《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – 1 Peter》(Johann P. Lange)
Commentator
Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer).
Introduction
THE
EPISTLES GENERAL OF PETER
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by
G. F. C. FRONMÜLLER, Ph. D.
Pastor At Kemnath, Würtemberg
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TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND REVISED GERMAN EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS ORIGINAL AND SELECTED
by
J. ISIDOR MOMBERT, D. D.
Rector Of St. James’s Church, Lancaster, PA.
THE
FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER
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INTRODUCTION
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§ 1. LIFE AND CHARCTER OF THE APOSTLE
Simon Peter, son of Jonas ( Matthew 16:17; John 1:42; John 21:16), and brother of Andrew ( Matthew 10:2; John 1:41), was born at Bethsaida, a village on the coast of the sea of Galilee ( John 1:44), where in those days many receptive minds were animated by a desire for the advent of the Messiah. He owned a house at Capernaum ( Matthew 8:14; Luke 4:38), was married there, and followed the trade of a fisherman ( Matthew 4:18; Mark 1:16; Luke 5:2). Andrew, his brother, a disciple of John the Baptist, who had believed his teacher’s word, “Behold the Lamb of God,” and thereupon had become a disciple of Jesus, told him the glorious discovery he had made, and took him to Jesus. On his first acquaintance with the Searcher of hearts, he received the surname, Cephas, Peter, the man of rock ( John 1:42). This circumstance partly denotes his natural disposition, and partly a prediction of what, on the foundation of that disposition, grace would make of him. His fiery temperament, his quick resoluteness, his fearless courage, and his unreserved candour, were to be purified, glorified and confirmed by his love of Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus only could he become a rocky foundation of the church of Christ ( Matthew 16:18). After sundry meetings and preparations, the Lord attached him to the number of his permanent disciples. The miraculous blessing which is recorded in Luke 5:1, etc, and made Peter deeply conscious of his own unworthiness and of our Lord’s exaltation and holiness, was the turning point in his career. His call to the Apostolate is narrated in Matthew 4:18-20; and Luke 5:10-11. In the four catalogues enumerating the twelve apostles, he is invariably named first, Matthew 10:2; Mark 3:16; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13. His full resignation to the Lord, and his deeper insight of his Divine Sonship, made him not only share with John and James their Master’s more intimate friendship ( Mark 5:37; Matthew 26:37), but also enjoy a special preference over the rest of the apostles ( Matthew 16:18-19). Every where he appears as first among the apostles, but only as first among equals, placed not above, but on a level with them. (cf. Matthew 18:18; John 20:21; Luke 8:45; Luke 9:32; John 1:42; John 21:15; Acts 1:15; Acts 2:14; Acts 8:14; Acts 10:5; Acts 15:7.) Among the other disciples he was clothed with the dignity of being their spokesman, ( Matthew 16:16; Matthew 26:33; Matthew 17:24,) without thereby having a claim to outward superiority, for all believers were to regard each other as brethren and members under their one head, Christ ( Matthew 23:8; John 13:14). Besides the important and characteristic epochs of his life already mentioned, we have the following: his walking on the sea, which was designed to make him clearly conscious of the value of his own strength, in which he had so much confided ( Matthew 14:29, etc.); his offence at the Passion of Jesus, when he undertook to censure and reprove his Master, while the word of the keys of the kingdom was still ringing in his ears ( Matthew 16:22; Matthew 16:19).—Again, his wish to build tabernacles on the mount of transfiguration ( Matthew 17:4); his believing obedience to a direction which ran wholly counter to reason, occasioned by a question concerning the temple-tribute ( Matthew 17:27); his inquiry as to the reward flowing from his following Christ ( Matthew 19:27); his refusal to allow Jesus to wash his feet, hastily followed by the opposite extreme, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head” ( John 13:8, etc.); his promise to go with the loved Master into prison and death; his asseveration rather to die than deny his Lord [ Matthew 26:35], arising from reliance on his own strength and disregard of the words of Jesus, followed by the deep fall of his threefold denial ( Matthew 26:31-35; Matthew 26:58; Matthew 26:69, etc.). The wilful defence of his Master with the sword ( John 18:10-11); his tearful repentance after meeting the look of Jesus ( Matthew 26:75; Mark 14:72); his hurrying forth to the tomb of the risen Saviour, who had appeared to him before the other disciples ( Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5); the loving zeal with which he anticipated the others in greeting the Master on the shore of the lake ( John 21:7), where Jesus foretold him his destiny ( John 21:18, etc.); his reply to the Redeemer’s question, “Lovest thou me?” and his restoration to the pastoral office by the charge, “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” ( John 21:15, etc.)
