knowing that ye have been redeemed, not by corruptible [things, as] silver or gold, from your vain conversation handed down from [your] fathers,
Peter has just told these believers to live in reverent fear as strangers here. Now he gives the reason: they already know what their freedom cost, and what it freed them from — an inherited way of religion, handed down and empty.
Peter's call to reverent fear can sound like worry about whether you are truly saved. The reason he gives here rules that out.
The fear that the saints were urged to live in during their stay here is as far as possible from doubt about their souls and distrust of God's grace. Those two go together. They may even be two sides of the same unbelief — the unbelief that leaves Christ out as the gospel reveals Him. The words that follow shut such dread out completely. They rest the fear Peter teaches on a comforting and settled fact: they have been redeemed. And they were redeemed by what is most precious to God of all things, and most effective for sinners.
The mention of money is not random. These readers came from people whose redemption really did cost silver and gold.
They knew, and so do we, that we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. Their fathers had been redeemed with silver and gold — a redemption in picture form, carried out under Jewish law. Sometimes they gave actual money, as in Exodus 30:11-16 and Numbers 3:44-51. Sometimes redemption came by sacrifice, as in Exodus 13:13-15. Even then silver and gold played a part, since they were needed to buy the animal for the sacrifice. Silver and gold are the least corruptible of metals, yet they are corruptible. The price of our redemption was incorruptible and precious.
The life left behind was not obvious vice. It was religion.
Notice this. Redemption has many wonderful results, and one named here is that the saints were redeemed from their empty course, or way of life, handed down from their fathers. It is hard to imagine words that fit more exactly. They do not describe Gentile idol worshippers. They describe the Jews since the Maccabees (Jewish leaders from the centuries before Christ), holding tight to tradition passed from father to son.
The problem was the source of their obedience.
The Jewish way of life had sunk into a matter of mere tradition received from their fathers. This was obvious in Isaiah's day (Isaiah 29:13), and the Lord Jesus pressed the charge home on them, quoting Isaiah's words, in Mark 7:6-13. Even the right things they did, they did not because God had commanded them, but because tradition ordered them. So their way of life had become corrupt and deeply offensive to God. Our Gentile way of life was pure darkness and lawlessness, and equally corrupt.
One contrast carries the whole verse: the Father, and the fathers.
There is a contrast here. On one side is the Father these converted Jews called on. On the other is the whole empty round of traditional ways passed down by their fathers. We are redeemed from religion that makes a fine outward show, as well as from what is immoral and corrupt… They were now calling on a Father who shows no favouritism. So their way of life, while they walk through this world as strangers, should be marked by fear. Not because they did not know their redemption, but because they did.
Older translations call the old life "vain conversation." The word covered far more than talk, and being freed from it makes a demand.
There you have vain conversation, which is connected with fleshly religion. We must not take it as merely the talk of the lips. I think Peter uses it in a much wider way than that. What is the first thing he says? You have been brought right out of that system of religion which suits man as he naturally is. You have been redeemed to God with the precious blood of Christ. So the first thing the soul grasps here is this: you are out of the old state. You are delivered from that vain conversation… What we have to do is shake ourselves clear of everything religious that does not suit God.
For the first readers, that break cost them the worship they grew up in. It gave them something better.
That which gave them peace would destroy every old association. They had learned how precious the blood is by finding forgiveness of sins through it. Now they had to learn that it is just as precious because by it they were redeemed from the futile ways inherited from their fathers. They would have access as worshippers to heaven itself — and as a holy priesthood too, there to worship the Father in spirit and truth.
- Known — the verse rests on certainty, not hope. The fear Peter urges grows out of a redemption you already have, never out of doubt about it.
- Not bought — silver and gold once ransomed Israel. Even the least corruptible metals decay, so the price of our redemption had to be incorruptible.
- Not only from sin — what is left behind is a way of life: inherited, religious, empty. Isaiah condemned it, and so did the Lord Himself.
