the spiritual temple and the priests of the temple. There are two Greek words for "temple"; hieron (the sacred place), the whole building, including the courts wherein the sacrifice was killed; and naos (the dwelling, namely, of God), the inner shrine wherein God peculiarly manifested Himself, and where, in the holiest place, the blood of the slain sacrifice was presented before Him. All believers alike, and not merely ministers, are now the dwelling of God (and are called the "naos," Greek, not the hieron) and priests unto God (Rev 1:6). The minister is not, like the Jewish priest (Greek, "hiercus"), admitted nearer to God than the people, but merely for order's sake leads the spiritual services of the people. Priest is the abbreviation of presbyter in the Church of England Prayer Book, not corresponding to the Aaronic priest (hiereus, who offered literal sacrifices). Christ is the only literal hiereus-priest in the New Testament through whom alone we may always draw near to God. Compare Pe1 2:9, "a royal priesthood," that is, a body of priest-kings, such as was Melchisedec. The Spirit never, in New Testament, gives the name hiereus, or sacerdotal priest, to ministers of the Gospel.

holy--consecrated to God.

spiritual sacrifices--not the literal one of the mass, as the Romish self-styled disciples of Peter teach. Compare Isa 56:7, which compare with "acceptable to God" here; Psa 4:5; Psa 50:14; Psa 51:17, Psa 51:19; Hos 14:2; Phi 4:18. "Among spiritual sacrifices the first place belongs to the general oblation of ourselves. For never can we offer anything to God until we have offered ourselves (Co2 8:5) in sacrifice to Him. There follow afterwards prayers, giving of thanks, alms deeds, and all exercises of piety" [CALVIN]. Christian houses of worship are never called temples because the temple was a place for sacrifice, which has no place in the Christian dispensation; the Christian temple is the congregation of spiritual worshippers. The synagogue (where reading of Scripture and prayer constituted the worship) was the model of the Christian house of worship (compare Note, see on Jam 2:2, Greek, "synagogue"; Act 15:21). Our sacrifices are those of prayer, praise, and self-denying services in the cause of Christ (Pe1 2:9, end).

by Jesus Christ--as our mediating High Priest before God. Connect these words with "offer up." Christ is both precious Himself and makes us accepted [BENGEL]. As the temple, so also the priesthood, is built on Christ (Pe1 2:4-5) [BEZA]. Imperfect as are our services, we are not with unbelieving timidity, which is close akin to refined self-righteousness, to doubt their acceptance THROUGH CHRIST. After extolling the dignity of Christians he goes back to CHRIST as the sole source of it.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 5. Ye also, as lively stones] λιθοι ζωντες. Living stones; each being instinct with the principle of life, which proceeds from him who is the foundation, called above λιθον ζωντα, a living stone.

The metaphor in this and the following verse is as bold as it is singular; and commentators and critics have found it difficult to hit on any principle of explanation. In all metaphors there is something in the natural image that is illustrative of some chief moral property in the thing to be represented. But what analogy is there between the stones of a building and a multitude of human beings? We shall soon see. The Church of Christ, it is true, is represented under the figure of a house, or rather household; and as a household or family must have a place of residence, hence, by a metonymy, the house itself, or material building, is put for the household or family which occupies it, the container being put for the contained. This point will receive the fullest illustration if we have recourse to the Hebrew: in this language, בית beith signifies both a house and a family; בן ben a son; בת bath a daughter; and אבן eben a stone. Of all these nouns, בנה banah, he built, is, I believe, the common root. Now as בית beith, a house, is built of abanim, stones, hence בנה banah, he built, is a proper radix for both stones and building; and as בית beith, a family or household (Ps 68:6) is constituted or made up of בנים banim, sons, and בנות banoth daughters, hence the same root בנה banah, he built, is common to all; for sons and daughters build up or constitute a family, as stones do a building. Here, then, is the ground of the metaphor: the spiritual house is the holy or Christian family or household, this family or household is composed of the sons and daughters of God Almighty; and hence the propriety of living stones, because this is the living house or spiritual family. As a building rests upon a foundation, and this foundation is its support; so a family or household rests on the father, who is properly considered the foundation or support of the building. But as every father is mortal and transitory, none can be called a living stone, foundation, or support, but He who liveth for ever, and has life independent; so none but Jesus, who hath life in himself, i.e. independently, and who is the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE, can be a permanent foundation or support to the whole spiritual house. And as all the stones-sons and daughters, that constitute the spiritual building are made partakers of the life of Christ, consequently, they may with great propriety be called living stones, that is, sons and daughters of God, who live by Christ Jesus, because he lives in them. Now, following the metaphor; these various living stones become one grand temple, in which God is worshipped, and in which he manifests himself as he did in the temple of old. Every stone-son and daughter, being a spiritual sacrificer or priest, they all offer up praise and thanksgiving to God through Christ; and such sacrifices, being offered up in the name and through the merit of his Son, are all acceptable in his sight.

This is the true metaphor, and which has not, as far as I know, ever been properly traced out. To talk of "stones being said to be alive as long as they are not cut out of the quarry, but continue to partake of that nourishment which circulates from vein to vein," is as unsatisfactory as it is unphilosophical; the other is the true metaphor, and explains every thing.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5. Ye also, as lively or living stones, are built up The verb may be in the imperative as well as in the indicative mood, for the termination in Greek is ambiguous. But in whatever way it is taken, Peter no doubt meant to exhort the faithful to consecrate themselves as a spiritual temple to God; for he aptly infers from the design of our calling what our duty is. We must further observe, that he constructs one house from the whole number of the faithful. For though every one of us is said to be the temple of God, yet all are united together in one, and must be joined together by mutual love, so that one temple may be made of us all. Then, as it is true that each one is a temple in which God dwells by his Spirit, so all ought to be so fitted together, that they may form one universal temple. This is the case when every one, content with his own measure, keeps himself within the limits of his own duty; all have, however, something to do with regard to others.

By calling us living stones and spiritual building, as he had before said that Christ is a living stone, he intimates a comparison between us and the ancient temple; and this serves to amplify divine grace. For the same purpose is what he adds as to spiritual sacrifices For by how much the more excellent is the reality than the types, by so much the more all things excel in the kingdom of Christ; for we have that heavenly exemplar, to which the ancient sanctuary was conformable, and everything instituted by Moses under the Law.

