Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - 1 Peter 1:3 - 1:3
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; either the conjunction and is here but an explicative particle, and so we render it, 2Co_1:3, God, even the Father, & c.; or if we take it for a copulative, as Eph_1:3: God is called the God of Jesus Christ, according to Christ’s human nature, and his Father according to his Divine.
Which according to his abundant mercy; this shows the fountain from whence regeneration and all other spiritual blessings flow, and excludes all merit and dignity in us, as the cause of so great benefits.
Abundant mercy is the same with riches of mercy, Eph_2:4.
Hath begotten us again; translated us out of a state of sin and misery into a state of grace and life; and so begotten again here, is the same as sanctifying in the former verse.
Unto a lively hope; either a lively hope, for hope of life; or rather, a lively hope is a true and effectual hope, such as proceeds from a lively faith, and is itself productive of peace and purity, Rom_5:2 1Jo_3:3, in opposition to the vain hope of worldly men, which neither comes from faith nor tends to holiness.
By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead: this may be referred either:
1. To God’s begetting us again, and then it implies the resurrection of Christ to be the cause of our regeneration, we being raised to a spiritual life by the power of Christ’s resurrection, and our vivification being often ascribed to it, 1Pe_3:21 Rom_4:25 6:4,5: see Eph_2:5. Or:
2. To the lively hope to which he begets us, which depends upon, and ariseth from, the faith of Christ’s resurrection, Rom_8:11 1Co_15:17,19 1Th_4:13,14. Christ’s resurrection being the cause and pledge of ours, as the certainty of ours depends upon his, so the liveliness of our hope follows upon the faith of it. Possibly the apostle may have in these words some respect to the languishing condition of the hope of him, and the other disciples, Luk_24:21, which was then ready to expire, but was again revived by their being well assured of his resurrection, Luk_24:33,34.