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1Pe_1:14. Second exhortation (extending to 1Pe_1:21).
ὡς τέκνα ὑπακοῆς ] does not belong to what precedes (Hofmann), but serves to introduce the new exhortation.[82]
ὡς does not here introduce a comparison (as 1Pe_2:2; 1Pe_2:5, 1Pe_3:7), but marks the essential quality of the subject. Lorinus correctly remarks on 1Pe_2:14 : constat hujusmodi particulas saepe nihil minuere, sed rei veritatem magis exprimere; it corresponds to our “as,” i.e. as becomes you who should be τέκνα ὑπακοῆς .
ὑπακοή is used here as absolutely as in 1Pe_1:2, and has the same signification as there. The spirit which pervades the life of believers is the spirit of obedience, and therefore they should be τέκνα ὑπακοῆς . According to the analogy of similar compounds in the N. T., as τέκνα φωτός , Eph_5:8; its opposite: τέκνα κατάρας , 2Pe_2:14; τέκνα τῆς ὀργῆς , Eph_2:3; particularly υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθείας , Eph_2:2,—the expression τέκνα ὑπακοῆς may be explained so as that τέκνα shall denote only the relation in which the persons in question stand to the idea of the accompanying genitive; cf. Winer, p. 223 f. [E. T. 298]; Buttmann, p. 141; Meyer on Eph_2:2 (thus Grotius, Jachmann, etc.; Fronmüller too). De Wette, Brückner, Schott, Weiss too most probably, p. 172, take τέκνα as the “children of God,” and ὑπακοῆς as the genitive of character (as Luk_16:8 : ὁ οἰκόνομος τῆς ἀδικίας ; Luk_18:6 : ὁ κρίτης τῆς ἀδικίας ). But as it is in 1Pe_1:17 that mention is first made of the sonship relation of the Christian, it remains at least doubtful whether the apostle had in this expression that relation in view; at any rate the emphasis here lies not on τέκνα , but on ὑπακοῆς .
μὴ συσχηματιζόμενοι ] μή occurs here on account of the imperative cast of the whole sentence. Neither γενήθητε (Bengel) nor any other similar word is to be supplied to the part., inasmuch as it does not correspond to the ἅγιοι γενήθητε but to the κατὰ τὸν καλέσαντα ὑμᾶς ἅγιον (Wiesinger); there is here no “departure from the construction” (de Wette). The word συσχηματίζεσθαι , occurring in the N. T. only here and in Rom_12:2, and nowhere but in later Greek, means: “to form his σχῆμα like that of another;”[83] it has reference not to the outward conduct merely, but to the whole outward and inward conformation of life, as the connection with the following words shows: ΤΑῖς ΠΡΌΤΕΡΟΝ ἘΝ Τῇ ἈΓΝΟΊᾼ ὙΜῶΝ ἘΠΙΘΥΜΊΑΙς . The ἘΠΙΘΥΜΊΑΙ , i.e. the sinful desires (not “the satisfied lusts, or a life of pleasure,” as de Wette understands), which formerly held sway in them, are the σχῆμα , according to which they are not to fashion themselves in their new life.[84] Luther’s translation is inexact: “take not up your former position, when ye in your ignorance lived according to your lusts.” The ἐπιθυμίαι are more precisely characterized as formerly belonging to them ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ ; ἐν specifies not merely the time (Calvin: tempus ignorantiae vocat, antequam in fidem Christi vocati essent), but likewise the origin (Wiesinger). ἄγνοια is used here as in Act_17:30, Eph_4:18, ignorance in divine things, and is to be understood, if not exactly of idolatry, at least of heathenism, which is far from the knowledge of the living God and of His will. Paul, in Rom_1:18 ff., shows how the obscuring of the consciousness of God is the source of moral corruption.
[82] Hofmann connects not only these words, but the subsequent participial clause also: μὴ συσχηματιζόμενοι κ . τ . λ ., with what precedes. This, however, is opposed, on the one hand, by the correspondence which exists between τέκνα ὑπακοῆς and the subsequent exhortations; and, on the other hand, by ἀλλά , ver. 15, which is in antithesis to μὴ συσχηματιζόμενοι , and therefore not to be separated from it, as though it commenced a new paragraph.
[83] When, in objection to this, Hofmann urges that συσχηματίζεσθαι should here be interpreted not according to Rom_12:2, but on the principle of the expression: συσχ . τοῖς λεγομένοις ; “so to conduct oneself as to give adequate expression to the words used,”—he does not consider that in this verse the verb has the same force as in Rom_12:2, for it means: “to conform your σχῆμα to that which your words express.”
[84] Schott terms this interpretation “inexact;” for “it is not the lusts themselves, but the mode of life which is essentially characterized by these lusts, according to which they are not to fashion themselves;” but does then ἐπιθυμίαι mean “the mode of life”? Besides, Schott himself says that the thought is not altogether correctly expressed.
REMARK.
In answer to Weiss, who can see in this passage no proof that the readers were Gentile-Christians, Wiesinger justly remarks, Schott and Brückner agreeing with him: “the ἄγνοια of which the Jews (Act_3:17; Rom_10:3) are accused, or which Paul attributes to himself, 1Ti_1:13 (the same applies to Luk_23:34; Joh_8:19), is of quite a different kind; not an ἄγνοια of the moral demands of the law, but the misapprehension of the purpose of salvation manifesting itself also through the law.” If Weiss, on the other hand, insists (Die Petr. Frage, p. 624) that the invectives of Christ most plainly teach how, in the Jewish conception of the law, at that time its deeper moral demands were misapprehended; it must, as opposed to him, be observed that Christ’s attack was specially directed against the Pharisaic conception of it, and can in no way be applied to the people of Israel as such. Paul, in describing them, expressly allows to the Jews, Rom_2:17 ff., the γινώσκειν τὸ θέλημα ; and an ἄγνοια , in the absolute sense here implied, is nowhere cast up to them.
The O. T. distinction between “sins of weakness ( áÌÄùÑÀâÈâÈä , LXX.: κατʼ ἄγνοιαν , ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ ) and insolent sins of disobedience” ( áÌÀéÇã øÈîÈä ) (Weiss, p. 175) does not apply here.