A holy priesthood It is a singular honor, that God should not only consecrate us as a temple to himself, in which he dwells and is worshipped, but that he should also make us priests. But Peter mentions this double honor, in order to stimulate us more effectually to serve and worship God. Of the spiritual sacrifices, the first is the offering of ourselves, of which Paul speaks in Romans 12:1; for we can offer nothing, until we offer to him ourselves as a sacrifice; which is done by denying ourselves. Then, afterwards follow prayers, thanksgiving, almsdeeds, and all the duties of religion.

Acceptable to God. It ought also to add not a little to our alacrity, when we know that the worship we perform to God is pleasing to him, as doubt necessarily brings sloth with it. Here, then, is the third thing that enforces the exhortation; for he declares that what is required is acceptable to God, lest fear should make us slothful. Idolaters are indeed under the influence of great fervor in their fictitious forms of worship; but it is so, because Satan inebriates their minds, lest they should come to consider their works; but whenever their consciences are led to examine things, they begin to stagger. It is, indeed, certain that no one will seriously and from the heart devote himself to God, until he is fully persuaded that he shall not labor in vain.

But the Apostle adds, through Jesus Christ There is never found in our sacrifices such purity, that they are of themselves acceptable to God; our self-denial is never entire and complete, our prayers are never so sincere as they ought to be, we are never so zealous and so diligent in doing good, but that our works are imperfect, and mingled with many vices. Nevertheless, Christ procures favor for them. Then Peter here obviates that want of faith which we may have respecting the acceptableness of our works, when he says, that they are accepted, not for the merit of their own excellency, but through Christ. And it ought to kindle the more the ardor of our efforts, when we hear that God deals so indulgently with us, that in Christ he sets a value on our works, which in themselves deserve nothing. At the same time, the words, by or through Christ, may be fitly connected with offering; for a similar phrase is found in Hebrews 13:15,

“Through him let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God.”

The sense, however, will remain the same; for we offer sacrifices through Christ, that they may be acceptable to God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(5) Ye also, as lively stones, are built up.—This is true enough: they were in process of building up; but it suits the hortatory character of the whole Epistle better to take it (the one is as grammatical as the other) in the imperative sense: Be ye also as living stones built up. The rendering “lively,” instead of “living,” as in 1Pe_2:4, is arbitrary, the Greek being precisely the same, and the intention being to show the complete conformation of the believers to Him who is the type and model for humanity. “Built up,” too, only expresses a part of the Greek word, which implies “built up upon Him.”

A spiritual house.—The epithet is supplied, just as in “living stone,” to make it abundantly clear that the language is figurative. In the first three verses of the chapter these Hebrew Christians were treated individually, as so many babes, to grow up into an ideal freedom of soul: here they are treated collectively (of course, along with the Gentile Christians), as so many stones, incomplete and unmeaning in themselves, by arrangement and cemented union to rise into an ideal house of God. St. Peter does not distinctly say that the “house” is a temple (for the word “spiritual” is only the opposite of “material”), but the context makes it plain that such is the case. The temple is, however, regarded not in its capacity of a place for worship so much as a place for Divine inhabitation. “The spiritual house,” says Leighton truly, “is the palace of the Great King. The Hebrew word for palace and temple is one.” And the reason for introducing this figure seems to be, to console the Hebrews for their vanishing privileges in the temple at Jerusalem. They are being taught to recognise that they themselves, in their union with one another, and with Jesus Christ, are the true abode of the Most High. The Christian substitution of something else in lieu of the Jerusalem Temple was one of the greatest stumbling-blocks to the Hebrews from the very first. (See Mar_14:58; Joh_2:21; Act_7:48; Act_21:28; compare also Heb_9:8; Heb_9:11.) All history is the process of building up a “spiritual palace” out of a regenerate humanity, in order that, in the end, the Father Himself may occupy it. This follows from the fact that the Incarnate Son is described as a part of the Temple. Even through the Incarnation—at least so far as it has as yet taken effect—creation has not become so completely pervaded and filled with the Deity as it is destined to be when the “palace” is finished. (See 1Co_15:28.) The idea of the Eternal Son occupying such a relation to the Father on the one hand, and to humanity and creation on the other hand, is really the same as when He is called (by an entirely different metaphor) the “firstborn of all creation” (Col_1:15).

An holy priesthood.—“Being living stones,” says Bengel, “they can be priests as well.” They not only compose the Temple, but minister in it. By becoming Christians they are cut off from neither Temple nor hierarchy, nor sacrifice; all are at hand, and they themselves are all. The old priesthood, like the old Temple, has “had its day, and ceased to be.” Mark, though, that the Apostle is not dwelling on the individual priesthood of each (though that is involved), but on the hierarchical order of the whole company of Christians: they are an organised body or college of priests, a new seed of Aaron or Levi. (See Isa_66:21.) The very word implies that all Christians have not an equal degree of priesthood. And this new priesthood, like the old, is no profane intruding priesthood like that of Core (Jud_1:11), but “holy”—i.e., consecrated, validly admitted to its work. The way in which this new metaphor is suddenly introduced,—“to whom coming, be built up upon Him . . . to be an holy priesthood,” implies that Jesus Christ is the High Priest quite as much as it implies His being Corner Stone. The Incarnate Son heads the adoration offered to the Father by creation, just as He binds creation into a palace for the Father’s indwelling.

To offer up spiritual sacrifices.—The new priesthood is not merely nominal; it is no sinecure. None is a priest who does not offer sacrifices (Heb_8:3). But the sacrifices of the new hierarchy are “spiritual, ”—i.e., not material, not sacrifices of bulls and goats and lambs. What, then, do the sacrifices consist of? If our priesthood is modelled on that of Jesus Christ, as is here implied, it consists mainly (Calvin points this out) of the sacrifice of self, of the will; then, in a minor degree, of words and acts of worship, thanks and praise. (See Heb_13:10-16.) But in order to constitute a true priesthood and true sacrifices after the model of Jesus Christ, these sacrifices are offered up on behalf of others. (See Heb_5:1, and 1Jn_3:16.) The first notion of the priesthood of all believers is not that of a mediatorial system being abolished, but of the mediatorial system being extended: whereas, before, only Aaron’s sons were recognised as mediators and intercessors, now all Israel, all the spiritual Israel, all men everywhere are called to be mediators and intercessors between each other and God.

