1 Peter 1:8
8. not having seen, ye love—though in other cases it is knowledge of the person that produces love to him. They are more "blessed that have not seen and yet have believed," than they who believed because they have seen. On Peter's own love to Jesus, compare Joh 21:15-17. Though the apostles had seen Him, they now ceased to know Him merely after the flesh.
in whom—connected with "believing": the result of which is "ye rejoice" (Greek, "exult"). now—in the present state, as contrasted with the future state when believers "shall see His face." unspeakable— (1Co 2:9). full of glory—Greek, "glorified." A joy now already encompassed with glory. The "glory" is partly in present possession, through the presence of Christ, "the Lord of glory," in the soul; partly in assured anticipation. "The Christian's joy is bound up with love to Jesus: its ground is faith; it is not therefore either self-seeking or self-sufficient" [STEIGER].1 Peter 1:21
21. by him—Compare "the faith which is by Him," Ac 3:16. Through Christ: His Spirit, obtained for us in His resurrection and ascension, enabling us to believe. This verse excludes all who do not "by Him believe in God," and includes all of every age and clime that do. Literally, "are believers in God." "To believe IN (Greek, 'eis') God" expresses an internal trust: "by believing to love God, going INTO Him, and cleaving to Him, incorporated into His members. By this faith the ungodly is justified, so that thenceforth faith itself begins to work by love" [P. LOMBARD]. To believe ON (Greek, "epi," or dative case) God expresses the confidence, which grounds itself on God, reposing on Him. "Faith IN (Greek, 'en') His blood" (Ro 3:25) implies that His blood is the element IN which faith has its proper and abiding place. Compare with this verse, Ac 20:21, "Repentance toward (Greek, 'eis,' 'into,' turning towards and going into) God and faith toward (Greek, 'eis,' 'into') Christ": where, as there is but one article to both repentance and faith, the two are inseparably joined as together forming one truth; where "repentance" is, there "faith" is; when one knows God the Father spiritually, then he must know the Son by whom alone we can come to the Father. In Christ we have life: if we have not the doctrine of Christ, we have not God. The only living way to God is through Christ and His sacrifice.
that raised him—The raising of Jesus by God is the special ground of our "believing": (1) because by it God declared openly His acceptance of Him as our righteous substitute; (2) because by it and His glorification He received power, namely, the Holy Spirit, to impart to His elect "faith": the same power enabling us to believe as raised Him from the dead. Our faith must not only be IN Christ, but BY and THROUGH Christ. "Since in Christ's resurrection and consequent dominion our safety is grounded, there 'faith' and 'hope' find their stay" [CALVIN]. that your faith and hope might be in God—the object and effect of God's raising Christ. He states what was the actual result and fact, not an exhortation, except indirectly. Your faith flows from His resurrection; your hope from God's having "given Him glory" (compare 1Pe 1:11, "glories"). Remember God's having raised and glorified Jesus as the anchor of your faith and hope in God, and so keep alive these graces. Apart from Christ we could have only feared, not believed and hoped in God. Compare 1Pe 1:3, 7-9, 13, on hope in connection with faith; love is introduced in 1Pe 1:22.1 Peter 2:7-9
7. Application of the Scripture just quoted first to the believer, then to the unbeliever. On the opposite effects of the same Gospel on different classes, compare Joh 9:39; 2Co 2:15, 16.
precious—Greek, "THE preciousness" (1Pe 2:6). To you believers belongs the preciousness of Christ just mentioned. disobedient—to the faith, and so disobedient in practice. the stone which . . . head of . . . corner— (Ps 118:22). Those who rejected the STONE were all the while in spite of themselves unconsciously contributing to its becoming Head of the corner. The same magnet has two poles, the one repulsive, the other attractive; so the Gospel has opposite effects on believers and unbelievers respectively.8. stone of stumbling, &c.—quoted from Isa 8:14. Not merely they stumbled, in that their prejudices were offended; but their stumbling implies the judicial punishment of their reception of Messiah; they hurt themselves in stumbling over the corner-stone, as "stumble" means in Jer 13:16; Da 11:19.
at the word—rather, join "being disobedient to the word"; so 1Pe 3:1; 4:17. whereunto—to penal stumbling; to the judicial punishment of their unbelief. See above. also—an additional thought; God's ordination; not that God ordains or appoints them to sin, but they are given up to "the fruit of their own ways" according to the eternal counsel of God. The moral ordering of the world is altogether of God. God appoints the ungodly to be given up unto sin, and a reprobate mind, and its necessary penalty. "Were appointed," Greek, "set," answers to "I lay," Greek, "set," 1Pe 2:6. God, in the active, is said to appoint Christ and the elect (directly). Unbelievers, in the passive, are said to be appointed (God acting less directly in the appointment of the sinner's awful course) [BENGEL]. God ordains the wicked to punishment, not to crime [J. CAPPEL]. "Appointed" or "set" (not here "FORE-ordained") refers, not to the eternal counsel so directly, as to the penal justice of God. Through the same Christ whom sinners rejected, they shall be rejected; unlike believers, they are by God appointed unto wrath as FITTED for it. The lost shall lay all the blame of their ruin on their own sinful perversity, not on God's decree; the saved shall ascribe all the merit of their salvation to God's electing love and grace.9. Contrast in the privileges and destinies of believers. Compare the similar contrast with the preceding context.
chosen—"elect" of God, even as Christ your Lord is. generation—implying the unity of spiritual origin and kindred of believers as a class distinct from the world. royal—kingly. Believers, like Christ, the antitypical Melchisedec, are at once kings and priests. Israel, in a spiritual sense, was designed to be the same among the nations of the earth. The full realization on earth of this, both to the literal and the spiritual Israel, is as yet future. holy nation—antitypical to Israel. peculiar people—literally, "a people for an acquisition," that is, whom God chose to be peculiarly His: Ac 20:28, "purchased," literally, "acquired." God's "peculiar treasure" above others. show forth—publish abroad. Not their own praises but His. They have no reason to magnify themselves above others for once they had been in the same darkness, and only through God's grace had been brought to the light which they must henceforth show forth to others. praises—Greek, "virtues," "excellencies": His glory, mercy (1Pe 2:10), goodness (Greek, 1Pe 2:3; Nu 14:17, 18; Isa 63:7). The same term is applied to believers, 2Pe 1:5. of him who hath called you— (2Pe 1:3). out of darkness—of heathen and even Jewish ignorance, sin, and misery, and so out of the dominion of the prince of darkness. marvellous—Peter still has in mind Ps 118:23. light—It is called "His," that is, God's. Only the (spiritual) light is created by God, not darkness. In Isa 45:7, it is physical darkness and evil, not moral, that God is said to create, the punishment of sin, not sin itself. Peter, with characteristic boldness, brands as darkness what all the world calls light; reason, without the Holy Spirit, in spite of its vaunted power, is spiritual darkness. "It cannot apprehend what faith is: there it is stark blind; it gropes as one that is without eyesight, stumbling from one thing to another, and knows not what it does" [LUTHER].