As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16)At first blush, this is a stunning command. Be holy as He is holy?? You mean the "holy, holy, holy" God? That holy? And, of course, it's impossible. Here. In this life. But the Christian life is about direction and all believers are being sanctified -- made holy (Rom 6:22; 1 Thess 4:3). So it is the arc of every true believer to be becoming holy as He is holy. We just don't get there until heaven.
The part that struck me was that crack about "the passions of your former ignorance." What is that? The word is ἐπιθυμία -- epithumia. It refers literally to "heat," to any kind of longing, but it is used almost exclusively in terms of longing for what is forbidden. Here, let's see if I can be clearer. Most translations call it "lust." Ah! Now you understand. On this John wrote, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world." (1 John 2:16) It's not merely "passions" or "desires" -- it's the passions and desires of the world. It's sinful desires.
So it's interesting that Peter describes them as passions of ignorance. Think about that. We have passions, desires, lusts if you will. They are for things that we should not have them for. They are "from the world," not from the Father. And Peter says they're ignorant. We lust after things that don't satisfy, desperately grasp for that which doesn't give us what we want, pant for pleasures that don't please. We experience that brief moment of "ahhh" and it's gone and we need more because it's ignorant to think that what God forbids is what will please us most.
It puts a different spin on lust. We try to mitigate it. It's bad, but not that bad. It's okay to lust after your spouse. It's not bad to lust after just about anything as long as we don't actually pursue it. You know? As long as we control our passions, it's fine. And Peter says, "It's ignorant. You should know better" as we live out James's story about looking into God's Word and forget about what we look like (James 1:22-25). "Lust is okay as long as I control it." No, lust is ignorant. We ought to know better.
2 comments:
like all things worldly, first it's ohhh, ahhh, then it's running and screaming...
As we grow in faith and struggle with our predilections, conflictions, addictions and all manner of lust. we may be discouraged by our constant win/loss episodes. so i was wondering if we place too much emphasis upon the outcome of the battle. this is because we are already victorious in Christ. if we are already victorious position-ally. then what should matter most is not that we succeed in our efforts, but rather that we engage in our efforts. we are to put on the full armor and ENGAGE in battle, and leave the results up to God. Will we become more holy than we are? will we overcome all the assaults of the enemy? will we become better people? i cannot say yes or no. but i can say that whatever you want to become, it is going to require that you engage in the battle. like Paul can you say that you fought the Good Fight?
It's interesting to me (considering how many of your comments are underlined with "I hate the fact that I'm not as godly as I should be") how many of the people of God had that sense of "I'm not as godly as I should be" even while others were in awe of how godly they were. It seems that as we draw nearer to God and He draws nearer to us we become more aware of our own unclean lips, so to speak.
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