In the first twelve chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, Peter appears as the chief organ of the Church at Jerusalem. ( Acts 1:15; Acts 2:14). He is the spokesman of the other Apostles on the day of Pentecost, and preaches a mighty sermon on repentance, which pierces the hearts of three thousand hearers like a fiery arrow. He multiplies the number of believers both by the working of miracles, and the victorious power of the Gospel. ( Acts 3:4; Acts 5:15; Acts 9:34; Acts 9:40). He deems it joy to endure the ignominy of Christ; and suffers neither threatenings nor ill treatment to make him falter in confessing the name of Jesus. ( Acts 4:8; Acts 5:29). He joins John in carrying the Gospel to Samaria ( Acts 8:14), and the coast regions of the Mediterranean. ( Acts 10:23). He is the first Apostle, who, in consequence of a vision with which he was honoured, received Gentiles into communion of the Christian Church. ( Acts 10:34). He defends this measure against the reproaches of the Jewish Christians, and protects the Gentile Christians from the heavy yoke of the Mosaic Law. ( Acts 11:1, etc.; Acts 15:7, etc.). If, under the impulse of the moment, he was carried away into a course of action which contradicted those principles ( Galatians 2:12), he suffered himself by the correction of Paul the Apostle, to abandon the transient wavering of the new position he had taken. After the beheading of James the Apostle, Herod Agrippa cast Peter into prison, whence he was miraculously delivered by an angel. ( Acts 12:1). After a brief absence, ( Acts 12:17), subsequent to the death of his enemy, he reappears at Jerusalem ( Acts 15:7) and declares, with a view to settling the dispute between the Jewish and Gentile Christians, that circumcision and the observance of the ceremonial law ought not to be exacted as necessary to the justification and salvation of believers. This event falls into the year50 A. D. Since, in the subsequent account of the transactions at Jerusalem, recorded in the book of Acts, Peter ceases to be mentioned, we may conclude that his subsequent sphere of labour had called him away from there. His abode at Antioch, and the incident already mentioned above, belongs to the time from A. D 52 to54 ( Galatians 2:11-14). It is clear, from 1 Corinthians 9:5, that Peter undertook various journeys for the spread of the kingdom of God. According to an ancient tradition in Origen, which originated probably in the title of his first Epistle, Peter is said to have preached the Gospel to the Jews scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, and Bithynia. He appears for some time to have had his sphere of labour in the Parthian empire, since he sends salutations from his co-elected at Babylon ( 1 Peter 5:13), which is probably not to be understood of Rome, but of Babylon, in Chaldea. Many Jews were dispersed there, and Christianity was early diffused in those regions. According to Dionysius of Corinth, who wrote in the second half of the second century, and according to Irenæus and Eusebius, Peter and Paul are said to have been together at Rome, and to have conjointly founded the Church at that place; Eusebius narrates that the two Apostles had shared a common martyrdom there; Peter was crucified with his head downwards. The fourteenth year of the reign of Nero, from the middle of October, A. D67, to the middle of A. D68, is mentioned as the year of the Apostle’s death. Tertullian and Lactantius also report the common execution of the two Apostles, whose tombs were shown at Rome as early as the end of the second century. See Winer s. v. Petrus. The most ancient witness for the Apostle’s stay at Rome, is Papias, who refers to John (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii39; ii15). With these early testimonies to support us, we refuse being misled by the critics (Spanheim, Baur, Schwegler, and others), who dispute Peter’s stay at Rome. With reference to the Apostle’s sphere of labour, we have still to mention the