1 Peter 2:7

1 Peter 2:7. For you, therefore, who believe is the honour. The statement of the dignity of the Christian standing is introduced in the form both of an inference from the revealed will of God as declared by the prophet, and a direct application of the Old Testament assurance to these New Testament believers. The phrase ‘who believe' is put last in the original (=for you, therefore, is the honour, for you, I say, who believe), because it is only on the ground of their faith (which is given not as a condition here, but as a fact) that the assurance is applied to them. The pronoun ‘for you' may mean either to your advantage, or to you belongs. The margin of the R. V., indeed, gives ‘in your sight.' But that is to introduce the subjective estimates of believers where Peter deals with their objective privileges. The difficulty, however, is to catch the point of the noun which expresses the thing that thus belongs to them or is to their advantage. Not a few interpreters, including Luther, Calvin, and Erasmus, as well as the Versions of Tyndale, Cranmer, and Geneva, take Christ as the subject, and the noun as the predicate. The E. V. follows this, giving ‘he is precious' in the text, and ‘he is an honour' in the margin. This is opposed, however, both by the form of the Greek which marks out the noun as subject and not as predicate, and by the close connection with the immediately preceding sentence which is indicated by the reduplicating of the ‘who believe' upon the previous ‘he that believeth.' Most interpreters now agree that the subject of the sentence is not Christ Himself, but what is called (in reference, that is, to the dignity expressed in the former sentence) ‘ the honour,' i.e the honour already spoken of, and that the predicate is the ‘for you.' This was also recognised, indeed, by Wycliffe and the Rheims Version. There is some difference, however, as to the precise reference of the noun. Some (Gerhard, Brückner, Weiss, Schott, Huther, etc.) take it to repeat in positive form what was implied in the negative clause, ‘shall not be put to shame.' Others (Wiesinger, etc.) think it goes back to the definition of the Stone as ‘precious' or ‘honourable' (1 Peter 2:6), the sense being that the value which the Stone has in God's sight is a value which it has for them who believe. This seems favoured by the rendering of the R. V., ‘for you... is the preciousness.' Others (Alford, Fronmüller, Cook) combine these references, and this comes nearest the truth. The sentence takes up the whole idea, which has just been expressed, of an honour in which the foundation stands with God, and what that fact carries with it to believers. Mr. Humphry, therefore, rightly takes the full sense to amount to this, ‘For you who believe in Him, for your sakes, is this preciousness, this honour which He possesses; that so far from being “put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6), ye may partake in it, be yourselves precious in the sight of God' (Comm. on Rev. Version, p. 440). but for such as are disobedient. The reverse side of the prophetic assurance is now exhibited, and, as the omission of the article indicates, the persons are named now in a more general way, not as if definite individuals were in view, but so as to include all of a certain kind. The reading varies here between two participles, both of more positive import than the simple ‘unbelieving,' and differing slightly from each other. They mean ‘disbelieving,' or ‘refusing belief,' and point, therefore, either to the state of disobedience which is the effect of unbelief (Alford), or (as the form which is on the whole better supported rather implies) to the mind that withstands evidence.

The stone which the builders rejected, this was made the head of the corner; instead of saying simply that shame, in place of honour, belongs to the disbelieving, Peter gives in the words of Scripture a less direct, but more terrible, statement of the lot of such. Two passages are cited. These are not run into one, however, as the A. V. suggests, but are given as two distinct quotations simply connected by ‘and,' as the R. V. puts them. Portions of the sections from which these are taken are fused into one sentence in Romans 9:33. The first, which is given according to the LXX., is taken from Psalms 118:22. That Psalm is generally regarded as a post-Exilian composition, and its occasion has been variously identified with the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in the year of the Return, as recorded in Ezra 3:4 (so Ewald, etc.), with the laying of the foundation-stone of the Second Temple, as described in Ezra 3:8-13 (so Hengstenberg, etc.), with the consecration of the Temple, as related in Ezra 6:5-18 (Delitzsch, etc.), or with the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles which Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8:13-18) reports to have taken place on the completion of the new Temple. In the Psalm, therefore, the Stone would be a figure of Israel itself, rejected by the powers of the world, but chosen by God for a position of unexampled honour. But the Messianic application of the passage has its ground in the fact that Christ Himself, and only Christ, was personally and truly that ‘Servant of Jehovah,' that ‘first-born' of God that Israel was called as a nation to be, and that the destiny which was so partially fulfilled by Israel was finally realized in Him, who was of the seed of Israel. So Christ uses the passage in direct reference to Himself (Matthew 21:42-44; Mark 12:10-11; Luke 20:17), as it is again applied directly to Him by Peter (Acts 4:11).