NOTES for Pe1 2:9

In the first half of this verse the apostle Peter proclaims that in those to whom he writes, and therefore in us too, God's promise given through Moses at the making of the covenant on Mount Sinai has been fulfilled (Ex. 19). But there it says that the promise concerns those who fulfill all the commandments given by God, the law of Moses. Do we fulfill them? And if we remember how Jesus interprets these commandments in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5), our conscience should immediately accuse us. And we should not think that this is the case now, while in the time of the apostles everything was in order. The books of Acts and the apostolic epistles testify that even then, in people who were members of the Church, righteousness and sin, holiness and apostasy were mixed together, just as in us. Why then does Peter write this?

There is one Man who did not violate the law, who completed and fulfilled all the commandments, the Chosen One of God, our King and High Priest, Christ. In Him everything God promised in His covenant is accomplished, and all this becomes ours then, and only then, when we join our life to the life of Christ, when we entrust our life into His hands and allow Him to rule our life. We only need not be "distracted" from Him, always to seek Him, to look at Him, like Peter when he walked on the water toward Jesus (Matt. 14:29-31).

But Peter says something else as well. In this new life we have a task: to carry it to other people, to bear witness before them to how the Lord has changed our life, to reveal such light and such love that people can see through us the fullness of perfection of the One who Himself is Light, Love, and Life.