1 Peter 1

CHAPTER I

The Greeting, v. 1, 2

1 Peter 1:1

1 The greetings found in both of Peter’s epistles are distinct. The regular three members of a greeting appear, but in the third member Peter has the optative of wish, an effective aorist passive, which is unusual and also places the first two members, the nominative “Peter,” etc., and the dative “foreigners,” etc., into an independent construction. Peter’s method of greeting offers no particular difficulty; we may say that the nominative and the dative are used ad sensum.

In regard to the absence of the articles the usual explanation, that this construction stresses the qualitative force of the nouns, should be amplified: “in sentences which bear the nature of captions” the article tends to drop out (Hort, cited by Moulton, Einleitung, 131). Many phrases, many nouns with genitives, many personal designations do not have the article in the Greek. All of this applies here whether or not we may be able to indicate it in the translation. Many little niceties are lost when one translates.

Peter, Jesus Christ’s apostle, to (such as are) elect foreigners of (the) Diaspora of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia in accord with. God (the) Father’s foreknowledge in connection, with (the) Spirit’s sanctification for obedience and sprinkling of Jesus Christ’s blood: grace to you and peace be multiplied!

Jesus himself gave Simon Bar-Jona the name “Peter” (Πέτρος, to be distinguished from πέτρα, feminine; see Matt. 16:17, 18). This came to be the apostle’s regular name. Its use at this late period of his life when he writes to so many Gentile readers needs no comment. The brief apposition: “apostle of Jesus Christ,” or as we may render: “Jesus Christ’s apostle,” states in what capacity Peter writes, namely as one commissioned by Jesus Christ. The motive for writing as well as the purpose of writing are combined. The readers will be most ready to hear and to heed what Christ’s apostle feels impelled to say to them. “An apostle” in our versions makes the impression that Peter is only one of a number, which is not the point here.

The genitive is possessive yet implies an agency. As an “apostle” Peter belongs to Jesus Christ because Jesus appointed him to his office. Peter now acts in that office. He is responsible to his Head, under his authority, and speaking by his authority. This suffices.

The readers are designated more elaborately. Much is gained when we read all that follows as a compact unit: “to (such as are) elect foreigners of (the) Diaspora of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia in accord with God (the) Father’s foreknowledge in connection with (the) Spirit’s sanctification for obedience and sprinkling of Jesus Christ’s blood.” We resist the temptation to insert commas. This whole characterization states what Peter regards the readers to be, and what they are to consider themselves to be while Peter speaks to them. As such people he addresses them. Peter will use still other characterizations as he does in 2:9. The entire letter is intended for people who are thus elaborately described; the whole of it is shaped to fit them.

This long designation reflects to a high degree all that follows in the epistle. Even Paul has no dative that might be compared with this one in any of his epistolary greetings. While we must dwell on each item in this long designation of the readers we must ever keep its unity in mind.

The absence of the article expresses quality: “to such as are elect foreigners, etc.” All the readers are such people. Ἐκλεκτοί, the verbal adjective, is found also in Matt. 22:14, but in the parable of Jesus the word is used as a noun while Peter uses it as an adjective: “to elect foreigners,” etc. The A. V. is more correct in its translation of this word as an adjective than the R. V. which makes the word a noun: “to the elect who are sojourners” and even adds the article, which removes the qualitative sense. The verbal adjective has the force of a past passive participle: foreigners “elected by God” and thus made his own. The whole eternal elective act of God is suggested by this verbal.

All that the Scriptures say about this act of God and about the persons involved in it may be thought of in this connection. Peter had all of it in mind. Note “elect race” in 2:9; also “a living stone with God elect” in 2:4.

Παρεπίδημοι are persons who belong to some other land and people, who are temporarily residing with a people to whom they do not belong. They are for the time being aliens, foreigners, strangers and not natives. They never expect to become the latter. They do not want to be considered or treated as natives by the δῆμος or people among whom they happen to be living; in fact, they know that they may even be expelled as Claudius once expelled the Jews from Rome.

Aliens are often held in contempt by the natives among whom they dwell. To this day they may be placed under severe restrictions in times of war; they may be interned or even repatriated. Yet, despite this estimate of the natives, by calling his readers “elect foreigners” Peter exalts his readers far above the natives among whom they live: they are God’s chosen people while the people among whom they are scattered are nothing of the kind. In fact, God’s election has made the Christians “foreigners” to the rest. At one time these Christians were common natives and lived on the same low level as the rest; now they are such no longer. They would not and, of course, should not descend to their former state from which God has raised them by his grace.

They live in the world but are no longer of the world. They no longer belong. They have become like Abraham, they are merely sojourners in a land that is now strange to them. They look for a city which has foundations, whose designer and maker is God; heaven is their home and fatherland. They confess that they are ξένοι and παρεπίδημοι on the earth; their desire is for a better country, that is, a heavenly one, the city God has prepared for them (Heb. 11:9–16). Peter uses παρεπίδημοι in 2:11 and there combines it with the synonymous πάροικοι as the two words are used in the LXX of Gen. 23:4 and Ps. 39:13.

While these are Old Testament terms, the combination “elect foreigners of (the) Dispersion of Pontus,” etc., is decidedly Peter’s own. The five provinces he names limit the Dispersion to the territory they cover. He might have written: “to such as are elect foreigners in Pontus,” etc. By inserting the genitive διασπορᾶς Peter brings out the thought that his readers are scattered far and wide in these provinces; they are found in little groups here and there as Zahn states it; they are not like the Mormons who live close together in Utah but are like small oases in the desert or like islands in the sea. This emphasizes still more their situation as foreigners: they are small, scattered minorities surrounded by great, pagan majorities.

Peter uses the word Diaspora as it is employed in James 1:1. The Diaspora or Dispersion is a Jewish term to designate all those Jews who dwelt outside of the Holy Land in Gentile countries (John 7:35); it implied that the real home of all these Jews was their Holy Land, which alone they could love as such, to which their hearts were ever drawn. When this word is applied to Christians, “Dispersion” implies that heaven is their true home, that the earth and the world are to them a foreign land which they would at any time gladly leave for their home above.

It is good Greek to add the names of the provinces by means of genitives; in English we should say “in Pontus,” etc. Regarding these five provinces and the order in which Peter lists them see the introduction. Some say that the readers are Christian Jews. They understand “Diaspora” literally and concretely: “Jews in Gentile lands,” and they make the genitive case partitive: a part of these Jews, namely that part of them whose divine election has made them foreigners to the nonelect and unbelieving Jews. The answer to this interpretation is the fact that no Jews ever lived in these provinces (see the introduction). The genitive is qualitative, an abstract and not a concrete noun, it is therefore also used without the article: the readers were “Diaspora foreigners,” their election had made them such. “Of Diaspora” places them in contrast, not merely with nonbelieving Jews, but also with all who are unbelieving and nonelect, most of whom were pagans. In fact, it is impossible to say that one kind of Jews constitutes “a Diaspora” among other Jews.

Did the readers understand this description of themselves? They surely understood what their election meant and how it made them foreigners to the world of other men. Moreover, their scattered condition was rather self-evident. The Old Testament allusion (Gen. 23:4; Ps. 39:13), coupled with the Jewish term “Diaspora,” although this was a new designation for Christians, were as clear to Peter’s readers as was Paul’s designation in Eph. 2:19: “You are no more strangers and foreign dwellers, ξένοι and πάροικοι, but you are fellow citizens with the saints.” Besides, Peter’s entire epistle elucidates what he means by this designation. The opinion that Peter had visited these Christians, say on his journey to Rome, is only an opinion without a hint in this epistle or elsewhere to support it.

1 Peter 1:2

2 The three phrases beginning with κατά, ἐν, and εἰς cannot be attached to ἀπόστολος, which is not only too far removed from them but is also found in the first member of the greeting. The phrases are usually construed with ἐκλεκτοῖς because this is a verbal and thus may have adverbial modifiers. The A. V. even puts the adjective into v. 2: “elect according to the foreknowledge,” etc. It is correctly objected that Peter would then have Written ἐκλεκτοῖςκατὰπρόγνωσιν. Too much material intervenes between the adjective and the phrases.

The phrases modify the entire dative: “to such as are elect foreigners of (the) Dispersion of Pontus,” etc. They are such “in accord with God (the) Father’s foreknowledge in connection with (the) Spirit’s sanctification for obedience,” etc. There is no need to supply τοῖς before the phrases, nor is it necessary to insert commas between them. Rom. 8:28: “those whom he foreknew he also predestinated” is not an exact duplicate although the same foreknowledge is referred to. Peter includes the condition of the Christians in the localities named in the Father’s foreknowledge, i. e., also their being foreigners, their being a scattered Diaspora in these provinces. They are entirely what they are in accord with God the Father’s foreknowledge.

The noun “foreknowledge” occurs only once again, in Acts 2:23, but it does not differ in meaning from the verb “to foreknow.” The noun merely designates the act. The preposition πρό does not alter the act, it only dates the act. The kind of γνῶσις referred to is in no way in doubt in view of passages such as Ps. 1:6: “The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous”; Amos 3:2: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth”; negative with regard to the wicked Matt. 7:23: “I never knew you”; John 10:14: “I know my sheep, and am known of mine”; 2 Tim. 2:19: “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” This has been defined as noscere cum affectu et effectu, “to know (foreknow) with affection and with a resultant effect.” No better definition has been offered. The dating in “foreknowing” or “foreknowledge” is only with reference to us who are bound to time and not with reference to God who is superior to time. To subject God to limitations of time or to stop his foreknowing at any point of time is to make a serious mistake.

Some change the act of knowing into an act of the will as when Calvin makes “foreknowledge”=“adoption,” or when others make it Vorbeschluss, Zuvorerkueren. It is a little more difficult to define the noun in this way than the verb. Luther has the odd term Versehung, which substitutes the idea of seeing for that of knowing and the perfective ver- for the temporal vorher-, neither of which is correct. See Rom. 8:29 for a further treatment of this subject.

As the κατά phrase modifies the whole dative with its genitives, so the ἐν phrase modifies this whole dative plus the κατά phrase; and, we add, the εἰς phrase also modifies all that precedes. Ἐν does not=“by,” German durch, Latin per (διά), and is not instrumental. Nor does this phrase modify ἐκλεκτοῖς and state “the historic execution of the eternal election.” Ἐν=“in connection with,” and to the entire preceding description of the readers the phrase adds the further fact of their connection with the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification.

Ἁγιασμός, like the following ῥαντισμός, is a word that expresses an action. It is not Heiligkeit, ἁγιωσύνη, the state, but Heiligung, the Spirit’s work of setting apart for God (G. K., 114, etc.). To restrict this activity to baptism is to make its force entirely too narrow. As God’s elect foreigners who are scattered throughout many lands true Christians are what they are “in accord with the foreknowledge,” which is a great comfort to them; and they are all that they are in such comforting accord “in connection with the sanctifying work of the Spirit” who keeps them ever separate as foreigners to the world by making them more and more separate and holy.

