Verses 18-25
Analysis:—Exhortation of believing servants to self-denying obedience in doing and suffering after the example of Christ.
18 Servants,41 be subject to your masters with42 all fear; not only to the good and gentle,19 but also to the froward.43 For this is thankworthy,44 if a man for conscience45 toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. 20For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it,46 ye take it patiently, this is acceptable47 with God. 21For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us48 an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22Who did no49 sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23Who, when he was reviled,50 reviled not again; when he suffered,51 he threatened not; but committed himself52 to him that judgeth righteously: 24Who his own self53 bare our sins in his own body on54 the tree, that we,55 being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes56 ye were healed. 25For ye were as sheep going astray;57 but are58 now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1 Peter 2:18. Domestics—but also to the crooked.—οἰκέται less harsh and more comprehensive than δοῦλοι. Estius in Calov shrewdly suggests that the Apostle may have selected this designation because he was addressing Jewish Christians, to whom the term ‘slave’ was obnoxious, as incompatible with the people of God.
ὑποτασσόμενοι.—The most simple construction is to connect the Participle with the preceding Imperatives, especially with the τὸν Θεὸν φοβεῖσθε, to which the following ἐν παντἰ φόβῳ seems also to refer. It is the Apostle’s way to intertwine his sentences after this manner: the following exhortations begin with similar participial sentences, 1 Peter 3:1; 1 Peter 3:7-9. We learn from it, that he considers the duties to which he exhorts included in the principal duty, 1 Peter 2:12. He particularizes the exhortation, 1 Peter 2:13, as to the manner how the fear of God should be evidenced, 1 Peter 2:17.
In all fear.—Primarily, holy awe of God, after 1 Peter 2:17. Cf. Colossians 3:22; Ephesians 6:5; with full, entire fear; but it also involves the dread of an earthly master. There are, as Cornelius observes, different kinds of fear: a, fear of punishment; b, fear of the guilt of offending God; c, fear of the offence of exciting masters to animosity against the faith.
ἀγαθοῖς good in themselves and kind to others.—ἐπιεικής indicates a particular exhibition of ἄγαθος=indulgent, yielding, kind like the Syrian captain, 2 Kings 5:13-14.—ακολιός—עִקֵּשׁ, the contrary of the two other qualities, crooked in ways and therefore in heart, Psalms 101:4; Proverbs 11:20; Proverbs 17:20; Proverbs 4:24, similar to a piece of crooked wood that cannot be bent and is not fit for use, perverse, contentious, morose in disposition and behaviour. “Before such masters the false longings for liberty are most apt to break out: but here is just the point at which Christian views and principles appear in the strongest possible contrast with merely human and natural ones, and at which the peculiarity of the Christian calling, as a power of endurance, shows its marvellous glory.” Wiesinger.
1 Peter 2:19. For this is grace.—The sense of these words is determined partly by the following χάρις παρὰ Θεῷ, partly by the antithesis ποῖον γἁρ κλέος. This question suggests that of our Lord, Luke 6:32. “For if you love them, which love you, what thanks have you?” ποία ὐμῖν χάρις ἐστί; in Matt. it reads τίνα μισθὸν ἔχετε. The ideas of thanks, reward and praise are here conjoined. Here as there the reference is to thanks, praise, or honour before God. You have no praise before God, you cannot glory in your tribulations (cf. Romans 5:3), if you remain stedfast in troubles brought on by yourselves; but if, suffering wrongfully, you remain stedfast, you will have honour before God and secure His approval and good pleasure. Weiss compares the Hebrew מָצָא חֶך,=εὑρίσκειν χάριν ἐναντίον θεοῦ, Genesis 6:8; Genesis 18:3; Genesis 30:27; cf. Luke 1:30; Luke 2:52; Acts 2:47. As to the sense it is therefore=χαρίεν, cf. 1 Timothy 2:3; 1 Timothy 5:4.Colossians 3:20. The following explanation of Steiger is neither clear nor suited to the context. “It is grace indeed, even in the sight of God, to be able to suffer for God’s sake.” If he means: “Grace effects and shows its power in this, or the power and blessing of grace are exhibited in this,” παρἁ Θεῷ militates against his view.
For consciousness of God, etc—διὰ συνείδησιν Θεοῦ.—συνείδησις, the sharing of some knowledge, from σύνοιδα, I am conscious. Many take Θεοῦ as Genit. obj. on account of our knowledge of God, of His good will and pleasure; but it seems more natural to interpret: “because of the consciousness of God, because God knows all, because His eye sees all and because His arm punishes all evil,” cf. Colossians 3:23. In this sense Joseph suffered innocently; he thought, “how then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Genesis 39:9. He suffered διὰ συνείδησιν Θεοῦ.—To take συνείδησις here in the sense of conscience is forbidden by the addition of Θεοῦ, although it often has that meaning, John 8:9; Acts 23:1; Acts 24:16; Romans 2:15; Romans 9:1; Romans 13:5; 1Co 8:7; 1 Corinthians 8:10; 1 Corinthians 10:25; 1Co 10:28; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 2 Corinthians 4:2; 1 Timothy 1:5; 1 Timothy 1:19; 1 Timothy 3:9; 2 Timothy 1:3; Titus 1:15; Hebrews 9:14; Heb 10:22; 1 Peter 3:16.—Weiss explains; “The consciousness of God, as that of Him who has ordained this subjection, should ever accompany and prompt us to the discharge of this duty. The idea συνείδησις is here too much narrowed and taken subjectively instead of objectively.”
