Dearly beloved. — “Affectionate and pressing exhortation,” says Bengel. “That which is known to come from love,” says Leighton, “cannot readily but be so received too, and it is thus expressed for that very purpose, that the request may be the more welcome. Beloved, it is the advice of a friend, one that truly loves-you, and aims at nothing but your good; it is because I love you that I intreat you, and intreat you, as you love yourselves, to abstain from fleshly lusts.”
As strangers and pilgrims. — The exhortation will be felt with the more force if we turn to the Psalm from which St. Peter draws the phrase (Psalms 39:12, LXX.). The words, especially when compared with that Psalm, prepare for the description of distress which is to follow. (Comp. also Psalms 119:19.) The word “pilgrim” (which comes to us through the French form pelerin, from the Latin peregrinus) does not originally, or in this place, mean one on a pilgrimage. It implies no journeying, but simply residence in a foreign country. Here it represents the same Greek word which is rendered “strangers” in 1 Peter 1:1, but is used in a metaphorical and not literal sense. Though no longer “scattered,” but gathered mercifully once more into “a people,” they were still far from home — unprotected residents in an alien and hostile world, which scrutinised their conduct and was anxious for an opportunity to get rid of them.
Abstain from fleshly lusts. — First prudential rule. Although all bad desires might be described as fleshly, the word seems here to mean what we usually understand by it, the lusts which lead to drunkenness, gluttony, and uncleanness. And though such sins are usually characteristic of the Gentile, not of the Jew, yet see our Note on 1 Peter 1:14. Jews were not impeccable in such matters, and here the Apostle has a special reason for insisting on the observance of the seventh commandment. It may even be said that his mode of insistence recognises that his readers usually do observe it. He appeals to them as “Israelites from home” to be on their guard in such matters, as Leonidas might exhort Spartans going into battle not to flinch, or Nelson tell English sailors that “England expects every man to do his duty.” There was special reason for these Hebrew Christians to be more than ever vigilant, because (see Note on next verse) of the calumnies which the heathen were beginning to circulate about the Christians.
Which war against the soul. — This clause is no specifying of the particular fleshly lusts to be guarded against, as though there were some of them which did not war against the soul; but it is a description of the way in which all fleshly lusts alike act. It means not merely a general antagonism between soul and body, but that the lusts are on active service, engaged in a definite campaign against the immortal part of the man. St. Peter has probably forgotten for the moment his metaphor of strangers and sojourners, and we are not to put the two things together too closely, as though their position of strangers rendered them more liable to the attack of the hostile lusts. “Abstain” cannot mean merely “be on your guard against.” It runs rather thus: “You Christian Jews are dwelling as sojourners in the midst of jealous Gentile foreigners, and must, therefore, be particularly observant of moral conduct; for though I know that you usually are so, yet the fleshly appetites are actively engaged against your soul all the time; and if you should in any degree let them get the better of you, the heathen neighbours will at once take advantage of you.” As the expression might have been drawn equally well from St. Paul or from St. James, it is perhaps the easiest thing to suppose that (like the metaphors of building or of giving milk) it was part of the common property of Christians, and not consciously traceable to any originator.