1 Peter 1:14

1:13-16 As the traveller, the racer, the warrior, and the labourer, gathered in their long and loose garments, that they might be ready in their business, so let Christians do by their minds and affections. Be sober, be watchful against all spiritual dangers and enemies, and be temperate in all behaviour. Be sober-minded in opinion, as well as in practice, and humble in your judgment of yourselves. A strong and perfect trust in the grace of God, is agreeable with best endeavours in our duty. Holiness is the desire and duty of every Christian. It must be in all affairs, in every condition, and towards all people. We must especially watch and pray against the sins to which we are inclined. The written word of God is the surest rule of a Christian's life, and by this rule we are commanded to be holy every way. God makes those holy whom he saves.

{8} As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: (8) He passes from faith and hope, to the fruits of them both, which are understood in the name of obedience. It consists in two things, in renouncing our lusts, and living godly: which lusts have their beginning in that blindness in which all men are born: but holiness proceeds that the father and the children may be of one disposition.

Obedient children (τέκνα ὑπακοῆς) Literally, and more correctly, as Rev., children of obedience. See on Mark 3:17. The Christian is represented as related to the motive principle of his life as a child to a parent. Fashioning yourselves (συσχηματιζόμενοι) See on Matthew 17:2; and compare Romans 12:2, the only other passage where the word occurs. As σχῆμα is the outward, changeable fashion, as contrasted with what is intrinsic, the word really carries a warning against conformity to something changeful, and therefore illusory.

1 Peter 1:14 . Τέκνα , children ) See 1 Peter 1:17 , at the beginning.— ὑπακοῆς , of obedience ) Obedience is paid either to the Divine truth , 1 Peter 1:22 , or to the Divine command. The latter is the fruit of faith; the former is faith itself. Therefore Peter expressly stirs them up to hope in 3d and following verses (making mention of hope itself, 1 Peter 1:3 ; 1 Peter 1:13 ); to faith in the 14th and following verses (using the word faith twice in 1 Peter 1:21 ); to love , 1 Peter 1:22 , but in such a manner that he attempers faith with hope, in 7th and following verses; and again hope with faith, 1 Peter 1:21 , and faith with love, 1 Peter 1:22 , and ch. 1 Peter 2:6 and following verse.— μὴ συσχηματιζόμενοι [10]) Supply γενήθητε , 1 Peter 1:15 , be ye not conformed .— ἀγνοίᾳ , in your ignorance ) Their former state, even as Jews, before their calling . [10] σχῆμα and its compounds are used to denote that which is fleeting and changeable, as 1 Corinthians 7:13 , τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου , “the fashion of this world;” Romans 12:2 , μὴ συσχηματίζεσθε τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ , “be not conformed to this world.” The word μορφὴ appears to be contrasted with σχῆμα , as that which is essential, as opposed to that which is outward and accidental. See an excellent article by Mr Lightfoot in the “Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology,” vol. 3, p. 114.—T. See note on Romans 12:2 . Μορφὴ , the form , denotes something deeper and more perfect than σχῆμα , the outward fashion .—E.

As obedient children; Greek, children of obedience, by a usual Hebraism, for obedient children. So children of disobedience, Ephesians 2:2 Colossians 3:6 . And this we may understand either absolutely, children of obedience for obedient persons; or with relation to God, obedient children of God; and then the apostle persuades them to their duty by an argument taken from their adoption; being the children of God, he would have them behave themselves obediently, as becomes them in that relation. Not fashioning yourselves; not accommodating, not conforming yourselves, not shaping or ordering your conversation. See the same word, Romans 12:2 . According to the former lusts; the lusts you formerly indulged yourselves in: see Ephesians 4:22 . In your ignorance; your ignorance of Christ and the gospel: q.d. Not fashioning yourselves according to those lusts you lived in when you were ignorant of Christ. He distinguisheth between the time of their ignorance, and of their illumination. Another age requires other manners. They formerly lived according to the dictates of their lusts, but now ought to live according to the will of Christ: see 1 Peter 1:18 Acts 17:30 Ephesians 4:17,18 .

1 Peter 1:14 . ὡς , inasmuch as you are, cf. 1 Peter 2:2 ; 1 Peter 2:5 , 1 Peter 3:7 , etc.— τέκνα ὑπακοῆς , obedient corresponds to St. Paul’s υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθείας ( Colossians 3:6 ; Ephesians 2:2 ; Ephesians 5:6 ). Both phrases reflect the Hebrew use of בן , “followed by word of quality characteristic, etc.” (B.D.B., s.v. , 8). For τέκνα in place of usual υἱοί in this idiom, cf. Hosea 9, τέκνα ἀδικίας and Ephesians 2:3 , τέκνα ὀργῆς . Here it suits better with βρέφη ( 1 Peter 2:1 ).— συσχηματιζόμεναι , from Romans 12:2 , μὴ συσχηματίζεσθε τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ . The feminine is peculiar to [146] whose scribe was perhaps influenced by the Alexandrian identification of woman with the flesh ( John 1:13 ) or regarded such conformity as womanish. The participle has the force of an imperative. The Christians needed to be warned against conformity to the manners and morals of their countrymen, which were incompatible with their new faith (see 1 Peter 5:2-4 ). The use of σχῆμα in Isaiah 3:17 , perhaps assists the use of συσχ . in connection with lusts.— ἐντῇ ἀγνοίᾳ ὑμῶν . It was a Jewish axiom that the Gentiles were ignorant ( Acts 17:30 ; Ephesians 4:17 f.). Christian teachers demonstrated the equal ignorance of the Jews (Peter, Acts 3:17 ; Paul, in Rom.).

