1 Peter 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… By speaking of our being "begotten again to a lively hope," the apostle would simply indicate something of a universal change having passed, through Christ's resurrection, over this earth and its inhabitants. And such a change did actually pass. There was substituted a living hope for a dead throughout every department of this creation, amongst its irrational as well as its rational tenants. It was not that heretofore there had been no hope whatsoever; for man is so constructed that he cannot live without hope; he must follow a meteor where there is no star on the firmament. There was hope amongst men, even when truth had almost departed, and ignorance of God pressed heavily on all countries and classes. There was hope that Deity might be propitiated; that in some better world the disorders of the present might be rectified. Reason did something, in the midst of ponderous night, to keep men from quite parting with the expectation of immortality; and, combining the teachings of conscience with the lingerings of tradition, it caused a spectre of hope to flit to and fro amid the cloud and the darkness. Yes, a spectre of hope! — a dead thing, though, at times, it appeared amongst the living, and wore something of the hues which had belonged to the fresh and beautiful visitant that had gladdened the earth, whilst yet untainted by sin. A living hope! a hope that is not merely performing some of the actions, but possessing all the energies, of life — that should not merely beckon onward, but waited to be examined and handled — this never sprang from the reveries of philosophers, but eluded the searchings of those who laboured most gravely at the opening a path to happiness hereafter (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, |
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