By (or, through) Jesus Christ.—The name again, not the title only. We all help one another to present one another’s prayers and praises, which pass through the lips of many priests; but for them to be acceptable, they must be presented finally through the lips of the Great High Priest. He, in His perfect sympathy with all men, must make the sacrifice His own. We must unite our sacrifices with His—the Advocate with the Father, the Propitiation for our sins—or our sacrifice will be as irregular and offensive as though some Canaanite should have taken upon himself to intrude into the Holy of Holies on Atonement Day. (See Heb_10:19-25, especially 1Pe_2:21.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. ye also, as lively stones] Better, as living stones, there being no reason for a variation in the English, to which there is nothing corresponding in the Greek. The repetition of the same participle gives prominence to the thought that believers are sharers in the life of Christ, and that, in the building up of the spiritual temple, each of these “living stones” takes its voluntary, though not self-originated, part. It is an open question, as far as the Greek is concerned, whether the verb is in the passive or the middle voice, in the indicative or the imperative mood, but the sense is, perhaps, best given by the rendering, build yourselves up.

a spiritual house] The words come as a secondary predicate of the previous clause. “This,” St Peter says, “is what you will become by coming to Christ and building yourselves on Him.” The “house,” like the corner-stone, carries our thoughts back to the Temple as “the house of God” (1Ki_8:10), which finds its antitype in that Ecclesia to which St Paul attaches the same glorious title (1Ti_3:15). We can hardly think that St Peter could write these words without remembering the words which had told him of the rock on which Christ would build His Church, and into the full meaning of which he was now, at last, entering (Mat_16:18).

a holy priesthood] The thought of the Temple is followed naturally by that of its ritual and of those who are the chief agents in it. Here also there is a priesthood, but it is not attached, as in the Jewish Temple, to any sacerdotal caste, like that of the sons of Aaron, but is co-extensive with the whole company of worshippers. As in the patriarchal Church, as in the original ideal of Israel (Exo_19:5), from which the appointment of the Levitical priesthood was a distinctly retrograde step consequent on the unfitness of the nation for its high calling as a kingdom of priests, as in the vision of the future that floated before the eyes of Isaiah (Isa_61:6), so now in the Church of Christ, there was to be no separate priesthood, in the old sense of the word, and with the old functions. All were to offer “spiritual sacrifices” (we note the identity of thought with Rom_12:1) as contrasted with the burnt-offerings or meat-offerings of Jewish ritual. And, by what to a Jew must have seemed at first the strangest of all paradoxes, and afterwards the development of a truth of which germinal hints had been given to his fathers, in this new order of things the Temple and the Priesthood were not, as in the old, distinguished and divided from each other, but were absolutely identical. The Priests who sacrificed in the true Temple, were themselves the stones of which that Temple was built.

acceptable to God] St Peter uses the stronger and more emphatic form of the adjective which was familiar on St Paul’s lips (Rom_15:16; Rom_15:31; 2Co_6:2; 2Co_8:12). In the addition of the words “through Jesus Christ,” we have at once the sanction for the Church’s use of that form of words in connexion with all her acts of prayer and praise, and the implied truth that it is only through their union with Christ as the great High Priest and with His sacrifice that His people are able to share His priesthood and to offer their own spiritual sacrifices.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture,.... Isa 28:16. This is produced as a proof of the excellency of Christ, as compared to a stone; and of his usefulness in the spiritual building; and of his being chosen of God, and precious, though rejected by men; and of the happiness, comfort, and safety of those that believe in him. That this prophecy belongs to the Messiah, is the sense of some of the Jewish writers: the Targum on it applies it to a mighty king; it does not mention the King Messiah, as Galatinus (u) cites it; but Jarchi expressly names him, and interprets it of him:

behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; Christ is here called a chief corner stone, as in Eph 2:20 because he not only adorns and strengthens the building, but unites the parts, and keeps them together, even all the saints, Jews or Gentiles, in all ages and places, whether in heaven or earth; and he, as such, is chosen of God for that purpose, and is precious both to God and man, on that account; and is a stone, not of men's laying, but of God's laying in his council, covenant, promises, and prophecies, in the mission of him into this world, and in the Gospel ministry; the place where he is laid is in Sion, the Gospel church, of which he is both the foundation and corner stone: and this account is introduced with a "behold", it being something very wonderful, and worthy of attention: to which is added,

he that believeth on him shall not be confounded: or "ashamed"; of the foundation and cornerstone Christ, nor of his faith in him; and he shall not be confounded by men or devils, neither in this world, nor in that to come; he shall have confidence before Christ, and not be ashamed at his coming; he shall be safe now, being laid on this stone; nor shall he be removed from it, or intimidated by any enemy, so as to flee from it; nor shall he make haste, as it is in Isa 28:16 to lay another foundation; and he shall be found upon this hereafter; so that his person and state will be safe, though many of his works may be burnt up,

(u) De Aroan. Cathol. Ver. l. 3. c. 21.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Ver. 5. Ye also as lively stones] God’s house is built of growing stones, of green timber, Son 1:16-17

To offer up spiritual sacrifices] Such as are prayers, Psa 141:2; praises, Heb 13:15; alms, Heb 13:16; ourselves, Rom 12:1; our Saviour, whom we present as a propitiation for our sins, 1Jn 2:1, laying our hands on his head, seeing him bleed to death and consumed in the fire of his Father’s wrath for our sins.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye also, as lively stones - Greek, “living stones.” The word should have been so rendered. The word lively with us now has a different meaning from living, and denotes “active, quick, sprightly.” The Greek word is the same as that used in the previous verse, and rendered living. The meaning is, that the materials of which the temple here referred to was composed, were living materials throughout. The foundation is a living foundation, and all the superstructure is compassed of living materials. The purpose of the apostle here is to compare the church to a beautiful temple - such as the temple in Jerusalem, and to show that it is complete in all its parts, as that was. It has within itself what corresponds with everything that was valuable in that. It is a beautiful structure like that; and as in that there was a priesthood, and there were real and acceptable sacrifices offered, so it is in the Christian church.

