The Great Escape

When I was growing up, my younger brother and I loved an old 1960s movie that often re-ran on tv, called The Great Escape. It was about a group of WWII Allied soldiers who had been captured and sent to a German Prisoner of War camp. They spent the whole movie scheming and working to break out and get back into the war. Each brought his own background and special skills to the job: tunneling, scrounging supplies, map-making, piloting. But together, they all worked toward that single, great goal: escape!

Peter describes the Christian life as a kind of "escape" here in 1:4. To this point, he has mostly spoken about Christian discipleship in positive terms: we are running toward the call of God's own glory and excellence, to share in the divine nature. But today he tells us that Christian growth also involves running away from something: together we are "escaping the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires (1:4)."

The world we now inhabit is not the world God designed in the beginning. God created human beings in his image, to reflect his own glory and excellence, as we have seen. To be truly human is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But the entrance of sin into this world changed all that. Instead of living under God's good and wise authority, we have now followed our own "sinful desires." We instinctively put ourselves and our wants before God and others.

The result of this sin is a "corruption" of God's beautiful goal for humanity. Consider your own life. When I speak harsh, cutting words to another person, or take something that isn't mine, or I hate or look down on someone in my heart, or I lie to get what I want, or I give my thoughts over to impure things--I am falling short of what God intended a human being to be (see Rom 3:23). I have sunk far below what I was meant to be. I am not reflecting the image of God. Sin degrades us. It corrupts us. Sin makes us less than truly human--something much smaller, uglier, and less noble.

This is why Peter's message should come as such good news to us! Through Jesus Christ, God has opened a way of escape! We can get away from the world's corruption. We do not have to remain enslaved to our own sinful desires. We can be fully human again! By repenting and trusting in Jesus, we can be cleansed of our former sins (1:9). By the power of God's Holy Spirit living in us (1:3), we can break free of the ungodly passions and patterns that have always defined us.

The "escape" Peter is proposing does not require you to isolate yourself like a monk. No, here in the middle of this corrupt world, you and I can become people of virtue, self-control, godliness, steadfastness, and love (1:5-7). We can know what it's like to be human again. And in the end, we will escape the cleansing judgment God will visit on this corrupt world, and find a home in a new heavens and new earth, where righteousness dwells (3:7-13).

Does your Christian life look like a "great escape?" Can people look at you and tell that you are running from the corruption that is in the world, and running for the high calling of God's glory and excellence? Or are you settling for far less? Are you still "entangled by corruption" (2:20)? Jesus wants to help you escape to freedom today!

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Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church