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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>1 Peter 3 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/1_peter/3.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/1_peter/3.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="//biblehu.com/bmcom/1_peter/3-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="//biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="/commentaries/">Commentary</a> > <a href="../">Ellicott</a> > <a href="../1_peter/">1 Peter</a></div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../1_peter/2.htm" title="1 Peter 2">◄</a> 1 Peter 3 <a href="../1_peter/4.htm" title="1 Peter 4">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</div><div class="chap"> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-1.htm">1 Peter 3:1</a></div><div class="verse">Likewise, ye wives, <i>be</i> in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;</div><span class= "bld">III.</span><p>(1) <span class= "bld">Likewise ye wives . . .</span>—Third division of second prudential rule: subordination conjugal. Here, again, the form in the original is participial, joining this injunction on to <a href="/1_peter/2-13.htm" title="Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;">1Peter 2:13</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-18.htm" title="Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fraudulent.">1Peter 2:18</a>, where the word is the same in Greek, “wives, in the same way submitting yourselves.” Whether this imposes for all time upon Christian wives as complete a submission towards their husbands as is here enjoined might perhaps be questioned, because the special reason for the command in this place was to allay suspicions engendered by the boldness with which Christianity proclaimed the freedom of the individual. St. Peter has just been giving injunctions for absolute submission, even to injustice, on the part of slaves; and the progress of Christianity has abolished slavery altogether. The measure of the Christian wife’s submission may safely be left to her own enlightened conscience, guided by other passages of the New Testament not written, like this, for a special emergency.<p><span class= "bld">Your own husbands.</span>—This does not order submission to the husband in contrast to submission to other directors, but rather gives a <span class= "ital">reason</span> for obedience. “The Christian wife that hath love to God,” says Leighton, “though her husband be not so comely, or so wise, or any way so amiable, as many others, yet because he is her <span class= "ital">own husband, </span>and because of the Lord’s command in the general, and His providence in the particular disposal of His own, therefore she loves and obeys.”<p><span class= "bld">That if any obey not the word.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">in order that even supposing some </span>(<span class= "ital">at present</span>)<span class= "ital"> disobey the word. “</span>The word” is, of course, the Gospel, the declaration of the fulfilment of the prophecies in Jesus. And those who “disobey the word” are, according to constant usage, the Jews. The present verb is used of the Jews in <a href="/acts/14-2.htm" title="But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brothers.">Acts 14:2</a>; <a href="/acts/17-5.htm" title="But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took to them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.">Acts 17:5</a>; <a href="/acts/19-9.htm" title="But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spoke evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.">Acts 19:9</a>; <a href="/romans/10-21.htm" title="But to Israel he said, All day long I have stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.">Romans 10:21</a>; <a href="/romans/11-31.htm" title="Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.">Romans 11:31</a>; <a href="/romans/15-31.htm" title="That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judaea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints;">Romans 15:31</a>, besides St. Peter’s own use in <a href="/1_peter/2-8.htm" title="And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.">1Peter 2:8</a>; <a href="/1_peter/4-17.htm" title="For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?">1Peter 4:17</a>. The only places where it is distinctly used of others are <a href="/romans/2-8.htm" title="But to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,">Romans 2:8</a> (of Jew and Gentile together), <a href="/romans/11-30.htm" title="For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:">Romans 11:30</a> (where the Gentiles are compared with the Jews), <a href="/hebrews/3-18.htm" title="And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?">Hebrews 3:18</a> (of the Israelites in the wilderness), <a href="/hebrews/11-31.htm" title="By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.">Hebrews 11:31</a> (of the men of Jericho), <a href="/1_peter/3-20.htm" title="Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.">1Peter 3:20</a> (of the refractory antediluvians). In any case it must mean a wilful refusal to submit to the Word, in spite of being intellectually convinced. (See especially <a href="/1_peter/2-8.htm" title="And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.">1Peter 2:8</a>.) For every reason, therefore, it is more probable that the case here supposed is that of Hebrew (Christian) women, married to men of their own race who reject the gospel.<p><span class= "bld">They also may . . .</span>—The order here is not so neat as in the original, and it spoils the point to insert the definite article before “word.” It should run, <span class= "ital">In order that</span> . . . <span class= "ital">through their wives’ conversation, without a word, they may</span> (literally, <span class= "ital">shall</span>)<span class= "ital"> be gained.