ὑποφέρει equivalent to the following ὑπομένειν= to endure with constancy, 2 Timothy 3:11; 1 Corinthians 10:13, to bear up under afflictions and to carry them cheerfully on one’s shoulders.—λύπαι, events causing multiform grief.
1 Peter 2:20. When ye be buffeted for your faults—suffer patiently.—ἁμαρτάτοντες καἱ κολαφιζόμενοι ὑπομενεῖτε.—The antithesis of ἀδίκως πάσχειν—κολαφιζόμενοι=to beat with the fist (vulgo “box the ear”), if as malefactors and punished, you suffer afflictions patiently. [κολαφιζόμενοι; Bengel says: pœna servorum, eaque subita.—M.] The world may praise such conduct as courage and bravery, it will not give you glory before God.—Wrong: if the scourgings notwithstanding you persist in sinful courses; for the contrast is between merited suffering and martyr suffering. (Lachmann and Tischendorf read ποῖον γὰρ, but γὰρ is wanting in many MSS.).
1 Peter 2:21. For even hereunto were ye called,—namely, to do good and to endure with patience, 1 Peter 3:9, as we read, 1 Thessalonians 3:3 : “We are appointed, set thereunto,” Acts 14:22. The first reason of the endurance of wrongful sufferings and perseverance in well-doing was the favour of God; the second is the calling of Christians as a further inducement to which is mentioned the example of Christ. The words are primarily addressed to slaves, as Bengel explains: this belongs to your Christian calling, which finds you in the condition of slaves; but they may be applied to all Christians, as is evident from the adduced motive.
Because also Christ suffered for you.—καὶ Χριστὸς, even Christ, the wholly Innocent One, has suffered. καὶ refers to ἀδίκως πάσχων [Alford makes καὶ apply to ἔπαθεν ὐπὲρ ὑμῶν on the ground that the last two words carry with them the ἀγαθοποιῶν, as explained below, 1 Peter 2:24.—M.].—ἔπαθεν. Huss: “Peter does not say what Christ did suffer, his object being to intimate that Christ endured for us every kind of suffering. Herein then we are to imitate Him, viz.: in patiently carrying whatever is laid upon us.” As the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord, he may not refuse to endure such sufferings.
ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν (Scholz and Tischendorf read ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν); ὑπὲρ may mean: in your stead, or for your benefit, or both. The last is probable, if reference be had not only to 1 Peter 2:22-23, but also to 1Pe 2:24, cf. 1 Peter 3:18, where the vicarious character of the death of Jesus is unmistakably asserted. Winer remarks at p. 458 that ὑπὲρ sometimes touches closely upon ἀντί, because the agent, one acting for the benefit of another, in most instances becomes his substitute, cf. Galatians 3:13; Romans 5:7; Romans 14:15 : Matthew 20:28; John 15:13; John 10:15; John 6:51. The redemptive and typical nature of the sufferings of Christ are here intimately connected. Steiger justly asks: “What is it that makes the example of Christ obligatory to us, unless it be the fact that that typical suffering was at once and primarily a suffering for us, an offering of Christ and a benefit, engaging us to serve Him?”—This passage expresses in pregnant language the double idea: 1. You are obliged to obey Christ, because He suffered for you. 2. You are consequently called to innocent suffering, though you be guiltless, because also Christ, in suffering for you, suffered innocently and with the intent that in this respect you should imitate Him.
Leaving you—steps.—ὑπολιμπάνω another form of ὑπολείπω. Bengel remarks, “in abitu ad Patrum.”—ὑπογραμμός, 2Ma 2:29, a pattern to write or draw by, a copy-head such as a writing-master would give to his pupils. This requires a steady hand and daily practice. Hence, pattern, copy, example. It is characteristic of this epistle, that it lays great stress on the pattern of Christ, cf. John 13:15; Matthew 11:29; Matthew 20:28 with 1Pe 3:18; 1 Peter 4:1; 1 Peter 4:13.
ἴνα ἐπακολουθήοητε τοῖς ἴχνεσιν—ἴχνη, a footprint, also the heels of shoes. The figure of a copyhead passes into that of a guide, whose footprints travellers along a steep, narrow and slippery path must follow up step by step. The footprints of His readiness to suffer, of His gentleness and humility are particularly alluded to. ἴνα dependent on ἔπαθεν, not on ἐκλήθητε. The imitation and following of Christ consists especially in the daily taking up of the cross, Luke 9:23. [This passage is also imitated by Poly-carp, 100:8: Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς , ὃς ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ εποίησεν, οὐδὲ εὑρέθη σόλος ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ · μμηταὶ οὖν γενώμεθα τῆς ὑπομονῆς αὐτοῦ….τοῦτον ἡμῖν τὸν ὑπογραμμὸν ἔθηκε σἰ ἑαυτοῦ.
