The spiritual house of God, full of living stones (us) who serve the cornerstone (Christ), live their lives as a holy nation among the nations. We are like resident aliens—long-term residents of a city or world that is not our own. For we are seeking a better city “that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). Put more directly, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb 13:14).
Christians sometimes debate politics. Some reason that if a nation has a majority of Christians, then we might speak of a Christian Nation with particular Christian laws and habits. Others hope for a new political order ushered in by Christ on earth that revives the laws of the old covenant for today.
Given the landscape of these debates, I wonder why few discussions highlight Peter’s political theology as expressed in 1 Peter? There, he provides not only political categories to identify us as Christians but also specific ways in which we act out this identity politically, economically, and socially as well as what it looks like when political powers use force against Christians.
While Peter does not aim to answer every question (and we should not press this one letter to do so), the apostle gives us categories for political identity and action. As Peter argues, we should see ourselves as resident aliens who do not belong to this world because we are born again as a holy nation and royal priesthood whose political orientation focuses on proclaiming God’s excellencies and holiness of action.
Resident Aliens
Peter opens the letter by calling Christians “elect exiles” in a diaspora (1 Pet 1:1). The reason why Christians are exiles in this world is because they are a new people: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Pet 2:10). Peter here draws on Hosea just as Paul does in Romans to indicate that Jews and Gentiles together are one new people of God (Hos 1:6, 9, 10; 2:23; Rom 9:25, 26; 10:19).
In the language of the anonymous letter to Diognetus, written in the early 100s, Christians are a “third race” (Letter §1). In Paul’s wording, Christ has created “in himself one new [human being] in place of the two,” that is, Jews and Gentiles (Eph 2:15).
As newly born again (1 Pet 1:3, 23; 2:2), Christians become a new human being, distinct from Jew and Gentile—the other two biblical categories for people groups. We are in the analogy of Peter “living stones” that make up “a spiritual house” (1 Pet 2:5). As living stones in this spiritual temple, we become a “royal priesthood” and a “holy nation” whose vocation is to offer “spiritual sacrifices” (1 Pet 2:9, 5).
Because we no longer belong to this world and our inheritance lies in heaven (1 Pet 1:4), we have become a people for God’s own possession (1 Pet 2:9). We are sojourners and exiles, explains Peter (1 Pet 2:11). In other words, we are akin to the modern category of resident aliens, which is what the Greek word for sojourner means.[1]
As Craig Keener explains, “As members of a new people (1 Pet. 2:9–10), Christ-followers are aliens on earth (1:1, 17; 2:11), but they should behave honorably in human societies, just as societies expected of other resident aliens (2:12–14) (1 Peter, 147).”
The biblical analogies of Israel in exile as they resided in Babylon, willing the good of the city of there, apply today (Jer 29:7). Hence, Peter even says he is writing from the city of Babylon in the letter’s closing (1 Pet 5:13).
And even further back, Abraham teaches us what it means to be called out of the land in which we were first born to seek the city of God. Keener again explains, “Abraham is a “foreigner” and “resident alien” among long-term residents of Canaan (Gen. 23:4), and the psalmist, echoing Abraham’s experience, is a “foreigner” and “resident alien” before God, like his ancestors (Ps. 38:13 [ET 39:12])” (1 Peter, 148).
“I am a sojourner and foreigner among you,” says Abraham (Gen 23:4). And so he was because he was not seeking a city built with human hands but one whose maker and founder was God.
The spiritual house of God, full of living stones (us) who serve the cornerstone (Christ), live their lives as a holy nation among the nations. We are like resident aliens—long-term residents of a city or world that is not our own. For we are seeking a better city “that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10).