</span> There is something almost playful in the substitution of “their wives” instead of “you,” and in the “without a word” contrasted with “the word” before. St. Peter seems to enjoy laying the little innocent plot. He was himself, as the Prayer Book reminds us, a married man. And what he means here, is not that those who have resisted the public preaching in the synagogues, should even without that public preaching be won; rather, that though the gospel as uttered verbally only provokes them to opposition, the gospel as submissively <span class= "ital">acted</span> by their wives, without a word said on the matter, ought to convert them. “This model of submission and humility,” says M. Renan, meaning the Lamb of God, “is made by Peter the law for all classes of Christian society. The wife above all, without setting up for a preacher (<span class= "ital">sans faire la précheuse</span>)<span class= "ital">, </span>ought, by the discreet charm of her piety, to be the great missionary of the faith.” The word rendered “won” keeps up the playfulness of that which goes before; it means “to turn a profit,” and there is just enough of <span class= "ital">ruse</span> in it to make the enforcement of submission to a husband of opposed religious views seem an enticing little speculation. The tense of the original verb indicates that the scheme is certain to succeed. (Comp. <a href="/matthew/18-15.htm" title="Moreover if your brother shall trespass against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone: if he shall hear you, you have gained your brother.">Matthew 18:15</a>; <a href="/context/1_corinthians/9-19.htm" title="For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant to all, that I might gain the more.">1Corinthians 9:19-20</a>.) Archbishop Leighton points out that in Hebrew the name of the book of “Ecclesiastes; or, the Preacher,” is a feminine, and the same is the case in <a href="/psalms/68-11.htm" title="The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it.">Psalm 68:11</a>, and elsewhere.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-2.htm">1 Peter 3:2</a></div><div class="verse">While they behold your chaste conversation <i>coupled</i> with fear.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">While they behold . . .</span>—The same curious word as in <a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>, and the tense, which is ill-represented by “while they behold,” sets us at the moment of the triumph of the wife’s conduct, literally; <span class= "ital">having kept, </span>or <span class= "ital">when they have kept an eye on your chaste conversation.</span> The husband is jealously on the watch to see what his wife does who has embraced these foolish notions; at last he breaks down. Jesus must be the Messiah, or his wife could not have been so chaste! The adjective “chaste” is here to be taken in a large sense; it is the same which enters into the verb translated “purify” in <a href="/1_peter/1-22.htm" title="Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit to unfeigned love of the brothers, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently:">1Peter 1:22</a>, and it is implied that the “fear” (<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>of the husband; comp. Note on <a href="/1_peter/2-18.htm" title="Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fraudulent.">1Peter 2:18</a>) has been an incentive to this sweet virtue; “your life so immaculate in fear,” or even almost “so timidly pure.” Leighton says, “It is a delicate, timorous grace, afraid of the least air, or shadow of anything that hath but a resemblance of wronging it, in carriage or speech, or apparel, as follows in the third and fourth verses.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-3.htm">1 Peter 3:3</a></div><div class="verse">Whose adorning let it not be that outward <i>adorning</i> of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;</div>(3) <span class= "bld">Whose adorning let it not be . . . .</span>—The passage shows that the Asiatic Christians were not all of the poorer classes. Many of the wealthy Jewesses had joined them. The wealth of the Ephesian Christians about this time may be gathered from <a href="/1_timothy/2-9.htm" title="In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with modesty and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;">1Timothy 2:9</a>, and of the Laodiceans from <a href="/revelation/3-17.htm" title="Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:">Revelation 3:17</a>. Two things are to be noted about the advice here given. (1) It is not intended directly as a corrective of vanity. St. Peter is not bidding them beware of love of dress, although (as Bengel points out) the three words of “plaiting,” “wearing” (literally, <span class= "ital">putting round oneself</span>)<span class= "ital">, </span>and “putting on,” are intended to convey the notion of elaborate processes in which time is wasted. But the main thought is, How are the husbands to be attracted? Not, says St. Peter, by any external prettiness of adornment, but by inward graces. (2) The Apostle is not <span class= "ital">forbidding</span> the use of gold, &c. Leighton (himself something of a precisian) says, “All regard of comeliness and ornament in apparel is not unlawful, nor doth the Apostle’s expression here, rightly considered, fasten that upon the adorning he here speaks of. He doth no more universally condemn the use of gold for ornament than he doth any other comely raiment, which here he means by that general word of <span class= "ital">putting on of apparel, for</span> his ‘not’ is comparative; <span class= "ital">not this adorning, but the ornament of a meek spirit, </span>that rather, and as much more comely and precious; as that known expression (<a href="/hosea/6-6.htm" title="For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.">Hosea 6:6</a>), <span class= "ital">‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice</span>?” At the same time he is, of course, speaking of these things with studied contempt: and we may be sure he would have spoken with abhorrence of any adorning which partook of the nature of lying. Even in one of Xenophon’s works there is a charming passage where an Athenian gentleman expostulates with his wife on the folly of hoping to attract him by wearing high-heeled shoes and painting her face with rouge and white.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-4.htm">1 Peter 3:4</a></div><div class="verse">But <i>let it be</i> the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, <i>even the ornament</i> of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">But let it be . . .</span>—The connection of the clauses is somewhat difficult, but is made more so by our translation of <a href="/1_peter/3-3.htm" title="Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;">1Peter 3:3</a>. Literally it would run, <span class= "ital">of whom let it not be, </span>or, <span class= "ital">to whom let there not belong the outward adorning, but the hidden man of the heart.</span> If we adopt the translation in the Authorised Version, it makes “the hidden man” an ornament to be worn in preference to the gold and braided hair, which would be both illogical, and dishonouring to “the hidden man.” What St. Peter says is, “Do not rely, for winning your husbands, upon ornamentation (which is but external), but upon character.”<p><span class= "bld">The hidden man of the heart.</span>—Not equivalent to St. Paul’s expression, “the <span class= "ital">new</span> man” (<a href="/ephesians/4-24.htm" title="And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.">Ephesians 4:24</a>), but simply <span class= "ital">the inner self, the true self</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>the genuine moral character. It is more like St. Paul’s phrase, “the inward man,” and may, perhaps, have been adapted from, it. (Comp. <a href="/romans/7-22.htm" title="For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:">Romans 7:22</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/4-16.htm" title="For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.">2Corinthians 4:16</a>; <a href="/ephesians/3-16.htm" title="That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;">Ephesians 3:16</a>.) According to his custom, St. Peter explains by adding the genitive, “of the heart.” (Comp. <a href="/1_peter/1-13.htm" title="Why gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;">1Peter 1:13</a>.) At the same time, the choice of that particular word, rather than “soul” or “mind,” gives warmth and affection to what might otherwise seem a bare moral or metaphysical conception.<p><span class= "bld">In that which is not corruptible.</span>—The sense is somewhat obscured by our insertion of “even the ornament.” Had it been “even <span class= "ital">in</span> the ornament,” it would have been clearer, though not right even then. It is literally, <span class= "ital">in the imperishableness of the meek and quiet spirit, </span>contrasting the abiding beauty of character with the “perishable” or “contemptible” nature of the ornaments just spoken of. So in <a href="/1_peter/1-18.htm" title="For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;">1Peter 1:18</a>, he spoke of “silver and gold” as “perishable.” The same kind of phrase is used by St. Paul in <a href="/1_timothy/6-17.htm" title="Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy;">1Timothy 6:17</a>, “trust in the uncertainty of riches”—<span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, in riches which are but uncertain things. So here, “in the imperishableness of the meek spirit” means <span class= "ital">in the meek spirit, which is not</span> (<span class= "ital">like gold</span>)<span class= "ital"> a perishable thing.</span> Yet the preposition “in” must not be taken as equivalent to “dressed in,” “adorned with;” the “meek and quiet spirit” is not a mere <span class= "ital">decoration</span> of the “hidden man.” Neither, on the other hand, is it quite “consisting in,” as though “hidden man” and “meek spirit” were identical; for “the hidden man of the heart” would be bad in bad men, and good in good: see, for instance, our Lord displaying the hidden man of the Pharisee’s heart (<a href="/matthew/23-28.htm" title="Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.">Matthew 23:28</a>). It is rather the particular <span class= "ital">mode</span> in which St. Peter wishes the inward character to exhibit itself. We might paraphrase the whole thus:—“Let it not be with you a matter of external ornamentation—elaborate processes, and costly, but perishable, decorations—but let it be a matter of the heart, the character, the true self, manifesting itself in a constant tone of unassuming and imperturbable sweetness—an imperishable attraction.” The word “spirit” here is used, not in its strict metaphysical sense, but in the sense of a mood or general tenour and complexion of life; as, for instance, in <a href="/luke/9-55.htm" title="But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, You know not what manner of spirit you are of.">Luke 9:55</a> (perhaps), <a href="/1_corinthians/4-21.htm" title="What will you? shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?">1Corinthians 4:21</a>, <a href="/galatians/6-1.htm" title="Brothers, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.">Galatians 6:1</a>, and elsewhere. St. Peter assures us in this passage that moral characteristics gained in this life remain our characteristics in the next.