1 Peter 1:9

1:1-9 This epistle is addressed to believers in general, who are strangers in every city or country where they live, and are scattered through the nations. These are to ascribe their salvation to the electing love of the Father, the redemption of the Son, and the sanctification of the Holy Ghost; and so to give glory to one God in three Persons, into whose name they had been baptized. Hope, in the world's phrase, refers only to an uncertain good, for all worldly hopes are tottering, built upon sand, and the worldling's hopes of heaven are blind and groundless conjectures. But the hope of the sons of the living God is a living hope; not only as to its object, but as to its effect also. It enlivens and comforts in all distresses, enables to meet and get over all difficulties. Mercy is the spring of all this; yea, great mercy and manifold mercy. And this well-grounded hope of salvation, is an active and living principle of obedience in the soul of the believer. The matter of a Christian's joy, is the remembrance of the happiness laid up for him. It is incorruptible, it cannot come to nothing, it is an estate that cannot be spent. Also undefiled; this signifies its purity and perfection. And it fadeth not; is not sometimes more or less pleasant, but ever the same, still like itself.

All possessions here are stained with defects and failings; still something is wanting: fair houses have sad cares flying about the gilded and ceiled roofs; soft beds and full tables, are often with sick bodies and uneasy stomachs. All possessions are stained with sin, either in getting or in using them. How ready we are to turn the things we possess into occasions and instruments of sin, and to think there is no liberty or delight in their use, without abusing them! Worldly possessions are uncertain and soon pass away, like the flowers and plants of the field. That must be of the greatest worth, which is laid up in the highest and best place, in heaven. Happy are those whose hearts the Holy Spirit sets on this inheritance. God not only gives his people grace, but preserves them unto glory. Every believer has always something wherein he may greatly rejoice; it should show itself in the countenance and conduct. The Lord does not willingly afflict, yet his wise love often appoints sharp trials, to show his people their hearts, and to do them good at the latter end. Gold does not increase by trial in the fire, it becomes less; but faith is made firm, and multiplied, by troubles and afflictions. Gold must perish at last, and can only purchase perishing things, while the trial of faith will be found to praise, and honour, and glory. Let this reconcile us to present afflictions.

Receiving (κομιζόμενοι) The verb originally means to take care of or provide for; thence to receive hospitably or entertain; to bring home with a view to entertaining or taking care of. Hence, to carry away so as to preserve, to save, rescue, and so to carry away as a prize or booty. Generally, to receive or acquire. Paul uses it of receiving the awards of judgment (2 Corinthians 5:10; Ephesians 6:8; Colossians 3:25). In Hebrews it is used of receiving the promise (Hebrews 10:36; Hebrews 11:39), and of Abraham receiving back Isaac (Hebrews 11:19). Peter uses it thrice, and in each case of receiving the rewards of righteousness or of iniquity. See 1 Peter 5:4; 2 Peter 2:13.

Receiving; either this word is to be taken improperly, and by an enallage, the future being put for the present tense; q.d. Being about to receive; or rather properly, in the present tense, and then it intimates the certainty of the thing spoken of. The end of your faith; i.e. the scope to which faith tends, or the reward of faith. The salvation; either: 1. Salvation more generally taken, which is begun in this life, Ephesians 2:8 Titus 3:5 ; or rather: 2. Complete final salvation in the other, as 1 Peter 1:5 : and then the sense is, either, ye rejoice that ye shall certainly receive the full salvation of your souls, or, ye rejoice that ye do receive that salvation, viz. in the promises of it, in those graces of the Spirit wrought in you, which begin this salvation, and are the pledges of it, and in the certain assurance of it. Of your souls; i.e. by a usual synecdoche, the salvation of your persons.

