Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead:
ευλογητος ο θεος και πατηρ του κυριου ημων ιησου χριστου ο κατα το πολυ αυτου ελεος αναγεννησας ημας εις ελπιδα ζωσαν δι αναστασεως ιησου χριστου εκ νεκρων
10 Church Fathers comment on this verse
He blesses God, thanking Him for all the good things He gives. What does He give? Hope, but not the hope given through Moses for settlement in the land of Canaan, which was mortal.
He gives a living hope. Whence does it have life? From the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For as He Himself rose, so He gives those who come to Him through faith in Him the same power to rise.
If God begot us from matter, then the Father of our Lord has truly begotten us anew according to what has been accomplished in life.
Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and according to our faith, He rises in us, just as in the contrary case He dies in us through our unbelief.
Peter again said that the soul never returns a second time into the body in this life. This is true neither of the righteous soul, which has become angelic, nor of the evil soul.
The evil soul does not return lest, by receiving flesh, it gain an opportunity for sin. But in the resurrection both the one and the other return to the body.
They are joined together according to the structure of the other, bringing themselves into a certain correspondence, like a net or a building made of stones.
This is the mercy that was able to forgive everything committed, spoken, and conceived in the sin of the Gentiles, from the beginning of the world to the end of the world.
He says that they have received incorruption, the hope of life, and good things greater than men suppose. For this reason he blesses the God and Father and calls Him rich in mercy, in order to confirm the truth.
For God is the giver of better things, and of those things that will surely come to pass. The saying also applies to the Old Testament, for in it God gave the land of the Canaanites to those who believed in Him.
What is the reward? It is hope, but not such as the companions of Moses possessed, who expected through him to obtain the land of Canaan.
It is not a corruptible hope for what is corruptible among men subject to corruption, but a living hope. What nourishes it? Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
For having risen among them, He will also deem worthy of this same hope those who come to Him through faith in Him.
Thus the reward is a living hope, an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance, kept not on earth, as among the forefathers, but in heaven. Through this eternity is obtained, and this is greater than any inheritance on earth.
He offers blessings to God the Father in such a way as to show that the Lord, our Savior, is both God and man.
He calls Him the Father of our Lord because he does not doubt that our Lord has always existed as the Son of God.
We rightly bless God, who, though by our merits we would have been worthy of death, has regenerated us to life according to His mercy.
He did this through the resurrection of His Son, because He loved our life so greatly that, for its sake, He appointed Him to die.
Then, by trampling down death through His resurrection, He gave us the hope and example of regeneration. For He died so that we would not fear death, and He rose so that through Him we also might hope for our own resurrection.
From the depths of a heart filled with gratitude to God for the redemption of the world, and joyful over the calling of the epistle’s Christian readers into the Church of Christ, the apostle offers a doxology to God after greeting his readers: “Blessed be the God and Father.”
In a similar way the other chief apostle, Paul, glorifies God for the redemption of the world (Eph 1:3 and following).
God is called the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Himself also called Him not only His Father, but also His God (Jn 20:17). This is also frequent in the Apostle Paul (2 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 11:31; Rom 15:6; Eph 1:3, 17; Col 1:3).
The form of the doxology may have been taken from its liturgical use in apostolic times (cf. Jas 3:9). The doxology is offered for the regeneration of Christians through Jesus Christ unto eternal salvation: “who according to His great mercy has begotten us again,” and so forth.
Mercy is the merciful love of God toward the weak, helpless, powerless, and sinful, as all people are outside the grace of regeneration.
The salvation of the world through Christ is exclusively the work of God’s love for the world (Jn 3:16). More precisely, it is the work of merciful, condescending, and forgiving love.
Man himself, because of his sinfulness and impurity after falling away from God, is unworthy of God’s love for him and has no claim to it.
This merciful love of God the Father sent His beloved Son into the world for the redemption of the world and the regeneration of those who believe in Him into new life.
“Who has begotten us again” means who has spiritually born us anew from above (cf. Jn 3:3; Tit 3:5; Col 3:1; Eph 1:19-20; Eph 2:10).
All who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Redeemer of the world are not regenerated, although Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross extends to all. To believers a new spiritual beginning of life is given in the mysteries of baptism and chrismation.
It is also given in the other varied actions of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which make the human soul alive.
In falling away from God, man is spiritually dead. Faith in Christ makes him alive, as though it gives him birth anew.
Thus, in union of life with Christ, he may attain his highest calling, which was originally proper to his nature but was lost by him. This calling is eternal blessedness.
This goal of regeneration is indicated in the words: “unto a living hope.” We are saved in hope, says another apostle (Rom 8:24).
Now, in this life, the believer in Christ only hopes for his salvation. Possession of it belongs to the future. This hope for salvation is given by regeneration and in regeneration.
Without regeneration there is no hope for salvation. Thus the believer is begotten again unto hope.
This hope of the regenerate is a living hope. What arises through birth is living. So also the hope of the regenerate is living, in contrast to the dead, powerless, vain, and empty hope of the unregenerate people of this world.
Christian hope gives life to the spirit, because it consoles, strengthens, and gladdens it even in sufferings themselves.
“Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” According to the Greek construction, where this expression stands after “unto a living hope,” it can be related either to “has begotten us again” or to “living.”
In the first case it means that Christ’s resurrection is the means by which God has begotten us again unto a living hope. It is the fact that forms the living foundation of our living hope.
For the resurrection of Christ from the dead is the fundamental and central dogma of the faith that regenerates us (cf. Rom 10:9). If Christ has not risen, then our faith is vain.
