Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2168
“If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” 1 Peter 2:3.
I THINK there can be very little doubt that Peter is here quoting from Psalm 34:8: “O taste and see that the LORD is good.” As I read you the chapter just now, I could not help observing the constant traces of Old Testament language. It endears Peter to us when we see how he prizes the ancient Word of the Lord and, at the same time, it puts honor upon the Old Testament itself when we see the Holy Spirit in the New thus quoting from the Old. It is noteworthy that in Psalm 34:8 the Lord God is spoken of. The passage actually runs—“O taste and see that Jehovah is good” and Peter does not hesitate for a moment to apply the passage to the Lord Jesus. The word, “Lord,” is here used in its utmost fullness of meaning as the equivalent for Jehovah and it is applied to our Savior Jesus Christ.
That Peter is here speaking of Jesus we are sure from the context: “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.” The chosen foundation stone is, beyond question, the Lord Jesus and Peter uses words concerning Him which were written by Inspiration concerning Jehovah Himself. Evidently to Peter the Lord Jesus was Lord and God. He remembered the voice which he heard in the holy mount, when he was an eyewitness of His majesty: “For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent Glory, This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Let us continually pay Divine honor to our Lord Jesus Christ! If He is not God, our faith is vain and our hope is gone. But His Deity is no cunningly devised fable. His own works, as well as the Holy Scriptures, attest to His Godhead—the whole Church of Christ believes in Him as very God of very God and on this Rock we build our everlasting confidence. Peter had special knowledge of His Lord, for you remember that on one occasion he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but My Father which is in Heaven” (Matt. 16:17).
The Father had manifested the Lord unto him as His only-begotten Son. We little wonder that he speaks of tasting that THE LORD is gracious, for by Revelation he was made to know and understand to a very high degree the Glory and Majesty of the Incarnate Son of God. That he should speak of His graciousness is also very natural, for he had himself tasted of His Divine Grace. This same Peter had denied his Master with oaths and curses and when, after his Lord was risen, he sent a message to him by Magdalene—then he tasted that the Lord is gracious. Afterwards, when the Lord met him by the sea and put the question to him three times, “Do you love Me?” He betokened perfect reconciliation and Peter knew, then, that he was wholly pardoned and completely restored. By Jesus giving Peter, His once false disciple, the charge to feed His sheep and lambs, then Peter truly “tasted that the Lord is gracious.”
When Peter was made so useful at Pentecost, was made to work miracles, was released by an angel from prison and on many other occasions, Peter tasted “that the Lord is gracious.” It was Peter who used those explicit words concerning the Substitutionary Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” for right well had he beheld the Lord Jesus as full of Grace and Truth and in his own personal experience he had tasted that the Lord is gracious. Taking these words out of the mouth of Peter, I shall ask you, my Brothers and Sisters, “Have you tasted that the Lord is gracious?” There is no doubt what is insinuated by Peter’s use of the word, “if—for he believed that those to whom he wrote had feasted upon the love of the Lord Jesus.
Assuredly I would suggest no doubt concerning my Brethren by the use of the same words, yet I would put you upon a search to make assurance doubly sure. Dear Friends, have you tasted that the Lord is gracious? Is this fact past conjecture? Can you say positively, “We know in our own hearts the Grace of our Lord Jesus”? To help you to a happy conclusion, I purpose to handle my text in the following manner. First, here is a royal dainty— “The Lord is gracious.”
Here is, secondly, a special sense, namely, taste—“If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” Then, thirdly, we shall ask a searching question—Have we tasted that the Lord is gracious? Oh, for Divine Grace to answer truthfully! In the last place, we shall consider a series of practical inferences. If so be we have tasted that the Lord is gracious, then such and such things follow. Throughout the whole discourse may the Spirit of the Lord rest upon us!
I. First, then, here is A ROYAL DAINTY—“The Lord is gracious.” Jesus is full of Divine Grace. Jesus flavors the mouth with Grace when we feed upon Him. In Him is Grace which can be tasted by us while here below. Once tasted, this Grace is remembered. Let me remind you that the Lord is gracious in His Person, Nature and Character. He would never have been Immanuel, God with us, if He had not been gracious. What brought Him from above to take upon Him our frail humanity? What held Him here while He endured “such contradiction of sinners against Himself? What but His natural and innate graciousness as “the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth”?