Tertullian de Patientia, c. 3. “He Who is God, stooped to be born in the womb of His Mother, and waited patiently and grew up; and when grown up, was not impatient to be recognized as God. He was baptized by His servant, and repelled the tempter only by words. When He became a Teacher, He did not strive nor cry, nor did any one hear His voice in the streets. He did not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. He scorned no man’s company; He shunned no man’s table. He conversed with publicans and sinners. He poured out water and washed His disciples’ feet. He would not injure the Samaritan village which did not receive Him, when His disciples called fire from heaven to consume it. He cured the unthankful; He withdrew from those who plotted against Him. He had the traitor constantly in His company and did not expose him. And when He is betrayed and is brought to execution, He is like a sheep which before his shearers is dumb, and a lamb that doth not open its mouth. He who, Lord of angelic Legions, did not approve the sword of Peter drawn in His defence, He is spit upon, scourged, mocked. Such long-suffering as His, is an example to all men, but is found in God alone.”—M.]
1 Peter 2:22. Who did no sin, etc.—This description of the innocent and patient suffering of Jesus is almost a literal quotation from the Septuagint version of Isaiah 53:9, the word ἁμαρτίαν, alone being substituted for ἀνομίαν. The passages Isaiah 1:6; Isaiah 53:7, are more freely treated in 1 Peter 2:23. The servant of God there designated is therefore none other than the Messiah. His perfect sinlessness is even more explicitly affirmed in Hebrews 7:26; 2 Corinthians 5:21.
εὑρίσκω not absolutely like εἶναι, but: no guile could be discovered in or proved from His words, all watching and sifting notwithstanding, and yet He was condemned. See Winer p. 701, cf. James 3:2. Bengel notices the fitness of this exhortation to slaves, who were greatly liable to the temptation of deceiving, slandering and menacing their fellow-slaves.
1 Peter 2:23. Who being reviled—threatened not.—He fulfilled Proverbs 20:22; Proverbs 24:29; He did what David had done, 2 Samuel 16:10, etc. The strong and bitter words, which Jesus had sometimes to use, Matthew 7:5; Matthew 16:3; Matthew 22:18; Matthew 23:13; Matthew 23:33; Matthew 12:34, were not the utterings of personal hatred, nor retorts of insults heaped upon Him, but necessary evidences of the truth in order to cast a sting into the heart of His adversaries, and if possible to save them.
But delivered—righteously.—The second part of the sentence contains a climax. He even abstained from threatening, while He saw into the impending judgments, παραδίδου δὲ, He committed His cause to God, not however by invoking the vengeance of God on His enemies, but by praying for their conversion and pardon. If they persisted in repelling the overtures of grace, He left him to the justice of God. In this sense He said: “I seek not mine own glory: there is One that seeketh and judgeth.” John 8:50.—Jeremiah spoke differently in the spirit of the Old Testament: “Let me see Thy vengeance upon them, for unto Thee have I revealed my cause.” Jeremiah 11:20.
To Him that judgeth righteously, otherwise than the anger of the injured part, and the violence of ungodly enemies would make it. It is both a great consolation and an invitation to leave vengeance to Him, cf. Romans 12:19; Romans 2:6-11; 1 Peter 3:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:6; Luke 18:7-8; Luke 9:55. Lechler remarks, that the Apostle’s language was giving one the impression of coming in contact with an eye-witness of the arrest, of the trial, of the rough ill treatment and even of the crucifixion of the Lord. [Calvin has the following: “Qui sibi ad expetendam vindictam indulgent, non judiciis officium Deo concedunt, sed quodam modo facere volunt suum carnificem.—M.]
1 Peter 2:24. Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.—This verse is connected with ὑπερ ὑμῶν of 1 Peter 2:21, and defines it more particularly; it also brings the antithesis to 1 Peter 2:22 to a climax. Not only had He no sin, or did not sin Himself, but He bore our sins, etc.—ἀνήνεγκεν. The exegesis is determined by Isaiah 53:0 which evidently was before the Apostle’s mind. In that chapter occur the words &נָשָׂא סָבַל, φέρειν. The LXX. render: τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς ἰάθημεν; in 1 Peter 2:12, καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ; in 1 Peter 2:10, “When His soul shall make an offering for sin.” All exegetical attempts to explain away the idea of substitution and the system of sacrifice closely connected with it, are altogether futile. As in the Old Testament, the expressions, “to carry one’s sin,” or, “to bear one’s iniquity,” are equivalent to “suffer the punishment and guilt of one’s sin,” Leviticus 20:17; Leviticus 20:19; Leviticus 24:15; Ezekiel 23:35, so “to carry another’s sin,” denotes “to suffer the punishment and guilt of another,” or “to suffer vicariously,” Leviticus 3:19, Leviticus 3:17; Numbers 14:33; Lamentations 5:7; Ezekiel 18:19-20. Can this be done in any other way than by the imputation of the guilt and sin of others, as was the case in the sin and guilt-offerings? Weiss is quite arbitrary in persisting to exclude the idea of sacrifice from Isaiah 53:0, for 1 Peter 2:10 clearly refers to it. From a Jewish point of view such a separation of the doctrine of substitution from the idea of sacrifice is simply impossible, cf. John 1:29; Leviticus 16:21-22.—The juxtaposition of ἡμῶν and αὐτός both here and in Isaiah 53:0 is not insignificant, but gives prominence to the idea of substitution. Calvin says: “As under the law the sinner, in order to become free from sin, offered a sacrifice in his stead, so Christ took upon Himself the curse which we have merited by our sins in order to expiate it before God.” Calov. “The cross of Christ was the lofty altar to which, when He was about to offer Himself, He ascended laden with our sins.”
ἀναφέρειν ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον=to carry up to the tree of the cross and thus to carry away and blot out, cf. James 2:21; Hebrews 9:28. The expression “tree” for “cross” is by no means undesigned, but selected as in Acts 5:30; Acts 10:39, with reference to Deuteronomy 21:23, cf. Galatians 3:13, where it is said of him that is hanged on a tree, “he is accursed of God.”
τὰς ἁμαρτίας not sin-offerings or offerings for our sins, a rendering which is inadmissible on grammatical grounds, but the guilt and punishment of our sins;—these He took upon Himself and expiated them, cf. Colossians 2:14; Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21.
In His own body, cf. Ephesians 2:15. This expression is far from singular in connection with the fact that Christ bore the punishment of sin also in His holy soul, provided we start from the idea of sacrifice and assume that Peter was comparing the body of Christ with the body of the slain victim. Gerhard says: “The body is mentioned in particular, because it was visibly suspended from the cross, and because His bodily sufferings were more immediately perceptible by the senses.” Weiss tries to find a reference to the words of the institution of the Lord’s Supper—but this seems to be rather far-fetched. How this carrying of the punishment of man’s sin—which goes far beyond a compassionating entering into the feelings of our sinful misery—was possible must ever remain a wonderful mystery, on which the Petrine and Johannean doctrine of Christ as the real and original Head of mankind, sheds only a feeble light.
That having died to sins, we should live to the righteousness of Him.—Calov. “Peter combines the two benefits of the death of Christ, 1st, by it our sins are expiated, and 2d, in virtue of it sin is killed in us. We add, that the combination gives prominence to holiness as the end and aim of the atonement.
ἀπογίνομαι ἀποθνήσκω, cf. Romans 6:2. Bengel remarks: “γενέσθαι τινὸς means to become somebody’s slave, ἀπό denotes removal. The body of Christ was removed, taken away from that tree, up to which He had carried our sins; thus we should remove ourselves from sin, become free from it.” This explanation is more acute than satisfactory. The negative, dying unto sin, must go hand in hand with the positive. The connection of holiness and renovation with the death of Jesus is not indicated here, but may be supplied by recollecting that the gift of the Holy Ghost and the power of faith were acquired by the death of Jesus. Thereby the vital strength of sin is broken and the desire of righteousness planted in the soul.—ζῇν τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ to live in the service of righteousness, in keeping the commandments of God and Christ instead of the former service of sin. Bengel: “The whole of righteousness is one, sin manifold.”
By whose stripe ye were healed.—Μώλωψ, a wound like that inflicted on slaves by scourging, a stripe or rather the weal left by a stripe. The Singular is used here as in Isaiah 53:0; the sacred body of Jesus was so tortured that it was, as it were, only one wound or stripe.—οὖ τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ. (Lachmann and Griesbach. omit αὐτοῦ; Tischendorf retains it as the more difficult reading in his last edition). More emphatic than the relative by itself; supply τούτου before it.—Ἰάθητε. The apostle passes from the first person to the second, resuming his direct address to Christian slaves. So also at 1 Peter 2:25; the whole section from 1 Peter 2:18-25 is addressed to them. μώλωψ and ἰᾶσθαι suggest the secondary thought: You have to endure no kind of sufferings and wounds, but Christ, your Lord, endured them also; your Master exacts not more from you than He has borne Himself; He bears all in your stead in order to save you; how much more ought you, who are sinful, quietly and patiently to endure suffering?—But how shall we solve the prophetical and apostolical paradox, that Christ’s stripe is our healing? Healing is here primarily not to be understood as a sinner’s entire restoration to the image of God, else the preceding exhortation would not have been necessary, but as designating the healing of the stings of conscience, caused by sin; but this involves of course the principle that entire healing is rendered possible. “Sins, committed against, our conscience, hurt the soul and leave scars which ever and anon open afresh, sting the conscience and hurt the soul.” Steinhofer.—These wounds of your soul were healed when by faith in the atoning death of Jesus you received forgiveness. He suffered the smiters to draw long furrows on His back, Psalms 129:3, to wound His head and face, His hands and feet, and to pierce His heart that in our stead, as the Head for the members, He might make atonement.”—
“Thou didst suffer stripe and weal,Treatment full of shame and pain,That my plague thou mightest heal,And my peace forever gain.”[German Hymn,—Du hast lassen Wunden schlagen,Dich erbärmlich richten zu,Um zu heilen meine Plagen,Um zu setzen mich in Ruh!—M.]Tauler:—“He had to die that we might live: He was afflicted that we might rejoice; He was wounded that we might be healed: He shed His blood that we might be cleansed: the blood of the Physician was shed and made the patient’s remedy.”