Πνεῦμα is used as a proper name and thus, like ΘεὸςΠατήρ and ἸησοῦςΧριστός, appears without the article. Peter intends to name the three persons of the Godhead in these three phrases and to connect what his readers are in the world with the Holy Trinity: elect foreigners dispersed in these provinces, as such graciously and lovingly foreknown of God the Father—as such in connection with the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work—as such, to carry the matter still farther, intended for obedience and sprinkling by the blood of Jesus Christ. A few commentators think of the “spirit,” namely “in connection with sanctification of our spirit” (objective genitive); but the majority notes the trinitarian reference and the subjective genitive.

The order of the three phrases cannot be changed. Εἰς in the third points to intention and to result: “for obedience and sprinkling of Jesus Christ’s blood.” The phrase recalls Exod. 24:7, 8: when the people heard what Moses read they said: “All that the Lord hath said we will do and be obedient,” and then Moses sprinkled them with the blood. This explains why “obedience” precedes “sprinkling.” On the latter compare also Heb. 10:22 and 12:24.

Ὑπακοή is not found in secular Greek; it is here without modification and denotes the obedience of faith, which should not be converted into a mere moral obedience. Peter uses the word again in v. 14 and 22. The sanctifying work of the Spirit leads to obedience. If πίστις were used here, this would bring out the thought of confidence and trust; by using ὑπακοή Peter obtains the connotation of submission as it appears also in Exod. 24:7.

This last phrase has two objects, the second being “sprinkling of Jesus Christ’s blood.” “Of blood” is the objective genitive. We do not make it a compound: “Jesus Christ’s blood-sprinkling,” for “Jesus Christ’s” is the possessive genitive with “blood” and not the subjective genitive with “sprinkling” (so also in the preceding phrase Πνεύματος is the subjective genitive). Who sprinkles us is not stated; we take it that he who sanctifies us is this one, for it is this sprinkling that sanctifies. We should not reduce either the sanctifying or the sprinkling to the one act of our baptism. Since it is placed last, we should include all that follows baptism, namely the constant cleansing from sin. “Blood” has the connotation of expiation. It is the blood shed for us on Calvary. “Sprinkling” = the application of this sacrificial blood; unless it is applied to the sinner, he remains in his sins. Living in obedience and constantly being cleansed with Christ’s blood, we are what God intends us to be: total strangers to the world of men around us, wherever we may live.

To state that Gentile Christians would not understand Peter’s expression, that only Jewish Christians would be able to do so, is to assume that the Old Testament was not used when Gentile converts were taught, but see v. 10–12. All Paul’s letters to Gentile churches establish the contrary. By saying of himself only that he is writing as an apostle but designating his readers so fully Peter shows that their interests and needs prompt him to write.

The third member of the greeting: “grace to you and peace be multiplied,” is, unlike Paul’s greetings, the optative of wish; we find it again in Second Peter and in Jude. On “grace to you and peace” see Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2, and several other epistles of Paul. The aorist passive optative is effective, and the verb, which is derived from πλῆθος, “mass or multitude,” means “may grace and peace be made yours in a multitude of ways.”

The Great Doxology, v. 3–12

1 Peter 1:3

3 Peter’s great doxology resembles that which Paul wrote in Eph. 1:3–14. Yet each is decidedly distinct and original. In Paul’s the Trinity indicates the division into three sections; in Peter’s we also have the Trinity, but only in the second part (v. 5–9), since in the third part (v. 10–12) of the doxology only the second and the third persons are introduced. Paul’s reaches from eternity to eternity; Peter’s from our regeneration to heaven and to the Parousia. Paul wrote his doxology when he contemplated the whole Una Sancta and the whole soteriological work of the Trinity; Peter when he contemplates his readers and himself in their present state amid afflictions in the world. Paul introduces the divine election in the doxology; Peter has it already in the greeting.

Paul speaks of the quickening from death in a separate section (Eph. 2:1, etc.); Peter speaks of the regeneration in the doxology itself. The purpose of Paul’s doxology leads him to the summation of all things under Christ; Peter’s purpose restricts him to the distress of his readers as foreigners (v. 1) in this world, whose hope and faith he inspires. Peter’s doxology has little in common with that which Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 1:3, etc., the key word of which is consolation, but a consolation that was prompted by the consolation which Paul himself had just experienced.

It is exceptional to begin with a doxology, especially with one as grand as that of Peter. When Paul strikes such a note in Ephesians, this is but natural; he has the great Una Sancta before his eyes. When Peter breaks forth into a doxology when he is writing to Christians as foreigners in the world, that is a different matter; he sings the praise of God because of the hope which God has given us, because of the end of our faith at the revelation of Jesus Christ, because of the fulfilled prophecies that are now preached to us, things into which even angels desire to look. To be sure, we are foreigners in this world, little groups scattered here and there, but we are not inferior to those who treat us as being inferior.

As already the adjective “elect” shows, and more fully the three phrases which set forth the connection of Father, Spirit, and Christ with our state in this world, we as foreigners in this world are made strange and alien to it by the wondrously high position which God has bestowed upon us. We are a royal aristocracy, natives of a heavenly kingdom, and thus foreigners to this poor, wretched world. Instead of merely telling the readers this in a calm, prosy way Peter expresses his joy in an exalted praise in order to sweep the hearts of his readers upward to the same joy and praise. Note that the whole of v. 3–12 is one grand unit.

Blessed the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! the One who according to his great mercy begot us again unto living hope by means of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and unstained and unfading, safeguarded in (the) heavens for you, the ones being protected in connection with God’s power by means of faith for salvation ready to be revealed in connection with the last season; in which, etc.

Εὑλογητός is regular in doxologies; its use in these great Christian doxological outbursts is not to be compared with the Jewish formulas which are introduced at the mention of the holy name, exclamations such as. “blessed be he.” These great Christian doxologies have their antecedents in the great Old Testament psalms, such as Psalms 103. This is no mere adoration of the name; this is adoration of God for all that he has done for us. The grammarians debate as to whether to supply ἐστί, εἴη or ἐστω; we supply nothing, this is an exclamation: “Blessed the God and Father!” The verbal means “well-spoken.” We speak well of God when we truly say what he is and does in his attributes and his works. No task should give us greater delight.

There is too little contemplation of God, too little praise of him in our hearts, especially in our earthly distress. The Scriptures constantly show us the better way. They teach no immersion in God, no sinking away of the mind and the emotions in God as these are cultivated by the mystics, even the best of whom are morbid, the rest, like those of India, pagan. Peter sings the true glory of God when he is contemplating his great soteriological acts and blessings.

Like Paul, he uses the full liturgical name: “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he in whom our whole salvation is bound up. This name is really a concentrated confession. All that the Scriptures reveal of our Savior God is crowded into this name. The discussions of the commentators as to whether Peter intends to say that God is only the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ or also his God, generally overlook the great point just stated.

In v. 2 ΘεὸςΠατήρ needs neither the article nor καί; in v. 3 both are in place, but in the usual Greek manner the one article makes one person of the two nouns. For Jesus according to his human nature God is his God, and for Jesus in his deity God is his Father; his God since the incarnation, his Father from all eternity. See the discussion in connection with 2 Cor. 1:3. In Eph. 1:17 we have “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We note also Matt. 27:46, and John 20:17. But note “our Lord” which connects us with Christ and through him with God. “Lord” is wholly soteriological: he who purchased and won us, to whom we belong as our Savior King.

We take issue with those who seek to eliminate everything “metaphysical,” in particular the generatio aeterna which the church has always found in the designation “Father of Jesus Christ.” For this we are offered the substitute that “God” refers to the omnipotence and “Father” to the love displayed for “our Lord Jesus Christ” in the work of salvation. Yet, unless our Lord is “true God, born of the Father from eternity” and thus also “true man, born of the Virgin Mary,” no salvation remains for which to glorify God.

Ὁἀναγεννήσας is an apposition: “the One who begot us again.” This verb, which is used here and in v. 23, is peculiar to Peter: “to beget spiritually, to a new spiritual life.” This is the new birth referred to in John 3:3, the quickening mentioned in Eph. 2:5, 6 and Col. 2:13, the new creation spoken of in Eph. 2:10 and Gal. 6:15. We are begotten again when the life from God is implanted into our souls. This is the same as the implanting of faith in Christ which fills the heart with new powers, new motives, thoughts, volitions, etc., so that a new creature appears. The aorist participle is historical and states a past fact.

This act of God’s took place “in accord with his great mercy,” it harmonized with his mercy. Ἔλεος is the proper word, for its connotation is the pitiful condition in which we lay and from which God raised us to an entirely different state. One begets children whom he then loves, on whom he showers fatherly gifts, who are his heirs. All these great connotations are suggested by the apposition and appear in hundreds of Scripture passages.

The greatness of God’s mercy appears when we see what we were at one time by virtue of our natural birth and what we now are by virtue of our spiritual rebirth. It was, indeed, an evidence of great mercy for God to stoop down to such wretched creatures as we were. Great also is the evidence of mercy when we note to what God begot us: “to living hope,” the opposite of an empty, false, deceptive hope. This hope is not “lively” (A. V.) or “living” because it is bright, strong, active in us but because God guarantees and produces its fulfillment. All men have some sort of hope, but while so many deceive themselves with the dead hopes of their own making, we, whom God himself begot, have a living hope that rests on God’s promises and power. When the hopes of others go to pieces in the last flood, our hope will sail triumphantly into the harbor of eternal fulfillment.

Note how Peter combines the beginning of our spiritual life with its consummation. So much lies between these two extremes; but when we as strangers are called to suffer in this world which is now so alien and often so hostile to us, our hearts praise the great mercy of him who begot us as his own and who will presently usher us into heaven and his own glorious presence. We might say a great deal more about hope; take a concordance and note the references yourself (v. 21; 3:15; and especially those mentioned in the New Testament).

Shall we translate: “living by means of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead” (“hope living by means of” is the same)? We do not think that “living” requires such a modifier, the meaning of which would be obscure. Nor do we insert a comma and thus have two parallel phrases, both equally modifying ἀναγεννήσας. We construe as Peter wrote: “he who begot us to living hope by means of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead.” “Us” does not refer only to the apostles who saw the risen Lord but to Peter and to his readers. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the crowning point of his redemptive work which showed that he is, indeed, the Son of God and the Savior of the world, and that his dying sacrifice is sufficient to cancel the sins of the world and to satisfy the righteousness of God. Peter has already mentioned “Jesus Christ’s blood.” Christ’s resurrection is the heart of the gospel and thus ever constitutes the means for begetting us to a living hope.

No man has spiritual life and hope save by the resurrection of Christ. He is the resurrection and the life; we live because he lives.

