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1Pe_1:8. The longing of the believers is directed to the ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησ . Χριστοῦ , He being the object of their love and joy. This thought is subjoined to what precedes in two relative clauses, in order that thereby the apostle may advert to the glory of the future salvation.
ὃν οὐκ εἰδότες ἀγαπᾶτε ] “whom, although ye know Him not (that is, according to the flesh, or in His earthly personality), ye love.” The object of εἰδότες is easily supplied from ὅν , according to the usage in Greek. The reading ἰδόντες expresses substantially the same thought.
Since ἀγάπη , properly speaking, presupposes personal acquaintance, the clause οὐκ εἰδότες is significantly added, in order to set forth prominently that the relation to Christ is an higher than any based on a knowledge after the flesh.
In the clause following—co-ordinate with this—the thought is carried further, the apostle’s glance being again directed to the future appearance of Christ.
εἰς ὂν ἄρτι μὴ ὁρῶντες πιστεύοντες δὲ ἀγαλλιᾶσθε ] As regards the construction, εἰς ὅν can hardly be taken with ἀγαλλιᾶσθε , the participles ὁρῶντες and πιστεύοντες thus standing absolutely (Fronmüller), but, as most interpreters are agreed, must be construed with πιστεύοντες . The more precise determination of the thought must depend on whether ἀγαλλιᾶσθε is, with de Wette, Brückner, Winer, Steinmeyer, Weiss, Schott, to be taken as referring to present, or, with Wiesinger and Hofmann, to future joy. In the first case, ἀγαλλιᾶσθε is joined in the closest manner with πιστεύοντες , and ἄρτι only with μὴ ὁρῶντες (de Wette: “and in Him, though now seeing Him not, yet believing ye exult”); in the second, εἰς ὂν … πιστεύοντες δέ is to be taken as the condition of the ἀγαλλιᾶσθε , and ἄρτι to be joined with πιστεύοντες (Wiesinger: “on whom for the present believing,—although without seeing,—ye exult”). In support of the first view, it may be advanced, that thus ἀγαλλιᾶσθε corresponds more exactly to ἀγαπᾶτε , and that μὴ ὁρῶντες forms a more natural antithesis to ἀγαλλιᾶσθε than to πιστεύοντες ; for the second, that it is precisely one of the peculiarities characteristic of this epistle, that it sets forth the present condition of believers as one chiefly of suffering, which only at the ἀποκάλυψις of the Lord will be changed into one of joy; that the more precise definition: χαρᾷ ἀνεκλαλήτῳ καὶ δεδοξασμένῃ , as also the subsequent κομιζόμενοι , have reference to the future; that the ἄρτι seems to involve the thought: “now ye see Him not, but then ye see Him, and shall rejoice in beholding Him;” and lastly, that the apostle, 1Pe_4:13, expressly ascribes the ἀγαλλιᾶσθαι to the future. On these grounds the second view is preferable to the first. The present ἀγαλλιᾶσθε need excite the less surprise, that the future joy is one not only surely pledged to the Christian, but which its certainty makes already present. It may, indeed, be supposed that ἀγαλλιᾶσθε must be conceived as in the same relation to time with ἀγαπᾶτε ; yet, according to the sense, it is not the ἀγαλλιᾶσθαι , but the πιστεύειν , which forms the second characteristic of the Christian life annexed to ἀγαπᾷν . It is not, however, the case, that on account of the present πιστεύοντες , ἀγαλλ . also must be taken with a present signification (Schott), since love and faith are the present ground of the joy beginning indeed now, but perfected only in the future. The particle of time ἄρτι applies not only to μὴ ὁρῶντες , but likewise to πιστεύοντες δέ ; the sense of μὴ ὁρῶντες πιστεύοντες δέ is not this, that although they now do not see, yet still believe—the not seeing and the believing do not form an antithesis, they belong to each other; but this, that the Christians do not indeed see, but believe. On the distinction between οὐκ εἰδότες and μὴ ὁρῶντες , see Winer, p. 452 [E. T. 609].
χαρᾷ ἀνεκλαλήτῳ καὶ δεδοξασμένῃ ] serves to intensify ἀγαλλιᾶσθε . ἀνεκλάλητος , ἅπ . λεγ ., “unspeakable,” is either “what cannot be expressed in words” (thus ἀλάλητος , Rom_8:26), or “what cannot be exhausted by words.”[66] ΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΜΈΝΗ , according to Weiss, means: “the joy which already bears within it the glory, in which the future glory comes into play even in the Christian’s earthly life;” similarly Steinmeyer: “hominis fidelis laetitia jam exstat ΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΜΈΝΗ , quoniam ΔΌΞΑΝ ejus futuram praesentem habet ac sentit;” but on this interpretation relations are introduced which in and for itself the word does not possess. ΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΜΈΝΟς means simply “glorified;” χαρὰ δεδοξασμ . is accordingly the joy which has attained unto perfected glory; but “the imperfect joy of the Christian here (Wiesinger, Hofmann), and not the joy of the world, which as of sense and transitory is a joy ἘΝ ἈΤΙΜΊᾼ ” (Fronmüller), is to be regarded as its antithesis; so that this expression also seems to show that ἈΓΑΛΛΙᾶΣΘΕ is to be understood of the future exultation.
[66] Steinmeyer gives an unjustifiable application to the word, by saying: “Meminerimus τῶν ποικίλων πειρασμῶν . Si quidem plurimae illae tentationes totidem laetitiae causas afferumt, sine dubio ἡ χαρά eodem sensu ἀνεκλάλητος exstat, quo πειρασμοί nequeunt enumerari.”