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[1]I add "on earth" here, because the assembly as built by Jesus Himself and not yet finished, is spoken of in chapter 2, where the living stones come to Christ.
[2] The doctrine of the gathering together of the saints to Jesus in the air, when they go to meet Him forms no part of Peter's teaching, any more than does that of the assembly on earth with which it is connected. He speaks of the manifestation of the saints in glory, because he is occupied with the ways of God towards the earth, although he is so in connection with Christianity.
[3] See 2 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10.
[4] In this passage, so to speak (as in this alone), Peter meets the doctrine of the assembly, and that under the character of a building, not of a body or a bride; that which Christ built, not what was united to Him. So Paul also presents it to us in Ephesians 2: 20, 21. In this view, though going on on earth, it is Christ's work and a continuing process; no human instrumentality is referred to: I will build, says Christ; it grows, says Paul; living stones come, says Peter. This must not be confounded with the building into which men may build wood and hay and stubble, as the same thing; though the outward thing which God set up good, left to man's responsibility, as, ever, was soon corrupted. Individuals are built up by grace, and it grows into a holy temple. All this refers to Matthew 16. The responsibility of human service in this respect is found in 1 Corinthians 3, and the assembly is there given in another point of view. The body is another thing altogether, the doctrine is taught in Ephesians 1-4.; 1 Corinthians 12., and other passages.
[5] An allusion, I suppose, to the last verse of Psalm 119.The apostle constantly puts the christian Jews on the ground of the blessed remnant, only making it a soul salvation..
[6] It is not, as in the Authorised Version, " yet without sin," true as that may be, but "choris hamartia", "sin apart." We are tempted, being led away by our own lusts. Christ had all our difficulties, all our temptations, on the way, but had nothing in Himself which could lead Him wrong-far surely from it- nothing which answered to the temptation.
[7] Peter rests on the effect; Paul, as ever, goes to the root, Romans 6.