Peter continued the exposition of Leviticus 19 that he began in verse 16.48
"Peter's point is that if he and his readers have a special relationship to God by virtue of their calling and their new birth, then it is all the more urgent that they remember who he is in himself, and display the reverence that God deserves."49
1:17 "If"means "since"here (a first class condition in Greek). We do call on God as our Father because He is our Father (Matt. 6:4, 6, 9; Luke 11:2; Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). Nevertheless He is also the Judge of all, and He judges impartially, not on the basis of externals but on the basis of reality. Since we must all stand before God for an evaluation of our works, we should live now accordingly (Rom. 14:10-12; 2 Cor. 5:10).
"Each of us will give an account of his works, and each will receive the appropriate reward. This is a family judgment,' the Father dealing with His beloved children. The Greek word translated judgethcarries the meaning to judge in order to find something good.'"50
It is good for us to maintain respect (fear) for God as our Judge since He has this power over us. Again Peter reminded us that our earthly life of trials and suffering is only a brief sojourn.
1:18-19 The Greek word for "redeemed"(elytrothete) means to ransom, to free by paying a ransom price (cf. Mark 10:45; Luke 24:21; Tit. 2:14).
"He [Peter] has some of the most noteworthy statements in the New Testament about the atoning value of Christ's suffering."51
"Any representative first-century church would have three kinds of members: slaves, freemen, and freed men. People became slaves in various ways--through war, bankruptcy, sale by themselves, sale by parents, or by birth. Slaves normally could look forward to freedom after a certain period of service and often after the payment of a price. Money to buy his freedom could be earned by the slave in his spare time or by doing more than his owner required. Often the price could be provided by someone else. By the payment of a price (lytron, antilytron), a person could be set free from his bondage or servitude. A freed man was a person who formerly had been a slave but was now redeemed."52
As the death of the Passover lamb liberated the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, so the death of Jesus Christ frees us from the bondage of sin (cf. Exod. 12:5). In speaking of redemption Peter always emphasized our freedom from a previously sinful lifestyle to live a changed life here and now.53Jesus Christ's life, represented by the blood, is of infinitely greater value than any mere metal, as precious as that metal may be (cf. Acts 3:6; 8:20). "Futile"means vain or powerless, and it suggests that many of Peter's readers were indeed Gentiles. We would normally expect this in view of where they lived (v. 1). This word better describes the lifestyle of an unsaved Gentile than that of an unsaved Jew (cf. v. 14).
1:20-21 The Fall did not take God by surprise. He already knew what He would do in view of it and Who would do it. We have two good reasons why we can come to God: what Christ did for us, and what God did for Christ for what Christ did for us. Our attitude toward God, therefore, can and should be both reverential (v. 17) and confident.
So far ". . . the ethical impact of the epistle barely begins to make itself felt. The call to action and to a holy and reverent life is general rather than specific. The imperatives of hope and of godly fear have more to do with eschatological expectations than with ethics, and more to do with the readers' relationship to God than with their relationships to each other or to their pagan neighbors."54
