Commentari biblici

Title.—The title given in most of the Uncial MSS. is simply like the short English form, 1 Peter. Some of the Cursive, or later, MSS., give the variations, “The first Catholic (or general) Epistle of Peter,” and “The Catholic Epistle of the Holy and Venerable (pan-euphemos) Apostle Peter.”

1. Peter] We note that the new name which his Lord had given him has replaced, in his own mind as in that of others, that of Simon Bar-jona (Matthew 16:17), by which he had once been known. So, in like manner, Paul takes the name of Saul, in the letters of that Apostle. Like him also, he describes himself as the “Apostle,” the envoy or representative, of Christ.

to the strangers scattered …] Literally, taking the words in their Greek order, to the elect sojourners of the dispersion. The last word occurs in the New Testament in John 7:35 and James 1:1, and in the Apocrypha in 2Ma 1:27. It was used as a collective term for the whole aggregate of Jews who, since the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, had been scattered in Asia and elsewhere. It follows from this that the Apostle, true to his character, as sent to the circumcision (Galatians 2:7), addresses himself mainly, if not exclusively, to the Jewish Christians of the regions which he names, but the term would naturally include also the proselytes to Judaism, and so accounts for some of the phrases in the Epistle which seem to imply that some of its readers had had a Gentile origin. The term “sojourners” is translated “pilgrims” in chap. 1 Peter 2:11 and Hebrews 11:13. Its exact meaning is that of “dwellers in a strange land.”

Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia] The order of the names is, on the whole, that which would present itself to the mind of a man writing, as St Peter does, from the East (chap. 1 Peter 5:13). The existence of Christian communities in the five provinces witnesses to the extent of unrecorded mission-work in the Apostolic age. The foundation of the Churches in Galatia and Asia is, of course, traceable to St Paul (Acts 16:6; Acts 19:10); those in Pontus may possibly have been due to the labours of Aquila, who was a native of that region (Acts 18:2). Bithynia had once been contemplated by St Paul as a field for his labours (Acts 16:7), but we do not read of his actually working either there or in Cappadocia. See Introduction as to the history of the Churches thus named.

2. elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father] The word “elect” or chosen belongs, as already stated, to 1 Peter 1:1, but the English sufficiently represents the meaning of the Greek. The word and the thought that the disciples of Christ are what they are by the election or choice of God, characterises the whole teaching of the New Testament. Here there is the personal interest of noting that the word is prominent in the Gospel of St Mark, which we have seen reason to connect closely with St Peter’s influence, and in that portion of our Lord’s discourses recorded in it (Mark 13:20; Mark 13:22; Mark 13:27), to which the wars and tumults of Palestine must at this time have been drawing attention. Comp. also the prominence of the thought and of the verbs for “choosing” in John 13:18; John 15:16; John 15:19. The “elect” had, like the “saints” (Acts 9:13), become almost a synonyme for Christians (2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1). And this choice is referred to the “foreknowledge” of God. The word hovers between the meaning of a mere prevision of the future, and the higher sense in which “knowing” means “loving” and “approving,” as in 1 Corinthians 8:3, Galatians 4:9, and probably Romans 8:29; Romans 11:2. The noun occurs in the New Testament only here and in St Peter’s speech in Acts 2:23, and is so far evidence of continuity of character and thought. In what way the thought of man’s freedom to will was reconcileable with that of God’s electing purpose the writers of the New Testament did not care to discuss. They felt, we may believe, instinctively, half unconsciously, that the problem was insoluble, and were content to accept the two beliefs, which cannot logically be reconciled. In the words “the foreknowledge of God the Father,” we find, perhaps, the secret of their acceptance of this aspect of the Divine Government. The choice and the knowledge were not those of an arbitrary sovereign will, capricious as are the sovereigns of earth, in its favours and antipathies, seeking only to manifest its power, but of a Father whose tender mercies were over all His works, and who sought to manifest His love to all His children. From that stand-point the “choice” of some to special blessings was compatible with perfect equity to all. It should be noticed that in Romans 8:29 we have “foreknowledge” as a step in the Divine order prior to predestination, but it may well be questioned whether either Apostle had present to his thoughts the logical solution presented by the Arminian theory, that God, foreseeing the characters of men as they would have been, if not predestined, then predestined them accordingly. On that theory the question may well be asked, What made them such as God thus foreknew? The difficulty is but thrown further back, and it is wiser to accept the conclusion that the problem is insoluble, and that the language of Scripture issues in the antinomy of apparently contradictory propositions.

