1 Peter 1:21

1 Peter 1:21. Who through him have faith toward God. The better accredited reading replaces the participle which the A. V. renders ‘who believe' by the adjective ‘believing,' or ‘faithful,' which is elsewhere used of having faith in the promises of God (Galatians 3:9), in Jesus as the Messiah and Author of salvation (Acts 16:1; 2 Corinthians 6:15; 1 Timothy 5:16), and in the fact of His resurrection (John 20:27). The object of the belief is elsewhere expressed by the simple dative (Acts 16:15, etc.), or by the preposition ‘in' (Ephesians 1:1), but here by the preposition ‘toward.' This more forcible phrase, therefore, exhibits the readers not merely as believing, but as raised to the condition of a settled and loyal faith, and as having God Himself, and nothing lower, for the object of this new conviction. And it is ‘through Him,' as Peter emphatically reminds them, that they have this new faith. Christ, and only Christ, by all that He had taught and all that He had been on earth, was the means of leading them to this knowledge of God and trust in God. The description loses most of its point and pertinency if Gentiles are not allowed to be in view here. It might be said of Jews, indeed, that they were brought by Christ to a better faith in God, but only of Gentiles, that they owed it to Him that they had ever come to take God as the object of their trust. Thus, too, the connection between this sentence and the preceding becomes natural and weighty. The fact that these Gentiles, once ‘without God and without hope in the world,' had been brought through Christ to know God, and rest their faith in Him, is a witness to the truth of Peter's statement that even they were in God's view when the Christ, who had been eternally before His mind as Ransom, was manifested in time.

who raised him from the dead: Peter repeats here what he had urged with such emphasis so soon after Christ's departure (Acts 2:24; Acts 3:15; Acts 3:26), and had proclaimed as the fulfilment of prophecy (Acts 2:31-36). Compare also Paul's repeated ascription of Christ's resurrection to God's act (Ephesians 1:20; Galatians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 4:14; Romans 4:24; Romans 8:11, etc.).

and gave him glory. The consistency of this with Peter's own earliest teaching (Acts 2:36) is apparent. Its consistency with Paul's view of the ‘name which is above every name' as a gift from God (Philippians 2:9), and with Christ's own prayer for a glorification at His Father's hand, puts it out of the question to suppose (as some argue) that Peter's view of the Person of his Lord was less exalted than Paul's, or that he thought of any other subordination of Christ to God than the voluntary subordination, compatible with equality, which the Son assumed, and for which He received reward from the Father, as the apostles consistently teach, and as Christ Himself taught them when He spoke of the Father as giving Him all judgment (John 5:22), giving His work and His words (John 17:4; John 17:8), His glory and even His life (John 17:22; John 5:26). It is not without reason that the new Centre now found for the faith which had been wasted, ere they knew Christ, on the things of a life of vanity, is designated here, not merely as ‘God,' nor even as ‘the true God,' but as the God who raised and glorified Christ Himself. That reason, however, lies neither in the idea that it was not the visibly Incarnate Christ (whom these Gentiles had not seen indeed), but only the exalted Christ that could work this faith in them, nor in the idea that faith is not Christian faith unless it embraces this belief in God's having raised and glorified the Crucified (so Huther), but in what is next to be said of a hope to which this new faith rises.

so that your faith should also be hope toward God. The point of the statement which is placed so forcibly at the end of the section is apt to be missed. To render it, ‘that your faith and hope might be in God ' (so Luther, Calvin, Beza, etc., and among Versions the Syriac, Vulgate, A. V., and R. V.), or ‘so that your faith and hope are directed toward God' (so many interpreters), is to bring the ‘hope' in as little more than a rhetorical appendix to the ‘faith,' and to make Peter close so rich a paragraph with a bald repetition of what has been already stated in the clause, ‘who through Him have faith toward God.' It overlooks also the peculiar arrangement of the Greek words, and strips the definition of God as the God who raised and glorified Christ of its pertinency. The sentence becomes a still balder repetition of what has been already stated, if (which both the A. V. and R. V. avoid, but most interpreters adhere to) the rendering, ‘so that... are in God,' is followed. It is doubtful, however, whether the Greek phrase so rendered ever loses the idea of purpose, even where it may seem to deal with result. Taking the ‘hope,' therefore, to be predicate to the ‘faith,' we should translate ‘that your faith should also be (as indeed it is) hope toward God.' We have thus a new idea added to the previous train, and see how each of the prior clauses makes its own distinct contribution. Christ's death delivered them from the slavery of their vain life. Christ's manifestation was the means of lifting them to a faith of which God Himself, whom otherwise they would not have known, became the Object. Christ's resurrection opened the gates of the future, and gave them a new hope, which also had God for its Object. And in raising Christ from the dead, and giving Him glory, God had it in view to make them what they now are, children of hope as well as faith, and to raise them not merely to faith, but to a faith rich in hope, to a faith which should now be hope in Himself. What this God whom they now believed in had done in Christ's case woke in them the certain hope of a future in which He would give them joy over the ‘heaviness' and ‘manifold temptations' of the present. And this, too, was a reason why they should live their present life in holy fear, lest they might come short of what God intended for them!