But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10 (ESV)
Who is Peter writing to? This letter is addressed to the “elect exiles of the Dispersion” (1 Pet. 1:1) in what is today western Turkey. While the terms used here could refer to Jews who were scattered around the Roman world and beyond, they can just as easily be applied to Jesus’ followers scattered around the empire. We are exiles, living away from our true home, the kingdom of God. And that is who this letter is intended for: those who follow Jesus, regardless of their ethnic background.
In the two verses quoted above, Peter applies terms to his audience that were first used in the Old Testament to describe the nation of Israel, particularly in Exodus 19:5-6 and Hosea 2:23. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people belonging to God. Peter used the covenant language applied to Israel in Exodus to describe Christ’s Church, the people of the new covenant.
God’s Chosen People Include All Who Believe
In the first couple of chapters of Hosea, God instructed Hosea to marry Gomer, a prostitute, and have children with her. The names he was told to give these children were strange. Their names translate to something like “No Mercy” and “Not My People.” These names reflect Israel’s rebellion and separation from God. Yet, God said to them, there is coming a time when “I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God’” (Hos. 2:23). Peter sees these words being fulfilled in the Church, God’s chosen people.
It is not, as some suppose, that the Church has replaced ethnic Israel as God’s chosen people. Instead, God’s chosen and holy nation has grown to incorporate all believers in the Lord Jesus, regardless of their ethic background. Together, we are fellow citizens of the kingdom and members of the household of God (Eph. 2:11-22).