circumstance that, (as we learn from Galatians 2:9), Paul and the pillars among the first Apostles gave to each other the right hand of fellowship at the apostolic council of Jerusalem, in token that Paul would recognize as his peculiar vocation, and carry out the mission among the Gentiles, while they would act in like manner with regard to the mission among the Jews. Peter is particularly named, as having had confided to him the Gospel of the circumcision ( Galatians 2:7-8), for which he would seem to have been peculiarly fitted, on account of the national peculiarities which were so strongly stamped upon his character. Of him, as the Apostle of the circumcision, it may consequently be presupposed that he would move much on the foundation of the Old Testament, that he would set his testimony of Christ and the salvation that is in Him in the light of the Old Testament, and that he would lay stress on the oneness of both Testaments; while, as the immediate disciple of our Lord, as the witness of His entire ministerial activity and history, and as His favourite Apostle, he would often refer to the words of that beloved Master to whom he was so ardently and devotedly attached. We shall see whether the event confirms these pre-suppositions.
§ 2. SCOPE OF THE EPISTLE
“When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” Luke 22:32. Acting on this, his Master’s charge, Peter wrote to the strangers of the dispersion. He indicates the design of his writing himself, in 1 Peter 5:12 : “I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God, wherein ye stand.” They were already converted, believing Christians, who needed not so much a testimony that laid the foundation, as one that was edifying and confirmative (ἐπιμαρτυρεῖν), who required comfort in their tribulation and encouragements to a holy life. The sifting period of believers had partly come already, and was partly approaching; the roaring of the lion that threatened to devour the faithful, was already heard. On this account, the Apostle abounds in exhortations to vigilance and soberness, to right preparation and readiness, to fidelity in confession and life, and endeavours to cast the bright beams of hope of the approaching day of glory into the night of suffering they were about to encounter. He would have them triumph over the sufferings of this present time, with a stedfast look on Christ and their heavenly inheritance. The testimony of Christ is richly interwoven with such repeated encouragements. The sequel will show that Dogmatics and Ethics do not occur separately in this Epistle, but are often directly conjoined, and frequently present a quick, even a bold transition from the one to the other. (cf. 1 Peter 2:21, etc.; 1 Peter 3:18, etc.; 1 Peter 4:1, etc.).
§ 3. CONTENTS AND ANALYSIS OF THE EPISTLE
The Title and Salutation of consolation ( 1 Peter 1:1-2), is followed by the exordium, as basis of the argument ( 1 Peter 1:3-12), gratitude for God’s saving grace to Christians. The hope of the heavenly inheritance, prepared for them by Christ, should raise them above all temporal suffering. They might measure the greatness of their salvation by the fact that it had been the object of the anxious longing, and diligent search of the prophets, and that even the blessed angels of heaven were looking with profound admiration on this mystery. The entire subsequent contents of the Epistle rest and move on the basis of their possession of salvation and hope. With reference to the state of regeneration, which is presupposed in believers, exhortation and consolation [παραίνεσις and παράκλησις.—M.], appear as leading tendencies from 1 Peter 1:13, onwards. The first part of the Epistle comprises 1 Peter 1:13 to 1 Peter 2:10. The general exhortation to become ever more firmly grounded in hope, and on that account, also, in a holy conversation, 1 Peter 1:14-16, to walk in the fear of God, 1 Peter 1:17-21, to persevere in brotherly love, 1 Peter 1:22-25, which is again founded on regeneration, 1 Peter 1:23.