Loving One You Have Not Seen
8 whom, not having known, you love. In him, though now you don’t see him, yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, 9 receiving the result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
The writer marks the difference between his readers and himself, and treats their position as the stronger one rather than the poorer.
Two clauses in verse 8 turn on sight, and both are concessions. Not having seen, you love; not now seeing, you believe. The man writing this had seen, and says so elsewhere in the letter with some emphasis — a witness of the sufferings of Christ 1 Peter 5:1. He is describing a gap between his experience and theirs.
What he does with the gap is the surprise. He does not treat it as a deficiency to be compensated for by his testimony. He states it and then attaches to it the highest description of joy in the letter: rejoicing with a gladness that speech does not reach and that already carries glory in it. The unspeakable joy is credited to the ones who have not seen.
Verse 9 gives the reason without sentiment. They are receiving the outcome of their faith, in the present tense, the salvation of their souls. The word for outcome is the end of a process, and putting it in the present says the process is not merely promised but under way.
So the whole passage refuses the assumption a reader might bring — that the eyewitness generation had the real thing and later believers have a copy. The letter's own eyewitness is the one who denies it.
held with reason What this mark means