Grace and Peace, Their True Order
W. Arnot. 1 Peter 1:1-2 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,… While this beautiful introductory salutation, "Grace unto you, and peace," is a formula common to all the apostles, it is also an exact theological definition, rightly dividing the word of truth. The right thing is put fore most here. The living root lies in the ground below, and the fruit-bearing branches tower above it. It is grace first, and peace following it. When God and man meet it is pardon first, and then a mutual confidence. When He in the Mediator dispenses freely His favour, you in the Mediator draw near without dread. He manifests Himself a forgiving Father, and that very thing infuses into your heart the spirit of a trusting child. "May grace and peace be multiplied." In the Old. Testament (Isaiah 48:18) there is a promise that His people's peace "shall be like a river" — gaining affluents from either side as it flows, and at the last opening out into "a righteousness like the waves of the sea." (W. Arnot.) Parallel Verses KJV: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, WEB: Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones who are living as foreigners in the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,