through sanctification of the Spirit] The word for “sanctification,” for which, perhaps, consecration would be a better equivalent, is used eight times by St Paul, once in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 12:14), here, and not elsewhere in the New Testament. Grammatically the words admit of the interpretation which sees in them the sanctification of the human spirit (genitive of the object), but the juxtaposition of the word Spirit with that of the Father and with Christ, is decisive in favour of the explanation which sees in the construction the genitive of the subject, or of the agent, and finds in the sanctification wrought by the Spirit the region in which the foreknowledge of God finds its completion.

unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ] The clause is co-ordinate with that which precedes it, pointing to the end of the election as that points to the sphere in which it worked and the means by which it was to be accomplished. In “obedience” we have the active human side of the result, in the “sprinkling” the Divine side of pardon and acceptance. The word for “sprinkling” is found elsewhere only in Hebrews 12:24, where, as in this place, it refers definitely to the narrative of Exodus 24:8. Moses had sprinkled Israel according to the flesh with the blood of oxen, as being “the blood of the covenant,” that by contact with which they were brought within the covenant of which he was the mediator (Galatians 3:19). In like manner, in St Peter’s words, believers in Christ are brought within the new covenant by the mystical, spiritual sprinkling on their souls and spirits of the blood of Jesus, and for that sprinkling God had chosen them with a purpose supremely wise to which no time-limits could be assigned. The same thought, it may be noted, is expressed in St John’s words, that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied] The combination of “grace” and “peace” may be noted as a probable instance of St Peter’s adopting the very phraseology of St Paul, as he found it in the letters with which 2 Peter 3:16 (assuming the genuineness of that Epistle) shews him to have been acquainted. In “peace” we have the old Hebrew formula of salutation (Matthew 10:12-13): in “grace” (χάρις) probably the substitution of the more definite Christian thought for the “joy” or “greeting” (χαίρειν) which, as in Acts 15:23, James 1:1, was the customary opening formula of Greek epistles. The addition of “be multiplied” is peculiar to the two Epistles of St Peter (2 Peter 1:2), and to the Epistle of St Jude (1 Peter 1:2), which presents so many points of contact with the second of those two.

3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ] Here again we note the close correspondence with the opening words of two of St Paul’s Epistles (2 Corinthians 1:3, Ephesians 1:3). It is, of course, possible that both have adopted what was a common inheritance from Jewish devout feeling, modified by the new faith in Christ; but looking to the reproduction of Pauline phrases in other instances, the idea of derivation seems on the whole the most probable.

which according to his abundant mercy] Literally, as in the margin, “his much or great mercy.” The thought, though here not the phraseology, is identical with St Paul’s “being rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4). In the prominence thus given to the “mercy” of God, as shewn in His redeeming and sanctifying work, we recognise the conviction that those who were the objects of His favour were at once wretched, and unworthy of it through their guilt, and that His pity for that wretchedness was the source of the “grace” or “favour” which He had thus shewn to them.

hath begotten us again unto a lively hope] Better perhaps “a living hope,” a hope not destined, as human hopes proverbially were, to be frail and perishable, but having in it the elements of a perennial life. And this was brought about by God’s regenerating work on and in the soul. The word which St Peter uses is peculiar to him among the writers of the New Testament, and meets us again in 1 Peter 1:23. The thought, however, is common to him with St James (“of His own will begat He us,” James 1:18), with St Paul (“the washing of regeneration,” Titus 3:5), and with our Lord’s teaching (“except a man be born again”) as recorded by St John (John 3:5). It is noticeable that St Peter, who elsewhere (chap. 1 Peter 3:21) lays so much stress on baptism, does not here refer to it as the instrument of the new birth, but goes further back to the Resurrection of Christ as that without which baptism and faith would have been alike ineffectual. In this also his teaching is substantially at one with St Paul’s, who sees in baptism that in which we are at once “buried with Christ,” and raised by and with Him to “newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).

4. to an inheritance incorruptible] The clause is co-ordinate with the preceding and depends upon the word “begotten.” The idea of the “inheritance” is again essentially Pauline (Acts 20:32, Galatians 3:18, Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 1:18 and elsewhere). The epithets attached to the word distinguish it from any earthly inheritance, such as had been given to Israel (Acts 7:5), and agree with the “everlasting inheritance” of Hebrews 9:15. Here it answers to the completed “salvation” of the next verse, of which we get glimpses and foretastes here, but which is reserved in its fulness in and for the region of the eternal. In that inheritance there is nothing that mars, nothing that defiles (Revelation 21:27), nothing that fades away, as the flower of the field fadeth (James 1:10-11). The two latter adjectives (amiantos, amarantos) have in the Greek an impressive assonance which cannot be reproduced in English.

for you] Some MSS. give “for us,” but this was probably a correction due to the use of the first person in the preceding verse, and the present text, which rests on the authority of the best MSS., is like St Paul’s changes from the first person to the second (as in Romans 7:4-5, Ephesians 2:13-14), the natural expression of the feeling of the Apostle that what he hopes and believes for himself, he hopes and believes also for those to whom he writes.

5. who are kept by the power of God through faith] In the word for “kept,” we have, as in 2 Corinthians 11:32 in its literal, and Php 4:7 in its figurative sense, the idea of being “guarded” as men are guarded in a camp or citadel. Of that guarding we have (1) the objective aspect, the “power of God” being as the force that encompasses and protects us, and (2) the subjective faith, as that through which, as in the vision of Elisha’s servant (2 Kings 6:16), we feel that we are guarded, and see that “those that are with us are more than they that be against us.”

unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time] It is clear that the word “salvation” is used here, with its highest possible connotation, as including not only present pardon and peace, but also, as in Romans 13:11, 1 Thessalonians 5:8, the full consummation of blessedness. In this sense it is identical with the “manifestation of the sons of God” of Romans 8:19, the “glory which shall be revealed.”

6. Wherein ye greatly rejoice] The English verb and adverb answer to the single Greek word which expresses, as in Matthew 5:12, Luke 1:47; Luke 10:21, the act of an exulting joy. The verb occurs three times in this Epistle, not at all in St Paul’s, and may fairly be regarded as an echo from our Lord’s use of it as recorded above in the Sermon on the Mount.

though now for a season, if need be] Literally, for a little, but as the words almost certainly refer to the duration, not to the degree, of the sufferings spoken of, the English version (or for a little while) may be accepted as correct. In the “if need be” we have an implied belief that the sufferings were not fortuitous, nor sent without a purpose. They had their necessary place in the process by which God was working out the sanctification of His children.

ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations] The sense of the Greek participle would, perhaps, be better expressed by ye were grieved, or, made sorry. He writes of what he had heard as to their sufferings. He does not actually know that they are still continuing. In the “manifold temptations” we note the use of the same phrase as in James 1:2, with which St Peter could hardly fail to have been acquainted. Here, as there and in Acts 20:19, the “temptations” are chiefly those which come to men from without, persecutions, troubles, what we call the “trials” of life.

7. that the trial of your faith] The use of the self-same phrase as in James 1:3 strengthens the conclusion suggested in the previous note as to St Peter’s knowledge of this Epistle. Test, perhaps even proof or probation, would better express the force of the Greek word. Faith is not known to be what it is until it is tested by suffering.

being much more precious than of gold that perisheth] The words suggest at once a natural similitude and point out its incompleteness. That “gold is tried and purified by fire” was a familiar analogy, as in Proverbs 17:3; Proverbs 27:21, Sir 2:5, 1 Corinthians 3:13, but the gold so purified belongs still to the category of perishable things, while the faith which is purified by suffering takes its place among those that are imperishable.

might be found unto praise and honour and glory] The words stand somewhat vaguely in the Greek as in the English, and might possibly express that what men suffer is for God’s glory. The context, however, and the parallelism of Romans 2:7, make it certain that they refer to the “praise” [found here only in conjunction with the familiar combination (Romans 2:7; Romans 2:10, 1 Timothy 1:17) of “honour and glory”] which men shall receive (comp. 1 Corinthians 4:5), when sufferings rightly borne have done their work, in and at the revelation of Jesus Christ in His Second Coming as the Judge of all men.