As Martin points out, “Probably no other document in the New Testament is so theological as 1 Peter, if we understand ‘theological’ in the strict sense as teaching about God.” Statistically the writing has the word “God” thirty-nine times, which means an average of once in every forty-three words. The only other New Testament writings to compare with this are 1 John (once in thirty-four) and Romans (once in forty-six). Statistics are not everything, but these make it clear that there is an unusual number of references to God in this letter. God is “the living God” (1 Pet. 1:23), whose will is done (2:15; 3:17), who foreknows who are his (1:2) and whose Word stands forever (1:25). God is the Father (1:2); he is holy (1:15), the judge of all (4:5), and the faithful Creator (4:19). He is “the God of all grace” (5:10), and indeed “grace” is a frequent idea in this letter (ten times). It is due to God’s great mercy that Christians have new birth and a living hope (1:3). The church is related to God in several ways: it is “the people of God” (2:10), “the family of God” (4:17), “God’s flock” (5:2), and its members are “servants of God” (2:16). There is more, but this is sufficient to make it clear that Peter is giving us a full and satisfying understanding of who God is and what he is doing.
Peter puts a good deal of emphasis on the sufferings of Christ. He uses the verb pascho twelve times, whereas it is found only eleven times in all the rest of the New Testament epistles (the next most frequent is the much longer Luke, with six). He leaves no doubt that it was through what he suffered that Christ brought salvation to sinners. He wastes no time in getting to this thought, in his second verse referring to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. Blood, of itself, might be held to refer to no more than death by violence, but sprinkling of blood took place in the Levitical sacrifices: Peter is saying that Christ was a sacrifice for his people. That death may be spoken of as redemption (1 Pet. 1:18-19), and there is specific mention of price, with a denial that it is “silver or gold.” The reference to Christ as “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1:19) links redemption with the sacrifices: the process of salvation is complex. And when Peter goes on to speak of Christ as “chosen before the creation of the world” (1:20), he is saying that Christ’s death was in the eternal divine purpose.
So, too, Christ left his people an example of how to bear suffering (1 Pet. 2:21), which must have been important for people situated like Peter’s readers evidently were. It is important in every age that the passion be our example, for there is no Christian who does not have to suffer at some time. Peter stresses the thought that Jesus did not respond to insults with insults or threats but committed himself to the Father. Indeed, Christ “himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (2:24), a way of looking at the cross that is found elsewhere in the New Testament only once (Heb. 9:28). The concept is found frequently in the Old Testament, however, where bearing sins clearly means bearing the penalty of sins. The Israelites, for example, are told that they would bear their sins by wandering in the wilderness for forty years (Num. 14:34; the NIV translation “you will suffer for your sins” is a rather idiomatic rendering of what literally reads “you will bear your sins,” as in the KJV). There are also coincidences of language with Isaiah 53, so that probably Peter was thinking here of Jesus fulfilling all that the suffering servant means.
The atonement is also in mind when Peter says, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Pet. 3:18). It is the death of Jesus that removes sins and enables sinners to approach God. This is also behind the statement that “Christ suffered in his body” (4:1) and other such references. Peter is clear that the death of Jesus on the cross was no tragic accident but the fulfillment of the purpose of God in dealing with the sins of the race. This is the thought also in the “stone” passage (2:4-8). Christ fulfills the Old Testament Scriptures that refer to the stone the builders rejected, which was put in the supreme place (Isa. 8:14; 28:16; Ps. 118:22; cf. 1 Peter 2:4-8). The prophets predicted his sufferings but also the glories that would follow (1 Pet. 1:11). Clearly Peter is giving expression to a deep conviction that Christ was the very revelation of God and that it is in him alone that people are brought to salvation.
Peter does not have so much to say about the Holy Spirit, but he begins the letter with a reference to his sanctifying work (1 Pet. 1:2) and presently tells us that he is “the Spirit of Christ” (1:11) and that the early preachers preached the gospel “by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven” (1:12). “The Spirit of glory and of God” rests on believers” (4:14). Throughout this writing we are met by the tension between the “now” and the “not yet.” The passages surveyed about Christ’s saving work show very clearly that salvation is a present possession. Believers have already purified themselves (1 Pet. 1:22); they have been born again (1:23). But salvation is also “ready to be revealed in the last time” (1:5); “the end of all things is near” (4:7). Readers are told of the day of God’s visitation (2:12) and reminded of “the crown of glory” they will receive “when the Chief Shepherd appears” (5:4). In the light of this prospect, Peter has a good deal to say about the ethical virtues that should characterize believers. They should have love for one another (1:22; 2:17, etc.), and they should turn away from the evil desires that they indulged in their pre-Christian days (1:14). That means being rid of “all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind” (2:1). There are solid blocks of teaching about the high moral standards that should be evident in the lives of those who follow Christ (2:13-3:12). We must not think of all this as individualistic (though there is much of which the individual must take note), for there is a strong emphasis on the church, for example, when the writer takes a series of epithets originally used of the people of God in the Old Testament and applies them to believers generally (2:9-10). In this letter there is nothing like the problem of the place of the Jews with which Paul wrestled in Romans 9-11; for Peter there is no doubt that the church is the people of God, the true Israel. Gentiles have been called out of the darkness and brought into God’s marvelous light.
This is a short letter, but it covers a surprisingly wide range. It has teaching of great and permanent importance about God and the salvation he has brought about through Christ. It emphasizes the changed lives that follow when people come to a place of faith and to the wonder of their corporate existence.