The Jews prided themselves much on their temple. It was a most costly and splendid edifice. It was the place where God was worshipped, and where he was supposed to dwell. It had an imposing service, and there was acceptable worship rendered there. As a new dispensation was introduced; as the tendency of the Christian system was to draw off the worshippers from that temple, and to teach them that God could be worshipped as acceptably elsewhere as at Jerusalem, Joh 4:21-23 as Christianity did not inculcate the necessity of rearing splendid temples for the worship of God; and as in fact the temple at Jerusalem was about to be destroyed forever, it was important to show that in the Christian church there might be found all that was truly beautiful and valuable in the temple at Jerusalem; that it had what corresponded to what was in fact most precious there, and that there was still a most magnificent and beautiful temple on the earth.

Hence, the sacred writers labor to show that all was found in the church that had made the temple at Jerusalem so glorious, and that the great design contemplated by the erection of that splendid edifice - the maintenance of the worship of God - was now accomplished in a more glorious manner than even in the services of that house. For there was a temple, made up of living materials, which was still the special dwelling-place of God on the earth. In that I temple there was a holy priesthood - for every Christian was a priest. In that temple there were sacrifices offered, as acceptable to God as in the former - for they were spiritual sacrifices, offered continually. These thoughts were often dwelt upon by the apostle Paul, and are here illustrated by Peter, evidently with the same design, to impart consolation to those who had never been permitted to worship at the temple in Jerusalem, and to comfort those Jews, now converted to Christianity, who saw that that splendid and glorious edifice was about to be destroyed. The special abode of God on the earth was now removed from that temple to the Christian church. The first aspect in which this is illustrated here is, that the temple of God was made up of “living stones;” that is, that the materials were not inanimate stones but endued with life, and so much more valuable than those employed in the temple at Jerusalem, as the soul is more precious than any materials of stone. There were living beings which composed that temple, constituting a more beautiful structure, and a more appropriate dwelling-place for God, than any edifice could be made of stone, however costly or valuable.

A spiritual house - A spiritual temple, not made of perishable materials, like that at Jerusalem net composed of matter, as that was, but made up of redeemed souls - a temple more appropriate to be the residence of one who is a pure spirit. Compare the Eph 2:19-22 notes, and 1Co 6:19-20 notes.

An holy priesthood - In the temple at Jerusalem, the priesthood appointed to minister there, and to offer sacrifices, constituted an essential part of the arrangement. It was important, therefore, to show that this was not overlooked in the spiritual temple that God was raising. Accordingly, the apostle says that this is amply provided for, by constituting “the whole body of Christians” to be in fact a priesthood. Everyone is engaged in offering acceptable sacrifice to God. The business is not entrusted to a particular class to be known as priests; there is not a particular portion to whom the name is to be especially given; but every Christian is in fact a priest, and is engaged in offering an acceptable sacrifice to God. See Rom 1:6; “And hath made us: kings and priests unto God.” The Great High Priest in this service is the Lord Jesus Christ, (see the Epistle to the Hebrews, passim) but besides him there is no one who sustains this office, except as it is borne by all the Christian members.

There are ministers, elders, pastors, evangelists in the church; but there is no one who is a priest, except in the general sense that all are priests - because the great sacrifice has been offered, and there is no expiation now to be made. The name priest, therefore should never be conferred on a minister of the gospel. It is never so given in the New Testament, and there was a reason why it should not be. The proper idea of a priest is one who offers sacrifice; but the ministers of the New Testament have no sacrifices to offer - the one great and perfect oblation for the sins of the world having been made by the Redeemer on the cross. To him, and him alone, under the New Testament dispensation, should the name priest be given, as it is uniformly in the New Testament, except in the general sense in which it is given to all Christians. In the Roman Catholic communion it is consistent to give the name “priest” to a minister of the gospel, but it is wrong to do it.

It is consistent, because they claim that a true sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ is offered in the mass. It is wrong, because that doctrine is wholly contrary to the New Testament, and is derogatory to the one perfect Oblation which has been once made for the sins of the world, and in conferring upon just one class of people a degree of importance and of power to which they have no claim, and which is so liable to abuse. But in a Protestant church it is neither consistent nor right to give the name “priest” to a minister of religion. The only sense in which the term can now be used in the Christian church is a sense in which it is applicable to all Christians alike - that they “offer the sacrifice of prayer and praise.”

To offer up spiritual sacrifices - Not bloody offerings, the blood of lambs and bullocks, but those which are the offerings of the heart - the sacrifices of prayer and praise. Since there is a priest, there is also involved the notion of a sacrifice; but that which is offered is such as all Christians offer to God, proceeding from the heart, and breathed forth from the lips, and in a holy life. It is called sacrifice, not because it makes an explation for sin, but because it is of the nature of worship. Compare the notes at Heb 13:15; Heb 10:14.

Acceptable to God by Jesus Christ - Compare the notes at Rom 12:1. Through the merits of the great sacrifice made by the Redeemer on the cross. Our prayers and praises are in themselves so imperfect, and proceed from such polluted lips and hearts, that they can be acceptable only through him as our intercessor before the throne of God. Compare the notes at Heb 9:24-25; Heb 10:19-22.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

You also....a holy [2] priesthood; and, as he saith again, (ver. 9.) a royal priesthood. 1. Because they had ministers of God, who were truly and properly priests, of whom Christ is the chief. 2. Every good Christian in a less proper sense may be called a priest, inasmuch as he offers to God what in a less proper and metaphorical sense may be called sacrifices and oblations; that is, the sacrifice of an humble and contrite heart, (Psalm l.) the sacrifice of self-denials and mortifications, or prayer, almsdeeds, &c. And it is called a royal priesthood, as Christians may be called metaphorically kings, by governing their passions, or because they are invited to reign with Christ in his kingdom, to sit on his throne, &c. See Apocalypse iii. 21. &c. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Greek: Ierateuma agion basileion. See St. Ambrose, in Psalm cxviii.; St. Augustine, lib. x. de lib. chap. 6. &c.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

As lively; viz. as being enlivened by Christ. The word here translated lively, and living in the former verse, is the same; but being there spoken of Christ, it is to be understood actively, and here being applied to believers, who receive their spiritual life from Christ, it must be taken passively.

Stones; each particular believer is here called a stone, as all together a house or temple, 2Co 6:16; Eph 2:21, and in respect of their union among themselves, and with their foundation; though elsewhere, in respect of God’s inhabitation, even particular believers are called his temple, 1Co 3:16,17; 6:19.

