[AI translation] He uses strange, bold, almost exaggerated expressions in this part of Peter's letter. He piles big words on top of big words, as when someone wants to say something very big, but there are not enough human words to express it adequately. Yet he is talking about a seemingly very humble, simple group of men and women who are scattered strangers in the province of Asia Minor - despised, persecuted people. Well, they would be, they of all people, the despised, the handful of minorities, they would be the chosen nation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people to be saved! Yes, they! It is as if the apostle were saying: 'Christian churches, this is how God counts you, this is your great dignity and your great task in this world! Take note, then, that you are a chosen nation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people to be saved, and as such, fulfil your task and your calling!Do these honourable words apply to us? Are we, our congregation, also such a chosen nation, a royal priesthood and a holy nation? Surely we are! The Word of God speaks of the Christian churches of every age, and therefore of us. In the story, it often happens that the poor lad learns by chance that he is the son of a rich king. No more hiding, no more misery, he can claim his rightful inheritance and live on as a king! Until now he didn't know who and what he was, but now he does. Nos, mi is sokszor nem is tudjuk, kik és mik vagyunk, elhisszük a világnak, hogy egy divatjamúlt, avatag hagyományokhoz ragaszkodó, egyre fogyó társaság, melyet hamarosan túlhalad már az idő, ezért azután olyan bátortalanul, félénken mozgunk, mint akik a magunk idejétmúlt keresztyén mentalitásával nem találjuk meg helyünket és szerepünket a világban. Yet if we were to become aware of the great dignity that these words attribute to us: 'But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people worthy of salvation' (1 Peter 2:9a), then surely the world would be more interested in us!
But are we really a holy nation, a royal priesthood? Let us look at what a congregation is made up of: one or two or three pastors and a few hundred lay people. It is easier to classify the pastors under the heading of "priesthood", but what do the laity have to do with the priesthood? Well, the word lay has been historically perverted. In contrast to the theologically educated, to those ordained to the ministry, it has come to mean a lower class of the congregation, the uninitiated, the uninitiated in the divine sciences. We know that the Reformation eliminated the distinction between the clerical and the lay elements of the church, but the word lay still has that unpleasant ring. I often hear from members of our church the expression: please, I am just a layman! I used to say to him: I wish you were, in the true sense of the word! Because the word layman originally means very nice. It comes from the Greek word "laos", which means people! And in the Bible, the word Laos has a distinctive meaning: unlike the other nations, Laos is the name of the chosen people. In the Old Testament, Israel alone is the "people", the people chosen by God from among the other nations for special ministries. And in the New Testament, it is the church of Christ who is the "people", the chosen people of the Lord, the spiritual nation gathered from all nations. The Christian church is the Messianic people for whose sins Christ has made atonement. The church of Christ knows and confesses: in Him our sins are forgiven, in Him and through Him we are the Laos, the "people".
The laity, therefore, means someone who belongs to this people. To say, "I am a layman" is to testify that you belong to God's people, the chosen people. So, if we take the word layman in its original sense, regardless of the meaning it has acquired throughout history, it is undoubtedly an honourable title. Can there be a greater honour, a greater dignity for a man than to be part of, to be a member of God's own people? God has but one people: his Church. And there is no distinction of rank or position between the members. No one, even the most learned theologian, can be more than what this word expresses in its deepest sense: layman! There is no more to be achieved than to belong to God's chosen people. It is to this people, this assembly of laymen, that Peter says: "Know ye therefore that ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of salvation, to declare the mighty works of him that called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; who were once a people, but are now the people of God; who were not saved, but are now saved." (1 Peter 2:9-10)
This also shows that they were once not "a people", but now they are. It also tells us that you came to Jesus "as a living stone, despised of men, but chosen of God, a precious stone." (v. 4) A peculiar image the apostle uses here of Jesus, when he speaks of Him as a living stone. We can hardly imagine what a living, living stone must be like. In any case, it expresses the moving, moving power of life and the unshakeable solidity of a rock. Jesus is the living rock: the dynamic and the surest foundation of all life. Strange stone! Not a rock of this world, but a meteor from another world, from a far-off place, here in our time and in our world. God intended it to be a cornerstone, a foundation stone. A foundation for a new world full of new people. But the people did not need this meteor from another world. Our word says that the people despised it. The shadow of the cross of Golgotha comes to mind when the apostle writes: "You have come to a precious stone, despised by men, but chosen by God. The builders of the world, though despised, yet the Great Master Builder made it the cornerstone of a new world, the foundation of new human lives reborn.