Our hope is vain, and the preaching of the Gospel is vain (1 Cor 15:14, 17).
In the latter case, the expression means that the living character of the Christian hope to which they are begotten again rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Christ had not risen, this hope would not be living.
The latter thought has its basis in the first, as the particular in the general, or as the subordinate in the principal. Therefore the first interpretation should be preferred to the latter.
Or better, they should be joined together as mutually completing one another.
“Hope is living. From where does it have life? From the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. For as He Himself rose, so He also gives to those who come to Him through faith in Him the same power to rise” (Theophylact).
The apostle's thought is that the resurrection of Christ gives all power and life to Christian hope. It is the final fact of Christ's victory over death, and the pledge of the general resurrection and the life of the age to come.
Having indicated the great dignity of Christians, the Apostle sends up praise to God, who regenerated us. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ He gave us a firm foundation for hope (cf. 1 Cor 16:14-17).
This is the hope of receiving still higher blessings, which will be granted to us at the end of time (cf. Acts 20:32), if only we remain in the faith.
“We were saved in hope,” says another Apostle (Rom 8:24). Indeed, at present the believer only hopes for salvation. Possession of it belongs to the last time.
Yet one must always be ready for that time (cf. Mk 13:35-37), especially in the days of dangerous temptations to which the readers of the apostolic epistle were subjected.
Here, in few but powerful words, the greatness of redemption and the blessedness of being a Christian are depicted.
This thought is unfolded further as the chief foundation for consolation amid present and future sorrows.
By calling God blessed, the Apostle uses a doxology customary in the Old Testament. There God was called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Here He is called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who regenerated us and made us sons of God and heavenly heirs (cf. Gal 4:4-7; Rom 8:16).
Regeneration is placed in special dependence upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ because the Apostle knew from his own experience how it enlivened the hope of believers.
It is also because in Christ’s resurrection the beginning of another existence was revealed. This beginning can pour hope into believers’ hearts and establish the most living hope for eternal heavenly life.
That life is free from all the deficiencies of this life and filled with unending blessedness.
The last time, for which believers are kept by the power of grace and faith, is the time indicated by the Lord. It is the end of the present world and the revelation of the life to come (cf. Mt 24:3; 28:20).
Then the destiny of all will be finally decided, and the righteous will receive the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
The apostle blesses the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy toward New Testament believers. He enables them to judge the greatness of this mercy by comparison with the mercies shown to Old Testament believers.
In relation to the latter, the Lord appears as Father. He begot and raised them: “I have begotten sons and exalted them,” He said to them, reproving their ingratitude.
“You are sons of the Lord your God” (Deut 14:1), Moses said to them, warning them against imitating the Gentiles.
The Lord cares for all people in a fatherly way. Yet the people of Israel were the object of His special care. Among the nations, Israel held first place in the eyes of the Lord.
“Israel is My firstborn son” (Ex 4:22), the Lord Himself said to Pharaoh. Happy were the Israelites, having the Lord as Father. Yet New Testament believers are no less happy.
God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, who begot Him before all ages, is also the Father of believers in Christ. According to His great mercy, He begot them and granted them new spiritual life in the mystery of baptism.
Those who received the grace of spiritual birth in this mystery received the right to be called children of God. They are those “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12-13).
With adoption by God comes the right of inheritance. To Old Testament believers, in the person of their forefather Abraham, the promise was given to inherit the land of Canaan. In due time this promise was fulfilled.
The promise of inheritance is also given to New Testament believers as sons of God by grace. God begot them “unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
By living hope is meant here the object of hope, namely the inheritance of heavenly good things, as is said further on.
As sons of God by the grace of spiritual regeneration, believers in Christ are animated by a living hope of receiving this inheritance promised to them.
The living quality, or unshakable vitality, of this hope is conditioned by Christ’s resurrection. By His resurrection Christ laid the foundation of our resurrection: “Christ has risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20).
Christ rose in glory and ascended into heaven with a glorified body. Participation in this glory awaits all who truly believe in Christ.
By His resurrection He renewed for them the ascent into heaven, so that in heaven they might receive the promised inheritance of eternal glory and blessedness in communion with Christ (Rom 8:17).
This inheritance is incomparably more precious than the inheritance of earthly promises given to the people of the Old Testament. In contrast to the latter, it is an incorruptible inheritance, because it is eternal.
It is undefiled and pure, because there is no sin in heaven. The promised land, which fell as an inheritance to the chosen people, was defiled by every kind of sin.
It is unfading, because blessedness in heaven will not diminish. It will never be darkened by anything, but will be an inexhaustible source of joy.
This is truly the unfading crown of glory, as the same apostle says in the same epistle (Rom 5:4).
An earthly inheritance, before one receives it, can perish for various reasons: theft, fire, or the dishonesty of guardians. Nothing of this kind can happen to the inheritance in heaven promised to the sons of God.
It is preserved whole and unharmed, without any danger of loss, for those who “are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
It is unknown when the last time will come, the time of the completion of the kingdom of grace and the opening of the kingdom of glory.
Yet it is beyond doubt that sooner or later salvation and blessedness, not only in soul but also in body, must be revealed precisely in that last time for the sons of God who await the inheritance promised to them.
They are kept for this inheritance by the power of God. On the way to this goal they must inevitably meet many obstacles and many temptations, especially from the chief enemy of salvation, the devil.
But they must not lose heart. Faith in the power of God must not leave them for a single minute, for the power of God is made perfect in weakness and protects those who seek support in it from every evil and misfortune.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 27 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS