1 Peter 1:2

The three clauses κατὰ …, ἐν …, and εἰς … qualify ἐκλεκτοῖς and perhaps also ἀπόστολος (as Oecumenius) Peter himself is elect and shares their privileges but had no need to magnify his office, as had St. Paul. Yet see Acts 15:7 ff.

κατὰ πρόγνωσιν.… The noun occurs only in Acts 2:23 (speech of St.Peter) in reference to the slaying of Christ τῇ ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ καὶ προγνώσει τοῦ θεοῦ, cf. 1 Peter 1:20. The use of nouns instead of verbs is characteristic of this Epistle. The same idea is expressed more elaborately by St. Paul in Romans 8:29 (q.v.). Cf. Origen, Philocalia, 15. Oecumenius infers that the Apostle is thus the equal of the prophets, especially Jeremiah (v. Jeremiah 1:5). ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος, subjective genitive like θεοῦ, being elect they are within the sphere of the proper work of the Holy Spirit. The context excludes the rendering hallowing of the (human) spirit. Peter uses the stereotyped phrase; cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 (which corresponds exactly to the whole context) εἵλατο ὑμᾶς ὁ θεὸς ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς (κατὰ πρ. θ. π.) … ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος καὶ πίστει ἀληθείας (εἰς ὑπ.). εἰς ὑπακοὴν … Ι. Χριστοῦ, the goal or purpose of their election. Obedience is a technical term: sc. to God; cf. 1 Peter 1:14, where it is contrasted with the ignorant disobedience of their past lives (1 Peter 1:22). As Christians, they obeyed God and not men (Acts 4:19; Acts 5:29); God gives His Holy Spirit to them that obey Him (Acts 5:32). Compare the Pauline obedience of faith. This obedience implies a change of mind in Jew and in Gentile, which is effected by the sprinkling of blood of Jesus Christ. They are now cleansed from sin, which is disobedience in Jew or Gentile. Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, sprinkles those whom God selected with His own blood, as Moses sprinkled the children of Israel who had promised obedience with the blood of oxen (Exodus 24:7 f.; cf. Hebrews 9:19). But references to other sprinklings of the O.T., unconnected with obedience, must not be excluded. The word ῥαντισμός is appropriated, for example, to the water in which the ashes of the heifer were dissolved (Numbers 19); and a less obvious explanation is supported by Barnabas, “that by the remission of sins we might be purified, that is in the sprinkling of His blood for it stands writte.… by His bruise we were healed (Isaiah 53:5)”. Indeed the best commentary is supplied by the Epistle to the Hebrews in which evidence of the O.T. is reviewed and the conclusion drawn that according to the law everything is cleansed by blood. All the types were summed up in the fulfilment (see especially Hebrews 9.) whether they related to the Covenant or to the Worship. So in Hebrews 12:24 the blood of Abel the first martyr is drawn into the composite picture of typical blood sheddings. It would be possible to take ὑπακοήν with Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, and to render either that ye might obey Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Peter 1:22; 2 Corinthians 10:5) being sprinkled with His blood or that ye might obey as He obeyed even unto death (cf. Hebrews 5:8; Philippians 2:8). χάρις … πληθυνθείη · This full formula is found also in 2 Peter and Jude. For precedent see Dan. 3:31. Its use here is not merely a convention peculiar to the Petrine school; grace and peace are multiplied to match the growth of hostility with which the Christians addressed are confronted, lest the word of Jesus be fulfilled διὰ τὸ πληθυνθῆναι τὴν ἀνομίαν ψυγήσεται ἡ ἀγάπη τῶν πολλῶν (Matthew 24:12); cf. Romans 5:20 f. In the Pastoral Epistles ἔλεος (cf. 1 Peter 1:3) is inserted between χ. and εἰρ., so 2 John 1:3. From Galatians 6:16 it appears that ἔλεος stood originally in the place which χάρις usurped (as distinctively Christian and reminiscent of the familar χαίρειν); so that the source will be Numbers 6:24-26. κύριος … ἐλεήσαι σε … καὶ δῴη σοι εἰρήνην.