(14) As obedient children.--Literally, as children of obedience--children, i.e., in the sense of relationship, not of age. It is characteristic of the writer to keep one thought underlying many digressions, and so here, the appeal to them as "children" is based on the "begotten again" of 1Peter 1:3, and "inheritance" of 1Peter 1:4; it comes up again in 1Peter 1:17, "the Father"; in 1Peter 1:22, "the brethren"; and again in 1Peter 1:23, "begotten again." The usual characteristic of Jews in the New Testament is disobedience. (See Note on 2Thessalonians 1:8.) The "as" means "in keeping with your character of," just as we say in common English, "Do so like obedient children."

Not fashioning yourselves according to.--This rare verb is the same as is translated "be not conformed," in Romans 12:2, from which some think it is borrowed. The expression is a little confused, the lusts themselves being spoken of as a model not to be copied, where we should rather have expected "not being conformed to your former selves."

The former lusts in your ignorance--i.e., which you indulged before you came to know the gospel truth--of course implying also that the ignorance was the mother of the lusts. The same assumption is made here which we shall find again below in 1Peter 2:9, and still more in 1Peter 4:3, that the recipients of this Letter had lived in ignorance and in vice up to a certain point of their lives. And it is contended, with much plausibility, that both accusations show the recipients of the letter to be of Gentile and not of Jewish origin. It is true that lusts of the flesh are not usually laid to the charge of the Jews, as they are of the Gentiles. (See, for instance, 1Thessalonians 4:5; Ephesians 4:17.) It is also true that the ignorance with which the Jews are charged (for instance, Acts 3:17; Romans 10:3; 1Timothy 1:13) has quite a different tendency from this. But it may be answered that such details are of little weight in comparison with the direct evidence of the first verse, and the indirect evidence of the whole tone of the Letter; also that, putting out of sight expressions of St. Paul's which have nothing to do with St. Peter, "ignorance" is surely not an unnatural word to represent the contrast between the state of unregenerate Jews and the same persons when they have attained to knowledge higher than that of prophets or of angels; that even Jews were men of flesh and blood, and therefore not exempt from the temptations of the flesh, from which mere legalism was quite insufficient to protect them (see Romans 7:8, "sin through the commandment wrought in me every lust); that in Hebrews 5:2; Hebrews 9:7, Jewish people are supposed to have need of a high priest to bear with and atone for their "ignorance" and "ignorances;" that the same writer contemplates the possibility of "many" of his Hebrews being "defiled" through fleshly sin (Hebrews 12:15-16), and deems it necessary to urge strongly the sanctions of marriage (Hebrews 13:4).

Verse 14. - As obedient children; rather, children of obedience (comp. Ephesians 2:2, 3; Ephesians 5:8; also 2 Peter 2:14; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; Luke 16:8). Winer says ('Grammar,' 3. 34; 'Romans,' 2), "This mode of expression is to be traced to the more lively imagination of the Orientals, by which the most intimate connection (derivation from and dependence on) - even when the reference is to what is not material - is viewed under the image of the relation of son or child to parent. Hence ' children of disobedience' are those who belong to disobedience as a child to his mother - disobedience having become their nature, their predominant disposition." Not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. The remarkable word συσχηματιζόμενοι seems to be an echo of Born. 12:2, the only other place where it occurs. It implies that men who live in sensual lusts take up the likeness of those lusts into themselves, and are made, not as man was at first, after the likeness of God, but after the likeness of those lusts of the flesh which are not of the Father, but are of the world. The word "ignorance" is to be taken closely with "lusts" - "the former lusts which were in the time of your ignorance." It seems to imply that St. Peter is addressing Gentiles as well as Jews; top, though ignorance is attributed to the Jews (Acts 3:17; Romans 10:3; 1 Timothy 1:13), it was ignorance, not of the moral law, as here, but of the Person and office of Christ. The Jews had the oracles of God; they knew his will (Romans 2:17; Romans 3:2; comp. also Ephesians 4:18 and Acts 17:30).

1:13-16 As the traveller, the racer, the warrior, and the labourer, gathered in their long and loose garments, that they might be ready in their business, so let Christians do by their minds and affections. Be sober, be watchful against all spiritual dangers and enemies, and be temperate in all behaviour. Be sober-minded in opinion, as well as in practice, and humble in your judgment of yourselves. A strong and perfect trust in the grace of God, is agreeable with best endeavours in our duty. Holiness is the desire and duty of every Christian. It must be in all affairs, in every condition, and towards all people. We must especially watch and pray against the sins to which we are inclined. The written word of God is the surest rule of a Christian's life, and by this rule we are commanded to be holy every way. God makes those holy whom he saves.As obedient children,.... Or "children of obedience". This may be connected either with what goes before, that seeing they were children of God, by adopting grace, and in regeneration brought to the obedience of faith, to whom the inheritance belonged, therefore they ought to continue hoping for it; or with what follows, that since they were manifestly the children of God by faith in. Christ Jesus, being begotten again to a lively hope, they ought to be followers of him, and imitate him in holiness and righteousness, and show themselves to be obedient ones to his Gospel and ordinances, as children ought to honour, and obey, and imitate their parents:

not fashioning yourselves to the former lusts in your ignorance. The phrase is much the same with that in Romans 12:2 "be not conformed to this world"; for to be conformed, or fashioned to the world, is to be fashioned to the lusts of it; and to be fashioned to the lusts of it is to indulge them, to make provision for them, to obey them, to live and walk in them; which should not be done by the children of God, and who profess themselves to be obedient ones to the Gospel, which teaches otherwise; and that because they are lusts, foolish, hurtful, and deceitful ones, ungodly ones; the lusts of the devil, as well as of the world, and of the flesh, and which war against the soul; and because they are "former" ones, which they served in a time of unregeneracy, and were now convinced and ashamed of, and therefore should no longer live to them; the time past of life being sufficient to have walked in them: and because they were lusts in ignorance, which they had indulged in a state of ignorance; not of Gentilism, though this might be the case of some, but of Judaism; when they knew not God, especially in Christ, and were ignorant of his righteousness, and of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as committed against a law that was holy and spiritual; nor did they know Christ, and the way of salvation by him, but thought they ought to do many things contrary to his name; nor the work of the Spirit in regeneration, saying with Nicodemus, how can these things be? nor the true sense of the Scriptures, the sacred oracles, that were committed to them; much less the Gospel, which was hidden from them, and they were enemies to: but now it was otherwise with them; they were made light in the Lord, and had knowledge of all these things; and therefore, as their light increased, and the grace of God, bringing salvation, appeared unto them, and shone out on then, it became them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and not to walk as they had done before, since they had not so learned Christ.