Are built up; viz. upon Christ the principal Corner-stone, Eph 2:20. This may be understood, either:

1. Imperatively. q.d. Be ye built up; and then it is an exhortation, and relates not only to their continuing in Christ, but their being further built up on him by faith, and is of the same import as 1Pe 2:2, that ye may grow: or rather:

2. Indicatively; the apostle as yet being engaged in showing the dignity and privileges of believers, and not entering upon his exhortation till 1Pe 2:11. The words being in the present tense, implies the building to be still but going on, and not yet finished.

A spiritual house; in distinction from the material one, relating to those scriptures where the tabernacle or temple is called God’s house, Exo 23:19; 34:26; Deu 23:18. The material house built of dead stones, was but a type of the spiritual house made up of lively stones, and built upon Christ the living Stone; and this he brings (the truth being always more excellent than the type) to heighten the privileges of the gospel church.

An holy priesthood; either the abstract is put for the concrete, an holy priesthood for holy priests; or it may note the whole college or society of evangelical priests, consisting of all particular saints, to whom, in the New Testament, this title is given, but never appropriated to gospel ministers: Christ being a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec, had no partner with him in his priesthood, but was himself only to offer a propitiatory sacrifice to God for sin.

To offer up spiritual sacrifices; the immediate end of gospel priests, to offer, not bodily, but spiritual sacrifices; in general themselves, whom they are to consecrate to God, Rom 12:1; particularly prayer, thanksgivings, alms, and other duties of religion, Phi 4:18; Heb 13:15,16.

Acceptable to God by Jesus Christ: by, and through whom alone, as the persons, so the performances, of believers (though in themselves imperfect) are pleasing to God, Christ presenting them to his Father by his intercession, and covering their defects by his own most perfect righteousness, Some refer this clause, by Jesus Christ, to the foregoing verb, to offer up; and then the words run thus, to offer up spiritual sacrifices by Jesus Christ, acceptable to God; but the former seems most proper, and includes this latter: we are therefore to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God by Christ, because they are acceptable only by him, Heb 13:21, compared with Heb 13:15,16.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5. Lively stones—Rather, living stones, deriving their life from Christ. Every believer, by this reception of spiritual life, becomes like his Lord, and also enters as a stone into the spiritual house built upon Christ.

Are built up—Rather, are being built up, by the Holy Spirit cementing believers with one another and with Christ.

Holy priesthood—Rather, For a holy priesthood. They are God’s temple that they may be God’s priests, set apart and purified, for the purpose of offering up spiritual sacrifices. This is said, not of a distinct class, as of ministers, but of the whole body of believers. Offer up is the common word for presenting upon the altar; but the sacrifices are bloodless and spiritual, and offered under the influences of the Holy Spirit. First of all, is the sacrifice of ourselves and our entire existence; then follow our thoughts, words, actions, with the specific acts of thanksgiving, praise, prayer, mercy, and beneficence, for the Lord’s sake. It is significant that St. Peter omits all intimation of a sacerdotal order, with himself at its head, and all allusion to himself as of more importance in building God’s house than any of his brother apostles.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye also, as lively stones; rather, living stones. The word is the same as that used in ver. 4. Christians are living stones in virtue of their union with the one living Stone: "Because I live, ye shall live also." Are built up a spiritual house; rather, be ye built up. The imperative rendering seems more suitable than the indicative, and the passive than the middle. The Christian comes; God builds him up on the one Foundation. The apostle says," Come to be built up; come that ye may be built up." The parallel passage in Jud_1:20, "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith," might seem to point to a reflexive rendering here; but the verb used by St. Jude is active, ejpoikodomountev. St. Jude is apparently thinking of the human side of the work, St. Peter of the Divine; in the deepest sense Christ is the Builder as well as the Foundation, as he himself said in words doubtless present to St. Peter"s mind, "Upon this rock I will build my Church." That Church is the antitype of the ancient temple a building not material, but spiritual, consisting, not of dead stones, but of sanctified souls, resting on no earthly foundation, but on that Rock which is Christ. (comp. Eph_2:20-22; 1Co_3:2, 2Co_6:16) A holy priesthood; rather, for (literally, into) a holy priesthood. The figure again changes; the thought of the temple leads to that of the priesthood. The stones in the spiritual temple are living stones; they are also priests. According to the original ideal of the Hebrew theocracy, all Israelites were to be priests: "Ire shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation". (Exo_19:6) This ideal is fulfilled in the Christian Church; it is a holy priesthood. Here and in ver. 9 the Church collectively is called a priesthood; in the Book of the Revelation (1:6; 5:10; 20:6) Christians individually are called priests, Bishop Lightfoot says, at the opening of his dissertation on the Christian ministry, "The kingdom of Christ has no sacred days or seasons, no special sanctuaries, because every time and every place alike are holy. Above all, it has no sacerdotal system. It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and man." He continues, "This conception is strictly an ideal, which we must ever hold before our eyes but which nevertheless cannot supersede the necessary wants of human society, and, if crudely and hastily applied, will lead only to signal failure. As appointed days and set places are indispensable to her efficiency, so also the Church could not fulfill the purposes for which she exists without rulers and teachers, without a ministry of reconciliation, in short, without an order of men who may in some sense be designated a priesthood." The whole Jewish Church was a kingdom of priests; yet there was an Aaronic priesthood. The Christian Church is a holy priesthood; yet there is an order of men who are appointed to exercise the functions of the ministry, and who, as representing the collective priesthood of the whole Church, may be truly called priests. To offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (The priest must have somewhat to Heb_8:3) The sacrifices of the ancient Law had found their fulfillment in the one all-sufficient Sacrifice, offered once for all by the great High Priest upon the altar of the cross. But there is still sacrifice in the Christian Church. That one Sacrifice is ever present in its atoning virtue and cleansing power; and through that one Sacrifice the priests of the spiritual temple offer up daily spiritual sacrifices the sacrifice of prayer and praise, (Heb_13:15) the sacrifice of alms and oblations, (Heb_13:16) and that sacrifice without which prayer and praise and alms are vain oblations, the sacrifice of self. (Rom_12:1) These spiritual sacrifices are offered up through Jesus Christ the great High Priest; (Heb_13:15) they derive their value only from faith in his sacrifice of himself; they are efficacious through his perpetual mediation and intercession; through him alone they are acceptable to God. They are offered through him, and they are acceptable through him. The Greek words admit of either connection; and perhaps are intended to cover both relations.