<p><span class= "bld">Which is in the sight of God of great</span> <span class= "bld">price.</span>—The antecedent to “which” has been variously taken. Is it “the meek and quiet <span class= "ital">spirit?”</span> Is it “the <span class= "ital">imperishableness</span> of the meek and quiet spirit?” Or is it “the hidden man of the heart exhibiting itself in such a spirit?” Each has something to be said for it, but the last seems nearest to the truth. The thing which is valuable in the eyes of God is the <span class= "ital">having</span> such an inward character. Thus we might put a stronger stop at the word “spirit;” and this relative clause will be another instance of St. Peter’s favourite mode of speech noticed on <a href="/1_peter/2-24.htm" title="Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live to righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed.">1Peter 2:24</a>. Such a possession will be not only attractive to the husband for the time, but has a permanent value as being esteemed by God.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-5.htm">1 Peter 3:5</a></div><div class="verse">For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:</div>(5) <span class= "bld">For after this manner.</span>—Here we have not only <span class= "ital">the</span> ground of the foregoing precepts, but also of the assurance that God sets a value on such embellishments. It had been accepted by Him in the holy women of old who hoped in Him, and would be accepted again. “The Apostle enforces his doctrine by example,” says Leighton: “the most compendious way of teaching.” By “holy women” he means, not only holy in character, but “sainted”—consecrated by their memories being recorded for our reverence in Holy Writ.<p><span class= "bld">Who trusted in God.</span>—It is a great pity that “trusted” should have been substituted for the original “hoped.” The position of Sara and the holy women of the Old Testament was one of <span class= "ital">expectancy, </span>of looking <span class= "ital">forward</span> to the fulfilment of a promise; and the description of them as such is intended to make the readers of the letter feel the difference of <span class= "ital">their</span> position. To <span class= "ital">them</span> the promise to Sara was accomplished. The expression contains a reference to the mention of God in the last verse.<p><span class= "bld">Adorned themselves, being in subjection.</span>—The imperfect tense of the verb means “<span class= "ital">used</span> to adorn themselves.” They took daily pains thus to adorn themselves, and spent, perhaps, as long in the process as the other ladies over their toilette. The participle which is added explains more fully the “after this manner.” Their subjection was their ornament.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-6.htm">1 Peter 3:6</a></div><div class="verse">Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">Even as Sara.</span>—A definite example of the general fact just alleged. St. Peter seems rather to have argued from what every one would feel <span class= "ital">must</span> have been the case than from explicit records. Sara’s usual subjection is clearly seen in the one instance to which St. Peter refers (<a href="/genesis/18-12.htm" title="Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?">Genesis 18:12</a>), where Sara, though not addressing Abraham, but speaking to herself, calls him “my lord.” People show their usual habits of mind more freely in speaking to themselves.<p><span class= "bld">Whose daughters ye are.</span>—A very misleading version, following the Vulgate. What St. Peter says is, <span class= "ital">whose children ye became, </span>or <span class= "ital">were made.</span> There was a definite period in their past lives at which they came to be—what they were not before—children of Sara. Have we not here, therefore, a distinct proof that these readers of the Epistle were Gentiles and not Jewesses? Not so. The phrase, “which hoped in God,” pointing as it does to the coming of the Messiah, prepares us to understand how these Hebrew women <span class= "ital">became</span> Sara’s children. It was only by entering into her hope and attaching themselves to Jesus Christ, for whose coming she had looked. St. Peter has already been insisting on the nothingness of the fleshly descent, the “corruptible seed.” As has been pointed out on <a href="/1_peter/1-24.htm" title="For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass wither, and the flower thereof falls away:">1Peter 1:24</a>, this doctrine was not first taught by St. Paul, for St. Peter had heard it from the Baptist (<a href="/matthew/3-9.htm" title="And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.">Matthew 3:9</a>) and from our Lord Himself (<a href="/john/8-39.htm" title="They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.">John 8:39</a>). Whether persons were naturally Jews or Gentiles, they could not be children of Abraham without voluntarily becoming so by embracing his principles—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>by becoming Christians. The participial clauses which follow will need no change of translation, for they express not the act or process by which these ladies <span class= "ital">became</span> children of Sara, but the condition on which they would <span class= "ital">remain</span> her children. A very similar passage occurs in <a href="/hebrews/3-14.htm" title="For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end;">Hebrews 3:14</a> : “We have become partakers of the Christ, if (for the future) we hold,” &c. (Comp. also <a href="/1_thessalonians/3-8.htm" title="For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.">1Thessalonians 3:8</a>; <a href="/hebrews/3-6.htm" title="But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.">Hebrews 3:6</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Do well.