For the fourth time Peter names “Jesus Christ.” He loves the very sound of the words. Ἀνάστασις is active, and “Jesus Christ” is the subjective genitive. The phrase ἐκνεκρῶν is discussed fully in connection with Matt. 17:10; Mark 9:9; Luke 9:7; John 2:22; Acts 3:16. Modernistic and former rationalistic denials of Christ’s resurrection destroy the heart of his saving work, here in particular also our regeneration and our living hope. Note the effective correspondence of the terms employed: ἀναγεννήσας … ζῶσαν … διʼ ἀναστάσεως, “the One who begot—living—by resurrection.”

1 Peter 1:4

4 The subjective hope is followed by the objective thing hoped for; the second εἰς phrase is thus appositional to the first. We were begotten, writes Peter, “unto an inheritance,” etc. Our inheritance is the heavenly kingdom in all its glory. It is already ours now, for we are the born heirs; as such heirs we shall presently enter upon full possession and enjoyment of it. Being such heirs and waiting in hope for our heavenly inheritance makes us the “elect foreigners” that we are in this world (v. 1). The children of this world have no inheritance awaiting them at the end of their existence.

Wonderful, certain, and not far off is this our inheritance. Three beautiful adjectives describe it: ἄφθαρτον, ἀμίαντον, καίἀμάραντον, all three have a privativum. “Incorruptible” = which neither moth, rust, thieves, nor any other destructive force can in any way injure as they do the inheritances of the earth. Even if any man obtains these, they are subject to corrupting forces, are transient, unenduring.

“Unstained” = without the least stain or defilement of sin, so pure and lofty that we can let our hope and desire go out to this inheritance without reserve, something that we can say of no earthly inheritance.

“Unfading”=“amaranthine,” imperishable, never withering, disappointing, becoming old and worn. The delight of it will never lessen or grow stale. Huss, who was martyred at Constance, combines the three attributes: Our inheritance will never lose anything through age or sickness on our part or through any damage to itself; it will never be marred by impurity; and it will never lessen in delight because it has been enjoyed so long.

We note that the three terms are negative. Even Peter could not alter that fact. The glory of our heavenly inheritance is so far beyond direct human conception that the Scriptures must often resort to figures of speech instead of to literal terms or to weak comparisons with earth and thus to such negatives, which tell us what will not be in heaven. The realities themselves transcend human language.

The certainty of our inheritance is expressed by a participle and a relative clause: the inheritance itself is safeguarded for us, the heirs, and we, the heirs, are likewise guarded and protected so that we shall not lose the inheritance. The perfect participle has present and continuous implication: “having ever been and thus ever continuing to be safeguarded in the heavens for you.” The passive makes God the one who guards and keeps our inheritance for us. He keeps it safe. Many an earthly heir has never obtained his inheritance; false, faithless, weak guardians lost it for him. Εἰςὑμᾶς = a dative as it does in modern Greek, R. 535. From “us” Peter turns to “you” as Paul often does and applies what he says to his readers in the most direct way.

1 Peter 1:5

5 An apposition to “you” states the other side, namely that the readers, too, are under a protecting guard. Φπουρεῖν is a military term and this harmonizes with δύναμις, “power.” We are amid foes who are bent on robbing us of our inheritance; but the keeper of Israel sleeps not nor slumbers. “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them,” Ps. 34:7. “We pray that God would so guard and keep us that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us nor entice us into misbelief and other great shame and vice; and though we be assailed by them, we may finally prevail and obtain the victory.” Luther. Δύναμις is omnipotence. While it is doctrinally safe to think of the gracious power of the Holy Spirit, the connection with φρουρεῖν excludes this; ἐν is not “by,” nor is it instrumental, it means “in connection with” God’s omnipotent power, the connection being apparent from the context.

It is a serious misunderstanding to think of God’s omnipotence as filling our faith with power and making it able to overcome all our foes. It is still more serious to suppose that omnipotence produces faith in us and to base this supposition on Eph. 1:19, see the discussion of this passage. Nowhere do the Scriptures confuse grace and omnipotence. Faith is kindled and is preserved and made strong by grace alone. Grace alone reaches into the heart and the soul and works spiritual effects; and this grace always uses the Word and the sacraments as its means. Omnipotence has a different function; it does not operate in or upon our faith but above, over, around us, upon our enemies.

It kept Daniel in the lions’ den, the three men in the fiery furnace, set bounds for Satan in afflicting Job, freed Peter from Herod’s prison, preserved Paul amid dangers, hardships, persecutions, etc. Great and wonderful is this protection of omnipotence, without which we should soon be overwhelmed.

That is why the military verb φρουρεῖν is used: in connection with his omnipotence God posts sentinels and guards for our protection. We may well think of his holy angels (Heb. 1:14). The A. V.’s translation is inexact in placing the three phrases together after the participle; the R. V. places the phrases as Peter does: “who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto salvation.” Despite Peter’s care in the order of the words some think that God’s omnipotence uses our faith as its means, the omnipotence making our faith its weapon. These ideas are foreign to Scripture. Διὰπίστεως means that faith trusts the guarding and protecting power of God’s almighty power.

In every danger our faith turns to God, prays to him that he may use his power to shield us, make a way of escape for us (1 Cor. 10:13). When, like Peter on one occasion, we are foolhardy and depend on our own strength we fall as Peter on that occasion denied Christ.

The aim of this protection is “salvation,” the inheritance incorruptible, etc., mentioned in v. 4, safely kept for us in heaven and “ready to be revealed in connection with the last period or season.” Everything is ready and complete for its glorious unveiling. The last καιρο͂ς is now here, has been here ever since Christ finished his redemption and ascended on high. Chiliasts think of a period of a 1, 000 years yet to come when Christ will do still more work in the millennium. We are now living in the last time; in a little while the great curtain shall be drawn aside, our entire salvation shall be revealed. Peter is speaking of the immense things that are impending in the mighty power of God and thus does not deal with the death of individual Christians before Christ’s Parousia, when their souls enter heaven while their bodies still wait in the dust of the earth.

1 Peter 1:6

6 First, certainty; next, joy. First, living hope, an inheritance safely kept for us in heaven, and we ourselves kept for this inheritance; next, while we wait, joy despite trials, these trials only refining us like gold. The grand doxology simply moves forward with a relative clause. This is Greek, which loves connectives, tying though to thought; in English we should place a period and begin a main clause. Peter thus proceeds: in which you continue to exult though now for a little while, if it is necessary, put to grief in manifold trials in order that the testing out of your faith, (a testing out) more precious than of gold that perishes though tested out by means of fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at Jesus Christ’s revelation, whom, etc.

The ἐνκαιρῷἐσχάτῳ is not to be regarded as a date for the revelation of our salvation. The word καιρο͂ς should obviate this thought. Peter does not say “at the last day” or mean “at the last period” (a kairos of a 1, 000 years) but says “in connection with the last period.” The revelation of our salvation is connected with the present period of time in which we are living. The connection is the thought that the revelation may occur at any moment in this period. This was not the case during any previous period. Those who think of a future date make the present tense a future: “you will exult,” and then labor to prove this correct.

Or they make “in which” a neuter: in which things we exult, namely in our inheritance and in the coming revelation of our salvation. Yet ἀγαλλιάομαι is never construed with ἐν but with ἐπί to state the object “over” which one exults. “In which” is purely temporal, it equals “in this period” in connection with which our salvation is ready, is to be revealed at any moment.

“We continue to exult” is the durative indicative; there is nothing in this relative clause to indicate that this verb form is an imperative. This form of this verb is not found in the secular Greek; it generally occurs in the middle voice: jubelndes und danksagendes Lobpreisen (G. K., 19). Its meaning is much stronger than “rejoice,” yet we see no reason for making it a cultus term or for restricting the exultation to eschatology. Peter says that in this whole period we ever and ever exult, jubilate, celebrate, and do this in spite of the fact that we are subject to grief in manifold trials. The participle is concessive: “though now for a little while (accusative to indicate duration), if it is necessary, put to grief in manifold trials.” Compare James 1:2: “Consider it all joy when you fall into all kinds of trials,” where the same word πειρασμός is used, which means “trial” and not “temptation.” James regards the trials themselves as occasions for joy; Peter admits that they produce grief, but that our exulting is not lessened thereby.

Two points are touched upon in connection with this grief: it is only for a little while, it will soon cease; it occurs only when God finds it necessary. Robertson regards δέονἐστί as a periphrastic present tense; the neuter participle is but an adjective in the Greek, and there is no reason for a periphrastic present, which would overstress the duration and would conflict with “a little while.” In this wicked world, where we live as foreigners (v. 1), our trials are “manifold,” being now of one kind, now of another. They often hurt severely, yet we keep on jubilating and celebrating.

1 Peter 1:7

7 This sounds paradoxical. Like James (1:3), Peter solves the paradox. We see God’s purpose in these trials: “in order that the testing out of your faith, (a testing out) more precious than of gold that perishes though tested out by means of fire, may be found (aorist, definitely found) unto praise,” etc. We continue to exult; so little is the short grief of our trials able to stop us from exulting that, seeing God’s purpose in these trials, we exult the more. Gold is nothing but a perishing metal (descriptive present participle); it will not outlast this earth although it is now tested out by fire to prove that it is gold and not brass or something else. Paul loves the words δόκιμος, δοκιμάζω, the figure of testing out metals, coins, etc.

The form δοκίμιος is now recognized as an adjective on the basis of the papyri; both Peter and James (1:3) substantivize it and add the same genitive: “the testing out of your faith,” i. e., the genuineness of our faith established by test. This testing is more precious than that of gold even when (δέ) it is tested out and proved genuine by means of fire.

If gold, perishable though it is, being only of earthly, temporal value, is tested out and proved genuine, how much more should faith with its eternal value for us not also be tested and proved genuine? By mentioning fire as the means for proving gold genuine Peter alludes to our trials which often seem to be fiery. “In the fiery oven the straw burns, but the gold is purified.” Augustine. “The fire does not lessen the gold but makes it pure and bright, removing any admixture. So God lays the cross upon all Christians in order to purify and cleanse them well that their faith may remain pure even as the Word is pure, and that we may cling to the Word alone and trust in nothing else. For we all need such a purifying and cross greatly because of our old, gross Adam.” Luther. These fathers add a thought: that of removing dross from the gold, that of purifying our faith. Peter speaks only of proving the gold to be gold, the faith to be faith—τὸδοκίμιον, die Echtheit, the genuineness (B.-P. 316).

We are not merely put to grief but are put to grief for this great purpose of God: “to be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” We should not suppose that the genuineness of our faith will not be discovered by God (passive, not the middle) until the last day when Christ is revealed at the Parousia. “At the revelation of Jesus Christ” is not attached to “may be found” but belongs where Peter has it: “praise and glory and honor at (or in connection with, ἐν) the revelation,” etc. God finds the testing out, the genuineness, now whenever a successful test is made; and thus at Christ’s revelation he will bestow upon us “praise,” namely his commendation, “glory,” like the glory of Christ, and “honor,” high distinction. What God now finds (actually finds, aorist) is what pertains to the reward of grace which he will bestow upon us at the last day.

