Matthew Poole and continuators on 1 Peter 1:17

17 And if ye call on the father, who, without respect of persons , judgeth according to every mans work : pass the time of your sojourning here in fear .

This Particle is used here, and frequently elsewhere, not as a Note of doubting, but by way of Assertion, and supposition of a thing known.

Either this is to be meant of Invocation, their calling on God in Prayer; and then the sense is, If you be Servants, and Worshippers of the Father: Prayer being many times put for the whole Worship of God, Isa. 43.22. Acts 9.11. or of their calling God, Father, as Matth. 6.9. and then the sense is, If you would be counted God's Children, Iames 2.7.

And so will no more excuse you that are Iews, and descended from Abraham, than those that are born of Gentile Parents, Iob 34.19. Acts 10.34. Ephes. 6.9.

And so is not a Father only, but a Judge, and that a most righteous one.

i. e. Works, the Singular Number put▪ for the Plural, as Iames 1.25. See Rom. 2.6. Iob 34.11.

The word signifies the temporary abode of a Man in a place where he was not born, or doth not ordinarily reside; such being the Condition of Believers in the World, that they are Sojourners, not Citizens of it; they are travelling through it to their Father's House, and heavenly Country, Heb. 11.9, 10, 13, 16. They are here exhorted to a sutable Carriage expressed in the next words,

VVhich is due to him as a Father, and a Judge. It may imply the greatest Reverence, and the deepest Humility, Phil. 2.12. and 1 Cor. 2.3. and 1 Pet. 3.2, 15.

Marginal references: Deut. 10.17. Rom. 2.11.; 2 Cor. 7.1.