<p>1:17 <i>And if you call on Him as Father- </i>Perhaps a reference to the way early Christians used the Lord's prayer, beginning &quot;Our Father...&quot;. If God was their Father, the first word of the prayer &quot;our&quot; demands that we accept we are not His only children. And He will judge all His children the same, and that included the Gentile converts with whom perhaps these Jewish converts were finding it hard to get along.</p><p><i>Who without partiality judges- </i>The trial of our faith is going on now; the judgment will simply formally reveal the verdict which is now being arrived at. The Father judges now &quot;according to every man's work&quot; (1 Pet. 1:17), as He did in OT times: &quot;Thou renderest to every man according to his work&quot; (Ps. 62:12). Yet when His Son returns, He will give every man &quot;according as his work shall be&quot; (Rev. 22:12). It couldn't be clearer: the judgment is going on now, and the Lord Jesus returns to give us the reward which has been 'judged' appropriate for us. With this background, Peter drives home the almost inevitable practical lesson: &quot;... therefore pass the time of your sojourning here in fear&quot;. <i>Now </i>Yahweh's eyes&nbsp;judge and examine the righteous, as He sits enthroned; and He <i>will</i>, at the future day of judgment, rain sulphur upon the head of the wicked and chase them away with His brining wind (Ps. 11:4-6 RV- reference to the Angel of the Lord chasing the rejected away?).</p><p>God will judge every man&rsquo;s work &ldquo;forasmuch as ye know that ye were... redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb slain...&quot; (1 Pet. 1:17-19). The link between our judgment and Christ&rsquo;s death needs to be reflected upon here. Our appreciation (&ldquo;forasmuch...&quot;) of the cross is related to how we will be judged. The Lord&rsquo;s death should influence our works and therefore it is intimately related to our final judgment. We will be judged in accordance with how far we have let the cross influence our daily works.<br />Baptism can never be undone; as a result of that covenant statement before God, we for evermore live our lives with a sense of responsibility to Him. &ldquo;If ye call upon yourselves on the name of the Father an allusion to baptism into the Father's Name... pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: <i>forasmuch</i> as ye know i.e. the more you realize this, the more you will live in fear / reverence that ye... were redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ&quot;.</p><p><i>According to each man's work- </i>Peter had found it hard to accept that truly &ldquo;God is no respecter of persons&rdquo; (Acts 10:37). And, as was well known, there had come a time when he had slipped back into the old mindset, and had once again respected persons by refusing to break bread with Gentiles. And yet he reminds his Jewish readers that their prayers ascend to a Father &ldquo;who without respect of persons judgeth according to <i>every</i> man&rsquo;s work&rdquo; (i.e. Jew or Gentile). He was asking them to learn what he had so slowly and falteringly come to accept as the articulation of the very same grace to the Gentiles which had been his salvation too.&nbsp;</p><p><i>Pass the time of your sojourning in fear- </i>Or, &quot;exile&quot;. The Jewish Christians had been driven out of Jerusalem by the Orthodox Jews, thus making a parallel between the Orthodox and Babylon, who had likewise driven Judah into exile. And &quot;Babylon&quot; may be a title for Jerusalem in 5:13 and in Revelation. It has been demonstrated that the record of the exile from the land is framed in terms of the exile from Eden; the offer of return to the land is therefore an offer of paradise restored, fellowship with God renewed- for those who wanted it. Let&rsquo;s remember that the exiles were symbols of us. We in this life are passing through &ldquo;the time of our exile&rdquo; (1 Pet. 1:17 RSV).</p>