The claim that τὸδοκίμιον means Pruefungsmittel has Peter say that the means for testing us, namely the trials, are by God to be found more precious than fire which tests gold as though the comparative value of the means of testing us and of fire is to be determined. Peter speaks of the tested genuineness of our faith which God intends to find so as to reward it at the last day and states that such genuineness is more valuable than any tested genuineness of gold although men do test out gold even by fire in order to make sure that it is genuine gold. Peter does not say that faith is like gold, trials like fire, but that the genuineness of the one is like that of the other, save that that of faith is the more valuable.

In v. 5 our “salvation is to be revealed”; now Peter uses the noun and says “at Jesus Christ’s revelation.” Now we appear only as foreigners in the world (v. 1), all the praise, glory, and honor are still unseen; so Christ, too, is hidden and veiled, and men do not see him. 1 John 3:2. A complete revelation shall take place at the last day. When Christ shall be revealed to the whole earthly universe, our heavenly salvation shall also be revealed. This double revelation is one that shall take place before the universe, no less. No wonder Christians jubilate and exult.

1 Peter 1:8

8 Peter continues with relative clauses: whom not having seen you continue to love, in whom, now not seeing yet believing, you continue to exult with joy inexpressible and glorified, bringing away the end of your faith, salvation of souls.

We usually love one whom we have seen and have in this way come to prize, we also continue to love him after he is gone. But Peter’s readers had never seen Jesus and therefore could not love him in this way. Although they had never looked upon him with their natural eyes they continue to love him (ἀγαπᾶν) with the high love of intelligence and corresponding purpose. A contrast with Peter himself is implied, for Peter had seen Jesus both before and after his resurrection (John 21:15, etc.: “Lovest thou me?” asked first with ἀγαπᾶν and then with even φιλεῖν). Peter silently places himself below his readers. It is more praiseworthy to love as they do than to love as Peter does.

Peter mentions love first and faith second, the fruit and then the tree; he could, of course, have reversed this order. We note, too, that he uses two finite verbs to express the loving and the exultation, for he intends to coordinate these two feelings. Faith is expressed by a participle, but only in order to make it the source of the exultation: “in whom, now not seeing yet believing, you continue to exult,” etc. Εἰςὄν is to be construed with πιστεύοντες, their trust goes out to him. This is the same conception of faith that we find in Heb. 11:1, “conviction in regard to things not seen.” Peter must have had in mind the words of Jesus: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed!” John 20:29. Thomas demanded to see before he would believe; it was no credit to him. Peter’s readers were doing far better than that.

Οὑ with a participle is exceptional, μή is the common negation with participles. When the former is used, there is always a reason for such a construction; that is especially the case in this sentence where both οὑ and μή appear. To speak of objective and subjective negation is a distinction that was formerly made; likewise to speak of fact and of condition or to deny that there is a distinction. “Here οὑ harmonizes with the tense of μή as an actual experience while μή with ὁρῶντες is in accord with the concessive idea in contrast with πιστεύοντες.” R. 1138. You did not (οὑ) see him states the clear-cut fact as such a fact; you do not (μή) see him simply states the present fact in the ordinary Greek way.

Peter repeats “you continue to exult” from v. 6. The tense is the same although some texts have the active form instead of the middle of the second verb. It is again stated that this present tense must have a future meaning: “you shall exult.” We are told that exulting with inexpressible and glorified joy can refer only to the exultation at the last day, and that not seeing Jesus now implies that we shall see him at the last day, and that this gives a future meaning to “you exult.” But these efforts to secure a future meaning for the verb are misdirected. We have three verbs in the present tense: “you continue to exult (v. 6)—you continue to love—you continue to exult,” the third verb even repeating the first. This third present verb is modified by two present participles, “believing while not seeing” (actions that certainly take place now) and “bringing away the end of your faith,” an action that also takes place now as one after the other of the readers dies and thus brings away the end of his faith, eternal salvation. In the face of this it is impossible to put a future meaning into this plain present indicative “you are exulting.”

But is our exulting now a jubilation “with joy inexpressible and glorified” (perfect participle: one that has been and thus is now glorified)? The answer is found in 4:14: “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed (are you)! because the Spirit of the (divine) glory and of God is resting upon you.” This beatitude has us exult now with a joy which is beyond poor human utterance (ἀνεκλάλητος) and glorified by the Spirit of glory. We are not yet glorified, but our joy is, for we have tasted of the powers of the eons to come (Heb. 6:5) and cannot utter what this taste really is because it is filled with glory. Peter puts “glorified” in the second place, because he would state why our joy cannot be put into utterance. Those who call this extravagant language have not caught the spirit of Peter.

It is sometimes assumed that the construction of ἀγαλλιᾶσθε is loose or irregular; Peter is carried away by his thought. It is expected that with αἰςὅν, κτλ., Peter should state in whom the readers exult just as he states whom we love. Since Peter does not do this, an irregularity is assumed. But let us note what Peter writes: “whom not having seen you continue to love; believing in whom you do not now see, you continue to exult,” etc. The second verb needs no object; as it needs and has none in v. 6, so again it needs none in v. 8. In v. 6 Peter writes: “we continue to exult though having been grieved,” etc.; in v. 8 he writes in the same way but now uses two participles: “believing, we continue to exult, bringing away the end of our faith,” etc. All is as regular as one could wish it.

1 Peter 1:9

9 Κομιζόμενοι is used as it is in Heb. 10:36; 11:13, 19, 39 and means, “carrying or bringing away for yourselves” so as to have and ever after to enjoy. The present participle is iterative: one by one carries away the τέλος, “the end or goal” of his faith, which Peter himself defines as “salvation of souls,” namely the final rescue when the soul enters heaven. Φυχή is not in contrast with “body” as though only the soul is finally saved; the word designates the person, the real being that is saved, and not merely a part of it. When the soul is saved, the body, too, is saved and will in due time join the soul.

1 Peter 1:10

10 First, certainty; next exultation; and now as the third part of the great doxology, the divine means for bestowing both on the readers, the gospel of the prophets that was preached by the preachers who were sent by the Holy Spirit. As it did in v. 6, the doxology continues with a relative, the antecedent of which is incorporated: concerning which salvation there earnestly sought and searched prophets, they who prophesied concerning this grace regarding you, searching in regard to what or what kind of period the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when testifying in advance about the sufferings regarding Christ and the glories after them; to whom, etc. “For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them,” Matt. 13:17.

What the prophets sought to find out concerned the salvation which Peter has just mentioned; the question they sought to answer shows that it concerned this salvation and thus why Peter speaks of their search, their question, and its answer in his doxology. The verb is repeated for the sake of emphasis, and both verbs are compounded with intensifying ἐκ: “they earnestly sought and earnestly searched.” The former is more general, the latter more specific, applying, as it does, also to documents (the simplex is used in John 5:39: “Search the Scriptures”). The second verb is even repeated with a participle: “searching” (v. 11), which drops ἐκ as is usual in such repetitions (R. 563).

“Prophets” did this, i. e., men who were prophets. The apposition does not restrict this word to a certain number as though not all of them searched thus; it describes all of them as “the men who prophesied concerning this grace regarding you” (εἰς occurs several times in this sense). The repetition “prophets—they who prophesied” emphasizes the character and the function of these men: men who were chosen by God as his mouthpiece. “As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began,” Luke 1:70. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself,” Luke 24:26, 27. Note also: “the Lord God of the holy prophets,” Rev. 22:6. The apposition is Peter’s own; it is he who says that they prophesied “concerning this grace regarding you”; the fulfillment of their prophecies had become reality when Peter wrote.

The article used with χάριτος and the attributive phrase mean “this grace regarding you.” “Grace” has the same force it had in v. 2: all the unmerited favor Dei which Peter’s readers were receiving. The ancient prophets had told all about it throughout all of the past ages. We should not omit David (Acts 2:30), nor Moses (John 5:46; Acts 26:22; Deut. 18:15, 18). Peter’s reference to the prophets does not make all his readers former Jews. Not only did the whole Gentile church have the Old Testament as its Bible; from beginning to end this Bible told of the grace of God regarding also the Gentiles.

1 Peter 1:11

11 The question which all of the prophets sought to answer from their own prophecies was “in regard to what (period) or what kind of period the Spirit in them was indicating when testifying in advance about the sufferings regarding Christ and the glories after them.” The question is alternative, and “or” is not disjunctive (as if two contrasted questions are referred to) but conjunctive (one question that could be stated either way): “What or what kind of period is this?” In regard to this the prophets kept making search. The idea is not that they were learned theologians who were pursuing scholarly investigations; they were men who were filled with a great desire for the arrival of this great “period” of grace, who longed for nothing more than themselves to see this period. “Was indicating” is the imperfect and describes how the Holy Spirit kept making such indication.

It is noteworthy that Peter writes “the Spirit of Christ” just as in other passages the Scriptures use the expression “the Spirit of God.” The deity and the pre-existence of Christ are involved: Christ’s Spirit testified in advance about Christ’s sufferings and glories, i. e., when as the incarnate Logos he would suffer in his humiliation and after that be crowned with glories in his exaltation. We usually note the singular “glory” in such connections; here the plural “glories” matches the plural “sufferings” and is used on this account. Both “sufferings” and “glories” pertain to Christ’s human nature. The two εἰς = “regarding,” “in regard to”; they are like the εἰς used in v. 10.

Two great thoughts are stated: 1) the Holy Spirit was in the prophets when he testified as he did; 2) these prophets studied their own utterances and writings in order to discover what they contained. This comprises the entire doctrine of the Inspiration of the Scriptures. The Spirit spoke through the prophets; much that he said the prophets themselves did not at once grasp but studied to discover it somewhat as a messenger may study some message he is ordered to transmit. “For not by man’s will has prophecy ever come, but, being borne along by the Holy Spirit, men made utterance from God,” 2 Pet. 2:21.

It is asked: “Where do the prophets say that they are ever searching in regard to what period or what kind of period the Spirit indicates in the prophecies about Christ?” One may reply by asking: “Where does the Old Testament say that many prophets and kings desired to see and to hear what the Twelve saw and heard?” (Matt. 13:17). The longing for the days of the Messiah runs through the entire Old Testament. It begins with Eve (Gen. 4:1). On the strength of such a question to make these prophets New Testament prophets, and to state that these are not the apostles but other prophets, is to invite the counterquestion: “Where does the New Testament say that these prophets made such inquiries?” Therefore this view cannot be successfully sustained.

