What Does 1 Peter 1:17 Mean?

(17) **And if**.—The “if” casts no doubt, but, on the contrary, serves to bring out the necessary logical connection between invoking the Father—and such a Father—and fear. (See Note on 1Thessalonians 4:14.) **Ye call on the Father.**—We might paraphrase by “if you use the Lord’s Prayer.” (Refer again to 1Peter 1:3; 1Peter 1:14.) The word seems not only to mean “if you *appeal* to the Father,” but “if you appeal to the Father by the *title* of Father.” (Comp. Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6.) **Who without respect of persons judgeth.**—This “judgeth,” or *decideth, *refers not only to the great judgment of the last day, but is used in reference to the word “if ye *call upon* the Father.” That word has a forensic sense (in which it is used in Acts 25:11) of lodging an *appeal, *and every time we lodge our appeal to the Father on the ground of His Fatherhood, He decides the case, but decides it without favour—makes no allowance to our wrong doing on the ground of being His regenerate children, and certainly none on the ground of being of the Hebrew race. That this last notion finds place here we may see from St. Peter’s words in Acts 10:34-35. He decides “according to every man’s work”—*i.e., *upon the individual merits of the case before Him. The man’s “work” (not “works”) embraces all his conduct in the lump, as a single performance, which is either good on the whole or bad on the whole. **Pass the time . . . in fear.**—The word for “pass” really is the same as the “conversation” of 1Peter 1:15, and is intended to take our thought back to it: “As obedient children, be holy in every part of your conduct; and if you wish for favour from the Father, see that that conduct is characterised by *fear.” “*This fear,” says Archbishop Leighton, “is not cowardice (nor superstition, we may add); it drowns all lower fears, and begets true fortitude; the righteous dare do anything but offend God. Moses was bold and fearless in dealing with a proud and wicked king, but when God appeared he said (as the Apostle informs us), ‘I exceedingly fear and quake.’“ This extract well contrasts with the meaning which some would apparently thrust into the word “fear,” as though it meant that the position of the Christians, as “aliens” in the midst of a hostile world, required a timid attitude towards man. The “fear” of the *Father* may be seen in the first two clauses of the Lord’s Prayer itself. **Your sojourning.**—See on 1Peter 1:1, “strangers.” Because the word is metaphorical here and in 1Peter 2:11, is no reason why the similar word should be so there, in quite a different context. The expression here sets a limit for the discipline of fear, and at the same time suggests a reason for it—children though they are, they are not yet entered on their “inheritance” (1Peter 1:4), and have to secure it.