1 Peter 2:25. For ye were straying like sheep.—The Apostle adds how and from what state they came to this healing. For ye were straying like sheep. A sheep is a stupid animal: so is the sinner, repelling salvation and straying in the ways of corruption. Sheep, as Aristotle observes, are subject to as many diseases as man. Stray sheep, separated from the shepherd and the flock, lack food and care, are exposed to many dangers, may become a prey to the wolf or fall into some abyss. The expression is taken from Isaiah 53:0, and the figure is of frequent occurrence in the Old Testament, Numbers 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17; Psalms 119:176; Ezekiel 34:5; Ezekiel 34:11, and in the New, Luke 15:4, etc.; John 10:15 etc.; Matthew 9:36. It may have been particularly appropriate to the case of slaves of the dispersion who often changed masters and their place of domicile. Straying and sickness are often conjoined. “The figure of stray sheep alludes to original union with God and represents straying as alienation from God in consequence of sin.” John 10:12. Wiesinger.
But ye are now brought back (from the wilderness of sin, error and death) to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.—ἐπεστράφητε, ye have been converted and have suffered yourselves to be converted. By faith you have laid hold of the atonement made for all and have returned from your wanderings. Christ is the arch-Shepherd, the true, the good Shepherd, promised already in the Old Testament, Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:24; Psalms 23:1; cf. John 10:11; Heb 13:20; 1 Peter 5:4. He even gives His life for the sheep, John 10:12. The Apostle turns to that side of the pastoral relation of Christ which exhibits Him as the Bishop and Guardian of souls.—ἐπίσκοπος is used of God in the LXX. version of Job 20:29; the phrase is however more probably taken from Ezekiel 34:11-12, where we read: “For thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them out (ἐπισκέψομαι). As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.” He is ever careful of the salvation of His sheep and seeks to protect them from destruction. He is the Shepherd and Guardian of souls.—ψυχῶν not without special significance as it relates to slaves, and servants who are so often treated, as if they had no immortal soul, and who may therefore so much the more readily forget that they have a soul which they may lose, and that with the soul lost, all else is lost.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The Divine origin of Christianity may also be demonstrated by the fact that it enters into and hallows every relation of life and descends to the most degraded of men and to the lowest conditions of society.2. The glory of the Christian vocation is peculiarly manifested by endurance of wrong and indefatigable well-doing under it.3. Plato anticipated the ideal of such a righteous man in the following passage of his second book on the State: “Without doing any wrong, he must have the greatest appearance of unrighteousness in order to be thoroughly approved in righteousness, since even slander and its consequences cannot move him, and although all his life-long considered unrighteous, he is yet righteous. The righteous, thus minded will be bound, scourged, tortured, blinded in both eyes and finally, having endured every possible evil, he will be hung.” Plato’s ideal and conception find their strongest fulfilment and reality in Christianity.
4. The exhortation that we should copy in ourselves, the pattern which Christ has left us in His life and death is enclosed forwards and backwards, 1 Peter 2:21 and 1 Peter 2:24, by the recollection that He was crucified for us. This is the impelling motive which at once enables us to imitate Christ and to do it cheerfully.
5. The vicarious sacrificial death of Jesus, based on Isaiah 53:0, is here affirmed with so much clearness that even rationalistic adversaries are unable to resist it, cf. Wegschneider, Instit. p. 407, 6th ed. How we are healed by the wounds of Jesus, is a mystery which reason cannot fully solve, and to which we have to submit by faith in the clear testimony of Holy Writ. “Jesus, who by His blood has effected our reconciliation, is Himself the Physician who heals our souls.” Even Dr. Baur is constrained to admit that the idea of substitution cannot be denied in such passages of the New Testament as Romans 4:25; Galatians 1:4; Romans 8:3; 1 Corinthians 15:3; 2 Corinthians 5:19, that the preposition ὑπέρ denotes both the idea of substitution and what takes place for the benefit of man; that these two points are passing the one into the other, so as to interpenetrate each other, but that the latter is decidedly predominant; that according to the Apostle’s doctrine the justice of God had to be satisfied by an actual atonement for the punishment of sin; that viewing the death of Jesus from the stand-point of Divine justice, is only the outer side of the event and its merely judicial aspect, but that the inmost ground of the Divinely-made institution is the grace of God, Rom 3:24, 2 Corinthians 5:19, and a point so much more extensive than the other as to constrain us to regard only as an emanation of Divine grace whatever Divine justice may claim of the death of Jesus; that it was grace that God would not allow men to be punished in their own persons, but in their substitute. See Baur, Lehrbegriff des Ap. Paulus p. 541. This is certainly a wonderful testimony from the lips of an unbeliever.
