A number of hymns have been influenced by this passage, for example, Blest be the Everlasting God (1707) and Bells of Hope (1905). In particular, Blest be the Father and his Love (1709), written by the prolific hymn writer Isaac Watts (1674–1748), reflects the work of each member of the Trinity. Paraphrases (not direct quotes) are highlighted in bold:
Blest be the Father and His love,
To whose celestial source we owe
Rivers of endless joy above,
And rills of comfort here below.
Glory to Thee, great Son of God,
From whose dear wounded body rolls
A precious stream of vital blood,
Pardon and life for dying souls.
We give the sacred Spirit praise,
Who in our hearts of sin and woe
Makes living springs of grace arise,
And into boundless glory flow.
Thus God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, we adore;
That sea of life and love unknown,
Without a bottom or a shore.
The grace‐and‐peace blessing is a Christian adaptation of the secular peace blessing and is found in virtually all of the New Testament epistles, as well as in many other letters of the early church. In 1 Peter, the unique feature is the word “abundance” (plethyetheie) used here in the optative, which Paul never includes in his peace blessings. The sense, then, is “May your peace be great!” (Michaels, 1988: 13). This use certainly influenced 2 Peter and Jude, as well as 1 Clement and Polycarp (Philippians and Martyrdom). Throughout 1 Peter, the theme of grace is what conveys on the readers their privileged status with God (1:2, 10, 13; 3:7; 4:10; 5:5, 10, 12. cf., 2:19, 20). At the end of the epistle (5:10, 11), the grace‐and‐peace blessing is reiterated, forming an inclusio.
The Meaning and Purpose of Suffering (1:3–10)
Overview
Mercy, hope, and joy are three of the overarching themes of 1 Peter interwoven in his discussion of suffering. This passage is composed of three sentences, presented in such a way as to lead some scholars to identify it as a hymn. It is divided rhythmically into five stropes of five to seven lines each (for details, see Windisch and Priesker, 1951: 52; cf., Goppelt, 1993: 79). “Hope” is first introduced here:
vv.3–5 praise for God who has brought us to a living hope.
vv.6–7 hope in spite of suffering.
vv.8–9 hope although salvation cannot be presently seen.
Additional important concepts of 1 Peter are seen here: suffering, God’s mercy, and future eternal rejoicing promised to the chosen of God, with hope underlying the entire passage.
Peter’s notion of what God has done through Christ is based on the inalterable precept: God, out of mercy, has become Father to all, whether Jew or Greek, who acknowledge Christ as Lord. The use of “mercy” strongly echoes its Old Testament predication as an attribute of God (e.g., Num. 14:18; Pss. 86:5, 15; 104:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13). For example, Psalm 65[66].20 [LXX] says, “Blessed be God who has not turned away my prayer, nor his loving kindness from me.” By means of “mercy” God unites both Jew and Gentile in the rebirth made possible through Christ’s death and resurrection. In this way, Peter links mercy to “grace” which is given by God, but it is mercy which motivates the giving, the quality inherent in God as God.
Ancient Receptions
Hilary of Arles (c. 403–448) emphasizes that God’s actions to redeem us require no help from us (Intro. Comm. on 1 Peter, PLSupp 3: 101: ACC); see also Andreas (Catena, CEC: 42) and Bede (Comm., 1985: 71).
Throughout the epistle, hope continues to be a central idea. “Living hope” follows from being reborn and chosen; they are not only living an existence that is dynamic and authentic, they also are looking forward in anticipation to an inheritance (v.4) and salvation (v.5). The LXX uses the term “inheritance” over two hundred times, often in reference to the land of Canaan. Here, our author reflects the New Testament usage, referring to a spiritual, eternal, kingdom (e.g., Matt. 25:34; Mark 10:17; Luke 25). An early issue here is whether the inheritance is earthly and physical or eschatological and spiritual. Many early church leaders understood it in the eschatological sense. Oecumenius explains God’s blessings:
This hope is not the kind of hope which God gave to Moses, that the people would inherit a promised land in Canaan, for that hope was temporal and corruptible … Rather, God gives us a living hope, which has come from the resurrection of Christ. (Comm. on 1 Peter, PG 119: 516: my tr.)
Clement of Alexandria is more interested in the nature of the incorruptible body as a part of the inheritance and the soul’s relation to the corruptible body:
The soul never returns a second time to the body in this life … in the resurrection the soul returns to the body, and both are joined to one another according to their peculiar nature. (Adumbrations: FC: ccel.org)
In v.4, Peter describes the inheritance in terms of three negatives, it “can never perish, spoil or fade”; several early writers address this, further supporting the understanding that it is spiritual rather than physical. Didymus the Blind (313–398) is one of the earliest to comment:
Peter calls it incorruptible and unfading, demonstrating by this that it is a pure and divine inheritance which will remain uncontaminated. (Comm. on 1 Peter, PG 1756: my tr.; Hilary of Arles agrees, Intro. Comm. on 1 Peter)
In contrast, Bede reads “hope” in relation to our anticipation of the resurrection in the time to come, rather than as an earthly physical inheritance (Comm., 1985: 71–72). He adds a practical application to the description:
[Our inheritance is] imperishable because the heavenly life is untouched by age or disease or any sorrow … unfading, because the heavenly way of life cannot at last become worthless. (Comm., 1985: 72)
Andreas also emphasizes that the inheritance is heavenly, not earthly (Catena). Clearly, for these early writers, inheritance involves a future state of existence; it is not merely a present mental state.
By the Middle Ages, the issue shifts from the nature to the location of the inheritance, to where the soul goes after death. St. Thomas Aquinas particularly addresses the issue at some length; in fact there are kernels of thought here which would eventually develop into the theory of purgatory, the place where souls abide until they are appropriately cleansed:
after the body’s dissolution, the soul has an abode, which had been reserved for it in heaven … as soon as the soul is set free from the body it is either plunged into hell or soars to heaven, unless it be held back by some debt, for which its flight must needs be delayed until the soul is first of all cleansed. (ST XP [Sup. TP] Q [62] A [2]: “Whether souls are conveyed to heaven or hell immediately after death?” For additional discussion on this, see Gregory, Dial. IV, 25, and in De Eccl. Dogm. xlvi)