this redeeming power. In harmony with his prevailing mode of thought and the object of his Epistle, in which holiness is supreme, he regards the influence of Christ's death in this direction as all-important, and so he insists upon it continually, alongside of its importance as an example; but he also indicates a power of the "blood of Christ" to deliver from guilt, to stay the accusations of conscience. In the salutation of the Epistle (i. 2), where he calls the Tρóуwors of God and the ἁγιασμὸς πνεύματος the foundation of the Christian position, he then adds to the eis vπakońν the words καὶ ῥαντισμὸν αἵματος Χριστοῦ. This sprinkling with the blood of Christ, reminding us of the Old Testament sprinkling with the sacrificial blood of atonement, can only have independent significance beside sanctification, whose principle is "the spirit," and "the obedience" towards God's commandments in which this sanctification shows itself, if it is referred to the expiation of those arrears which still continue to cleave to the Christian in sanctification and obedience, that is, to the daily forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake. Thus the apostle perceived in the blood of Christ, that is, the self-sacrifice of the Saviour, the pledge of divine forgiveness, an effectual sacrifice presented by God Himself against the daily offences of the believer; but he did not give doctrinal expression to this idea and its connection with the redeeming power of the blood of Christ.

§ 3. OLD TESTAMENT TYPES

These considerations about the saving value of the death of Jesus, and especially that last touched on, have manifestly been developed by the apostle on the basis of the Old Testament types to which his own words allude, and it may be well to glance even now at the Old Testament allusions in order to test our comprehension of his meaning and complete it in this relation. First of all, the expression pavтioμòs αἵματος Χριστοῦ unmistakably points back to the sacrifice which concluded the Old Testament covenant (Ex. xxiv. 7, 8). There sprinkling with the blood of the sacrifice followed the people's vow of obedience, just as in our passage the ῥαντισμός follows the ὑπακοή ; and Peter undoubtedly meant

by these two expressions to transfer directly the presuppositions of the Old Testament covenant to his readers as the people of the new covenant (ii. 9). These presuppositions are, above all, obedience to the commandments of God, and, on the promise of this obedience, the assurance of divine forgiveness for the guilt which, nevertheless, is ever being contracted. After the same manner, in His own teaching Jesus had first educated His disciples in the righteousness of God, and then on His way to death He described to them His blood, which He was about to shed, as the blood of a new covenant;- -He did not mean that He had to win through this the divine grace and forgiveness which He had proclaimed to them from the beginning as a present boon, but the blood was to be a guarantee of this grace and forgiveness, it was the seal of the new covenant. And there is no doubt that Peter thus conceived of the relation of the ῥαντισμὸς αἵματος Χριστοῦ to the ἁγιασμὸς πνεύματος, and the new ὑπακοή of the believer. A А second Old Testament type, in which Peter obtains a view of the meaning of Christ's death, is the Passover lamb referred to in the words, " as a lamb without blemish and without spot." The allusion to this and to the whole Old Testament idea of sacrifice has been disputed; for while the expression appos suits the ritual spotlessness of the sacrificial lamb, doπîños does not, and the Old Testament sacrifice had significance as an atonement but not as a ransom, and the latter is here ascribed to the blood of Christ in the word AUTрwonтe. But these reasons are not sufficient to lead us to find in the passage only an allusion to Isa. liii. 7 (as a lamb which is led to the slaughter, so he opened not his mouth). This passage of Isaiah gives prominence only to the quiet lamb-like patience of the servant of God, but not to the spotlessness and the value of his blood (Tiμiw aïμati). These are features which point back to the Paschal lamb, which, as faultless (Ex. xii. 5), might doubtless be called appos (and why not also ȧomîλos?), and undoubtedly stood in a causal connection. with the deliverance from Egypt (λúrρwois), that is, had a redemptive significance. It is possible that the name, "the Lamb of God," for Jesus going to death, which we have also in John i. 29, 37, had passed into the Christian vocabulary, before the composition of the Apocalypse, from a union of the

