1 Peter 2:9

9. Contrast in the privileges and destinies of believers. Compare the similar contrast with the preceding context. chosen--"elect" of God, even as Christ your Lord is. generation--implying the unity of spiritual origin and kindred of believers as a class distinct from the world. royal--kingly. Believers, like Christ, the antitypical Melchisedec, are at once kings and priests. Israel, in a spiritual sense, was designed to be the same among the nations of the earth. The full realization on earth of this, both to the literal and the spiritual Israel, is as yet future. holy nation--antitypical to Israel. peculiar people--literally, "a people for an acquisition," that is, whom God chose to be peculiarly His: Ac 20:28, "purchased," literally, "acquired." God's "peculiar treasure" above others. show forth--publish abroad. Not their own praises but His. They have no reason to magnify themselves above others for once they had been in the same darkness, and only through God's grace had been brought to the light which they must henceforth show forth to others. praises--Greek, "virtues," "excellencies": His glory, mercy (1Pe 2:10), goodness (Greek, 1Pe 2:3; Nu 14:17, 18; Is 63:7). The same term is applied to believers, 2Pe 1:5. of him who hath called you--(2Pe 1:3). out of darkness--of heathen and even Jewish ignorance, sin, and misery, and so out of the dominion of the prince of darkness. marvellous--Peter still has in mind Psa 118:23. light--It is called "His," that is, God's. Only the (spiritual) light is created by God, not darkness. In Is 45:7, it is physical darkness and evil, not moral, that God is said to create, the punishment of sin, not sin itself. Peter, with characteristic boldness, brands as darkness what all the world calls light; reason, without the Holy Spirit, in spite of its vaunted power, is spiritual darkness. "It cannot apprehend what faith is: there it is stark blind; it gropes as one that is without eyesight, stumbling from one thing to another, and knows not what it does" [Luther].

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Verse 9. But ye are a chosen generation. In contradistinction from those who, by their disobedience, had rejected the Saviour as the foundation of hope. The people of God are often represented as his chosen or elected people. 1Pet 1:2.

A royal priesthood. 1Pet 2:2%. The meaning of this is, probably, that they "at once bore the dignity of kings, and the sanctity of priests."--Doddridge. Comp. Rev 1:6: "And hath made us kings and priests unto God." See also Isa 61:6: "But ye shall be named priests of the Lord; men shall call you ministers of our God." It may be, however, that the word royal is used only to denote the dignity of the priestly office which they sustained, or that they constituted, as it were, an entire nation or kingdom of priests. They were a kingdom over which he presided, and they were all priests; so that it might be said they were a kingdom of priests--a kingdom in which all the subjects were engaged in offering sacrifice to God. The expression appears to be taken from Ex 19:6--"And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests"--and is such language as one who had been educated as a Jew would be likely to employ to set forth the dignity of those whom he regarded as the people of God.

An holy nation. This is also taken from Ex 19:6. The Hebrews were regarded as a nation consecrated to God; and now that they were east off or rejected for their disobedience, the same language was properly applied to the people whom God had chosen in their place --the Christian church.

A peculiar people. Comp. Tit 2:14, The margin here is purchased. The word peculiar, in its common acceptation now, would mean that they were distinguished from others, or were singular. The reading in the margin would mean that they had been bought or redeemed. Both these things are so, but neither of them expresses the exact sense of the original. The Greek (λαοςειςπεριποιησιν) means, "a people for a possession;" that is, as pertaining to God. They are a people which he has secured as a possession, or as his own; a people, therefore, which belong to him, and to no other. In this sense they are peculiar as being his; and, being such, it may be inferred that they should be peculiar in the sense of being unlike others in their manner of life. But that idea is not necessarily in the text. There seems to be here also an allusion to Ex 19:5: "Ye shall be a peculiar treasure with me (Sept. λαοςπεριουσιος) above all people."