1 Peter 1:12

12 The two aorists occurring in v. 10: “prophets earnestly sought and earnestly searched,” already imply that they obtained an answer to their question. This is now stated: to whom it was revealed that not for themselves but for you they were ministering the things which now have been announced to you by means of those preaching the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit commissioned from heaven, into which things (even) angels desire to look.

The answer came to the prophets by means of revelation, through the same Spirit who testified to them about the suffering and the glorified Savior. There is no need to regard this as a special, separate revelation, apart from and different from the revelations which the prophets received otherwise. We know of no such peculiar difference. Matt. 13:17 extends the longing beyond the prophets themselves; it includes many righteous. “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” was the cry of many (Isa. 22:11); and the prophet foretells that Israel’s “watchman shall lift up the voice” when the beautiful feet of messengers bring the tidings of salvation (Isa. 52:7, 8).

In the meantime the revelation granted to the prophets was to the effect that not for themselves but for the readers of Peter’s letter were they ministering in regard to the things which the gospel messengers had now announced to Peter’s readers. The imperfect “were ministering” is descriptive, it does not, however, imply that their ministry had nothing to do with themselves and with the generations of their time but that the great events which the Spirit was testifying to in advance, the sufferings pertaining to Christ and his glories, were to occur in the future, were to be announced or proclaimed (second aorist passive) as having occurred to future generations and thus to Peter’s present readers.

It is stated that this was not a satisfactory answer to the question of the prophets. It was a most pertinent answer. Like so many of the answers that Jesus gave to questions that were put to him, this answer which was revealed to the prophets stated the main thought, namely that, following Christ’s humiliation and exaltation, there would come the world-wide announcement of the saving gospel. The Spirit thus shed a flood of light on all the Messianic prophecies that reached beyond the Jewish nation, thus on Gen. 22:17, 18, Abraham’s children that are to be as numerous as the stars, his seed blessing “all the nations of the earth”; on Isa. 2:2–5, all nations flowing unto the exalted house of the Lord. These are but a few samples. We have the corresponding thought of the New Testament: Jesus picturing many coming from the east and the west to feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom (Matt. 8:11); the writer of Hebrews (11:40) saying that the Old Testament believers are to reach the goal “not without us” of the New Testament. These are again but a few samples.

Instead of stating the thought abstractly, namely that the prophets were ministering to future generations in many nations, Peter states it concretely and personally: “ministering to you,” and even adds: “these things which have been announced (aorist in the Greek which cares to state only the past fact) to you by means of those gospelizing you,” etc. αὑτὰἅ belong together; it is incorrect to say that the relative clause introduces a new line of thought. It is likewise incorrect to assert that “the ones who preached the gospel to you” (ὑμᾶς, this verb is construed with the dative or with the accusative) does not include the apostles, in this case Paul who labored in Galatia and in the province of Asia. We know what these things were which the gospel preachers published, which Peter’s readers had heard and believed, the very things which the Spirit had testified in advance, the sufferings and glories of Christ, now no longer to be awaited, now realities that had come to pass. All these preachers used the old prophecies in all of their preaching; the old prophets were, indeed, ministering to Peter’s readers.

The whole New Testament gospel rests on the Spirit’s Old Testament testimony that was made through the Old Testament prophets. Cancel that testimony, and you remove the basis of the gospel of Christ. It was revealed to the prophets that their ministry was to be far grander than a ministry merely for themselves and for their time; it was a ministry for all of the future ages, for Peter’s readers as well as for us to this day. The doxology of Peter is thus justified also in view of the means which God employed for our salvation and faith, namely the prophetic Word of the Old Testament followed by the New Testament preaching.

It makes little difference whether we have a simple dative ΠνεύματιἉγίῳ or ἐν with this dative: “by the Holy Spirit” or “in connection with the Holy Spirit.” The addition “sent or commissioned from heaven” undoubtedly refers to the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost. The Spirit moved these gospel preachers. If we could limit “those gospelizing you” to the apostles we should be willing to make this reference to the Spirit refer to inspiration; but we see no way of establishing this limitation. Not even historically. Was Barnabas inspired every time he preached in Galatia? Were the other assistants of Paul always inspired when they preached in Asia?

We do not know who the preachers were that evangelized Pontus, Bithynia, and Cappadocia but we hesitate to claim inspiration for them. In fact, Gal. 2:11, etc., teaches us that even Peter was not always inspired.

The ἅ clause is paralleled by the εἰςἅ clause, and both depend on αὑτά. So great and blessed are the things pertaining to Christ that the Spirit who inspired the prophets testified them in advance; that the Spirit enabled the gospel preachers to announce them whereever they went; and that even “angels desire to look into them.” We may recall Exod. 25:20, 21, the cherubim on the mercy seat in the Tabernacle; the seraphim in Isa. 6:2–8; the angels in connection with the giving of the law, Acts 7:53; the angels in connection with the birth and in connection with the resurrection of Christ, and many other instances; their ministering to the heirs of salvation; and then Eph. 3:10, the manifold wisdom of God, hidden from the beginning in God, made known to the angels by means of (διά) the New Testament Una Sancta. The anarthrous ἄγγελοι emphasizes the fact that these beings are “angels.” The aorist infinitive means “to look into” effectively so as to understand. The verb itself does not mean a mere glance, “to peep covertly into,” but simply “to look”; it conveys the thought that even when they do look such heavenly beings cannot fully understand all that these great things pertaining to Christ and to our salvation contain.

Peter has the climax: prophets—gospel preachers—angels, all concerned with Christ and our salvation, the Holy Spirit being back of them all. Add this third part of the doxology to the other two parts with all that they touch upon and it will become evident that this doxology is in grandeur second only to the one Paul wrote in Eph. 1:3–14.

Hortations Due to the Relation to God, 1:13–2:10

Be Holy in All Your Conduct, v. 13–16

1 Peter 1:13

13 With διό Peter bases his hortation on the entire preceding doxology in which he expects his readers to join. Realizing all that his doxology says of them in their blessed relation to God, the readers will be ready to respond to the admonitions that are then justified. The first of these is that their whole manner of life should be holy even as the God whose praise they sing is holy.

Wherefore, having girded up the loins of your mind, as being sober, set your hope completely on the grace being brought to you in connection with Jesus Christ’s revelation, as children of obedience not fashioning yourselves to the former lusts in the (old) ignorance, on the contrary, in accord with the Holy One who called you be you also on your part holy in all conduct!

Girding up the loins refers to the long, loose robes worn by Orientals, which were drawn up and belted at the waist when one wanted to walk or work with energy. This expression is used figuratively with reference to the mind, which includes thinking as well as the resultant willing, and the thought is: “Make up your minds decisively!” hence the aorist is used. Instead of letting their thoughts, purposes, decisions hang loose while they move leisurely along in life as impulse and occasion may move them, the readers are to gird up their minds like people who are energetically set on going somewhere. To gird up the loins means business, decision, action, not idling, not drifting after this and that momentary attraction.

The first participle is a decisive aorist, the second a present tense that describes a state: “as being sober,” as having this quality. Our versions translate it with an imperative, but they do so only in order to make their English smoother. Both participles, the one denoting an act, the other a state, are subsidiary to the main verb “set your hope upon”; in order to do this one must make up his mind (aorist) and must be in a state of soberness (present). Sobrietas spiritualis is referred to, which is so frequently inculcated in Scripture: 4:7; 5:8; 1 Thess. 5:6, 8; Titus 2:4, 6; etc. Soberness is the opposite of infatuation with the things of this world, a calm, steady state of mind which weighs and estimates things aright and thus enables us to make the right decision. Not only the world with its allurements but also the various forms of religious error and delusion intoxicate the mind. The tenses determine the order: in a sober state of mind the readers are to make up their mind.

Thus they are to set their hope completely, with finality, on the grace being brought to them in connection with Jesus Christ’s revelation. We cannot agree with Hort and M.-M. 629, who construe the adverb with the participle, even when the combination is understood to mean: “being sober with perfect sobriety.” Τελείως does not mean “perfectly”; it conveys the idea of τέλος and thus=“with finality,” in a way that ends matters. One is not sober in this way, but one may set his hope on something in this way. The English translation “to be perfectly sober” should not mislead the reader in regard to this Greek adverb. The aorist imperative goes well with the adverb: “set your hope with finality on the grace being brought to you,” i. e., do not set your hope on this grace only tentatively or in a halfhearted way. This aorist is not constative as combining all of the hoping in the readers’ lives; it denotes one decisive act.

Peter reverts to v. 3, to the living hope to which the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begot the readers. Hope is a key word of this epistle. It expects something in the future. Peter has already said that this is an inheritance incorruptible, unstained, unfading, kept for us in the heavens. He is not repeating this sure object of our hope but tells his readers on what they are to rest their hope for the heavenly inheritance, namely on God’s grace (v. 2 and 10), “the grace now being brought to us in connection with Jesus Christ’s revelation.” Some again misunderstand ἐν when they translate (as do our versions) “at Jesus Christ’s revelation.” In the first place, as was the case in v. 7, “Jesus Christ’s revelation” undoubtedly is his Parousia (compare, 4:13; 1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7; Rev. 1:1) and not some other revelation (the incarnation or the resurrection). Are we to set our hope on a future grace at the end of the world so that the present participle “being brought” really means “will be brought”?

These misunderstandings are cleared up when ἐν is properly understood. The grace on which we are to set our hope is the same as that mentioned in v. 2 and 10, which is brought to us now in Word and sacrament (constantly brought, present participle), and this grace is connected with (ἐν, in connection with) Christ’s coming revelation, with his Parousia; for all the grace which we constantly receive points us to the glory and the inheritance of the last day. That is why we are to set our hope on this grace, it will carry us safely to the last day.

1 Peter 1:14

14 Hope and holiness are closely associated in the Scriptures and must not be separated in life; compare, 1 John 3:3: “And everyone that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” So Peter writes: “as children of obedience not fashioning yourselves to the former lusts in the (old) ignorance” etc. “Children of obedience” takes us back to v. 3 God “begot us again to a living hope”; also to v. 2: “in sanctification unto obedience.” Childhood and obedience go together. Luther and the A. V. translate: “as obedient children”; but the genitive is stronger than that. It describes the constitution and the character of these children, which is impressed upon them from their very birth, belongs to their very nature. In the same way they are termed “children of light,” Eph. 5:8; the ungodly are “the sons of the disobedience,” Eph. 2:2, and in v. 3, “children of wrath,” in 2 Pet. 2:14, “children of curse.”

The obedience here referred to is obedience to God’s saving will or to the gospel and not a mere legal obedience or a moral life apart from the gospel. It consists in believing in Christ and in following him in love. “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent,” John 6:29.

