1 Peter 2:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Having not approved the evil conduct of unbelievers, and having said that they themselves became guilty of their unbelief, the apostle now turns to praise those who acted rightly.

He says: you who have acted rightly are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood.” It is as though he says: they, through their harshness and obstinacy, stumbled against the cornerstone and did not enter with it into the building.

But you, through your good obedience, have become part of the royal priesthood, as a chosen race and a holy nation.

Yet lest he weaken them by excessive praise, and lest they think that they became a holy nation by inheritance, or received such honor because they descend from Abraham and never stumbled, the apostle restrains them from such a thought.

This is said because they were called from various peoples and laws, yet rejected every kind of diversity in order to receive one mind. They heeded one faith and one teaching, through which there comes to be one soul and heart, one holy people.

In these lines the apostle openly indicates that he wrote this epistle for those who had come to faith from among the Gentiles. Once they were far from the life of the people of God.

Then, through the grace of faith, they were united into His people and received the mercy for which they could not have hoped.

He took these words from the Prophet Hosea, who, foretelling the conversion of the Gentiles, says: “I will call those who were not My people, My people, and her who had not obtained mercy, one who has obtained mercy.”

“And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God” (Rom 9:25-26).

The contrast between the former and the new state of those called, expressed as the contrast between light and darkness, is explained and unfolded in new contrasts: “once not a people,” and so forth.

The saying is borrowed, though not with literal exactness, from the Book of the Prophet Hosea (Hos 2:23). There God called the Hebrew people of that time not His people, since by their morals and sinful way of life they were unworthy to be called God’s people.

He promises that in the times of the Messiah the people will become worthy for God to say to them: “You are My people.” In the same sense, mercy is promised to the people who had not obtained mercy.

Compare Hos 2:23. Christians, being wholly separated from the Jews who had once been God’s chosen ones, and belonging in great number to various other peoples, could have been perplexed about their election by God.

This was especially so in view of possible claims from Jews and Judaizing Christians. Therefore, to calm Christians from the Gentiles, the apostle cites a testimony from the Prophet Hosea, where their election into the people of God is presented with complete clarity.

The apostle’s thought is worthy of note: people who remain in paganism are not a people. This word contains the instructive thought that God must be the head of every people.

Therefore those nations that do not know Him and do not fulfill His holy will do not even deserve the name of a people. By right, that name belongs only to partakers of grace.

There is no contradiction in thinking that this was written about those from the Gentiles who believed. Before their calling they were not the people of God and had not inherited mercy, yet they came when called by God. Indeed, this provides many objections against those who think it is written about different human natures. It is impossible for spiritual people to be said once to have been no people and without mercy. Conversely, it is impossible for earthly people to have become a people from no people, and to have obtained mercy after not inheriting mercy.