6. The medicine has been prepared by His wounds, the balsam has been cleared under the press of the cross.—“The blood of Jesus is the most precious balsam with which Jesus washes and heals our wounds, as the good Samaritan poured oil and wine in the wounds of the bleeding and half-dead man to lessen their smart and to heal them. There is vital strength in this crimson oil whereby we are fully healed.” Steinhofer, Evang. Glaubensgrund, p. 434.
7. Observe the important distinction between the atonement as the objective act of God in Christ in virtue of which salvation has been acquired for and is offered to sinners, and the subjective appropriation of salvation by means of conversion. The words of Paul: “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God,” 1 Corinthians 6:11, apply only to those who have sought Christ in penitence and faith and laid hold of His merits.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
How may the much-lamented difficulties relating to domestics be remedied? 1. By the return of the fear of God into the houses and hearts of men; 2. By masters and servants entering upon the imitation of Christ.—The secret of partaking more and more of the grace of God.—The Christian call, 1. To a state of grace, in order to be and live in it; 2. To suffer innocently and patiently; 3. To persevere in well-doing.—The Christian’s consolation in innocent suffering.—Righteousness of life must flow from righteousness by faith.—The sufferings of Christ for us and before us.—The power of Christ’s example.—The great change in conversion.—Man a stray sheep, while excluded from the calling of God in Christ.
Starke:—God ordains, that one should rule and another serve.—Bad masters are for the trial and perhaps also for the chastisement of servants.—Masters are often decried as whimsical for desiring propriety and right in things spiritual and temporal. Servants, be ashamed and do not slander your godly masters, but learn to be wise and to do all things right after the will of God and their mind—Many masters may deal ill with their people, but if they endure wrong patiently, attend to their service in the fear of God, pray diligently for their masters, they are God’s people and God will be their helper and reward, Genesis 31:12.—As it is the shame of servants to be punished for ill-doing, so it is their veritable honour and glory before God and man if they endure wrong innocently and patiently, 1 Peter 4:15-16.—Christians are not called to voluptuousness and good days but to the cross, 1 Peter 2:21.—We should often look at ourselves in the sufferings of Christ, as if they were a mirror, that we may be glorified into the same image, Hebrews 12:3.—Christ is our Gift and Pattern, our Mediator and Head, our Shepherd and Light. What is our duty? To believe and to obey (follow) John 8:12.—The words, the ways and the works of Christ are, as it were, living letters and footprints for us to copy and follow, Hebrews 12:6.—If you have a just cause and yet are oppressed, be still and persevere, God will maintain your cause, Psalms 94:15.—Away with foolish sacrifices for the living or the dead! The one sacrifice of our High-priest Jesus Christ on the cross is sufficient for the reconciliation of the whole world, Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 10:11-12.—The exaltation and glory of Christians blossom forth from the cross.—Sin was sacrificed and slain by Christ that it should also be dead in us. Where it lives, the virtue of the death of Christ is as yet unfelt, Romans 6:6.—Sin is like a maze: whoso enters the same cannot easily find his way out.—Whoso remains in the wilderness out of Christ (extra) must at last fall into the abyss of hell and eternally despair, Acts 4:12; Psalms 119:176.
Augustine:—“We must not cease to hope for the wicked, but rather pray for them the more diligently, that they may become good, because the number of saints has at all times been increased by the number of the ungodly. Those who are goats to-day, may be sheep to-morrow, those who are weeds to-day, to-morrow may be wheat.”
Kapff:—What is necessary in conversion? 1. That we should be healed by the wounds of Jesus. 2. That we should die to sin and live to righteousness.