ideas of Isa. liii. 7 with the Paschal sacrifice, and that our passage rests both on Ex. xii. 5 and Isa. liii. 7. But the reference to the Paschal lamb cannot be excluded, as, in the institution of the Supper, Jesus Himself suggested it to the disciples, and in the "take eat" had represented Himself as the Paschal lamb of the new covenant. If that is so, then we have here again the same logical relation between the reconciling and redeeming power of Jesus as between the pavтiopòs αἵματος Χριστοῦ and the ὑπακοή (i. 2). For the blood of the Passover lamb, which was to be sprinkled on the doorposts of the house that was to be spared, has unquestionably an atoning significance;1 but the expiation is only for the advantage of those who have taken into themselves (eating) the sacrifice, and purified their life (by the purging of the leaven). There remains, however, the main significance of the Passover sacrifice, that it delivers from Egyptian bondage, which in the Christian interpretation is, that it redeems from the vain conversation received from the Fathers (i. 18). The most certain and expressive type applied by Peter is undoubtedly that of the suffering servant of Jehovah in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Its application to Jesus and the death of Jesus lies obviously before us in the passage ii. 21-25, in which phrases from Isaiah are interwoven, and the notion of a vicarious penal suffering, which is traditionally connected with the truly He hath borne our griefs: the punishment was laid upon Him that we might have peace," seem to be necessarily supported by the passage of Peter. The more likely this is, the more worthy of note is the change which Peter has made on the saying, "He hath borne our griefs"; it appears here as, "Who hath borne our sins in His own body to the tree." So little does Peter think of a substitutionary penal suffering, to take away our guilt and punishment and not break our sin itself, and so much is the latter to him, the redemption from sin itself, the ἵνα ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἀπογενόμενοι τῇ δικαιωσύνῃ Snowμev (ii. 24), the main thing, that he changes the prophetic words in that way. Now, from other elements in the passage of Isaiah which he does not quote, and from the whole idea of vicarious suffering, we may infer what is in itself probable, that here, too, Peter thought of an expiation, an act of justi1 Cf. Oehler, O. T. Theol. p. 541.

fication as well as of inoral emancipation through the death of Jesus. But this expiation can only have been thought of by him as the Xúrρov in i. 21, not as an equivalent which God receives in order to set the guilty free, but as something precious which God gives up in order to deliver the slaves of sin; it is a sacrifice of love offered by God, which, as a matter of course, guarantees forgiveness to those who allow themselves to be freed by it. For expiation in the Scriptures is not a covering up, a making amends, which God demands and accepts, it is an assurance of His forgiveness which He Himself offers, and offers solely to those who turn from their sins to Him. As to the servant of God in Isaiah, the meaning of the prophet is not that God punishes the sins of His people in their ideal representative, for the expression " chastisement," in Isa. liii., is only a poetic expression which cannot be dogmatised about; the Servant of Jehovah is appointed for the purpose of renewing His people. He is to see of the fruit of His suffering and death, to have the strong for a spoil, to heal the moral diseases of His people; and this is just what Peter in his application insists on as the main thing, that we who like sheep have gone astray, are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (ii. 25). And thus even here we may sum up the apostle's view of the saving value of the death of Jesus in the terse words which he uses of it in iii. 18: "Christ died for sin, the just for the unjust va quâs προσαγάγῃ τῷ θεῷ.” To lead us back again into communion with God remains the great work of salvation, and for that two things are required, viz. that we get rid of sin, and that we become sure of forgiveness. Jesus has made both possible to us in His death, and the one not without the other. But Peter, in accordance with his prevailing ethical view, puts the getting rid of sin first, and makes the other subordinate, as the religious condition, and the indispensable condition of that moral result. Attention should also be given to the way in which the Old Testament examples discussed have helped the apostle to understand the New Testament facts; he does not subject these facts to preconceived Old Testament views, but he contemplates the New Testament impressions in the glass of the Old Testament, and so we have in him the reciprocal effects of immediate experience, and the searching of scripture.

BEYSCHLAG.-I.

26

Everything that Peter says about Christ's suffering as forming an example, goes back to the direct impression of what he had experienced, though it may be seen that the words of Christ and His institution of the Supper were the starting-point of his consideration. The words of Jesus about the λÚTρov ȧνTì λύτρον ἀντὶ To lie plainly at the basis of the statement in i. 18. Jesus' own memorial institution points him back to the Old Testament covenant sacrifice and Paschal lamb, and the picture of the suffering servant of Jehovah immediately confronted him in the Crucified. In all this we recognise the genuine primitive apostle, who may, indeed, have been helped by Paul to make progress in his knowledge, but who has his own independent sources of knowledge, and goes his own way in using them.

CHAPTER IV

THE PILGRIM STATE AND WALK OF THE CHRISTIAN

§ 1. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AS THE FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE

If the sufferings and death of Christ are to the apostle the one pillar of salvation, the resurrection and exaltation are the other. If the first is the source of Christian sanctification, the second is the source of Christian hope (i. 3). God's raising of Jesus from the dead has not only abolished the shame of His death upon the cross, it has also raised Him to a heavenly glory in which He can complete His saving work begun on earth. The Risen One is gone into heaven (iii. 22), where He sits on the right hand of God, angels, authorities, and powers (the ruling powers of the present order of the world of whom we shall hear more in Paul) being made subject unto Him, and thence He shall soon come again to judge the living and the dead, and to bring His own into possession of their eternal inheritance which is preserved in heaven. But His resurrection has glorious results, not merely for Himself and the future perfection of His own; their present life on earth has through it become different from the life of other men. They are, as the apostle says (i. 3), be