1 Peter 2:9

1 Peter 2:9. But ye are an elect race. From these thoughts of terror Peter returns to the brighter side of the compensation which the believer has for temporal loss and trial, and instances in a single breath four great titles of Christian honour. These express the incomparable superiority of the life of faith over the life of disobedience; for the emphatic ‘but ye' contrasts the readers not with the Old Testament Church, but with those just described as destined to stumble. They exhibit the Christian life, therefore, in antithesis to a life rooted in mere nature and nationality. They recall at the same time the fact that these scattered sojourners are, according to the New Testament standard, that very Church of God which national Israel was meant to be according to the Old Testament standard. It is more than doubtful whether, in the use of the successive terms race, nation, people (which are simply taken from the LXX.), Peter had in view any such distinctions as those between people as of like descent, people as of like customs, and people as an organized body (Steiger). But all four terms point to the fact that believers are not a mere aggregate of individuals, but form a unity, and, indeed, the only unity worthy of the name. So they are designated, first of all, in words suggested probably by Isaiah 43:20, a race (not merely a generation, as the A. V. here, and only here, renders the term), a body with community of life and descent; and elect in so far as they were made this by God's choosing and separating them out of the world.

a royal priesthood. This second title is taken from the description of Israel in Exodus 19:6, and is of somewhat uncertain import. It is variously taken to be equivalent to ‘kings and priests' (Lillie, on analogy of Revelation 1:6), ‘a magnificent priesthood' (Aretius), ‘a priesthood exercising kingly rule over the world' (Wiesinger), ‘a priesthood serving a king' (Weiss), ‘a priesthood belonging to a king and in his service' (Huther), ‘a priesthood of kingly honour' (Hofmann), ‘a kingdom of priests' (Schott). The form of the adjective used here (and probably nowhere else in the New Testament) means, however, belonging to a king, or worthy of a king, and never ‘consisting of kings,' or ‘having kingly rule.' The phrase itself, too, represents a Hebrew phrase which is understood, indeed, by the Syriac Version, the Targums, the Septuagint, and a few commentators, such as Keil, to denote a kingship of priests, or a body of priests with kingly honour, but is held by most to mean a kingdom consisting of priests, a community ruled by a king, and dedicated to His service, and having the priestly right of access to Him (see Dillmann on Exodus 19:6). Hence the import of the title as applied by Peter depends on the question whether he uses it in the proper sense of the Greek terms, or in the sense of the original Hebrew as inexactly rendered by the LXX. In the latter case, it will mean ‘a kingdom indeed, but one of priests.' In favour of this it is urged that it retains the analogy of the other titles, each of which names some purely natural or national community, and qualifies it by a distinctive epithet. They are named, that is to say, a race, but are distinguished from others as elect, a nation but a holy one, a people but a peculiar one, and, in the same way, a kingdom but one of priestly order and membership. In the former case, the idea will be simply that of a priesthood ‘belonging to a king,' or ‘of kingly honour.'

a holy nation, i.e a common wealth consecrated to God, a title taken again from Exodus 19:6, and in the same connection as there.

a people for possession, i.e a people whom God has taken for His own. The A. V., following Tyndale, the Genevan Version, and the Bishops' Bible, and induced probably by the Vulgate's rendering, gives ‘peculiar' (as also in Titus 2:14), a word which, having lost its etymological sense, is now an inappropriate rendering. Wycliffe gives ‘a people of purchasing;' Cranmer, ‘a people which are won; the Rhemish, ‘a people of purchase.' The noun occurs again in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 (A. V. ‘to obtain'), 2 Thessalonians 2:14 (A. V. ‘the obtaining'), Ephesians 1:14 (A. V. ‘purchased possession'), and Hebrews 10:39 (A. V. ‘saving'). The cognate verb is translated purchase (Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 3:13). The noun may have either the active sense of acquiring, acquisition, or the passive sense of the thing acquired. It is wrongly taken in the former sense here, however (Schott, e.g., makes it = a people yet to be acquired), because Peter deals not with what God is to make His people in the future, but with what He has made them now. The phrase reproduces, with some change in the form, the idea expressed in Isaiah 43:21, as well as in Exodus 19:5. The Hebrew term used in the latter passage occurs again in such passages as Deuteronomy 7:6 (A. V. ‘a special people'). Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy 26:18; Psalms 135:4 (A. V. ‘peculiar treasure'); Malachi 3:17 (A. V. ‘jewels'). It denotes property, not, however, mere property as such, but precious property, or rather perhaps property belonging specially and individually to one. Here, therefore, it is sufficiently well rendered by the R. V., ‘a people for God's own possession.' that ye should show forth, or rather, as the verb implies (which occurs nowhere else in the N. T.), that ye should tell out. So Wycliffe gives ‘tell' and the Rhemish ‘declare,' while Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan have ‘show.'

the excellences. The Greek word is the familiar term for virtues, and so it is rendered here by the margin of the A. V., as well as by Wycliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer, the Genevan, and the Rhemish. It is used, however, by the LXX. as equivalent to the Heb. term for praise or praises. So it occurs in the passage (Isaiah 43:21) which Peter has in mind here; and as the prophet speaks there of the people whom Jehovah had formed for Himself as having a vocation to relate how He had glorified Himself in them (see Delitzsch, in loc.). it is reasonable to suppose that the term here denotes not the words of praise, but (as it is used also by Philo) the things which evoke praise, the excellences of God, whether in the sense of the excellent deeds of His grace (so Schott, as most nearly expressing the idea in Isaiah), or His excellent attributes manifested in these deeds (Huther and most). It is with this object that they are made what they are. If they are what these titles indicate, it is not with a view to their own glorification, but to qualify them and put them under obligation to publish these excellences of God to others. This ‘showing forth' may apply, as it is largely taken, to the duty of glorifying God by the fruits of a new life. But, as the verb is used regularly of verbal declaration, and as the LXX. rendering of Isaiah's phrase (Isaiah 43:21) has a similar force, what is intended rather is that the N. T. Israel is set to continue the prophetic vocation of the O. T. Israel, and is made what it is in order to proclaim Christ to those outside, as its predecessor was made God's people in order to be His preacher to the nations.

of him who called you, that is, as formerly, God, not Christ out of darkness into his marvellous light. It is to make too little of the term ‘light' to say that it refers simply to the Christian life. It is to make too much of it, however, to say that it points to God's own presence or Being as that to which they are called. God is light, but He is also in the light (1 John 1:5; 1 John 1:7). The familiar figures point here simply to two contrasted spheres of existence, to one as that of heathen ignorance and hopelessness, to another as that of holiness and serenity. This latter is ‘ His light,' the sphere of existence which belongs to God, the new kingdom which also is ‘marvellous' (perhaps Psalms 118:23 is still in Peter's thoughts) to eyes opened to see it, as is to ‘idle orbs' the sight ‘of sun, or moon, or star throughout the year, or man, or woman' (Milton).