1 Peter 1:2

This verse probably refers both to St Peter’s own position as an apostle of Jesus Christ and to that of his readers as the “chosen” people of God. Just as in Romans 1:1; Romans 1:6-7, St Paul couples himself and his readers together, he himself being “called to be an apostle” (κλητὸς�) and they “called to be saints” (κλητοῖς ἁγίοις), so here St Peter regards both his own choice to be an apostle and that of his readers to be the new Israel of God as being due to a divine purpose. The verse seems certainly to describe the operation of the three Persons in the Trinity in fitting men to be God’s fellow-workers in the world. The Father in His eternal knowledge contemplates them as His chosen agents, the Holy Spirit consecrates and hallows them continuously for their work, which is to obey God’s will as covenanted members of Jesus Christ His Son, by whose blood as the true covenant victim they are sprinkled. For other passages where the threefold name is similarly introduced cf. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:13; Ephesians 4:4-6; 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14; Titus 3:4-6; Romans 8:16-17.

The occurrence of such passages presupposes a recognized, although still unformulated, belief in the Holy Trinity, which can hardly have originated without some authoritative utterance of our Lord such as the great commission to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Matthew 28:19, or the discourse recorded in John 14.

The three clauses κατὰ, ἐν, εἰς, may be taken either as parallel to each other as denoting three different aspects of the divine choice, ascribed to the three Persons in the Holy Trinity, or more probably as successive stages, each dependent upon the preceding: κατὰ, the standard of God’s eternal design; ἐν, the means by which it is worked out; εἰς, the aim of that design.

The “call” to a position of privilege and therefore of service is a “link in the chain of providential care which began in the eternal loving purpose of God.” This thought is elaborated in fuller detail in Romans 8:28-30.

It is however somewhat remarkable that St Paul nowhere refers to “the blood of sprinkling.”

κατὰ πρόγνωσιν. The substantive does not occur in the LXX. except in the Apocrypha. In the N.T. it only occurs again in St Peter’s speech on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:23) that Jesus was “delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” The verb is used of men “knowing beforehand” (Acts 26:5; 2 Peter 3:17), but in Romans 8:29 it is used of God “foreknowing” certain persons whom He also predestinated and called; in Romans 11:2 it is used of the “people whom God foreknew” as not being cast away by God despite appearances, and in 1 Peter 1:20 it is used of Christ as the true paschal lamb “foreknown before the foundation of the world.” So here St Peter regards God as having from the first contemplated certain individuals like himself and a society or “chosen people” like his readers to carry on the work of Israel as His agents in the world. Cf. Isaiah 49:1 and Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee … I sanctified thee. I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations.”

θεοῦ πατρός. Θεός is never a mere proper name in the N.T. but denotes the power, supremacy, authorship and superintendence of God. πατήρ is frequently used to describe God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also of God as “our Father.” Sometimes (as probably here) the two ideas are coupled together because it is only as “a member of Christ” that a man becomes “the child of God” in the highest sense. So our Lord spoke to His disciples of going to “My Father and your Father,” and in Romans 8:29 St Paul says that God’s object in choosing men “to be conformed to the image of his Son” was “that He might be the first-born among many brethren.”

ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος might mean by the hallowing of our human spirit, but the context implies that hallowing by the Holy Spirit is intended. This is the process in which God’s choice takes effect in the equipment of His agents. The root (ἁγ-), see note 1 Peter 1:15, means to set apart, so to consecrate. Apostles, prophets and every member of the chosen people need a life-long hallowing for their special office. As applied to the whole body of Christians cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “God chose you from the beginning unto salvation, ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος,” from which passage St Peter may perhaps be borrowing.

εἰς ὑπακοήν κ.τ.λ. This choosing by God, this hallowing process employed upon those chosen, is intended to result in (εἰς) their obedience. Unless they fulfil that divine purpose, to have been “known by God” will only increase their guilt. Cf. Amos 3:2, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.”

