1 Peter 1:9

receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

End of your faith ... This means the goal or purpose of faith, that which is the ultimate result of the obedience of faith.

Paine, basing his conclusion on the construction of the Greek, says, "This is not a future, but a present reference,"[25] thus making the salvation to be that which they already had. Of course, this harmonizes with the view in Acts that those who were "being saved" were added to the church (Acts 2:47). There was surely a sense in which Peter's addressees were already saved, that is, from "their old sins," as Peter explained in 2 Peter 1:9.

Even the salvation of your souls ... Dummelow pointed out that "the Greek has no word for your,"[26] which, accordingly, is italicized in our version. If read without the italicized words, then the verse has "the salvation of souls," this being indeed the objective or end of all believing, the holy purpose toward which the whole eternal plan of the heavenly Father is directed. The churches of the current era have tended to overlook this. The social gains which have preempted so much time in the plans and activities of churches, although having some little value for the now and the here, are by no means "the purpose" of God's church in the world. It is the salvation of people's souls, not their take-home pay, nor the quality of their housing, which looms in Scripture as the great commission for the church.

[25] Stephen W. Paine, op. cit., p. 970.

[26] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 1041.