That ye should shew forth the praises of him. Marg., virtues. The Greek word (αρετη) means properly good quality, excellence of any kind. It means here the excellences of God--his goodness, his wondrous deeds, or those things which make it proper to praise him. This shows one great object for which they were redeemed. It was that they might proclaim the glory of God, and keep up the remembrance of his wondrous deeds in the earth. This is to be done

(a.) by proper ascriptions of praise to him in public, family, and social worship;

(b.) by being always the avowed friends of God, ready ever to vindicate his government and ways;

(c.) by endeavouring to make known his excellences to all those who are ignorant of him; and

(d.) by such a life as shall constantly proclaim his praise--as the sun, the moon, the stars, the hills, the streams, the flowers do, showing what God does. The consistent life of a devoted Christian is a constant setting forth of the praise of God, showing to all that the God who has made him such is worthy to be loved.

Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. On the word called, Eph 4:1. Darkness is the emblem of ignorance, sin, and misery, and refers here to their condition before their conversion; light is the emblem of the opposite, and is a beautiful representation of the state of those who are brought to the knowledge of the gospel. Acts 26:18. The word marvellous means wonderful; and the idea is, that the light of the gospel was such as was unusual, or not to be found elsewhere, as that excites wonder or surprise which we are not accustomed to see. The primary reference here is, undoubtedly, to those who had been heathens, and to the great change which had been produced by their having been brought to the knowledge of the truth as revealed in the gospel; and, in regard to this, no one can doubt that the one state deserved to be characterized as darkness, and the other as light. The contrast was as great as that between midnight and noonday. But what is here said is substantially correct of all who are converted, and is often as strikingly true of those who have been brought up in Christian lands, as of those who have lived among the heathen. The change in conversion is often so great and so rapid, the views and feelings are so different before and after conversion, that it seems like a sudden transition from midnight to noon. In all cases also, of true conversion, though the change may not be so striking, or apparently so sudden, there is a change of which this may be regarded as substantially an accurate description. In many cases the convert can adopt this language in all its fulness, as descriptive of his own conversion; in all cases of genuine conversion it is true that each one can say that he has been called from a state in which his mind was dark to one in which it is comparatively clear.

(1) "peculiar" "purchased" (b) "people" De 4:20 (2) "the praises" "virtues" (c) "darkness" Acts 26:18

Albert Barnes, 1834 · public domain

Verse 9 Ye are a chosen generation - The titles formerly given to the whole Jewish Church, i.e. to all the Israelites without exception, all who were in the covenant of God by circumcision, whether they were holy persons or not, are here given to Christians in general in the same way; i.e. to all who believed in Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles, and who received baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Israelites were a chosen or elected race, to be a special people unto the Lord their God, above all people that were upon the face of the earth, Deu 7:6. They were also a royal priesthood, or what Moses calls a kingdom of priests, Exo 19:6. For all were called to sacrifice to God; and he is represented to be the King of that people, and Father of those of whom he was king; therefore they were all royal. They were a holy nation, Exo 19:6; for they were separated from all the people of the earth, that they might worship the one only true God, and abstain from the abominations that were in the heathen world. They were also a peculiar people, λαος εις περιποιησιν, a purchased people; סגלה segullah, a private property, belonging to God Almighty, Deu 7:6; none other having any right in them, and they being under obligation to God alone. All these things the apostle applies to the Christians, to whom indeed they belong, in their spirit and essence, in such a way as they could not belong to the Hebrews of old. But they were called to this state of salvation out of darkness - idolatry, superstition, and ungodliness, into his marvellous light - the Gospel dispensation, which, in reference to the discoveries it had made of God, his nature, will, and gracious promises towards mankind, differed as much from the preceding dispensation of the Jews, as the light of the meridian sun from the faint twinkling of a star. And they had these privileges that they might show forth the praises of Him who had thus called them; αρετας, the virtues, those perfections of the wisdom, justice, truth, and goodness of God, that shone most illustriously in the Christian dispensation. These they were to exhibit in a holy and useful life, being transformed into the image of God, and walking as Christ himself walked.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain