1 Peter 1:15

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.

As he which hath called you is holy (κατὰ τὸν καλέσαντα ὑμᾶς ἅγιον) As of the A. V. is according to, or after the pattern of; and holy is to be taken as a personal name; the which hath called being added for definition, and in order to strengthen the exhortation. Render, therefore, after the pattern of the Holy One who called you. So, nearly, Rev., in margin. A similar construction occurs 2 Peter 2:1 : the Lord that bought them. Conversation (ἀναστροφῇ) A favorite word with Peter; used eight times in the two epistles. From ἀνά, up, and στρέφω, to turn. The process of development in the meaning of the word is interesting. 1. A turning upside down. 2. A turning about or wheeling. 3. Turning about in a place, going back and forth there about one's business; and so, 4, one's mode of life or conduct. This is precisely the idea in the word conversation (Lat., conversare, to turn round) which was used when the A. V. was made, as the common term for general deportment or behavior, and was, therefore, a correct rendering of ἀναστροφή. So Latimer ("Sermons"): "We are not bound to follow the conversations or doings of the saints." And Shakspeare, 2 Hen. IV., v., 5: "But all are banished till their conversation Appear more wise and modest to the world." Our later limitation of the meaning to the interchange of talk makes it expedient to change the rendering, as Rev., to manner of living.

But as he which hath called you; God the Father, to whom, as the First Cause, our calling is frequently ascribed, Romans 9:11,24 1 Corinthians 7:15 Galatians 1:6,15 . It may be rendered: According to the Holy One that hath called you, i.e. according to his example; you are children, and should therefore imitate your Father, Ephesians 5:1 . Called you; viz. effectually, to the knowledge and faith of Christ. Is holy; so God is often styled by Isaiah and other penmen of the Scripture, as the fountain and exemplar of holiness. So be ye holy in all manner of conversation; either, through the whole course, and in the several parts, of your conversation; or, in all manner of conversation, as we read it, i.e. with whomsoever ye converse, believers or infidels, friends or enemies, relations or strangers; and in whatsoever condition ye are in, peace or trouble, prosperity or adversity.

1 Peter 1:15 f. The command Ye shall be holy for I am holy is connected originally with the deliverance from Egypt and the distinction between clean and unclean, which lays down the principle of separation involved in the Exodus ( Leviticus 11:44-46 , etc.; cf. Isaiah 52:11 ). St. Peter combines the Scripture with the Word of Jesus for κατὰ τὸν … corresponds to ὡς of Matthew 5:48 . Gentiles needed God’s summons before they could regard Him as their heavenly Father; hence Him that called you . Compare Deuteronomy 18:13 (whence τέλειος of Matt. l.c. ) where also contrast with abominations of the heathen.— ἅγιον is better taken as predicate than as substantive, since ὁ καλέσας ( καλῶν ) is well-established as a title of God in His relation to Gentile Christians ( cf. 1 Peter 2:9 , etc.).— ἐν πάσῃ ἀναστροφῇ , cf. 1 Peter 1:18 , 1 Peter 2:12 , 1 Peter 3:1-2 ; 1 Peter 3:16 ; Tob 4:19 , ἴσθι πεπαιδευμένος ἐν πάσῃ ἀ . σου . The corresponding verb, ἀναστρέφεσθαι is found as rendering of הלך in the same sense ( Proverbs 20:7 , ἀναστρέφεται ἄμωμος ); both verb and noun are so used in late Greek authors (especially Epictetus).— γενήθητε become as you were not or show yourselves as you are ; the latter sense suits ἀ . which is distinctively outward behaviour.

15. Literally, "But (rather) after the pattern of Him who hath called you (whose characteristic is that He is) holy, be (Greek, 'become') ye yourselves also holy." God is our grand model. God's calling is a frequently urged motive in Peter's Epistles. Every one that begets, begets an offspring resembling himself [Epiphanius]. "Let the acts of the offspring indicate similarity to the Father" [Augustine]. conversation—deportment, course of life: one's way of going about, as distinguished from one's internal nature, to which it must outwardly correspond. Christians are already holy unto God by consecration; they must be so also in their outward walk and behavior in all respects. The outward must correspond to the inward man.

