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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Peter 1:18 - 1:18
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18. εἰδότες. The thought of what their deliverance has cost increases the responsibility of Christians to “walk worthily.”
ἐλυτρώθητε, ye were ransomed. The word is used of deliverance from slavery or from exile, e.g. of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Exo 6:6; Exo 15:13, etc.). So St Stephen speaks of Moses as λυτρωτής. Again Isa 52:3, speaking of the deliverance from Babylon, says, οὐ μετὰ ἀργυρίου λυτρωθήσεσθε. In Luk 2:38 Anna “spake of Jesus to all those that were looking for the redemption (λύτρωσιν) of Jerusalem” (R.V.), referring to the Messianic kingdom as the deliverance from foreign rule; cf. Luk 24:21, “We hoped that it was He which should redeem (λυτροῦσθαι) Israel.” Similarly Christians are to welcome the signs of the coming of the Son of Man as a token that their redemption draweth nigh, i.e. their deliverance, Luk 21:28. So sin is regarded as a state of slavery from which man needs deliverance, and in Eph 1:7, Col 1:14, St Paul defines ἀπολύτρωσις as ἄφεσις παραπτωμάτων or ἁμαρτιῶν, letting go free from sins, and in Tit 2:14 he says that “Christ Jesus gave Himself on our behalf that he might redeem (λυτρώσηται) from all iniquity and purify unto himself a people for his own possession,” just as Israel were made God’s “peculiar people” by being “purchased and redeemed of old.” So here St Peter regards the old heathen life of his readers as a state of slavery from which they have been ransomed. But besides the mere idea of rescue or deliverance the word λυτροῦσθαι suggests also deliverance by the payment of a ransom by another, and the ransom given for man’s deliverance from the slavery of sin was the life-blood of Christ Himself; cf. Mat 20:28; Mar 10:45, “The Son of Man came … to give His life a ransom for many” (λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν); cf. 1Ti 2:6, ὁ δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων. So here the blood, as representing the surrendered life, is the ransom; cf. Rev 1:5, “to him that loosed us (λύσαντι, not λούσαντι = washed, as T.R.) from our sins (ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ) at the price of his own blood.” We must not, however, over-press the metaphor and ask to whom the ransom was paid. Most of the early Fathers regarded the ransom as paid to the devil as being the slave-owner. Such a thought is abhorrent to us, yet the other suggested alternative that the price was paid to the Father would imply that the Father’s pardon required to be bought, whereas “God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son,” and in one passage (Act 20:28) the Father Himself seems to be described as the ransomer or purchaser. Cf. Rev 14:3-4.
ἐκ τῆς ματαίας ὑμῶν ἀναστροφῆς. This is the state of slavery out of which (ἐκ) they were rescued.
ματαίας. The adjective is used in 1Ki 16:13, 2Ki 17:15, of idolatry; so in Act 14:15 Paul and Barnabas speak of turning ἀπὸ τούτων τῶν ματαίων, i.e. idolatrous practices, and St Paul speaks of the heathen as walking ἐν ματαιότητι, Eph 4:27.
μάταιος = aimless, purposeless, and describes the futility of life without God.
πατροπαραδότου. This word has been used as an argument that the readers had been Jews, whose παράδοσις is frequently spoken of disparagingly in the N.T., but the word would be equally applicable to Gentiles. Their ancestral heathenism was intensified by the accumulated habits of centuries.