Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Peter 1:18

"knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers;" — 1 Peter 1:18 (ASV)

Since you know.—This correctly paraphrases the simple original knowing. Security, which is the opposite of the fear of the Father, is incompatible with knowing by whose anguish and what suffering alone the inheritance could be purchased for us.

Corruptible things.—St. Peter’s contempt for silver and gold is shown early in his history (Acts 3:6; compare to 1 Peter 3:4). Gold and silver will come to an end with everything else that is material. Observe that, by contrast, the “blood of Christ” is implied to be not corruptible. This is not because of the miraculous incorruption of Jesus Christ’s flesh, but because the “blood of Christ” of which the Apostle here speaks is not material. The natural blood of Jesus was only the sign and sacrament of that by which He truly and inwardly redeemed the world (See Isaiah 53:12, He poured out His soul unto death, and Hebrews 10:9-10).

Redeemed . . . from your vain conversation.—We have to notice:

1. What the “redemption” means.

   The word “redeem” is the same which is used in Luke 24:21 (We used to hope that He was the person destined to redeem Israel), and in Titus 2:14 (Gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity), and nowhere else. The substantive appears in Luke 1:68, Luke 2:38, and Hebrews 9:12, to represent the action of redeeming; and in Acts 7:35, of Moses, to represent the person who effects such a redemption. Properly it means to ransom a person, to get them out of slavery or captivity by paying a ransom (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; compare to 1 Timothy 2:6).

   The notion of an actual ransom paid, however, was apt to slip away, as in the case of Moses just quoted, who certainly gave nothing of the nature of an equivalent to Pharaoh for the loss of his slaves. Therefore, here, as in all passages relating to the Atonement, we must be very careful not to press the metaphor or to consider it as more than a metaphor.

   The leading idea here is not that of paying an equivalent, but to draw closer attention to the state in which the readers were previously. It was a servitude like that of Egypt, or a captivity like that of Babylon, from which they needed a “ransomer” like Moses or Zerubbabel. What then was that condition?

2. What the readers were redeemed from.

   St. Peter describes it as a “vain conversation traditional from the fathers.” The word “conversation” again connects with 1 Peter 1:15 and 1 Peter 1:17: “be holy in your conduct; let it be a conduct of fear; for your old vain conduct needed a terrible ransom before you could be set at liberty from it.” The question is, whether a Gentile or Jewish mode of life is intended.

   If it meant merely as regards religious worship, it would suit either way, for it was of the essence of Roman state “religion” that it should be the same from generation to generation . But “conversation” or “manner of life” is far too wide a word to be thus limited. At the same time, the word “tradition” implies (in the New Testament) something diligently taught, purposely handed down from father to son as an heirloom, so that it could not be applied to the careless, sensual life of Gentiles, learned by example only.

   On the other hand, among the Jews “tradition” entered into the minutest details of daily life or “conversation” (See Mark 7:3-4—the Petrine Gospel). It was a matter of serious “tradition” how a cup was to be washed. “Vain” (i.e., frivolous) seems not an unnatural epithet to apply to such a mode of life, especially to one who had heard Mark 7:7. It would seem, then, that the readers of this Letter were certainly Jews by birth.

   But would the Apostle of the Circumcision, the supposed head of the legal party in the Church, dare to call Judaism a “vain conversation,” to stigmatize it (the single compound adjective in the Greek has a contemptuous ring) as “imposed by tradition of the fathers,” and to imply that it was like an Egyptian bondage? We have only to turn to Acts 15:10, and we find him uttering precisely the same sentiments. He called Judaism a slavish “yoke,” which was not only so bad for Gentiles that to impose it upon them was to tempt God, but also was secretly or openly felt intolerable by himself, by all the Jews there present, and even by the fathers who had imposed it.

   Judaism itself, then, in the form it had then assumed, was one of the foes and oppressors from which Christ came to “ransom” and “save” His people (See Notes on 1 Peter 1:9–10, and compare to Acts 13:39).