1 Peter 2:9

All who have been born again in Christ are made kings by the sign of the cross and consecrated priests by the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Hear this, you of the laity also, the elect Church of God. For the people were formerly called "the people of God," [Exodus 19:5-6] and "an holy nation." [Hebrews 12:23] You, therefore, are the holy and sacred "Church of God, enrolled in heaven, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people," [1 Peter 2:9] a bride adorned for the Lord God, a great Church, a faithful Church.

Hail, thou people of the Lord, thou chosen generation, thou royal priesthood, thou holy nation, thou peculiar people-show forth His praises who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light; and for His mercies glorify Him.

Under the old dispensation, the priesthood and the kingship were two different things. No one could be both a king and a priest. But afterwards came the gospel, which united these two offices in Christ. From this it follows that the people whom he has …

For in this "do ye appear to the world as lights, in that ye give heed to the Word of life," [Philippians 2:15-16] and thus ye are in truth the praise, and the boast, and the crown of rejoicing, and the delight of good servants …

And we are just as if drawn out from the fire, when purified from our former sins, and [rescued] from the affliction and the fiery trial by which the devil and all his coadjutors try us; out of which Jesus the Son of God has promised again to deliver us, and invest us with prepared garments, if we do His commandments; and has undertaken to provide an eternal kingdom [for us]. For just as that Jesus (Joshua), called by the prophet a priest, evidently had on filthy garments because he is said to have taken a harlot for a wife, and is called a brand plucked out of the fire, because he had received remission of sins when the devil that resisted him was rebuked; even so we, who through the name of Jesus have believed as one man in God the Maker of all, have been stripped, through the name of His first-begotten Son, of the filthy garments, i.e., of our sins; and being vehemently inflamed by the word of His calling, we are the true high priestly race of God, as even God Himself bears witness, saying that in every place among the Gentiles sacrifices are presented to Him well-pleasing and pure. Now God receives sacrifices from no one, except through His priests.

Now the way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, "I am the way and the life." And this way leads to the Father. For "no man," says He, "cometh to the Father but by Me." Blessed, then, are ye who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, being "a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people," on whose account I rejoice exceedingly, and have had the privilege, by this Epistle, of conversing with "the saints which are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus." I rejoice, therefore, over you, that ye do not give heed to vanity, and love nothing according to the flesh, but according to God.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people who have obtained mercy, that you may proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light: who once were not a people, but now are …

"But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." [1 Peter 2:9] That we are a chosen race by the election of God is abundantly clear. He says royal, because we are called to sovereignty and belong to Christ; and priesthood on account of the oblation which is made by prayers and instructions, by which are gained the souls which are offered to God.

But whatever Aristotle's opinion, other enlightened philosophers presupposed the existence of ideas: they were the worshipers of a single God, who placed all good in the supremely good God, and believed in the existence of exemplary virtues from which the cardinal virtues flowed, first into …

From all of which it is gathered that the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, being understood through those things which have been made, are clearly seen: so that those who are unwilling to attend to these things and to know, …

Hence also it is said through Moses that whoever is burdened with a hump should by no means be advanced to the priesthood. And all of us who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ are made members of that same high priest. Whence also it is said to us through Peter: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood." But he who bears a hump always gazes at the lowest things. Therefore he is driven from the priesthood, because whoever is intent only on earthly things is himself a witness to himself that he is not a member of the high priest.

We are royal from the fact that Christ is a king, and we are a priesthood from the fact that he is a priest. Furthermore, we are also a holy people, so called by the one who is called holy in himself.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, etc. This testimony of praise was once given to the ancient people of God through Moses, which the apostle Peter now rightly gives to the Gentiles because they have believed in Christ, who as the cornerstone …

That you may declare His virtues, etc. For just as those who were freed from Egyptian bondage through Moses sang a triumphal song to the Lord after the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of Pharaoh's army, so it is also proper for …

Having disapproved of the bad conduct of the unbelievers, having said that they themselves became guilty of their unbelief, the apostle now turns to the commendation of those who acted rightly and says: you who have acted rightly are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. …

But ye are a chosen generation,.... Or "kindred"; the phrase is to be seen in the Septuagint, on Isa 43:20, to which, and the following verse, the apostle refers here, and in another part of this text.