What we are by virtue of our new spiritual nature must be manifested in our life and actions. Thus negatively: “not fashioning yourselves to the former lusts in the (old) ignorance.” Συσχηματίζεσθαι = to adopt a certain σχῆμα for oneself, and here σχῆμα (our “scheme”) is a certain form, fashion, or design of life, a habitus. Instead of referring to the wrong fashion of others as Paul does in Rom. 12:2: “Be not fashioned according to this world,” Peter points to the wrong fashion of life which his readers themselves formerly had: not fashioning yourselves “to the lusts formerly in your ignorance.” “Formerly” = before God begot you again (v. 3). “Formerly in the ignorance” is attributive, being placed between ταῖς and ἀπιθυμίαις, and thus describes the lusts referred to, Begierden, which is really a vox media, “desires,” but is seldom used in a good sense. It would be monstrous for children of obedience to go back and to fashion and fit themselves again to those lusts of a former time “in the ignorance” in which they then lived. What have children of obedience to do with those old castoff lusts? The involuntary response must be: “Nothing whatever!”

“The ignorance” means pagan ignorance as it does in Acts 17:30 and Eph. 4:18. An issue is made of the use of this word in the present connection; it is said that the word shows that the readers were former Jews. Now ignorance is predicated also of the Jews in Acts 3:17; Rom. 10:3 (Luke 23:34; John 8:19); 1 Tim. 1:13. But there was this difference: the Jews knew God and his Word, the pagans did not. The Jews were zealous about God, “but not according to knowledge,” Rom. 10:2; the pagans ran after idols. The Jews ignorantly tried to set up their own righteousness, Rom. 10:3, etc.; the pagans were ignorant of even the false Jewish righteousness.

The Jews, too, lived “in the lusts of their flesh,” Eph. 2:3, but not because of ignorance; they made the law an outward, formal thing, but the very Word they had contradicted them. Pagan ignorance was a mark of the lusts of pagans. One cannot prove that Peter’s readers were former Jews by means of these lusts formerly “in ignorance.” Some were former Jews, most of them were former pagans.

1 Peter 1:15

15 From the negative side Peter turns to the positive with the strong adversative ἀλλά; he does not, however, continue the participial construction but changes to a strong imperative: “on the contrary, in accord with the Holy One who called you be you also on your part holy in all conduct!” R. 127 calls the way in which Peter places modifiers between the article and the noun Thucididean; thus τὸυκαλέσανταὑμᾶςἅγιον. God is called “the Holy One” as our Caller in order to show that we, too, must be holy.

To the ideas of Father, children, being begotten again, Peter adds that of being called. The call brings us to him; and since he is holy, all those who are called must also be holy. God is holy in that he loves all that is pure and good and hates, abominates, and punishes all that is sinful. God is absolutely and per se immutably holy from all eternity, and he has without deviation revealed himself to men as being holy. But this revelation was given for the purpose of lifting us, who had fallen into sin, back unto holiness, for God is the source of holiness for men. Peter writes that the Holy One has called us to communion with himself, out of the darkness of ignorance to his own marvelous light (2:9), out of evil unto blessing (3:9), out of shame to eternal glory in Christ (5:10).

The aorist participle “called you” is historical and states the fact. The tense also implies that the call was effective, it brought the readers to faith and fellowship with the Holy One. The call is always issued by means of the gospel, which comes through “those preaching the gospel” (v. 12) and is filled with the saving power of grace. Αὑτοί is emphatic: “you also on your part,” and the aorist imperative γενήθητε, which matches the aorist ἐλπίσατε, is simply a substitute for the aorist of εἶναι, which is not used. The passive form is only a form. The Koine loves and even coins such passives. The meaning is not “become!” but “be!” i. e., be decisively, settle it once for all that you be holy. When πᾶς has the article following it, it denotes a whole; when it is used without the article, as it is here, it summarizes a multiplicity: all or every manner of conduct, whether in business or pleasure, labor or rest, joy or sorrow, easy or difficult situations.

To be holy is our obligation, but not in the sense of an outward, legal requirement that is laid upon us, for which we must furnish the ability and the power, but as the result of God’s call which furnishes the power and the ability. The gospel call to holiness always includes the bestowal of this spiritual power. The hand that points us to holiness is the hand that extends its grace to us to make us holy; by pointing us upward it lifts us upward. Thus the plea is cut off: “I am not able to be holy.” The call to be holy implies that we still lack complete holiness, but also that we are able to overcome this lack by grace. This call spurs us on to use God’s grace to the fullest extent in every part of our conduct so as to make it pleasing to the Holy One.

1 Peter 1:16

16 An Old Testament statement is cited to fortify Peter’s injunction: wherefore it has been written and thus stands on record to this day (perfect tense): Holy shall you be because I myself am holy, Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:26. The future tense is imperatival. The requirement of holiness is fundamental for God’s children in both Testaments. What God asked of Israel when he made that people his own he now asks and must ask of us whom he has called by Jesus Christ. God does not connive at sin and unholy living since forgiveness has come through Christ. Let no one think that he can remain among the children of obedience while he still fashions his conduct according to the old lusts.

Only the pure in heart shall see God, and without holiness it is impossible to see him. Christ died, not to save us in our sins, but from our sins.

Conduct Yourselves in Fear, v. 17–21

1 Peter 1:17

17 When Peter calls God “the Holy One,” who himself emphasizes the fact that he is holy, he indicates that men are to fear God, especially when they approach him. For that reason this second hortation follows the first, that the Holy One’s children must themselves be holy. As the Holy One, God is the incorruptible Judge whom even we, his children, must face. Rabbinical Judaism preserved the conception of the rex tremendae majestatis who is approached only in fear. In the Jewish prayer Shemone-Esre he is addressed as the “great, mighty, and terrible God,” and again: “Holy art thou, and terrible is thy name.” G. K. 98. With our great hope in God we must combine holy fear in all our earthly conduct.

Thus Peter continues: And if you call as Father upon him who without respect to persons judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear for the time of your being transients, knowing that not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, were you ransomed out of your vain conduct handed down by your fathers but with precious blood as of a lamb blemishless and spotless, (namely that) of Christ, foreknown, on the one hand, before the world’s foundation, made manifest, on the other hand, at the end of the times because of you, the believers through him in God, the One who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope is with respect to God.

Καί connects this section directly with the previous hortation; the third hortation, v. 22, has no connective. “As children of obedience” of the One who begot us (v. 3) and is holy we, too, must be holy (v. 16). As his children we will call upon him as “Father,” we will draw near to the Holy One in prayer, and we must, therefore, conduct ourselves for the time that we are aliens in this world with holy fear lest at any time we lift up to the Holy One hands that are not holy (1 Tim. 2:8) but stained with sin. The condition “if you call upon” is one of reality and takes it for granted that the readers do so, the present tense is iterative. To keep calling upon God “as Father” is to assume the position and to perform the acts of “obedient children” (v. 14) and to ask for this Father’s gifts and blessings. Our calling upon him as Father is our answer to his having called us to be his own (v. 15).

But note well that when we call upon God “as Father,” it is God, “the Holy One,” he who in his holiness “without respect to persons judges each one’s work.” Obedient children will be the last to approach God with presumption and to imagine that all they need to do is to call him “Father” in order to be acknowledged as his children. This the scribes and Pharisees once did (John 8:3), whom Jesus told that they knew neither him nor the Father (v. 19) and by their deeds proved to them that God was not their Father, that their father was the devil (v. 42–44), for he that is of God heareth God’s words, which they did not do because they were not of God, they were not his children, he was not their Father (v. 47). Peter has in mind the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven,” but also all that he had heard Jesus say to the scribes and Pharisees, all that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount about the Father seeing in secret (Matt. 6:4, 6), as well as many another word about God’s Fatherhood and our childhood and sonship.

So many still think only of the word “Father” and forget that he is “the Holy One who without respect to persons judges each one according to his works.” They convert him into an indulgent grandfather God who shuts an eye to the sins of his children, who, like Eli of old, takes no stern measures with them when they disobey. Not in vain do the apostles constantly repeat that God is no respecter of persons, that as such he accepts both Jewish and Gentile believers as children (Acts 10:34) but also judges all with absolute impartiality (Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; James 2:1).

This compound of πρόσωπον, “face, countenance,” and λαμβάνιεν, “to take or accept,” means that a judge shows favoritism to the person at the bar in disregard of the evidence and the facts of the case. God judges every man without favoritism or partiality of any kind “in accord with that man’s work.” Πατέρα is the predicate object, τόνκρίνοντα the direct object, the substantivized present participle being qualitative: “him who judges” now or at any time.

The plural “works” is usually used, and this spreads them out; the singular “work” summarizes. We should not think that God selects only one work or a few that are either fair or faulty; he takes the real sum and substance of each man’s life, which is either a doing of his gospel will or a rejection of that will. There is no discrepancy between judging according to work and judging according to faith: the work is the evidence of the presence or of the absence of faith. God sees and knows both the faith and its work as also the unbelief and its work; but in his public judgment he refers to the work because this is the public evidence which all men and all angels can see, all thus corroborate God’s just and impartial judgments. No Christian is exempt from judgment. In fact, every Christian is happy to be judged, for his faith itself is the truest obedience, and all its fruit of work is evidence of that obedience and itself also true obedience.

On this ground Peter rests his hortation “conduct yourselves (second passive in the middle sense, intransitive) for the time of your παροικία (your being transients or πάροικοι, 2:11) in fear.” The verb resumes ἀναστροφή which was used in v. 16; the aorist imperative is peremptory and is in line with the imperatives used in v. 13 and 15. This is not the “fear” of slaves which casts out love (1 John 4:18), nor the awe of the infinite Creator in which the creature must stand, but the fear which is opposed to security, lightness, and indifference of mind in regard to God and his saving will and Word. “Fear God” (2:17). “Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God,” 2 Cor. 7:1. We call the impartial Judge our Father and ask his fatherly gifts and blessings; instead of destroying this relation our fear conserves it. Knowing that this impartial Judge is our Father, our fear will keep us from compelling him to disown and disinherit us.

As long as we are in this our παροικία, living as outsiders in this sinful world (“foreigners,” in v. 1), beset with temptations and assailed even by our own flesh, this true and proper fear should never leave our hearts. Barnabas, one of the postapostolic fathers, wrote: “Let us be careful lest we yield to slothful rest and go to sleep in our sins after we have already been called so that the evil one may not get us into his power and exclude us from the kingdom of God.” Quenstedt adds: “The apostle does not mean, lest we be not in God’s grace but lest we fall from grace. Fear is the opposite of [false] security, not of joyful faith; and we do not reject the fear of vigilance and caution which is afraid of insulting God and falling into the danger of forsaking him, but we reject the fear that is due to doubt.”

When men demand a God whom they need not fear, they demand an idol that does not exist. To decry the holy fear of God as an unethical motive is to pervert it. To be sure, those who are not obedient children of this Father and holy Judge cannot have the right conception of this motive; what awaits them is the terror of the Lord whom they defy. The truer the child of God, the more this child will dread to offend, even to ignore God and his just judgment. A prevalent opinion thinks that only the Old Testament preaches fear, the New Testament nothing but love. Jesus and the entire New Testament bid us fear God.

