It was to this that God called you is literally “for into this you were called,” that is, by God. “This” refers back to the last part of verse 20, that is, enduring suffering even when one has done right. The one who calls is most probably God, although Christ is also possible (for example, Knox “the call of Christ”). The idea here is that the slaves are called to a particular way of life or a particular task; hence “vocation” (Moffatt); “What you were called to do” (Jerusalem Bible); “part of your calling” (Barclay); “God has commissioned you” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).
A number of languages lack the construction illustrated by the first part of verse 21, namely, the use of an anticipatory pronoun It which refers to the clause that God called you. When such a construction does not exist, one can of course alter the order and restructure the expression as “God summoned you to this” or “God summoned you to this kind of suffering.” One might also translate this initial expression as “God’s task for you to perform is this kind of suffering.”
The example par excellence of one who had this calling of enduring undeserved suffering is Christ himself, and what he did is now given as a reason for the Christian doing the same. For you gives a deeper purpose of Christ’s suffering; he suffered not only to set an example for the believers to follow, but his suffering was in fact vicarious. The content of such vicarious suffering is not completely developed here; one significant part of it is mentioned in verse 24.
The phrase for you in relationship to Christ’s suffering is primarily an expression of benefit and may be expressed in some languages as “Christ himself suffered for your benefit,” or, as in some instances, literally “to help you.”
On the other hand, Christ’s example is lifted up as worthy of imitation, one that would lead believers to follow in his steps. The word for example is used only here in the whole New Testament; in classical Greek literature, it has two meanings: (1) a piece of writing from a teacher which a child is expected to trace or imitate, and (2) an artist’s sketch which is prepared for others to color and complete. Christ therefore left a perfect model, upon which the Christian is expected to pattern his own life. Left you an example may be rendered as “showed you how you should behave similarly” or “… how you should act in the same way” or “… how you should do even as he did.” The two expressions left you an example and so that you would follow in his steps may be coalesced into more or less a single expression, for example, “showed you how you should do as he has done” or “showed you how you should suffer even as he suffered.”
Steps is literally “footstep,” “footprint,” or “track,” used metaphorically here and elsewhere in the New Testament of imitating someone’s example. To follow in the steps of Christ then is not to do everything he did, but to follow his example of enduring undeserved suffering, and to show the same attitudes that he had, including perhaps his willingness to suffer for others (compare verse 12).
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The First Letter from Peter. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .