1 Peter 1:5

ἐν δυνάμει θεοῦ may describe the fortress in which or the garrison by which the Christian is guarded.

διὰ πίστεως. Faith in God’s promised deliverance is the condition by which man must avail himself of the divine protection.

εἰς σωτηρίαν. It is simpler to connect the words with those which immediately precede them rather than with ἀναγεννήσας or ἐλπίδα. In this case they may be dependent on φρουρουμένους if σωτηρία is understood in the sense of final and completed deliverance. But the words which follow seem rather to regard the deliverance as something which Christians are already receiving, something predicted by prophets but now proclaimed. It seems better therefore to couple διὰ πίστεως εἰς σωτηρίαν together. (For εἰς σωτηρίαν governed by a substantive cf. Romans 1:16, δύναμις θεοῦ εἰς σωτηρίαν; Romans 10:1, δέησις εἰς σ.; 2 Corinthians 7:10, μετάνοιαν εἰς σ.; and cf. Romans 10:10, ὁμολογεῖται εἰς σ.)

σωτηρία (S. and H. Rom. p. 23), “The fundamental idea contained in the word is the removal of dangers menacing to life and the consequent placing of life in conditions favourable to free and healthy expansion.” In the earlier books of the O.T. it denotes deliverance from physical peril (Judges 15:18; 1 Samuel 11:9; 1 Samuel 11:13, etc.). But gradually it tended to be appropriated to the great deliverances of the nation, e.g. the Passage of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:13, etc.) and the Return from Exile (Isaiah 45:17, etc.). Thus by a natural transition it was associated with the Messianic deliverance in the lower forms of the Jewish Messianic expectation (Ps. Sol. 10:9, 12:7; Test. XII. Patr. Sym. 7; Jude 1:22; Benj. 9, 10) [the form used in all these passages is σωτήριον, cf. Luke 2:32]. In this sense of Messianic national deliverance it is used in Luke 1:69; Luke 1:71; Luke 1:77. It was also associated with the higher form of the Christian hope, Acts 4:12; Acts 13:26, etc.

In this latter sense σωτηρία covers the whole range of the Messianic deliverance both in its negative aspect as a rescuing from the wrath under which the whole world is lying and in its positive aspect as the imparting of “eternal life,” cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10. The σωτηρία is not yet fully complete. Christians have to grow towards it (1 Peter 2:2), to work it out (Philippians 2:12), they may neglect it (Hebrews 2:3). It is nearer than it was when they first became believers (Romans 13:11). It is to perfect our salvation that the Return of Christ is awaited (Hebrews 9:28). But “now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2); the deliverance is already at work for those who have faith to accept it. They do here and now receive that deliverance of their true selves, their true lives (σωτηρίαν ψυχῶν), which is the goal of their faith.

ἑτοίμην�. Dr Chase (Hastings, D. of B. III. 795) connects these words with κληρονομίαν, and interprets ἐν καιρῷ ἐσχάτῳ in the same sense as ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων in 1 Peter 1:20 as referring to the Messianic age which is described in prophecy as “the last days” (Isaiah 2:2; Hosea 3:5; Micah 4:1). The actual phrase, καιρὸς ἔσχατος, does not occur, but καιρὸς is used in eschatological passages in Daniel and in the N.T. (e.g. 1 Peter 4:17; Revelation 1:3). According to this interpretation the clause is correlative to τετηρημένην ἐν οὐρανοῖς. It is however more natural to take the clause with the immediately preceding word σωτηρίαν, in which case καιρῷ ἐσχάτῳ might mean either “the last day”—or as Dr Hort would explain it—“a season of extremity,” “when things are at their worst.” The phrase is so used in Classical writers (Polyb. XXIX. 11, 12; Plut. Syl. XII. 458 F). But there is no instance in Biblical Greek of ἔσχατος in that sense, and neither of the two last interpretations make it reasonably possible to connect ἐν ᾧ� with καιρῷ, which is grammatically the natural antecedent. It would involve taking ἀγαλλιᾶσθε either as an imperative or as a quasi future.

But, if καιρῷ ἐσχάτῳ is taken in the sense of the Messianic age, the καιρός which the Prophets sought to ascertain (1 Peter 1:11), the clause may still refer to σωτηρίαν if ἑτοίμην is understood as practically equivalent to ἡτοιμασμένην. This is virtually the purport of 1 Peter 1:10-11, and the clause thus becomes correlative to κληρονομίαν τετηρημένην and would mean that the σωτηρίαν, which the readers are described as already receiving, was all along in readiness to be revealed “when the fulness of the time was come.”

In any case ἑτοίμην means more than μέλλουσαν (1 Peter 1:1). The thought that God’s plan of salvation was prepared beforehand as a new revelation to Gentiles as well as being the realization of Israel’s hopes occurs in Luke 2:30-32, to τὸ σωτήριόν σου ὃ ἡτοίμασας … φῶς εἰς�.