[Leighton:
1 Peter 2:18. It is a thing of much concernment, the right ordering of families; for all other societies, civil and religious are made up of these. Villages and cities and churches and commonwealths and kingdoms, are but a collection of families: and therefore such as these are, for the most part, such must the whole societies predominantly be. One particular house is but a very small part of a kingdom, yet the wickedness and lewdness of that house, be it but the meanest in it, as of servants one or more; and though it seem but a small thing, yet goes in to make up that heap of sin that provokes the wrath of God and draws on public calamity.—Servants. 1. Their duty (be subject); 2. Its extent (to the froward); 3. Its principle (for conscience toward God).—The eagle may fly high and yet have its eye down upon some carrion on earth; even so a man may be standing on the earth and on some low part of it, and yet have his eye upon heaven and be contemplating it. That which one man cannot at all see in another, is the very thing that is most considerable in their action, namely, the principle whence they flow and the end to which they tend. This is the form and life of actions, that by which they are earthly or heavenly. Whatsoever be the matter of them, the spiritual mind hath that alchymy indeed, of burning base metals unto gold, earthly employments into heavenly.—1 Peter 2:21. The particular things that Christians are here said to be called to, are suffering, as their lot, and patience, as their duty, even under the most unjust and undeserved sufferings.—He that aims high, shoots the higher for it, though he shoot not so high as he aims. This is that which ennobles the spirit of a Christian, the propounding of this our high pattern, the example of Jesus Christ.—1 Peter 2:24. The eye of a godly man is not fixed on the false sparkling of the world’s pomp, honour and wealth. It is dead to them, being quite dazzled with a greater beauty. The grass looks fine in the morning, when it is set with those liquid pearls, the drops of dew that shine upon it; but if you can look but a little while on the body of the sun, and then look down again, the eye is as it were dead; it is not that faint shining on the earth that it thought so gay before: and as the eye is blinded and dies to it, so within a few hours that gayety quite vanishes and dies itself.—Faith looks so steadfastly on its suffering Saviour, that, as they say (Intellectus fit illud quod intelligit), it makes the soul like Him, assimilates and conforms it to His death, as the Apostle speaks. That which Papists fabulously say of some of their saints, that they received the impression of the wounds of Christ in their body, is true in a spiritual sense of the soul of every one that is indeed a saint and a believer; it takes the very print of His death by beholding Him and dies to sin, and then takes that of His rising again, and lives to righteousness; as it applies it to justify, so to mortify, drawing virtue from it. Thus said one, “Christ aimed at this in all those sufferings that with so much love He went through; and shall I disappoint Him and not serve His end?”—M.]
[On the duties of Christian servants see Bp. Fleetwood’s “Sermons on relative duties.”—M.]
[Jortin:
1 Peter 2:18. “The law of nature knows no such thing as slavery, for by nature all men are free and equal; but by the civil laws, and by the practice of nations, it was established, and still continues among those who know not the Gospel; and the more is the shame and the pity, it is to be found in some places where Christianity is professed. The religion of Christ, when it first made its progress in the world, left the civil laws of nations, in a great measure, as it found them, lest by altering or repealing them, it should bring confusion and disturbance into human society; but, as by its own genius and tendency, it leads men gently back to the precepts of nature and equity, to kindness and to mercy, it put an end by degrees, in most civilized nations, to that excessive distance and difference between masters and slaves, which owed its origin to outrage and war, to violence and calamity; so that in Christian countries the service which is performed is usually, as it ought to be, voluntary and by agreement. But what the writers of the New Testament have said concerning slaves, holds true concerning hired servants and all those who are employed in other denominations under a master, that they discharge their office modestly, diligently and willingly, and act with faithfulness and integrity in every thing that is committed to them.”—M.]
[Macknight:—“In this verse the Apostle establishes one of the most noble and important principles of morality, namely, that our obligation to relative duties does not depend, either on the character of the persons to whom they are to be performed, or on their performance of the duties which they owe to us, but on the unalterable relations of things established by God.”—M.]
[Bp. Horne:
1 Peter 2:21. “Our Lord was ‘both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life.’ (Collect for second Sunday after Easter.) By His sacrifice He procured us grace to follow His example, which otherwise would have been proposed to us in vain; by His example He showed us how to make a right use of that grace, which, unless we do, it is given in vain. So that if he who regards Him as an example, and not as a Redeemer, will be lost, because he cannot follow Him; he who takes Him for a Redeemer, and not for an example, will be lost, because he does not follow Him, since redemption was in order to holiness; and although it be most certain that without Christ no man can attain unto holiness, yet it is no less certain that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” He only is fully and effectually redeemed, and has evidence to assure him of it, who bears stamped on his soul the image and superscription of his Saviour.”—M.]
[Dean Stanhope:
1 Peter 2:24-25. “A consideration of the purpose for which our Saviour suffered should be a matter of great consolation to us, when we meditate upon His sufferings, and cause us to mingle tears of joy with those of grief. The latter we should be insensible not to pay to the excruciating agonies of our beloved Master; the former we should be unthankful and cruel to ourselves not to give to the happy effects of the misery which He so graciously condescended to undergo for us. But, to make both effectual, let us, inflamed with zeal and gratitude and love unfeigned, endeavour for our own particular, and most devoutly beg for the rest, as the best of Churches teaches us, that the innumerable benefits of this precious blood-shedding may have their full extent and free course; that “we and the whole Church of Christ may receive remission of sins” and all the other blessed effects of His passion; that He, who “hath made a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world,” would cause His way to be known, and show His saving health to the yet dark and unbelieving nations; and that all, who do already know it, may walk worthy of their knowledge and of the high vocation wherewith they are called. And O! that the death tasted by our Redeemer for every man may be effectual to the saving of every man! Even so, blessed Jesus, “by thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, good Lord, deliver us.”—M.]
Footnotes:
1 Peter 2:18; 1 Peter 2:18. [Domestics, family servants, οἰκέτης not so harsh as δοῦλος. ‘In all fear be subject to your masters,’ Cod. Sin.—M.]
1 Peter 2:18; 1 Peter 2:18. [ἐν=in, not with.—M.]
[43] 1 Peter 2:18. [σκολιός= עִקֵּשׁ Deuteronomy 32:5, crooked, perverse. These σκολίοι are “salvi et intractabiles, duri ac morosi,” so Gerhard.—M.]
