Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Peter 1:14

"as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in [the time of] your ignorance:" — 1 Peter 1:14 (ASV)

As obedient children—Literally, as children of obedience—children, that is, in the sense of relationship, not of age. It is characteristic of the writer to keep one thought underlying many digressions, and so here, the appeal to them as “children” is based on the begotten again of 1 Peter 1:3, and inheritance of 1 Peter 1:4; it comes up again in 1 Peter 1:17, the Father; in 1 Peter 1:22, the brethren; and again in 1 Peter 1:23, begotten again. The usual characteristic of Jews in the New Testament is disobedience. (See Note on 2 Thessalonians 1:8.) The “as” means “in keeping with your character of,” just as we say in common English, “Do so like obedient children.”

Not fashioning yourselves according to—This rare verb is the same as is translated be not conformed (Romans 12:2), from which some think it is borrowed. The expression is a little confused, the lusts themselves being spoken of as a model not to be copied, where we should rather have expected “not being conformed to your former selves.”

The former lusts in your ignorance—that is, which you indulged before you came to know the gospel truth—of course implying also that the ignorance was the mother of the lusts. The same assumption is made here which we will find again below in 1 Peter 2:9, and still more in 1 Peter 4:3, that the recipients of this Letter had lived in ignorance and in vice up to a certain point of their lives. And it is contended, with much plausibility, that both accusations show the recipients of the letter to be of Gentile and not of Jewish origin. It is true that lusts of the flesh are not usually laid to the charge of the Jews, as they are of the Gentiles. (See, for instance, 1 Thessalonians 4:5; Ephesians 4:17.)

It is also true that the ignorance with which the Jews are charged (for instance, Acts 3:17; Romans 10:3; 1 Timothy 1:13) has quite a different tendency from this.

But it may be answered that such details are of little weight in comparison with the direct evidence of the first verse and the indirect evidence of the whole tone of the Letter.

It may also be argued that, putting aside St. Paul’s expressions that have no bearing on St. Peter, “ignorance” is surely not an unnatural word to represent the contrast between the state of unregenerate Jews and the same individuals once they have attained knowledge higher than that of prophets or angels.

Furthermore, even Jews were men of flesh and blood and therefore not exempt from the temptations of the flesh, from which mere legalism was quite insufficient to protect them (see Romans 7:8, sin through the commandment wrought in me every lust);

Moreover, in Hebrews 5:2 and Hebrews 9:7, Jewish people are understood to need a high priest to bear with and atone for their ignorance and ignorances.

The same writer also contemplates the possibility of many of his Hebrews being defiled through fleshly sin (Hebrews 12:15–16) and deems it necessary to strongly urge the sanctity of marriage (Hebrews 13:4).