What Does 1 Peter 5:10 Mean?

(10) **Who hath called us unto his eternal glory.**—The true reading is, *who called you, *not “us.” The moment of the call was that when St. Paul and the others first preached there. (See 1Peter 1:12; 1Peter 1:25, and Notes.) The God who *now* bestows all *grace, *by the giving of that grace calls us into glory. “The men of grace have found Glory begun below.” **By Christ Jesus.**—On the whole it seems best, with Tischendorf, to drop the name of Jesus out of the text: the title “Christ” will then stand between “the eternal glory,” which we possess “in Him” (not “*by* Christ Jesus,” as our version has it, but *by virtue of our union with the Christ*)*, *and the immediate mention of suffering. In Him the two are drawn inseparably together. **Suffered a while.**—The Greek says distinctly, “a *little* while,” as in 1Peter 1:6. All time is short in comparison of what comes after. The original looks as if St. Peter meant not only “*after* that ye have suffered,” but also “by the fact of your having suffered.” **Make you perfect.**—Strictly these are futures, “*shall* (or, *will*)* make you perfect”* &c. This verb occurs again in 1Thessalonians 3:10, and elsewhere. It implies the reduction to order and fitness for work of what is disordered or broken. The others, which are all very similar in meaning, are heaped up after St. Peter’s manner. Bengel thus explains them: “Make you perfect, that there remain no defect in you. Stablish, that nothing shake you. Strengthen, that you may overcome all force brought against you.” The word for “to settle” means “to found,” to give a solid foundation. All this is to take place at the close of the short spell of suffering which is the means to it. St. Peter seems, therefore, to contemplate the passing off of the persecution before the end of the world; for these verbs could hardly be so naturally used to express our education in the world to come.