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1Pe_1:20. προεγνωσμένου μέν ] is indeed not simply and at once: praeordinatus (Beza), but the foreknowledge of God is, with respect to the salvation He was to bring about, essentially a providing, cf. 1Pe_1:2 : πρόγνωσις . In regard to Christ it was provided ( προεγνωσμένου refers not directly to ἀμνοῦ , but to Χριστοῦ ) that He should appear ( φανερωθέντος δέ ) as a sacrificial lamb to redeem the world by His blood. The passage does not say that Christ would have appeared even though sin had never entered.
πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου ] a frequent designation of antemundane eternity, Joh_17:24; Eph_1:4. This nearer definition specifies the sending of Christ as having originated in the eternal counsels of God, in order thus to give point to the exhortation contained in 1Pe_1:17.
φανερωθέντος δέ ] here of the first appearing of Christ, which in this passage is represented as an emerging from the obscurity in which He was (chap. 1Pe_5:4, of His second coming); it is incorrect to refer φανερωθέντος to the obscurity of the divine counsels (as formerly in this commentary), since φανερωθέντος applies as much as προεγνωσμένου to the person of Christ. Between the πρόγνωσις and the φανέρωσις lies the προφητεία , 1Pe_1:10. Rightly interpreted, φανερωθέντος testifies to the pre-existence of Christ.[94] The sequence of the aorist participle on the participle προεγνωσμένου is to be explained from this, that by φανερωθέντος an historical fact is mentioned.
ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων ] ἔσχατον : a substantival use of it, “at the end of the times.” This ἔσχατον of the times is here conceived as the whole period extending from the first appearance of Christ to His second coming; in like manner Heb_1:1; otherwise 2Pe_3:3, where by ἔσχατον is meant the time as yet future, immediately preceding the second coming of Christ; in like manner 1Pe_1:5.[95]
Note the antithesis: ΠΡῸ ΚΑΤΑΒ . Κ . and ἘΠʼ ἘΣΧΆΤΟΥ Τ . ΧΡ .: beginning and end united in Christ.
ΔΙʼ ὙΜᾶς ] refers in the first instance to the readers, but embraces at the same time all ἘΚΛΕΚΤΟΊ . Believers are the aim of all God’s schemes of salvation; what an appeal to them to walk ἘΝ ΦΌΒῼ ΤῸΝ ΠΑΡΟΙΚΊΑς ΧΡΌΝΟΝ ! There is as little here to indicate any reference to the heathen (Hofmann) as there was in εἰς ὑμᾶς , 1Pe_1:10.
[94] Schmid rightly says (bibl. Theol. II. p. 165): “ προεγνωσμένου does not deny the actual pre-existence, because Χριστοῦ includes a designation which is not yet realized in the actual pre-existence, but will be so only in virtue of the φανερωθῆναι .”
[95] It is indeed correct that, as Schott says, the end of the times is so, through the manifestation of Christ; but it is an arbitrary assertion to say that ἐτί serves to give more prominence and precision to this thought.