- Fathers to Father — tradition handed down was the old trust. The redeemed now call on the Father instead, and that exchange is the heart of the verse.
- Break clean — knowing the cost, shake yourself free of any religion that does not suit God, however long it has run in the family.
but by precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, [the blood] of Christ,
Peter tells his readers what their rescue cost. Not money, but blood — the blood of a sacrifice. Two questions follow. Why does he call this blood precious? And why must the Lamb be flawless?
Peter's contrast is not random. Both metals already carried a settled meaning in Israel's worship:
There were two symbols of redemption in the Old Testament. At every census of Israel, God required each man to give a ransom for his soul. This ransom money was a half silver shekel, and it was "to make atonement for their souls" (Ex. 30:11-16)... Silver and gold, the two most precious metals, both stood as a figure of redemption. Peter alludes to this... He contrasts the blood of Christ with silver and gold. In God's eyes that blood has infinite value, because it comes from the whole truth of the person of Christ. And the point he wants us to notice is this: God's claims on His children match the preciousness of the blood that redeemed them.
So what gives this blood its value?
The precious blood of Christ is the foundation of redemption, and the means of it too. Only one thing measures its value: the infinite worth of His Person, as God perfectly judges it.
Peter sets this blood against things that decay. Another writer shows what that means for us:
That precious blood is the price of our redemption. Silver and gold decay and change in value; this blood does not. It stays in all its own preciousness. So the redemption it secures is eternal, and our relationship with the blessed God is sure for ever. But at what a cost! ... He laid down that precious, spotless life in death.
The words "like that of a lamb" point back to sacrifices these readers knew by heart. One writer names more than one:
The reference is plain in the words "like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." It may well point to the Passover lamb we have spoken of. They also had the morning burnt offering. And perhaps above all, there was the evening lamb, offered between the evenings, day after day.
The two terms are not just repetition. Each has its own root in the Old Testament and its own meaning:
Look at the Old Testament pictures Peter clearly has in mind. The first time "without blemish" comes up with a sacrifice is in Exodus 12. It involves that our Lord was perfect in sinless, subject, obedient Manhood... It is not until we reach Numbers 19 that we find the second word Peter uses here, "without spot"... We looked these words up some time ago. Without blemish means without a defect: nothing is missing. Without spot seems to have more to do with what is external, like a splash of paint on someone.
That flawless life raises a question: did His obedience itself pay for sin? One writer answers, and also names the kind of rescue this verse describes:
1 Peter 1:19 speaks more in the sense of redemption — of a ransom that takes us out of the hands of the enemy. Christ's obedience during His life worked toward the perfection of the sacrifice. That obedience did not pay for sin, but it was fully acceptable to God. What mattered was the acceptability of His Person, which His work required. But that obedience did not pay for sin.
Peter ties this price to how his readers now live. Notice what Christ bought them out of, and that their fear rests on certainty, not doubt:
We are redeemed from religion that is only a good outward show, as well as from what is immoral and depraved... They were now calling on a Father who judges each one without partiality. So their conduct should be marked by fear while they walk through this world as strangers. Not because they did not know their redemption, but because they did — and that redemption did not come by perishable things like silver and gold, which suited their old walk. That old walk was empty in other ways, and emptiest of all in its traditional religion. From all of it they knew themselves redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.
- Price, not metal. Silver and gold were Israel's own pictures of ransom. Peter names them only to rule them out.
- Price set by the Person. One thing measures the blood's value: the infinite worth of the One whose blood it is, as God judges it.
- Price that cannot fall. Unlike metals, it never deteriorates or shifts in value — so the redemption it buys is eternal.
- Price paid by a flawless Lamb. "Without blemish" means nothing missing; "without spot" means nothing staining from outside. His obedient life made the sacrifice acceptable. But that obedience was not what paid for sin.
- Price that reshapes the bought. Ransomed out of the enemy's hands and out of an empty inherited religion, the redeemed walk as strangers in reverent fear. That fear comes from knowing redemption, not from doubting it.