Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Peter · About this commentary
Ransomed, Not with Silver
1 Peter 1:17-19
17 If you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man’s work, pass the time of your living as foreigners here in reverent fear, · WEB
The one addressed as Father is named in the same clause as the judge who shows no favoritism, and the price of release is set against the metals that usually paid it.
Verse 17 puts two relationships in one sentence without apology. The one they call Father is the one who judges impartially according to each man's work. The letter does not soften either half, and it draws a conclusion from both together: therefore live your time here in reverent fear. Fear and sonship are treated as compatible, and the fear is directed at the same person as the affection.
Verse 18 states the price by naming what it was not. Silver and gold are called perishable — an odd adjective for the two metals a culture used precisely because they did not perish, and part of a thread running through the letter, where the inheritance, the seed, and a quiet spirit all carry the opposite word 1 Peter 1:4 1 Peter 1:23 1 Peter 3:4.
What they were bought out of is the sharper point. Not slavery to a master, but the futile way of life handed down from your fathers. In a world where ancestral practice was the strongest argument available, calling inherited custom empty is close to an insult, and it is said to readers whose neighbors already thought them strange 1 Peter 4:4.
Verse 19 supplies the price actually paid, in the language of a lamb without blemish or spot — the requirement laid on the Passover animal Exodus 12:5.
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