Temple, priest, sacrifice.

Temple, priest, sacrifice these three are the constituents of worship, as the world knew it before Christ. He is the reality, felt after by heathenism in its rites, shadowed by Judaism in its ceremonies. A universal want is unconsciously confessed by the former; a Divine satisfaction of it is prophesied by the latter. But not only does Christ in his own Person and work supply these three to men; he also makes those who come to him by faith all these in a real though derived and subordinate manner; they, too, become temple, priest, and sacrifice. Christianity lifts the externals of sacrificial religion into a higher sphere, and does away with the symbols, because it brings the realities. Whether the first readers of this letter were Jewish or Gentile Christians, they must have felt the bareness of their new worship as contrasted with the elaborate rituals of their former faiths, and have especially needed the insight into their real dignity which these words supply. Perhaps this age needs the lesson not less, though for different reasons. Let us simply look at these three aspects of the ideal Christian character.

I CHRIST IS THE TRUE TEMPLE; WE BECOME A TEMPLE THROUGH HIM.

The temple is the dwelling-place of Deity. The need for it arises from man"s weakness, which cannot grasp the pure spirituality of the Divine nature, but has to aid its conceptions by localizing God, and still more from man"s sin, which to his own consciousness has profaned the world, and cannot bear the thought of God"s dwelling among the foulness of everyday abodes. Christ is all which temples shadowed. The temple was the dwelling-place of Deity, and in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. It was the place of meeting between God and man, and in him we draw near to the God who in him has drawn near to us. It was the place of sacrifice, and in his flesh the one propitiation has been offered for sin forever. It was the place of Divine manifestation, and in him the whole glory of the Divine nature has been flashed upon the world with a brightness before which the light that shone between the cherubim pales its fires. The burden of the context here is that by coming to Christ we become partakers of his life, and are therefore assimilated to him. So the whole aggregate of the scattered strangers to whom Peter writes, and all the solitary souls who, one by one, draw near to Jesus, are built up into one great temple, the true sanctuary, consisting of all redeemed humanity, in which God dwells. All Churches are but chapels in its side aisles. Its ample roof covers them all, and will shelter new forms of Christian fellowship as yet undreamed of. Through the ages it is being slowly builded, like some great cathedral unfinished for centuries, each of which has added something to the pile. And as the Church as a whole is the temple, so its members in detail are temples of God. By a real though mysterious indwelling, more real if one may say so, and less mysterious than that by which he inhabits eternity or dwells in the material universe, God comes and makes his abode in every believing soul. A Divine Spirit can fill and penetrate the human spirit, as the sunshine drenches and saturates some poor film of mist, till every particle is suffused with the fiery brightness. We are too apt to water down that most solemn and blessed truth of God"s indwelling into the mere presence of an influence on our spirits. We need to rise to the height of the wonderful, awful, gladsome thought that God himself dwells in every soul that comes to Christ.

II CHRIST IS THE TRUE PRIEST; WE ARE PRIESTS THROUGH HIM.

The priest, like the temple, has his origin in man"s consciousness of unworthiness to draw near to his God. Therefore he takes one of his tribe, and sets him apart to stand between him and his deity. The priest has to represent man to God and God to man. His chief function is sacrifice, and, in addition to it, he has to be intercessor and mediator to bring the messages of the god to his worshippers, to represent the worshippers before their god. Jesus is all this in himself, by no external appointment, "not by the law of a carnal commandment, but by the power of an endless life." He is all this in solitary incommunicable manner. He, and none but he, brings God to men, and none but God. He alone is, in real essential unity, man"s Representative and Intercessor. He alone offers the sacrifice for the world. He stands the sole Priest, his office unique, his Person sole and supreme, having and tolerating no companions in his solemn entrance within the veil, and having neither beginning of days nor end of life. There is but one Priest in the Church. There are no priests in the Church. All are priests in the Church.

III CHRIST OFFERS AND IS THE ONE SACRIFICE; WE BECOME ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICES THROUGH HIM.

There are two elements in the idea of sacrifice surrender and expiation. The great work of Jesus Christ embraces both. "Not my will, but thine," is the inmost meaning of his whole life. He offered himself in the perfect, untrodden, joyful surrender of his will to the Father. That sinless Being, perpetually yielding itself in meek obedience, undisturbed by self-will, and spotless in its purity, attains the highest form of surrender, and stands alone as, in that aspect, the fulfillment of the ideal of sacrifice. All the life, which was thus perfect surrender to the Father"s will, was also expiation. Himself bare our sins in his lowliness and sorrows, in the sympathy which wrung his heart. But the consecrating oil flows from him to us, and we too, by derivation from him, become priests to God. His hand laid on us sets us apart for sacred functions which are not all unlike his own, but are their consequence and carrying out. We too have to represent God to men, because Christ has given God to us. We have to move among our fellows, showing to them something of the splendor of the Divine love, the reflection of which in us some weak eyes may bear which would be dazzled by the direct beams. We have to intercede for men with God, and are invested with the solemn privilege carrying with it a heavy responsibility of free access to the secret place of the Most High, and of prayer that prevails with him, as well as in the awful solitude when he experienced the utmost penalty of the sin which he had never committed, in the consciousness of separation from God, which is eternal death, and in the physical death which is but the pictured shadow of that awful reality. His sacrifice, as surrender, stands alone in degree, as being absolute and stainless. His sacrifice, as expiation, stands alone in kind, incapable of repetition or imitation, and, blessed be God, needing none. But if we have come to him and partaken of his life, we shall, in the measure of our participation, become sacrifices too not indeed expiatory, but eucharistic. For, touched by his love, and possessing his Spirit, we shall joyfully give up ourselves. Our true sacrifice is the surrender of our wills to the Divine will. We have to lay ourselves upon the altar which sanctifies and glorifies giver and gift; so shall we receive back again a better sell, ennobled and purified. Life should be one long sacrifice, being all lived with continual reference to him, and continual suppression of self. By him, too, we should offer the sacrifice of praise continually, and present the "much incense" of prayer. By him, too, we are to bring the sacrifices of doing good and imparting, with which God is well pleased. And by him we may at last offer the libation of pouring out our souls unto death, and complete the sacrifices of a life of faith by a death of submission. The dignities and prerogatives of the Christian life, expressed in the grand truths that we are temples and priests, are granted to us, not for honor, but for service. We are temples and priests that we may be sacrifices. All lofty gifts are ours with a view to this highest end, that we may yield ourselves wholly to God, and, losing ourselves in utter surrender, may have our poor sacrifice accepted through him who alone has offered the one perfect sacrifice for sins for evermore. A.M.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye - Believers. As living stones - Alive to God through him. Are built up - In union with each other. A spiritual house - Being spiritual yourselves, and an habitation of God through the Spirit. An holy priesthood - Consecrated to God, and "holy as he is holy." To offer up - Your souls and bodies, with all your thoughts, words, and actions, as spiritual sacrifices to God.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

ARGUMENT 9

PRIESTHOOD AND HIGH PRIESTHOOD

5...”Into a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the Gospel dispensation the Levitical priesthood has been transferred to the membership. Therefore regeneration makes you a priest, giving you license to preach while sanctification makes you a high priest, the former putting you in the sanctuary to worship and officiate, while the latter escorts you into the sanctum sanctorum and permits you to stand amid the splendors of the glorious shekinah, in the effulgent light of the divine presence, with access to the sweet manna in the golden pot ever fresh and delicious, and the luscious fruits constantly ripening on Aaron’s budding rod, while the heavenly cherubim with celestial pinions regale your face with the breezes of glory. Ecclesiastical tyrants are everywhere threatening God’s holy people with clerical ostracism and decapitation. Stop all your whining. If they want your license, let them have it. You will then be in as good fix as Paul and Peter. Wake up to the glorious fact that regeneration makes you a priest, i.e. a preacher, and sanctification, a high priest, i.e., bishop. God is now raising up an army of lay preachers, male and female, with license from heavenly headquarters to preach the everlasting Gospel to the dying millions of a lost world and bring on the millennium.

6... “Let him that believeth on Him not be ashamed.” Shame is the inseparable concomitant of sin. A genuine case of salvation takes away all shame and makes you courageous as a lion. You see from this Scripture that shame is incompatible with true faith. What is to become of the popular churches where ninety out of every hundred evince the sad fact that they are ashamed of Jesus, because they will not publicly testify to his power to save.

8... “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” In all ages the people have stumbled over the Christhood. The whole Bible is the biography of Christ. The Old Testament of the excarnate and the New of the incarnate, is God in Christ redeeming the world. The Holy Ghost is the disembodied Spirit of Christ. Satan fought the divine Fatherhood four thousand years, breaking down in signal defeat, polytheism collapsing and monotheism triumphant. Upon the Incarnation lie turned all the battering rams of earth and hell against the divine Sonship, even dividing the Church between Arians and Trinitarians, waging a desolating war through the centuries, again suffering signal defeat, the Christhood of Jesus coming to the front in universal recognition. We are living in the time of the devil’s last war against the Christhood. Now all the batteries of the pandemonium are turned against the Spirit of Christ, i.e., the Holy Ghost, His personal successor. We have no war against the holiness movement; it is all against the personal Holy Ghost. The fallen churches, like the wicked world, are everywhere stumbling over the glorious Christhood in the person of the Holy Ghost.

“They stumble over the word disbelieving, for which they were also appointed.” This sounds quite Calvinistic. We have no creed but the Bible, since God has gloriously saved us from everything but Himself. God made room in heaven for all the people in this world. He is doing His best to keep them all out of hell, and take them to heaven. Under His protest and through his dying love they rush into hell by millions because they love sin, which is the way to hell and brings hell into them, and congenializing them to live in hell forever. God sits upon the throne of the universe sees the way of every human being pursuant to his own will, and recognizes his destination in heaven or hell.

9. “You are an elect race.” We are nominated for heaven in conversion and elected in sanctification, and crowned in glorification. “Royal priesthood.” The high priest was always recognized as a member of the royal family. While conversion makes you a priest, sanctification makes you a high priest. “Holy nation.” This world has many nationalities, designated by races and colors, and separated by oceans and seas. Among them God has a nationality distinctly marked, dispersed in all lands, peculiar and recognizable in every clime. Isaiah 62 says they shall be called a “holy people.” It is a significant fact that the people who believe in entire sanctification by a second work of grace are alone called “holy” among all the nations on the earth at the present day. The world is very apt to call things what they are. So you had better get where the world will call you “holy.” If you are not holy in the end, you would better never have been born. “A people unto conquest.” God’s holy people, though few, poor, and persecuted, like Joseph in Pharaoh’s dungeon, who came forth to rule over all the land, are destined to conquer the world for Christ, and come to the front to stay and rule the world forever in the glorious coming kingdom. “In order that you may proclaim the power of Him who calleth you out of darkness into His glorious light.” Satan’s counterfeit Christians are a dumb herd. God’s true people have always been very noisy, and doubtless will be more so after they get to heaven. They have always been a great annoyance to Satan’s dumb dead churches.

10. This verse alludes to the glorious call of the Gentiles to full Gospel rights and privileges, which God honored Peter to inaugurate at the house of Cornelius.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. Ye also, as lively stones. Christians, born again to eternal life, become living stones also built into the spiritual temple of which Christ is the corner stone. Spiritual house. The church. God's spiritual temple of which the temple was a type. An holy priesthood. Christ, the High Priest, hath anointed them all as priests in his spiritual house. They need no human priest to stand between them and God. Every Christian can offer up spiritual sacrifices. See Heb. 13:15; Ps. 50:23; Hos. 14:3; Rom. 12:1. The sacrifices of the Christian priest are prayer, praise, good deeds, the consecration of our bodies and substance to God's service. Acceptable to God. When offered in the name of Christ.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

5. οἶκος πνευματικὸς, a spiritual house as opposed to a “house made with hands” like the Jewish temple, in which God could never really dwell, cf. Act 7:48. For the same idea that the Christian society is God’s true temple, cf. 1Co 3:16; Eph 2:22.

εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον. εἰς is inserted in the R.V. marg. and by W. H., “A spiritual temple for a holy act of priesthood.” The ordinary text omitting εἰς takes ἱεράτευμα as a nominative in apposition to οἶκος apparently in the sense of a body of priests, which is the meaning of the word in 1Pe 2:9 where it is quoted from the LXX. of Exo 19:6 and represents the Hebrew word “priests.” Here if εἰς is read with the best MSS. the sense is rather “an act of priesthood” which is explained by the words which follow.

ἀνενέγκαι. ἀναφέρειν used of the priest who actually offers up the sacrifice, whereas προσφέρειν could be used also of the worshipper. Thus ἀναφέρειν is used of Abraham offering up Isaac in Jas 2:21, of the high-priests in Heb 7:27, and of Christians in Heb 13:15.

πνευματικὰς θυσίας, spiritual as opposed to material sacrifices, cf. πνεύματι λατρεύοντες, Php 3:3; λογικὴ λατρεία, Rom 12:1, of Christians presenting their bodies as a living sacrifice. Just as Christ sacrificed His life for the service of others so His members must give themselves in daily self-oblation for the service of the Christian community.

εὐπροσδέκτους, it is only with such spiritual sacrifices that “God is well pleased.”

διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. All our sacrifices can only be offered to God or be acceptable to Him, when presented through the agency of our ascended High-priest, cf. Heb 13:15, διʼ αὐτοῦ ἀναφέρωμεν θυσίαν αἰνέσεως. So in every Eucharist Christ is the true priest, and the earthly priest is only the divinely authorized spokesman of the priestly body of worshippers. Similarly our prayers are offered “through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5.] Exhortation to come to Christ the chosen stone, and be built up into a spiritual temple unto God.

5.] be ye also as living (see above) stones built up (it is disputed whether οἰκοδομεῖσθε is indicative or imperative. Much is to be said both ways. Wiesinger, who is the ablest recent advocate for the indicative, maintains that the passage is epexegetical of the preceding ἵνα ἐν αὐτῷ αὐξηθῆτε, shewing how love to the word, seeking in the word the Lord Himself and His goodness, of itself leads to the completion set forth in ver. 5. But I cannot help feeling that this view of epexegesis of ἵνα ἐν αὐτ. αὐξ. is much weakened by the fact that πρὸς ὅν must be referred to κύριος, which is already separated from ἵνα κ.τ.λ. by εἴπερ ἐγεύσασθε κ.τ.λ. And other weightier reasons are behind. On the indicative view, the pres. part. προσερχόμενοι could hardly have been used, but it would surely have been προσελθόντες. This is felt by Luther, who renders it zu welchem ihr gekommen send. Again, the connexion with the foregoing by a participle, proceeding on to an imperative, exactly corresponds to the former hortatory sentences, ch. 1:13, 14, 22, and ver. 1. Finally, the long procession of mere predications, on this view, would be tame and almost tautological, in comparison with the powerful gathering up with the οὐν, ver. 7, of the high and holy state on which the preceding exhortation depends, as contrasted with that of the unbelieving. I therefore decide for the imperative, against Syr. (Etheridge: “you also as living stones are builded”), Estius, Grot, Beng., al., and Wiesinger, and with Œc., Syr. (as commonly quoted), Beza, Aret., Benson, Steiger, De Wette, Huther) a spiritual house (οἶκος = ναός, 1Co 3:16: Eph 2:21: as before, the stones are called living, and the house spiritual, not merely to signify that they are not dead stones, and the house not a material one, but on account of the life which Christians derive from Christ, the living Stone, and of the service which they render in virtue of being a body dwelt in by the Holy Spirit) for (see var. readd.) an holy priesthood (abstract, office of priesthood, including in itself the individual priests: see ref. Exod. Being God’s spiritual temple, they form an holy priesthood to Him, approaching and serving before Him in virtue of that Living and Holy One, whose mystic Body they are, and in whom the Father is well pleased: And they need no other by whom to approach God: being all priests, they require not, nor admit of, any distinct body of men among themselves specially called priests, nearer to God than themselves. No where is this more clearly declared by inference, than here) to offer up (ἀναφέρειν, not occurring in St. Paul, nor in the classics, but (reff.) in Heb. and St. James, is the regular LXX word for offering up sacrifice. The aor. is here used, because no habitual offering, as in rite or festival, is meant, but the one, once-for-all, devotion of the body, as in Rom 12:1, to God as His. On the infin. of the purpose, see Winer, § 44. 1) spiritual sacrifices (cf. especially Heb 13:15, Heb 13:16. Spiritual, because as the temple, as the priests, as the God, so the offering. It is this, rather than any distinction from the O. T. sacrifices, that is pointed at in πνευματικάς) acceptable (reff.) to God through Jesus Christ (these last words may be joined, either, 1. with εὐπροσδέκτους, or, 2. with ἀνενέγκαι. This latter has for it the analogy of Heb 13:15, διʼ αὐτοῦ οὖν ἀναφέρωμεν κ.τ.λ., and is preferred by Grot., Aret., De Wette, Huther, Wiesinger: and I think reasonably. The introduction of διὰ Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ as a mere appendage of εὐπροσδέκτους would not satisfy the weighty character of the words, nay would seem to put them in the wrong place, seeing that not merely the acceptability, but the very existence, and possibility of offering, of those sacrifices depends on the mediation of the great High Priest).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Living stones - built up - a spiritual house. It seems as though Peter must have had in mind the conception embodied in Christ 's commission to him, of a building erected upon a rock. The metaphor of a house built of living stones is violent, and sufficiently characteristic of Peter; yet it pictures, in a very striking way, the union of stability, growth, and activity in the ideal church. Note the transition from babes growing (ver. 2) to stones built up. But, as Salmond remarks, " In Paul we have even bolder instances of apparent confusion of metaphors, as when, in one breath, he represents believers as at once walking, rooted, and built up in Christ (Col 2:6, 7).

To offer up [ανενεγκαι] . The usual Old - Testament (Septuagint) term for offering of sacrifice. Lit., to bring up to the altar. Compare Heb 13:15. The force of ajna, up, appears in the fact of the altar being raised. The word is often used of carrying from a lower to a higher place. Thus Mt 17:1; Luk 24:51. In this sense ver. 24 of this chapter is suggestive, where it is said that Christ bare [ανηνεγκεν] our sins : carried them up to the cross. See note there.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.