‘Knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without spot, even the blood of Christ,'
And especially should we be filled with awe as we recognise the cost of what He has done for us. There we were living a vain manner of life, following in the footsteps of our fathers, counting silver and gold as the be-all and end-all of everything, and living as our fathers had done. And then our Father stepped in to act as our Redeemer and Deliverer. He delivered us from such a vain manner of living. He did not, however, redeem us with silver and gold, but with something infinitely more valuable, with the ‘precious' blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot. He redeemed us through the obedience and death of Jesus. He lifted us into a new sphere.
Notice the stresses of the verse:
· We were ‘redeemed'. That is we were set free through the payment of a price. We had been slaves to debt and sin, and our kinsman redeemer stepped in to pay the debt, and free us from the bondage of sin, from the bondage of our old manner of life. This illustration possibly looks back to the Law when someone who had become a bondslave in order to pay off an unpayable debt, was often set free by a kinsman coming in and paying off his debt, and thus ‘redeeming' him (compare Leviticus 25:47 ff. In the same way we owe an unpayable debt to God because of our failure to do His will, a debt that only Christ could pay.
Alternately Peter may have had in mind the Passover lamb. On the night when Israel were ‘redeemed' from Egypt every household had to offer a Passover lamb in order to ‘redeem' their firstborn from the sentence of death (Exodus 12), and the blood was sprinkled on the doorposts of their houses. And from that day on every firstborn son born in Israel had to be ‘redeemed' from sentence of death by the slaying of a lamb or goat (Exodus 13:13), and became dedicated to the service of God. At the same time the whole of Israel were ‘redeemed' from Egypt by the powerful arm of God (Exodus 6:6; Exodus 15:13; Exodus 20:2), a redemption continually celebrated at the Passover. And through Christ's death and resurrection we too have been ‘redeemed' in a similar way. Compare here 1 Corinthians 5:7, ‘even Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us'. Peter has remembered the words of John the Baptist, ‘Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' (John 1:29).
This illustration would fit the whole passage well, for it includes the ideas of the sprinkling of the blood (1 Peter 1:2), the dedication to obedience (1 Peter 1:2; 1 Peter 1:14), and the deliverance of God's people from a life of bondage to the old ways, as they set off as sojourners on their way to their inheritance.
· And the price that He paid was the ultra-precious ‘blood of Christ'. It was a necessary price, for it was a price paid to bring us into obedience and into cleanness (1 Peter 1:2). Compare Paul's ‘you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body' (1 Corinthians 6:20). ‘The church of God which He purchased with His own blood' (Acts 20:28). ‘In Whom we have redemption through His blood' (Ephesians 1:7). And that could only be done through the One Who was obedient in all things, and who, being spotlessly clean, offered Himself to pay the price of sin in dying for us.
‘A lamb without spot.' The sacrificial lamb had to be perfect in every way (compare Exodus 12:5; Leviticus 22:19-20; Deuteronomy 15:21). In the same way Christ could only be offered because He was perfect in obedience.
‘From the vain manner of life handed down from your fathers.' They had been brought up in the ways of idolatry and vain worship and useless living. They had lived for those who were no-gods. This was their heritage from their fathers. It emphasises that many of his readers were Gentiles. Godly Jewish Christians, descended from a godly Jewish home, would not have looked on their past in this way.