15 . be ye holy in all manner of conversation ] Better, in every form of conduct . The word “conversation,” once used in its true meaning ( conversari = living, moving to and fro, with others), has during the last hundred and fifty years settled down almost irrecoverably into a synonym for “talking.” Swift is, I believe, the first writer in whom the later meaning takes the place of the earlier. In Cowper’s poem “Conversation” it is used without even a reminiscence of the fuller significance of the word. For its use in the Authorized Version, see Psalm 37:14 ; Psalm 50:23 ; 2 Corinthians 1:12 ; Galatians 1:13 , and many other passages. In the reference to the holiness of God as calling us to reproduce, in our measure, that holiness in our own lives, we have an echo of the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount ( Matthew 5:48 ). The Greek of the previous clause has a force which the English but imperfectly represents. More literally we might say after the pattern of the Holy One who called you .

Verse 15. - But as he which hath called you is holy; rather, after the pattern of the Holy One who called you . The calling is the fulfillment of the election:, "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called." The Christian's effort must be to fashion himself, by God's grace, after the likeness of God. not according to the former lusts (comp. Matthew 5:45, 48 ; also Colossians 3:10 ; Ephesians 4:24 ). So be ye holy in all manner of conversation. In the whole course of your daily life, in all its details, as you move hither and thither among men, take the holiness of God for your pattern: "Be not conformed to this world." (For the word "conversation" ( ἀναστροφή ), comp. Galatians 1:13 ; Ephesians 4:22 ; 1 Timothy 4:12 ; Hebrews 13:7 .) 1 Peter 1:15

1 Peter THE FAMILY LIKENESS 1 Peter 1:15 . That is the sum of religion--an all-comprehensive precept which includes a great deal more than the world’s morality, and which changes the coldness of that into something blessed, by referring all our purity to the Lord that called us. One may well wonder where a Galilean fisherman got the impulse that lifted him to such a height; one may well wonder that he ventured to address such wide, absolute commandments to the handful of people just dragged from the very slough and filth of heathenism to whom he spoke. But he had dwelt with Christ, and they had Christ in their hearts. So for him to command and for them to obey, and to aim after even so wide and wonderful an attainment as perfecting like God’s was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Be ye holy as He that hath called you is holy, and that in all manner of conversation.’ The maximum of possible attainment, the minimum of imperative duty! So, then, there are three things here--the pattern, the field, and the inspiration or motive of holiness. I. The Pattern of Holiness. ‘As He that hath called you is holy.’ God’s holiness is the very attribute which seems to separate Him most from the creatures; for its deepest meaning is His majestic and Divine elevation above all that is creatural. But here, of course, the idea conveyed by the word is not that, if I may so say, metaphysical one, but the purely moral one.

The holiness of God which is capable of imitation by us is His separation from all impurity. There is a side of His holiness which separates Him from all the creatures, to which we can only look up, or bow with our faces in the dust; but there is a side of His holiness which, wonderful as it is, and high above all our present attainment as it is, yet is not higher than the possibilities which His indwelling Spirit puts within our reach, nor beyond the bounds of the duty that presses upon us all. ‘As He which hath called you is holy.’ Absolute and utter purity is His holiness, and that is the pattern for us. Religion is imitation. The truest form of worship is to copy. All through heathenism you find that principle working. ‘They that make them are like unto them.’ Why are heathen nations so besotted and sunken and obstinate in their foulnesses? Because their gods are their examples, and they, first of all, make the gods after the pattern of their own evil imaginations, and then the evil imaginations, deified, react upon the maker and make him tenfold more a child of hell than themselves. Worship is imitation, and there is no religion which does not necessarily involve the copying of the example or the pattern of that Being before whom we bow. For religion is but love and reverence in the superlative degree, and the natural operation of love is to copy, and the natural operation of reverence is the same.