Here the practical aim of the epistle becomes at the earliest possible moment clearly manifest. The writer finds in the central reality of the Christian faith the example, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the truest source of good conduct. He reminds them that all this has taken place that they may be sharers in the character of God. Hope in God can have no other logical issue than conformity to His will.
1 Peter 1:13. girding up: a metaphor derived from a necessity of Eastern costume, and perhaps with special reference to the Passover. It is found also on the lips of Jesus (Luke 12:35).
1 Peter 1:14. in the time of your ignorance: one of the proofs that the communities were originally Gentile.
1 Peter 1:15. Read mg., Like the Holy One which called you, a reminiscence of Isaiah's distinctive name for God.
1 Peter 1:17. May not this refer to the Lord's Prayer and be an evidence of its early use in worship? Speaking of this verse and those which follow, Bigg writes: This full passage affords an admirable illustration of what we may call - Petrinism,-' the mingled severity and tenderness of the Christian disciplinarian. It is noteworthy, as Gunkel points out, that no attempt is made to reconcile or explain Fatherhood and Judgeship they are simply postulated as equally real. The necessity of holiness is here grounded on three considerations: (1) the character of God, (2) the reality of judgment, and (3) the costliness of redemption.
1 Peter 1:19. precious blood: this goes back not only to the sacrifices of the OT and such passages as Isaiah 53, but much more strikingly to the scene at Calvary; love's constraint is, as with Paul, the supreme argument.
1 Peter 1:20. foreknown: this implies Christ's pre-existence, in which this writer agrees with other NT thinkers, a doctrine derived from later Jewish speculation, e.g. the Book of Enoch (passim).
1 Peter 1:21. faith and hope: as by all the NT writers this is grounded on the fact of Christ's resurrection, and it is God's action in that event which is here, as by Paul, emphasized, since the gist of the whole argument rests on God's consistency of character, and our reliance thereupon.