[Cod. Sin. ἐν παντ. φόβ. ὑπ.—M.]
1 Peter 2:19; 1 Peter 2:19. [For this is grace, so German for χάρις, but χάρις not=gratia divina but=laus. Cf. Calvin, “Idem valet nomen gratiæ quod laudis. Intelligit enim nullam gratiam vel laudem conciliari nobis coram Deo, si pœnam sustinemus quam nostris delictis simus promeriti: sed qui patienter ferunt injurias, eos laude dignos esse, et opus facere Deo acceptum.”—M.]
[45] 1 Peter 2:19. [Consciousness, not conscience. The man knows that God is cognizant of his suffering, and acts rather with respect to God than to man. German: Mitwissen, not Gewissen, the former denoting cognizance in the sense of joint knowing, the latter, conscience. Render the whole verse, “For this is grace, if, on account of God’s cognizance, any one endures tribulations (λύπας), suffering wrongfully.—M.]
1 Peter 2:20. [ποῖον=German ‘was für ein,’ or English, ‘what kind of.’—M.]
1 Peter 2:20; 1 Peter 2:20. [Cod. Sin. κολαζόμενοι ὑπομένετε. German, “suffer patiently.” The participial construction of the Greek is, on the whole, preferable to English version. “For what kind of glory (is it) if doing wrong (sinning), and being buffeted, ye endure it patiently? but if well doing, and suffering (for it), ye endure (it) patiently, this is grace.”—M.]
1 Peter 2:20; 1 Peter 2:20. [χάρις, as above, “with God.” The idea here, and in 1 Peter 2:19, seems to be that such conduct is the evidence of grace received, as none but a child of grace would thus act.—M.]
1 Peter 2:21. [Cod. Sin. reads ἀπἐθανεν (died) for ἔπαθεν (suffered).—ἡμῶν ὑμῖν is the reading supported by the greatest number of MSS. Another reading, ἡμῶν ἡμῶν, according to Syr. Copt. Ephr. Aug., and still another, ὑμῶν ὑμῖν, Elzevir, Alford; on this last is based the German version, which renders “suffered for you, leaving you, etc.”—M.]
[ὑπογραμμός=a copy-head,=a pattern, to write or paint by.—M.]
1 Peter 2:22. [ἐποίησεν, the Aorist, as distinguished from the Imperfect, ἐποιει, has the force of “never in a single instance.” Alford.—M.]
[Cod. Sin. ηὑρέθη.—M.]
1 Peter 2:23. [The German retains the preferable participial form.—M.]
1 Peter 2:23; 1 Peter 2:23. [Render thus: “Who being reviled, reviled not again, suffering, threatened not.”—M.]
1 Peter 2:23; 1 Peter 2:23. [Render thus: “Who being reviled, reviled not again, suffering, threatened not.”—M.]
1 Peter 2:23. [παρεδίδου, either, “delivered (His enemies) up to (the Father),” so Alford, or, “delivered (His cause) up to (the Father”); in either case, as Alford suggests, perhaps not without reference to “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”—M.]
[Cod Sin. *ἐλοιδόρει.—M.]
1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 2:24. [“Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.”—M.]
1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 2:24. [The force of ἀνήνεγκεν is that “He took our sins to the tree, and offered them up on it.” Alford. Cf. Vitringa in Huther: “Vix uno verbo ἔμφασις vocis ἀναφέρειν exprimi potest. Nota Ferre et Offerre. Primo dicere voluit Petrus, Christum portasse peccata nostra, in quantum illa ipsi erant imposita, Secundo, ita tulisse peccata nostra, ut ea secum obtulerit in altari. Respicit ad animantes, quibus peccata primo imponebantur, quique deinceps peccatis onusti offerebantur. Sed in quam aram? ξύλον ait Petrus, lignum, h. e. crucem.—M.]
1 Peter 2:24; 1 Peter 2:24. [ἀπογενόμενοι=having died. The German renders, “that, having died to sins (i. e., our own), we should live to the righteousness of Him by whose stripe ye are healed”; but this construction is untenable on textual grounds.—M.]
1 Peter 2:24. [Stripe, singular, is the right rendering of μώλωπι. μώλωψ. “Paradoxon apostolicum: vibice sanati estis. Est autem μώλωψ vibex, frequens in corpore servili, Sirach 12, 12.” Bengel.—M.]
[Cod. Sin. *τῷ σωμ without ἐν.—μώλωπ. without αὐτοῦ.—M.]
1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 2:25. [Translate: “For ye were straying (ἦτε πλανώμενοι) like sheep.”—M.]
1 Peter 2:25. [The German renders ἐπεστράφητε passively, “ye are brought back”; but the 2 Aor. Pass, ἐπεστράφην, is often found in a Middle sense, cf. Matthew 9:22; Matthew 10:13; Mark 5:30,—translate, therefore, “but ye have returned.”—M.]
[Cod. Sin. πλανώμενοι.—M.]
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