1 Peter 1:9 . The connexion with mention of persecution suggests that the writer is here thinking of the saying, in your patience ye shall win your souls and perhaps also of the contrast between the persecuton who has only power over the body. Whatever happen to the body the conclusion—the consummation of their faith—is assured them.— κομιζόμενοι implies that already they are receiving what is due to them ( cf. 1 Peter 5:4 ) and therefore they rejoice with Hannah in God the Saviour. In the Attic Orators who use a refined form of colloquial Greek the verb is common in the sense of recovering debts, as in Matthew 25:27 , ἐκομισάμην ἂν τὸ ἐμόν . St. Paul applies it to future recompense ( 2 Corinthians 5:10 , ἵνα κομίσηται ἕκαστος τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος ; Ephesians 6:8 ; Colossians 3:25 ; cf. 2Ma 8:33 , τὸν ἄξιον τῆς δυσσεβείας ἐκομίσατο μισθόν ); in Hebrews 3:4 , it is used of receiving promises.— τὸ τέλος . The common meaning fulfilment or consummation gives a fair sense but the connection with κομιζόμενοι is thus somewhat strange. The parallel of 1 Peter 1:4 , taken with Pindar, Ol. x(xi.) 81, Δόρυκλος δʼ ἔφερε πυγμᾶς τέλος , suggests as a possible rendering because ye receive the reward . The Septuagint, again ( Numbers 31:28 , etc.), uses τ . to translate מבס = proportion to be paid, tax . And this use is well established in Greek literature for τὰ τέλη , cf. λυσιτελεῖν , etc. Accordingly Suidas defines τέλος as τὸ διδόμενον τοῖς βασιλεῦσι .

The particular connotations can hardly be pressed here but these uses give some colour of support to the Syriac rendering recompense and the mercedem of Augustine; cf. Romans 6:22 .— σωτηρίαν ψυχῶν ͂ = σωτηρίαν above. ψυχῶν is added to console the readers for their sufferings in accordance with Mark 8:35 , ὃς δʼ ἂν ἀπολέσει τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου σώσει αὐτήν = John 12:25 ; cf. Luke 21:19 ; Jam 1:21 . The soul for St. Peter is the self or personality as for Jesus Himself.

9. Receiving—in sure anticipation; "the end of your faith," that is, its crowning consummation, finally completed "salvation" (Peter here confirms Paul's teaching as to justification by faith): also receiving now the title to it and the first-fruits of it. In 1Pe 1:10 the "salvation" is represented as already present, whereas "the prophets" had it not as yet present. It must, therefore, in this verse, refer to the present: Deliverance now from a state of wrath: believers even now "receive salvation," though its full "revelation" is future. of … souls—The immortal soul was what was lost, so "salvation" primarily concerns the soul; the body shall share in redemption hereafter; the soul of the believer is saved already: an additional proof that "receiving … salvation" is here a thing present.

9 . receiving the end of your faith ] The question has been raised whether these words refer to the present or the future. It has been urged on the one hand that the word for “receiving” applied in 2 Corinthians 5:10 , and perhaps in Hebrews 10:36 , Ephesians 6:8 , to the ultimate issue of God’s judgment, excludes the former. On the other hand, it may be replied that it is arbitrary to limit the last two passages to the final judgment, and that the tense both of “rejoice” and “receiving” is definitely present. On the whole therefore there is no adequate reason against taking the words in their natural and obvious meaning. Those to whom the Apostle wrote were thought of as already receiving, very really, though not, it might be, in its ultimate fulness, that which was the “end” or “goal” of their faith, and that goal was found in the “salvation” of their “souls”—the deliverance of their moral being (in this instance the word includes “spirit,” though elsewhere it is distinguished from it) from the burden of guilt, the sense of condemnation, the misery and discord of alienation from God.

Verse 9. - Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. The present participle "receiving" ( κομιζόμενοι ) implies that the believer realizes the deep blessing of salvation gradually while he is being saved as one of οἱ σωζόμενοι ( Acts 2:47 ). Salvation is present as well as future. "By grace ye are saved through faith" ( Ephesians 2:8 ); "According to his mercy he saved us" ( Titus 3:5 ). God's elect receive it in various measures now; in its blessed fullness it will be manifested hereafter. It is the end which faith ever holds in view, pressing towards it as the prize of the high calling. It is the salvation especially of souls; for, as Bengel says," Anima praecipue salvatur; corpus in resurreetione participat." 1 Peter 1:9