"Well, then, to this living stone you have come," says the apostle. By walking in the crucified and risen Christ, you have become a people of God, a royal priesthood, a holy generation. So the question is: have we already taken these steps and will we always take them again? What are these steps? The first is to hate the corrupted self, the self that is incapable of doing any good. Then to grasp with full faith the only solution: the redemptive death of Jesus for me. Happy thanksgiving for the atoning forgiveness of His blood. The surrender of my whole life into His mighty hand. The offering of myself to new obedience. These, in short, would be the steps of walking to that living stone. We have heard this so often, but it is not enough to hear it, not enough to know it: these steps must be taken! And these steps are for everyone to take! Have you already done it, are you doing it now, will you do it again and again: by coming "as a living stone, despised by men, but chosen by God, a precious stone", to Jesus Christ crucified and risen? In this simple way we have become and will ever again become the people of God, holy laymen, priests of God's royal rule! To belong to the pardoned!
Do we truly belong? There are many signs of this, by which it can be ascertained, noticed. The apostle mentions only one, not the most important, but one by which we can determine our spiritual belonging. Thus he says: "As newborn babes, desire pure and unadulterated milk, that ye may grow thereby." (1Pt 2,2) Just as a newborn child desires mother's milk, so the newborn soul in us desires the Word of God. It is a necessity of life, a constant and regular spiritual nourishment, which it demands for itself, which it needs every day, which it acquires almost instinctively because it cannot live without it. Can you survive without the Word, without daily spiritual nourishment from the Bible? Do you know the impatient longing for God's word, which the apostle compares to the cry of a hungry baby demanding breast milk? This is another sign of whether we have something of the new life that Christ has given us. It is with this heavenly mother's milk that God nourishes and strengthens his born-again children, it is from this that the chosen people of God develop, grow and live, it is from this that the royal priesthood, the holy lay army of the ministry, receives its divine vitality!
For to walk to Christ as a living stone, to be nourished by the Word, to be chosen as a holy people, is not for our individual piety and spiritual edification. All this is not done in order to please ourselves with the dignity of the royal priesthood, but this dignity is a task and a mission: we have been chosen by God to proclaim "the mighty works of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1Pt 2,9). By the very existence, by the noticeably changed lives of its members. By a life in whose actions it will be evident that God has called them "out of darkness into His marvelous light". This is the royal priesthood of the lay members of the Church, their priestly piety and service in the world. To go from darkness to light, from being a non-person to being the people of God, from being a non-pardoned person to being a pardoned person: it is a radical change of a whole life. And is this not the content of being a Christian: a changed life?
The miracle of the encounter with Christ is precisely that selfish ambitions become a willingness to help others, contaminated thoughts are purified, angry, hateful emotions are replaced by goodwill and love, sad, morose features are revealed and inner peace radiates. Tired, bored work is given a new impetus, so that in every way it is seen that Someone, a mighty Someone, has called him out of darkness into His wonderful light. This changed life of God's people proclaims most powerfully His mighty works! Every changed life speaks authentically of how great God is! Obviously this is what the apostle is referring to, "Casting down therefore all iniquity, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander" (1Pt 2:1) So, cast it down! A Christian man is not known by the fact that he has done nothing wrong now, but by his willingness to change his life day by day, to go from darkness that is always coming back to ever greater light.
The apostle says: you are a people to be saved! This also means that God's people can live in all situations, in all social systems. And if they cannot live, they must revise the Scriptures to see whether they are still God's people or not. If the church loves and serves, it never collapses, but only grows. And we have the privilege to love and serve. For it is precisely because we are "a chosen nation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people to be saved" that we proclaim "the mighty works of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light"!
Amen
Date: 19 September 1954.
Lesson
1Pt 2,1-10