1 Peter 1:18

18 What prompts this fear and must ever be its source is the preciousness of the ransom paid for us. The participle is causal: “conduct yourselves in fear because you know” (the participle is an aorist like the imperative). Called of God, the Holy One, who is the absolutely impartial Judge, and by that call made holy and obedient children who may approach and call upon God as their Father, the readers certainly know the great cost of their ransom from the old conduct which they inherited from their pagan forefathers. This immense price should keep them in holy fear lest it have been paid in vain for them, and the impartial Judge should be compelled to render a verdict against them who, after being called, after being his children, regarded that price as nothing and went back to their old conduct. What verdict this impartial Judge would have to pronounce upon them is apparent. Matt. 11:20–24; 12:41–45.

Ἐλυτρώθητε has its full native meaning, “you were ransomed,” set free by the payment of a λύτρον, a ransom price. This ransom is named together with the slavery and bondage from which it set the readers free. “The Son of man came … to give his life a ransom for many,” λύτρονἀντὶπολλῶν. See also Rom. 3:24; Col. 1:14; 1 Tim. 2:6; Titus 2:14; 1 Cor. 6:20. “You were bought with a price.” Peter emphasizes the greatness of the ransom price: “not with corruptible things,” and then names “silver or gold” as samples; compare v. 7, “gold that perishes.” The most precious earthly metals are corruptible and perishable because they have value only among men, only for time. They are here fitly singled out since earthly captives are ransomed by the payment of a money price.

“Out of your vain conduct handed down from your fathers” states the bondage from which no gold or silver and no price that men could pay was able to ransom them. All the treasure of the world could not ransom a single pagan and save him from his pagan life. No corrupt ransom can save from a corrupt life. Ἀναστροφή repeats the noun that was used in v. 15 and the verb that was used in v. 17. Peter calls this conduct ματαία, “vain,” in the sense that it fails to lead to the proper end. It was not κενή, “empty,” because it was filled with godlessness, lusts, and countless sins; but it led to no good end, it carried the readers farther and farther from God, and they became men who were hopelessly lost. This conduct the readers had “given over to them from their fathers,” it was the tradition they inherited; their fathers and former generations had nothing better to pass on to their descendants.

Peter does not mention original sin directly but implies its existence. Save for God and the ransom he provided, the readers would have remained in their frightful bondage.

Peter speaks only of ransoming from former conduct and not from the bondage of guilt. The reason is apparent, namely his admonition to holy conduct. In his explanation of the Second Article of the Creed Luther also states this purpose of the ransoming: “purchased and won me … not with silver or gold but with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death, that I may be his own, and live under him in his kingdom and serve him,” etc., with a totally new conduct. The ransoming out of vain conduct and out of guilt always go together. The old, unregenerate conduct is full of guilt and curse; to be placed in the new, regenerate conduct means to be freed from the old conduct and from its guilt.

“Handed down by your fathers” has been regarded as a reference to the Jews in an attempt to prove that Peter’s readers were former Jews, for were they not strong traditionalists who clung to the teachings of their fathers? But the real fathers of the Jews were the patriarchs, prophets, etc. Peter’s adjective refers to the entire conduct and not to a matter such as the traditions of the Pharisees who were but a Jewish sect. Peter has in mind the whole round of pagan life; he is writing to Christians who, for the most part, have come out of paganism and its dreadful bondage.

1 Peter 1:19

19 Great was the ransom price that was paid, it was “precious blood.” The word τίμιος is already significant, for animal blood would scarcely be called “precious.” Precious fits the idea of ransom, for ransom prices are high, a cheap ransom is out of the question, even silver and gold do not suffice. The fact that precious “blood” was paid as the ransom price for the readers at once suggests that someone died in their stead. Peter surely has in mind Matt. 20:28: δοῦναιτήνψυχὴναὑτοῦλύτρονἀντὶπολλῶν, “to give his life a ransom for many”; also John 10:15 (and 17): τὴνψυχήνμουτίθημιὑπὲρτῶνπροβάτων, “my life I lay down in behalf of the sheep.” When Peter says “with precious blood” he undoubtedly means sacrificial blood shed in a sacrificial, expiatory death. That is why he does not say “death,” for a death might occur in many ways and not necessarily by the shedding of blood. The connotation of sacrifice and substitution in “blood” has been denied; but all that one needs to do is to review the passages which deal with Christ’s blood and his bloody death to see that this denial must itself be denied.

We construe together: “with precious blood as of a lamb blemishless and spotless.” This combination brings out completely the thought that sacrificial, expiatory, substitutional blood is referred to. The very word “lamb” = one slain in sacrifice. Peter undoubtedly has in mind John 1:29, the words of the Baptist, whose disciple Peter had once been: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” plus v. 34: “This is the Son of God,” whose blood is “precious” indeed.

It is generally assumed that Peter is thinking of Isa. 53, but it is debated whether he has in mind also the other sacrifices of lambs, in particular the Paschal lamb. Of what did the Baptist think when he called Jesus “the Lamb of God”? In our opinion this debate is misleading. It is settled when we note that Peter does not use ὡς as a comparative, in the sense of “like of a lamb,” i. e., like some lamb in the Jewish sacrifices, but in the sense of reality, “as of a lamb.” Heb. 12:7 is another instance: ὡςυἱοῖςὑμῖνπροσφέρεταιὁΘεός: “as with sons, who are actually sons and not only like sons, God is dealing with you.” The Old Testament and the Baptist do no more than to furnish the term “lamb” to Peter, by which he means Christ himself in his sacrifice, he being the one and only Lamb.

This clears up several other points. First of all the two adjectives: ἀμώμουκαὶἀσπίλου, “of a lamb blemishless and spotless.” The second adjective is not used in the Old Testament with reference to the lambs to be sacrificed. Peter is thinking of Christ himself, of the antitype which exceeds the type, and thus designates him as “a lamb.” The point is that Christ is the great original, the types are only imperfect copies. This must not be reversed in our thinking so that Christ is made the copy. While ἄσπιλος may be used with reference to an animal, this is not done when blood and sacrifice are the context. Compare Eph. 5:27, “not having spot,” also 2 Pet. 3:14, both refer to persons.

The observation is correct that the second adjective determines the force of the first and not vice versa. In other words, the person of Christ himself is in the mind of the writer and not an animal (lamb) and its physical condition. The absence of the article which makes “of a lamb” qualitative, is like Rev. 5:6: ἀρνίονὡςἐσφαγμένον, “a Lamb as having been slain,” the noun is qualitative, ὡς again denotes actuality and is not to be taken in the sense of “like.” The meaning is not: “some lamb” belonging to a class of lambs, all of which are blemishless and spotless; but Christ alone as such a lamb, there being no other.

Secondly, this explains why the apposition “as of a lamb,” etc., is placed before “of Christ.” To state that this relation must be reversed, that “of Christ” is the apposition, implies that one does not understand “the refined accuracy” (Bigg, page 4) with which Peter uses ὡς, an accuracy that is found in “the masters’ style”; Bigg furnishes examples from Plato, Josephus, and the skillful writer of Hebrews (12:7): “This subtilty was a stumbling block in later Greek.” In 2:12 Peter has the other order, the apposition being placed Second: καταλαλοῦσινὑμῶνὡςκακοποιῶν.

1 Peter 1:20

20 Μέν and δέ balance the two participial modifiers, which bring out the thought that our ransom was certainly not paid with cheap, perishable values; it consists of precious blood of an incomparable lamb, namely of Christ, “foreknown, on the one hand (μέν), before the foundation of the world, made manifest, on the other hand (δέ), at the end of the times on your account,” etc. First a perfect passive participle to denote the entire extent of the foreknowing; next an aorist passive participle to indicate the one historical act of making manifest or publishing; both have God as the agent. Here, as in v. 1, efforts have been made to change God’s foreknowing into an act of the will, a decree, a foreordination or predestination. Peter might have said that Christ was predestinated, foreordained, elected, but he does not use such a term.

Other coordinate activities are necessarily connected with God’s foreknowledge, especially decisions of his will. These may precede or may follow his foreknowledge; but however closely related to it they may be, these acts are not the foreknowledge itself. When we say this we must ever remember that God is not subject to time, that for him there is no “before” and no “after”; to speak of a sequence in connection with God is to use poor human language because we cannot even think in other, more adequate terms. So we say that in regard to Christ and to his precious blood the foreknowledge of God rested on his gracious decision to send him as our Ransomer; because God so decided he foreknew, the verb implies, not a bare previous knowledge, but one in which God was most deeply concerned cum affectu et effectu. The two activities are clearly distinct as Peter himself shows in Acts 2:23, where he speaks of Christ’s deliverance into his sacrificial death “by the determinate counsel and (resting on this βουλή) foreknowledge of God.” In the same way God’s foreordination and counsel in regard to Christ are mentioned in Acts 4:28, but his foreknowledge is not referred to. For God, Christ was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Rev. 13:8.

Brenz writes thus: “The eye of God sees history in an entirely different way from the eye of flesh. God’s eye sees everything in an instant. If in the eyes of God, Christ had not already existed as the One incarnate, dead, and glorified in the time of Adam and of Abraham, the patriarchs could never have obtained forgiveness of sins and justification.” Besser’s statement is still better; he says that Christ’s sacrifice was seen by God as eternally present. “Before the foundation of the world” is an apostolic phrase, it = before time existed, thus in eternity, timelessly, God foreknew.

But all such references to eternity, as well as all connection between time and eternity, are beyond human comprehension. The foreknowledge in regard to Christ is connected with the foreknowledge concerning all who in the course of time come to believe in him, although in regard to them the foreordination follows the foreknowledge while in regard to Christ it precedes—as we remind ourselves anew in the poor human way of thinking to which we are bound, to which also Scripture condescends.

All that was foreknown by God before time and the world existed “was made manifest (or public) at the end of the times,” of those between Adam and the days of Christ on earth. This publication was made when our Ransomer finally appeared and shed his blood, and when the gospel news of his ransoming was announced to all the world. The question is asked as to whether Peter includes Christ’s pre-existence. It seems an idle question since Christ is the Son of God. The adjective ἔσχατον is used as a noun; compare “in the last days,” Acts 2:17, and ἐπʼ ἐσχάτουτῶνἡμερῶντούτων, “at the end of these days,” Heb. 1:1.

The blood of him who was thus foreknown by God eternally and manifested in the fulness of time has a preciousness which utterly outranks any ransom that consists of corruptible things. This blood is able to ransom our souls. We who know and consider this properly are bound to prize our ransoming so as to walk in fear in order that at the end God, the impartial Judge, may not pronounce upon us the awful verdict we should deserve if we disregarded or scorned this ransom.