ῥαντισμὸν αἵματος. The only instances where persons were sprinkled with blood in the O.T. were (a) the sprinkling of a leper with the blood of a bird, Leviticus 14:6-7; (b) the sprinkling of Aaron and his sons with the blood of a ram to consecrate them for their priestly work (Exodus 29:21; Leviticus 8:30); (c) the sprinkling of the people by Moses at Sinai when the covenant between God and Israel was ratified (Exodus 24:3-8). It is possible that St Peter may be referring to the second of these as he does elsewhere describe his readers as a body of priests to offer up spiritual sacrifices, and this idea seems to be referred to also in Hebrews 10:22, where Christians having access into the Holy of Holies in the blood of Jesus, their great High Priest, are bidden themselves to “draw near” as priests whose hearts are sprinkled and their bodies bathed with pure water, just as the High Priest was sprinkled with blood at his consecration and also bathed before the day of Atonement. According to Hort (1 Pet., p. 23), however, the reference here is to the sprinkling of the whole people at Sinai. Moses proclaimed to the people all the words of Jehovah and all the judgments, and they promise obedience. Then to make it a binding covenant an altar is built and victims are killed by representatives of each tribe. Half of the blood is poured upon the altar as representing Jehovah, while the other half is sprinkled upon the people as the other contracting party in the covenant. The people, having heard the Book of the Covenant read, promise “All that Jehovah hath spoken will we do and be obedient,” and the blood is described as the “blood of the covenant.” This ceremony is referred to in Hebrews 9:7; Hebrews 9:11-22, where it is contrasted with the new covenant of which Jesus is at once the mediator and the covenant victim. The blood once shed upon the altar of the cross as the pledge of God’s share in the covenant is also sprinkled upon the people as the pledge of their share in it. Cf. also Hebrews 12:24.

The same idea is also suggested by our Lord’s words in instituting the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, “This is My Blood of the Covenant” or “the new Covenant in My Blood.” It is not only a continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, of the blood outpoured upon the altar of the Cross and accepted by God as the pledge of His share in the Covenant as promising pardon, but it also assures us that we are the covenanted people of God, “very members incorporate in … the blessed company of all faithful people” and as such pledged to obedience.
Dr Chase (Hastings, D. of B. III. 794) on the other hand argues that the preposition εἰς, following as it does the ἐν ἁγιασμῷ, must point to the goal of God’s divine purpose and not to the initial pledge of obedience, when the Christian is first admitted into the new covenant by the initial sprinkling of blood. He therefore suggests a reference to the sprinkling with water (Numbers 19:9; Numbers 19:13; Numbers 19:20 f.) by which a faithful Israelite, defiled by contact with a dead body, was sprinkled with the water of separation. So the blood of Christ can purge the conscience of the obedient Christian from dead works (Hebrews 9:14); cf. also 1 John 1:7, “If we walk in the light … the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin.” In answer to this it may be urged that initiation into the covenant points forward to a life of obedience as its goal, and to be sprinkled with the blood of Christ, the covenant victim, is not only an initial means of admission but also a source of continuous cleansing in which “our souls are washed through His most precious blood.” Again it also pledges us to share the sacrificial life of Christ by “presenting ourselves, our souls and bodies as a living sacrifice” to God. Just as in Baptism we are signed with the Cross not merely as a rite of initiation but as a token that we must share Christ’s Cross and fight manfully under His banner, so to be admitted into fellowship with Christ by the blood of sprinkling involves fellowship with His sufferings, and this idea would have special force for St Peter’s readers who were face to face with persecution (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:5; Philippians 3:10, etc.).

χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη. This is St Paul’s regular greeting except in 1 and 2 Tim. where ἔλεος is added. Some would regard it as a combination of the Greek greeting χαίρειν and the Hebrew greeting שָׁלוֹם = peace, but more probably it represents the old priestly blessing (Numbers 6:24), “The Lord be gracious to thee … and give thee peace.”

πληθυνθείη is perhaps borrowed from “Peace be multiplied to you,” Daniel 4:1; Daniel 6:25. In the N.T. it occurs again in the salutation in 2 Pet. and Jude. St Peter asks that the trials through which his readers have to pass may only increase God’s gifts of grace and peace.