Learn, [1.] All true Christians are a chosen generation; they all make one family, a sort and species of people distinct from the common world, of another spirit, principle, and practice, which they could never be if they were not chosen in Christ to be such, and sanctified by his Spirit. [2.] All the true servants of Christ are a royal priesthood.

"Now," say they, "if we submit to the gospel--constitution, we shall lose all this, and stand upon the same level with the Gentiles." (1.) To this objection the apostle answers, that if they did not submit they were ruined (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

Particular directions are given how subjects ought to obey the magistrates, and servants their masters, patiently suffering in well doing, in imitation of Christ,

But ye are a chosen generation - In contradistinction from those who, by their disobedience, had rejected the Saviour as the foundation of hope. The people of God are often represented as his chosen or elected people. See the notes at 1Pe 1:2. A royal priesthood - See the notes at 1Pe 2:5. The meaning of this is, probably, that they “at once bore the dignity of kings, and the sanctity of priests” - Doddridge.

EVERYTHING about a true Christian is marvelous. He is a marvel to himself and a marvel to all who are around him. Mere professors—man-made Christians—people who have made themselves Christians by their own free will apart from the Spirit of God, have nothing marvelous about them. You can make professors of that sort by the score and you can see them dissolve by the score, for what man made, man can unmake! And what is merely natural has its season, like the leaves on the trees and, by-and-by, it withers away because its time to fade has come.

Not their own praises but His. They have no reason to magnify themselves above others for once they had been in the same darkness, and only through God's grace had been brought to the light which they must henceforth show forth to others. praises--Greek, "virtues," "excellencies": His glory, mercy (1Pe 2:10), goodness (Greek, 1Pe 2:3;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

EVERYTHING about a true Christian is marvelous. He is a marvel to himself and a marvel to all who are around him. Mere professors—man-made Christians—people who have made themselves Christians by their own free will apart from the Spirit of God, have nothing marvelous about them. You can make professors of that sort by the score and you can see them dissolve by the score, for what man made, man can unmake! And what is merely natural has its season, like the leaves on the trees and, by-and-by, it withers away because its time to fade has come. But a true Christian is a God-made man, a twice-born man and he is a partaker of the Divine Nature. He is a mass of marvels, for he is dead and yet he is alive! He is one who lives here and yet his life has gone away up yonder. He is one who is a citizen of earth and yet his citizenship is in Heaven. He is a true man, but he is more than a man, for God has lifted him up above the level of other men, given him a life which other men do not possess, revealed to him secrets which others do not know and prepared for him a place into which the ungodly can never enter. The longer he looks at himself, the more he wonders at God's Grace and at what God's Grace has done, is doing and will yet do for him. He is a riddle to himself—an enigma made up of a thousand enigmas. He probably does not fully understand all that has happened in any single day of his life—and there are certain days in which God's dealings with him quite stagger him. And though faith sees all things to be plain, yet to mere human reason, things often appear to be in a snarl, and twisted together and he does not know what to make of them.

Ye are a chosen generation - The titles formerly given to the whole Jewish Church, i.e. to all the Israelites without exception, all who were in the covenant of God by circumcision, whether they were holy persons or not, are here given to Christians in general in the same way; i.e. to all who believed in Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles, and who received baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Israelites were a chosen or elected race, to be a special people unto the Lord their God, above all people that were upon the face of the earth, Deu 7:6. They were also a royal priesthood, or what Moses calls a kingdom of priests, Exo 19:6. For all were called to sacrifice to God; and he is represented to be the King of that people, and Father of those of whom he was king; therefore they were all royal. They were a holy nation, Exo 19:6; for they were separated from all the people of the earth, that they might worship the one only true God, and abstain from the abominations that were in the heathen world. They were also a peculiar people, λαος εις περιποιησιν, a purchased people; סגלה segullah, a private property, belonging to God Almighty, Deu 7:6; none other having any right in them, and they being under obligation to God alone. All these things the apostle applies to the Christians, to whom indeed they belong, in their spirit and essence, in such a way as they could not belong to the Hebrews of old. But they were called to this state of salvation out of darkness - idolatry, superstition, and ungodliness, into his marvellous light - the Gospel dispensation, which, in reference to the discoveries it had made of God, his nature, will, and gracious promises towards mankind, differed as much from the preceding dispensation of the Jews, as the light of the meridian sun from the faint twinkling of a star. […]