Elect. — A true chosen people. This word marks them off from the rest of the Jewish settlers in those parts. It is an evasion of the difficulty to say that they were elect only in the mass, as a body. The election was individual and personal. God selected these particular Hebrews out of the whole number, and made them Christians; but what He elected them to is abundantly shown in the next words. For all their election they are not certain of salvation, and their title of “elect” implies no more than the fact that God has put them into the visible Church. (See Notes on 1 Thessalonians 1:4, and 2 Peter 1:10.)
According to the foreknowledge of God. — The origin of this election, the aim, and the means employed are now touched upon, and connected with the three Divine Persons respectively. (1) The origin. Their election is not accidental, nor yet something done on the spur of the moment, an afterthought of God. but “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” — i.e., in execution of His fore-arranged scheme. The word implies not simply a perception of the future, but the forming of a decision. (Comp. the same word in 1 Peter 1:20, and in Romans 8:29; Romans 11:2.) Though the thought is common also to St. Paul, St. Peter was familiar with it before St. Paul’s conversion. (See Acts 2:23.) (2) The means. The preconcerted scheme of God embraced not only the choice of these particular persons for a blessing, but the lines on which the choice was to work itself out — “in a course of sanctification by the Spirit.” The words and the thought are identical with those of 2 Thessalonians 2:13, but probably so far differ in exact meaning that there “the Spirit” is the spirit sanctified, here it is the Spirit which sanctifies. (Comp. also 1 Thessalonians 4:7.) We see that even the blessing of “obedience and sprinkling” — much more that of glory hereafter — is unattainable except in the path of sanctification. (3) The end. That to which God had elected them was not in the first instance the participation of the joys of the post-resurrection life, but the benefits of redemption on this side of the grave. While other “sojourners of the Pontine dispersion” were allowed to remain in the disobedience which characterised the Jews, and trusting to the efficacy of membership in the covenant people, these had, in accordance with God’s plan, been admitted to “obedience” — i.e., the reception of the gospel facts and precepts (see Note on 2 Thessalonians 1:8), and to the —
Sprinkling of the blood. — This important phrase must be compared with Hebrews 9:19; Hebrews 12:24, which passages were, perhaps, suggested by it, unless, indeed, the idea had become the common property of the Church already. There is nothing in St. Paul’s writings to compare with it. As the people themselves are “sprinkled,” and not their houses, the reference cannot be to the Paschal sprinkling (Exodus 12:22), but, as in Hebrews, to the scene under Mount Sinai in Exodus 24:8, where, once for all, the old covenant was inaugurated by the sprinkling of the people. It was to that same scene that our Lord referred when He said of the Eucharistic cup, “This is My blood of the new covenant.” Thus, “elect unto the sprinkling of the blood,” seems to mean “selected for admission into the new covenant inaugurated by the sprinkling of Christ’s blood.” But whereas the old covenant was inaugurated by sprinkling the people collectively and once for all, the new is inaugurated anew and anew by individual application; so that the Eucharistic cup was not (according to the Quaker theory) to be drunk once for all by the Apostles then present as the representatives of the whole subsequent Church. Neither does this inauguration by sprinkling come but once for all in the individual’s lifetime, but as often as the covenant is broken by his sin he comes to renew it again. Doubtless the participation of the Holy Communion is the act of “sprinkling” here before St. Peter’s mind, it being the one act which betokens membership in the new covenant-people, the new Israel. Of course the application of blood in both covenants rests on the notion of a death-forfeit being remitted.
Of Jesus Christ. — He does not say “of the new testament,” but substitutes the name of the Victim in whose blood the covenant is inaugurated — Jesus. And who is this Jesus? The Christ! The Messiah! As though Israel at Sinai had been sprinkled with the blood of Moses. What a contrast between the other Jews of Pontus, with their Messianic expectations, and these “elect sojourners” sprinkled with Messiah’s blood!
Be multiplied. — This occurs again only in 2 Peter 1:2; Jude 1:2. (Comp. Daniel 4:1.) It contains an exhortation to progress. There are some good things of which we cannot have too much.