1 Peter 1:21

21 Peter makes all that he says about Christ’s precious blood most personal when he says that Christ was foreknown and made manifest “because of you, the believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory.” The publication was intended for all men. When Peter says: δἰὑμᾶς, “because, on account of you” or “for your sakes” he singles out his readers because God’s saving acts were accomplishing their blessed purpose in them. Hence the apposition: you, “the believers through him in God,” etc.; πιστοί, like πιστεύω, is construed with εἰς. What Peter says may be addressed to us believers today. Christ and his ransoming blood are conceived as the medium or means that produce faith in the readers; and thus they are described as “the believers in God, the One who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,” etc. By means of these acts God declared that Christ’s blood was efficient as a ransom.

God raised up him who shed his blood and laid down his life for us and then exalted him in glory. Both statements refer to Christ’s human nature; on the glory compare John 17:1, 4, 5; on both acts Heb. 2:9, 10; 13:20. In both acts all the grace of God toward us is manifested mightily, which justifies our faith in him completely and sets before us foreigners in this world the most glorious hope. But we should remember that this God is our holy and impartial Judge who will most certainly judge us whom he ransomed for himself at so great a price.

“Of the sixty-two instances of ὥστε, with the infinitive in the New Testament nearly all are consecutive, not final nor even subfinal,” R. 1000; hence: “so that your faith and hope is with respect to (or toward) God” and not “might be” (our versions). The emphasis is on εἰςΘεόν; he is the great surety for both our faith or confidence and our hope. The latter is added with reference to Peter’s readers because they are addressed as “foreigners” in this world who have been begotten of God to a “living hope” (v. 1 and 3) and are to set their hope on God’s grace (v. 13). With their faith and their hope so solidly anchored, the readers are to watch their conduct so that it may ever be that of “obedient children” who are passing the time of their position as aliens in this foreign world in fear.

It is rather fanciful to find a parallelismus membrorum in this statement: faith directed to God as the One who raised up Christ, hope directed to him as to One who gave Christ glory. Both faith and hope are directed to God, both are supported by God’s raising up and glorifying Christ. Just as our faith looks to these two acts of God, so also does our hope. Nor should we say that “our faith is also hope toward God.” To say that ὑμῶν applies only to faith, and that “hope” is thus a predicate, is to misunderstand the Greek; “our” is to be construed with both nouns and need not be repeated. Hope is added to faith because “living hope” was mentioned in v. 3 and because of our setting our hope on God’s grace (v. 13). To place all the emphasis on “hope” is to do more than Peter himself does. Faith is never called “also hope.” To live as “foreigners” in this world is possible only when we have both faith and hope, both of them looking to God and to what he has done in Christ, our ransom, who freed us from the old bondage.

Love Each Other from the Heart, v. 22–25

1 Peter 1:22

22 God’s call makes us his obedient children (v. 14), and by putting us into this relation to him (faith, hope, fear) it also places us into relation with each other. Thus love to each other follows the fear of God. We may say that when all “foreigners” (v. 1) in a foreign land are of the same nation they will surely stick together and aid each other; much more will this be the case if they are brothers and sisters who have the same Father (v. 17, also v. 3). The two admonitions: ἐλπίσατε (v. 13) and ἀναστράφητε (v. 17) are closely connected and are, therefore, connected with καί; this third admonition: ἀγαπήσατε, a decisive aorist like the other two and thus belonging to them, is without a coordinating καί, it is thus left to stand more independently.

Having purified your souls in the obedience to the truth for unhypocritical brotherly affection, love each other from the heart strenuously as having been begotten again, not from corruptible seed, but from incorruptible by means of God’s living and abiding Word.

The two perfect participles, the one standing before, the other after the imperative, denote states that began in the past and are continuing: ἡγνικότες—ά, the purified state, the regenerate state that began at the time of the conversion of the readers is still their state. The second participle is passive, they were begotten (in v. 3 we have the simple aorist active to denote the past fact: “the One who begot”). If these two perfects were aorists, they would simply register the past facts; if they were present tenses they would denote only the present condition, the perfects say more. “Having purified” goes back only to the result of “having been begotten,” and hence the latter is added: the former is the proximate, the latter the ultimate reason; the one states what we were able to do, the other what God did regarding us.

Ἁγνίζω is used with reference to ritual purifying, but In the present connection it is moral: “having purified your souls in the obedience to the truth” (τῆςἀληθείας, an objective genitive). This recalls the “obedience” mentioned in v. 2 as well as the “children of obedience” mentioned in v. 14. “To the obedience” with its article is specific to denote the obedience which the truth requires and embraces the whole of it, the acceptance of the truth in faith and the submission to it in life. This truth is the whole gospel reality (ἀλήθεια, “reality”). Yet Peter refers only to that feature of the obedience which is especially required here: “for unhypocritical (unfeigned, sincere, honest) brotherly affection,” φιλαδελφία, a compound of φιλία affection, not ἀγάπη, which is reserved for the imperative. Brethren should have brotherly affection for each other (see the two verbs ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν in John 21:15–17). The adjective = not wearing a mask such as ancient actors wore on the stage to represent some fictitious character. There is always danger that we pretend like an actor instead of having actual affection.

To have purified our souls for sincere, brotherly affection is to have removed all evil thoughts and feelings from our hearts regarding our brethren; love has free room to exert itself. Purity and truth match. Truth itself is pure and produces purity; all impurity conflicts with the gospel truth. Truth and “unhypocritical” also match. Truth is honest, lies pretend and hide behind masks and shams. The A. V. follows the ill-attested variant which adds “through the Spirit,” which is correct enough but is not a part of the text.

With such purified souls Peter tells his readers to love each other from the heart strenuously. Again he writes an effective, strong aorist imperative (as he did in v. 13, 17). Ἐκκαρδίας (no article is needed with such phrases) recalls 1 John 3:18: “My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and truth.” “From the heart” marks the depth while the adverb ἐκτενῶς marks the intensity, “strenuously” as one stretches out and extends his effort to the limit. It is a mark of Peter’s style to have one modifier preceding, another following, each being placed with discrimination.

Our loving efforts are not always appreciated, are sometimes received with coldness or even rebuffs. Often, too, brethren are not very lovable, and while we ourselves have love in our heart we do not always manifest it fully. Many a child has loved father or mother, but when death calls one or the other away, it has regretted too late that it has not shown its love more fully while the parent was still alive. Peter is unlocking the floodgates so that the full stream may gush forth.

Ἀγαπᾶν = the love of full intelligence and understanding coupled with corresponding purpose. This verb is often faultily defined even in the dictionaries although it is found throughout Scripture. In the LXX it may still be used to denote the lower forms of love; in the New Testament the definition we here give is the one that applies throughout even when publicans love publicans.

1 Peter 1:23

23 “Having been born again” (compare v. 3) brings out the thought that Peter’s readers are, indeed, brethren, and are that in a far higher than the common, physical sense: “not from corruptible seed (σπορά, Aussaat, sown seed) but from incorruptible.” We have the same word which was used in v. 18: “not with corruptible things were you ransomed.” Corruptible seed brings forth flesh unto death; the incorruptible seed of the Word brings forth life everlasting. In v. 3 the One who begot us and to what he begot us are made prominent; now the divine seed or sowing by which we have been begotten as children of God is emphasized. “Out off” ἐκ, states the source of spiritual life and names the seed; διά adds the thought that this seed is the means for our being begotten and adds the idea of what this seed really is: “by means of God’s living and abiding Word,” v. 25: “And this is the utterance, the one proclaimed as good news to us,” i. e., the gospel.

“Living” recalls v. 3, “unto a living hope.” We construe both participles with λόγου and not with Θεοῦ. God is, indeed, often called “living,” but not “abiding.” With the expression “living and abiding Word” Peter simply states the main point of the quotation from Isa. 40:6–8; hence the R. V. margin should be canceled. Heb. 4:12 calls the Word “living and active”; Jesus says: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall not pass away,” Matt. 24:35. The point is to show the exalted nature of the life that is in us believers, the life that makes us brethren in the divine sense: we all have been begotten of incorruptible seed by means of God’s living and abiding Word. This life in us constitutes us “foreigners” to all unregenerate men, “elect,” and far above them (v. 1), a family and a brotherhood whose true fatherland is heaven, “the city that has the foundations, whose architect and maker is God,” Heb. 11:10. While we are, indeed, to love all men, yet as brethren we are able to love only those who are equally regenerated with us. “Love the brotherhood” (2:17). “Let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith,” Gal. 6:10.

1 Peter 1:24

24 Διότι introduces a quotation, yet not as a proof but only as a statement of the ancient prophet that says exactly what Peter himself says about the nature of the Word. It is so much to the point because it compares the corruptible and the incorruptible (flesh and the Word): for (to use the words of another, namely Isa. 40:6–8)

All flesh (is) as grass,

and all its glory as bloom of grass.

Withered the grass, fallen the bloom!

But the utterance of the Lord abides for the eon.

And this is the utterance, the one proclaimed as good news for you.

“All flesh” = all men in their natural state as they exist in their bodily, natural life, as they are born to their earthly parents. All flesh is “as grass,” χόρτος, herbage that grows in meadow and in field, mostly grass. The second line heightens the simile: “and all its glory as bloom of grass.” The Hebrew has “goodliness,” all that is fair, attractive, grand about “flesh.” It is like “bloom of grass,” its tasselled flower. The simile is true: all that man is proud of in his earthly existence, beauty, strength, wealth, honor, art, education, learning, virtue, achievement, greatness, is but the bloom of the grass and no more.

Stunning is the third line which has the verbs placed forward: “Withered the grass, fallen the bloom!” two gnomic aorists to denote what always happens. The tenses are timeless. In the hot Orient the sun blasts grass and herbage even more rapidly than in our temperate climate. Ξηραίνω=“to dry up”; ἐκπίπτω, “to fall off.” Transient, indeed!

1 Peter 1:25

25 But the ῥῆμα, the spoken Word, of the Lord (Yahweh) remains for the eon, εἰςτὸναἰῶνα, forever. From this μένει Peter has taken his μένοντος; as that of Isaiah is construed with ῥῆμαΚυρίου, so that of Peter is construed with λόγουΘεοῦ. Δέ adds the explanatory statement: “Now this is the utterance that is gospeled (or was gospeled) for you,” for the gospel, too, is God’s own utterance. Preached as glad tidings to you, it entered your hearts and regenerated you, imparted its eternal life to you, overcame what is corruptible and perishing by replacing it with what is incorruptible and remains forever. It is for us, then, to rejoice in our ransoming and regeneration, in our faith and our hope, and ever to remember the price of the former and the power of the latter so that, living in fear and exercising our new life in love, we may reach the end of our faith, “salvation of souls” (v. 9).

G. Theologisches Woerterbuch zum Neuen Testament, herausgegeben von Gerhard Kittel.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.

M.-M The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Nonliterary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.