1 Peter 1:17-25: Variety 51

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

And this is the word that was preached to you. - 1 Peter 1:17-25

"redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors..." I think we need to learn that we need redemption, not just salvation. Redemption has a depth to it that is beyond salvation, because it indicates that we were "sold" on something else. Salvation is rescue, we were under threat. Redemption is bought back, from a debt that we incurred, not to God but to devil. We have sold ourselves for an 'empty way of life'. It is like those laborers who find that they can never be free because their wages are less than their obligations for room and board. Each day makes $2 but requires $3. 

When we were born, these debts were built into the system. There may have been fifty varieties, but each left us more under its sway each day. We were born into debt, falling further behind. But Peter says, there is variety 51. Variety 51 is not some smarter way to earn merit or pay for our debt. Rather, variety 51 is a new start, and a new system, not based on what is in us, but rather a system based on what is in Jesus.

Given my default mode, I will neglect Variety 51 because I have years of trying and watching how to earn merit by being smart and morally upright. But those are the perishable seed, and a quick unbiased survey shows that these just varieties 1-50--they fail and lose vigor like grass and flowers at the end of summer. The eternal comes with the imperishable seed. What should I plant? I think I will like the variety 51, if I give it a chance and don't choke it out.