according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, with sanctification by the spirit, for the purpose of their being obedient and sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.”​—1 Peter 1:1, 2.

Long before the Christian congregation composed of Jews and non-Jews came into existence, the Almighty foreknew that there would eventually be such a group of his servants scattered in various parts of the earth. Through the operation of God’s spirit on them, they were sanctified or set apart for sacred use. The objective of Jehovah’s dealings with them was that they might be his obedient children, doing his will. Their knowledge of this use of them by the Universal Sovereign should surely have stirred them deeply, moving them to want to live up to the noble purpose to which God assigned them.

6. (a) How did Christians gain their clean standing before God? (b) What may be included in their ‘being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ’?

⁶ Of course, it was not because of their own merit that believers came to be a chosen, sanctified people. As individuals, they were sinners and had to be cleansed, and so the apostle Peter referred to them as ‘being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.’ This reminds us of the cleansing procedure for an Israelite who became ceremonially defiled by, among other things, touching a human corpse. To be clean again, the individual had to be sprinkled with the water of cleansing. (Numbers 19:1-22) Similarly, the atoning benefits of Christ’s sacrifice had been applied to Christians, enabling them to have a clean conscience before God and to have freedom of speech in approaching him in prayer. (Hebrews 9:13, 14; 10:19-22) Then, too, when the Israelites were taken into a covenant relationship with Jehovah, Moses sprinkled the people with the blood of sacrificial victims. (Exodus 24:3-8) Hence, the words about ‘being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ’ may also call attention to the fact that these believers had been taken into the new covenant mediated through Jesus Christ and made valid by his shed blood and that they now shared in this covenant’s benefits.