1 Peter 1:3-13

1 Peter 1:3-13. THE HIGH PRIVILEGES AND DESTINY OF THE CHRISTIAN

Benediction

3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for by raising Him from the dead He has begotten us, His other children, to a new life of hope which is directed towards an inheritance which, 4  unlike Canaan, can never be ravaged, never be defiled, never fade. It is an inheritance which in God’s eternal purpose was all through the ages designed to be extended to you Gentiles (εἰς ὑμᾶς) and has been reserved in heaven for that purpose. (The present realization of that inheritance may seem strangely to belie that hope, for you are beset by dangers and trials of all kinds), 5  but you are under the watch and ward of God’s almighty power if only you have faith to avail yourselves of the deliverance (from all evil) which (like the inheritance) was ready prepared to be revealed in the “last time,” i.e. the Messianic age which has already begun. 6  Living in that age as you do, you can exult, even though for the time being God may require you to experience sorrow in all kinds of trials, 7  in order that the genuineness of your faith (a far more precious genuineness than that of gold, which is only a perishable substance though trial by fire is employed even for its testing) may be discovered by the Divine Refiner, thereby redounding unto praise and glory and honour for you (and consequently to Himself as perfected in His creatures) in the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8  True you never saw Him in the flesh (as I did) yet you love Him, and, though you cannot now see Him, yet, believing on Him as you do, you exult with a joy too deep for words and already irradiated with heavenly glory, 9  receiving the long-promised end of such faith, namely, the deliverance from evil of your true selves.

10  I said that the deliverance was ready prepared, and so it was. The deliverance now revealed to you was spoken of by the prophets, who prophesied about the extension of God’s favour to you Gentiles. 11  They sought and searched diligently to discover what or at any rate what kind of time the Spirit of the Lord’s Anointed which was in them signified when it solemnly declared beforehand in God’s name the sufferings destined for the Messiah and the glories which were to follow those sufferings; 12  and it was revealed to them that it was not for their own age but for you that they were ministering the messages (of deliverance) which were now openly announced to you by those who brought you good tidings by the Mission of the Holy Spirit from heaven; and this unfolding of God’s loving purpose for His creatures is watched with wondering eyes by angels.

The whole passage is an expansion of ἐκλεκτοῖς κατὰ πρόγνωσιν θεοῦ in the salutation, and is intended to shew that the choosing of the Gentiles was no afterthought but part of God’s eternal purpose. It has striking similarities with Ephesians 3:5-12, where the mystery of Christ, not made known to other generations but kept secret in God, is described as being now revealed by the Spirit to the apostles and prophets, namely that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs with Israel, and the Church (as the new and world-wide Israel) is the means of making known to angelic beings the manifold wisdom of God in planning the course of the ages.

The three clauses εἰς ἐλπίδα ζῶσαν, εἰς κληρονομίαν, εἰς σωτηρίαν, might (i) be all taken as dependent directly upon ἀναγεννήσας, meaning that the new life is at once a hope, an inheritance, and a state of salvation; or (ii) the second and third clauses might be taken as expansions of ἐλπίδα. It is a hope which is directed towards (εἰς) an inheritance and a deliverance which are already partially realized but not yet consummated; or (iii) as suggested in the paraphrase εἰς κληρονομίαν may be the goal of ἐλπὶς and εἰς σωτηρίαν of πίστις. So 1 Peter 1:9, σωτηρία is described as τὸ τέλος τῆς πίστεως. Again πίστις and ἐλπὶς are coordinated in 1 Peter 1:21, where St Peter repeats all the leading ideas of the earlier section, προεγνωσμένου … φανερωθέντος ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων διʼ ὑμᾶς, deliverance (σωτηρία) being now expressed by ἐλυτρώθητε, while the promise of “inheritance” in Canaan once given by the prophet to the exiles in Babylon is described as good tidings now extended to the Gentiles (εἰς ὑμᾶς).