1st Peter Chapter 1 verse 21 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 21. - Who by him do believe in God; or, according to two of the most ancient manuscripts, who through him are faithful towards God. Through himself, not only through his incarnation and atoning death, but through his grace and abiding presence. He was manifested for your sake who through him are faithful; for all the faithful, whether Jews or Gentiles; "for your glory," St. Paul says (1 Corinthians 2:7). The thought shows the greatness of God's love for his elect. The eternal Son was manifested for their sake; it gives an additional stimulus for Christian effort. That raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory. St. Peter returns to the "after-glories," which he had mentioned in ver. 11. The death of Christ is the atonement for sin; his resurrection and ascension are the grounds of our confidence and hope. They throw back a halo of Divine glory upon the awful cross; they bring out the beauty and the dignity of the atoning sacrifice; they show that it is accepted, that the work of our redemption is complete. The Resurrection held a very prominent place in the preaching of St. Peter, and, indeed, of all the apostles (Acts 2:32-36; Acts 3:15; Acts 4:10; comp. also Acts 4:33; Romans 1:4, etc.). That your faith and hope might be in God; rather, so that your faith and hope are in God - directed towards God (εἰς Θεόν); or perhaps, as Weiss, Huther, and others, "so that your faith is at the same time hope towards God." The resurrection and the glory of Christ not only inspire the Christian with confidence in God, but they also give his faith the character of hope; they fill it with hope. Christ had promised that where he is there should his servant be; he had prayed that those whom the Father had given him should be with him where he is, to behold his glory. He is in heaven, on the right hand of God. Thus the Christian's faith assumes the attitude of hope; he hopes to be where Christ is, to see him as he is, to be made like unto him. This is "the hope of glory" for which we offer our thanksgivings. St. Peter is the apostle of hope.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(21) Who by him do believe in God.--The sentence is joined on to the foregoing verse just as in 1Peter 1:5, "Who are kept." The "who" might be rendered by "and you;" and the clause adds a kind of proof of the foregoing statement, drawn from the result of God's manifestation of Christ to them. "This Christian doctrine is no innovation, nothing to lead you away from the God of our fathers. That same God had had the scheme in His thoughts from the beginning, and it is in that same God that you have been led thereby to believe." There is a better supported and more forcible reading, Who through Him are faithful towards God, which combines the ideas of believing, i.e., putting the whole trust in God, and of loyal inward observance of Him. And if any one asks whether it be possible to say that Hebrew men only came to believe in God through the revelation of Christ, we must answer by pointing to the whole scope of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and especially to Hebrews 3:12, where it is not faith in Christ, but faith in a living God, which they are warned not to abandon: and to Hebrews 6:1, where faith toward God is part of the "word of the beginning of Christ."That raised him up.--These clauses give the historical facts which had led them, "through Christ," to a living faith in God. Though the thought is common with St. Paul (e.g., Romans 1:2-4), St. Peter was familiar with it years before St. Paul's conversion. See this in Acts 2:23-24; and Acts 2:33-36 of the same chapter will show what he means by "gave Him glory"--not to be confined to the Ascension, though that is the prominent thought; the glory was already partly given in the Resurrection. Comp. John 17:1, where there is the same reciprocal glorification of the Father and the Son, as here. . . .