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1Pe_4:17. The apostle’s exhortation: μὴ αἰσχυνέσθω , δοξαζέτω δέ , is based on a reference to the judgment which threatens the unbelieving. The connection of thought is the same here as in 1Pe_4:4-5.
Calvin differently: Nam haec necessitas totam Dei ecclesiam manet, ut
Dei manu castigetur: tanto igitur aequiori animo ferendae sunt pro Christo persequutiones. But in this, as in the following verse, the chief stress is laid not so much on the first as on the second half. It is purely arbitrary for Pott to assert that ὅτι is superfluous.
ὅτι ὁ καιρὸς τοῦ ἄρξασθαι τὸ κρίμα ] Luther’s translation: “it is time,” is inexact. The article before καιρός must not be overlooked; thus: “for it is the time of the beginning of the judgment, that is, in which the judgment is beginning;” ἐστί is to be supplied; the genitive is directly dependent on ὁ καιρός (cf. Luk_1:57), and not “on καιρός taken out of the subject, ὁ καιρός ” (Hofmann). By κρίμα is to be understood the definite judgment ( τό ), that is, the final judgment, which Peter, however, here thinks of, not in its last decisive act, but in its gradual development. It begins with the Christians (Mat_24:9 ff.) in the refining fire of affliction, 1Pe_4:12, and is completed in the sentence of condemnation pronounced on the unbelieving world at the advent of Christ. In opposition to the apostle’s manner of expressing himself, Hofmann maintains that reference is here made only to the judgment of the unbelieving world, the beginning of which Peter recognised in the fact that God permitted it to persecute the Christians, to do unto them that which makes itself ripe for judgment(!).
ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ Θεοῦ ] ἀπό is here pregnant: the judgment takes place first in the οἶκ . τοῦ Θεοῦ : thence it proceeds further on; with the construction ἄρχεσθαι ἀπό , cf. Act_1:22; Act_8:35; Act_10:37.[259]
οἶκος τοῦ Θεοῦ is the church of believers; 1Ti_3:15 (chap. 1Pe_2:5, οἶκος πνευματικός ).
εἰ δὲ πρῶτον ἀφʼ ἡμῶν ] By these words the apostle passes over to the chief thought of the verse. Either τὸ κρίμα ἄρχεται may be supplied, and πρῶτον regarded as a pleonasm intensifying the idea ἄρχεται ; or it may be assumed, with de Wette, that the expression arose from a mingling of the two thoughts, εἰ δὲ ἀφʼ ἡμῶν τὸ κρίμα ἄρχεται and εἰ δὲ πρῶτον ἡμεῖς κρινόμεθα . The first is more probable; πρῶτον presented itself to the apostle, because he wished to lay stress on the fact that the Christians had to suffer only the beginning of the judgment, not its close.[260]
ἈΦʼ ἩΜῶΝ corresponds with the preceding ΟἾΚ . Τ . ΘΕΟῦ . The sense is: If God does not exempt us, the members of His house (His family), from judgment, but permits it to take its beginning at us, how should the unbelievers be exempted? (cf. Luk_23:31).
ΤΊ ΤῸ ΤΈΛΟς ΤῶΝ Κ . Τ . Λ .] sc. ἔσται .
τὸ τέλος , not: “the reward,” but: the final term, the end, to which the ἀπειθοῦντες τῷ εὐαγγ . (i.e. those who in hostility oppose the gospel of God) are going. Schott explains τὸ τέλος (antithetically to ΠΡῶΤΟΝ ) as the final judgment itself, and the genitive ΤῶΝ ἈΠΕΙΘΟΎΝΤΩΝ as a concise, nearer definition (“the part of the judgment which falls to the lot of the unbelievers”). But as little as ΠΡῶΤΟΝ means initiatory judgment, so little does ΤῸ ΤΈΛΟς final judgment.
On the interrogative form of the clause, Gerhard rightly remarks: exaggeratio est in interrogatione; cf. Luk_23:31. The echo[261] in this verse of passages of the Old Testament, like Jer_25:29; Jer_49:12, Eze_9:6, can the less fail to be recognised, that the words which follow are borrowed from the Old Testament.
[259] Schott thinks that Peter really intended to write: “for the time is come, that the judgment of the world must begin, but its beginning must be at the house of God.” But why then did Peter not write as he intended? Schott introduces an idea into the second clause, which Peter has in no way expressed.
[260] Schott’s interpretation, that πρῶτον should be taken as a substantive (equal to “a first”), and that a general verb, expressive of what takes place, should be supplied out of ἄρξασθαι ( ἀπό being at the same time zeugmatically repeated), contradicts itself by its artificialness.
[261] Calvin: Hane sententiam ex trita et perpetua Scripturae doctrina sumpsit Petrus; idque mihi probabilius est. uam quod alii putant, certum aliquem locum notari.