So Jesus had pronounced even the teachers of Israel to be blind and promised them knowledge of the truth ( John 8:32 ff., cf. interview with Nicodemus); whereas speaking to the Samaritan woman He adopted the Jewish standpoint ( John 4:22 )— cf. 2 Kings 17:29-41 with Isaiah 2:3 ; Bar 4:4 , μακάριοί ἐσμεν Ἰσραὴλ ὅτι τὰ ἀρεστὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῖν γνωστά ἐστιν . [146] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

14. From sobriety of spirit and endurance of hope Peter passes to obedience, holiness, and reverential fear. As—marking their present actual character as "born again" (1Pe 1:3, 22). obedient children—Greek, "children of obedience": children to whom obedience is their characteristic and ruling nature, as a child is of the same nature as the mother and father. Contrast Eph 5:6, "the children of disobedience." Compare 1Pe 1:17, "obeying the Father" whose "children" ye are. Having the obedience of faith (compare 1Pe 1:22) and so of practice (compare 1Pe 1:16, 18). "Faith is the highest obedience, because discharged to the highest command" [Luther]. fashioning—The outward fashion (Greek, "schema") is fleeting, and merely on the surface. The "form," or conformation in the New Testament, is something deeper and more perfect and essential. the former lusts in—which were characteristic of your state of ignorance of God: true of both Jews and Gentiles.

The sanctification is first described negatively (1Pe 1:14, "not fashioning yourselves," &c.; the putting off the old man, even in the outward fashion, as well as in the inward conformation), then positively (1Pe 1:15, putting on the new man, compare Eph 4:22, 24). "Lusts" flow from the original birth-sin (inherited from our first parents, who by self-willed desire brought sin into the world), the lust which, ever since man has been alienated from God, seeks to fill up with earthly things the emptiness of his being; the manifold forms which the mother-lust assumes are called in the plural lusts. In the regenerate, as far as the new man is concerned, which constitutes his truest self, "sin" no longer exists; but in the flesh or old man it does. Hence arises the conflict, uninterruptedly maintained through life, wherein the new man in the main prevails, and at last completely. But the natural man knows only the combat of his lusts with one another, or with the law, without power to conquer them.

14 . as obedient children ] Literally, children of obedience . The phrase is more or less a Hebraism, like “children of wrath,” Ephesians 2:3 , or the more closely parallel “children of disobedience” in Ephesians 5:6 . The “cursed children,” literally, children of a curse , of 2 Peter 2:14 , furnishes another example of the Hebrew feeling which looks on the relation of sonship as a parable symbolizing the inheritance of character or status. not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts ] The word is the same as that used by St Paul in Romans 12:2 , where the English Version gives “conformed.” The words “in your ignorance” are in the Greek more closely connected with “lusts,” the former lusts that were in your ignorance . We trace an echo of the feeling expressed by St Peter in Acts 3:17 , and again by St Paul in Acts 17:30 , that the whole life of men, whether Jews or Gentiles, before the revelation of Christ, was a time of ignorance, to be judged as such. The former was at least likely to remember, as he wrote, his Master’s words as to “the servant who knew not his lord’s will” ( Luke 12:48 ), and who was therefore to be “beaten with few stripes.” It does not follow, as some have thought, that he is thinking here, chiefly or exclusively, of those who had been heathens. The words were in their breadth and fulness as true of Jew and Gentile alike as were St Paul’s in Romans 11:32 .

Verse 14. - As obedient children; rather, children of obedience (comp. Ephesians 2:2, 3 ; Ephesians 5:8 ; also 2 Peter 2:14 ; 2 Thessalonians 2:3 ; Luke 16:8 ). Winer says ('Grammar,' 3. 34; 'Romans,' 2), "This mode of expression is to be traced to the more lively imagination of the Orientals, by which the most intimate connection (derivation from and dependence on) - even when the reference is to what is not material - is viewed under the image of the relation of son or child to parent. Hence ' children of disobedience' are those who belong to disobedience as a child to his mother - disobedience having become their nature, their predominant disposition." Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. The remarkable word συσχηματιζόμενοι seems to be an echo of Born. 12:2, the only other place where it occurs. It implies that men who live in sensual lusts take up the likeness of those lusts into themselves, and are made, not as man was at first, after the likeness of God, but after the likeness of those lusts of the flesh which are not of the Father, but are of the world. The word "ignorance" is to be taken closely with "lusts" - "the former lusts which were in the time of your ignorance." It seems to imply that St. Peter is addressing Gentiles as well as Jews; top, though ignorance is attributed to the Jews ( Acts 3:17 ; Romans 10:3 ; 1 Timothy 1:13 ), it was ignorance, not of the moral law, as here, but of the Person and office of Christ.