</span>—See <a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-15.htm" title="For so is the will of God, that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:">1Peter 2:15</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-20.htm" title="For what glory is it, if, when you be buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently? but if, when you do well, and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.">1Peter 2:20</a>. The word means, of course, general good behaviour, especially in all wifely duties. As this is a condition of remaining Sara’s children, it is implied that it was a characteristic of Sara. Some critics would even put in a parenthesis all the words from “even as” to “ye are,” and attach these participles (as they are in the Greek) to the last clause in <a href="/1_peter/3-5.htm" title="For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands:">1Peter 3:5</a>, thus: “adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands (as Sara, for instance . . . whose daughters ye were made), doing well, and not being afraid,” &c. This is, however, somewhat cumbrous, and leaves the clause “whose daughters ye became” a little too bald.<p><span class= "bld">Are not afraid with any amazement.</span>—Though this translation is grammatically possible, it does not make such good sense as to translate, <span class= "ital">are not afraid of any alarm.</span> It is, in fact, a quotation from or allusion to <a href="/proverbs/3-25.htm" title="Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it comes.">Proverbs 3:25</a>, as Bengel points out, where “Be not afraid of sudden fear” is rendered in the LXX. by these same peculiar words. The “Wisdom” in that passage, which brings the calmness with it, is Christ, and it is Christ who must be understood in <a href="/proverbs/3-26.htm" title="For the LORD shall be your confidence, and shall keep your foot from being taken.">Proverbs 3:26</a> : “the Lord shall be thy confidence.” To be afraid of sudden alarms and panics argues a lack of trust in God’s providence and power, and would, therefore, be unbecoming the daughters of Sara, who “hoped in God.” The “alarms” which they naturally might fear are, of course, quite general, but especially here, we may suppose, dread of what their unbelieving husbands might do to them. (Comp. <a href="/1_peter/3-13.htm" title="And who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?">1Peter 3:13</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-7.htm">1 Peter 3:7</a></div><div class="verse">Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with <i>them</i> according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Likewise, ye husbands.</span>—The subjection is not to be all one-sided, though the husband’s subjection to the wife will be of a different kind from the wife’s to him. We are hardly to take this as a separate paragraph from the foregoing, but rather as a corollary added to it, to correct a false impression that might otherwise have been conveyed.<p><span class= "bld">Dwell.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">dwelling.</span> The participle is attached to the previous sentences, just as in <a href="/1_peter/2-16.htm" title="As free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.">1Peter 2:16</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-18.htm" title="Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fraudulent.">1Peter 2:18</a>; <a href="/1_peter/3-1.htm" title="Likewise, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;">1Peter 3:1</a>; but St. Peter does not like to say to the husbands “submitting yourselves” (though it is implied in the “likewise”), and conveys the deference which the husbands are to pay under other terms: such as “according to knowledge,” “giving honour.”<p><span class= "bld">With them.</span>—The whole order of the sentences needs re-arrangement as follows: <span class= "ital">Ye husbands, likewise, dwelling according to knowledge, as with a weaker vessel, with what is female, apportioning honour as to joint heirs also of a grace of life.</span> In order to understand this very hard passage, we must remember what is St. Peter’s object all throughout these instructions, viz., to commend Christianity to jealous watchers without. Here, therefore, we may well suppose that he is thinking chiefly of the case of believing husbands (Jewish) married to unbelieving wives (Jewish also), thus presenting the counter-picture to that of <a href="/1_peter/3-1.htm" title="Likewise, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;">1Peter 3:1</a>. And the first thing is that they are to “dwell with” these wives, not to divorce them, nor to cease from conjugal cohabitation with them; such harshness would lend very little attractiveness to the Christian religion among the Jewish homes to which the divorced wife would turn. (See <a href="/1_corinthians/7-12.htm" title="But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother has a wife that believes not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away.">1Corinthians 7:12</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>—a passage which must almost have been in St. Peter’s mind.)<p><span class= "bld">According to knowledge.</span>—This phrase, which is like an adverb, such as “scientifically, intelligently,” means that the husband is to study to enter into the whole bearings of the case, to take everything into account. Husband and wife will not get on together smoothly at haphazard, without pains taken to <span class= "ital">understand</span> the situation. (See <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-4.htm" title="That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;">1Thessalonians 4:4</a>; “you should <span class= "ital">know.</span>”)<p><span class= "bld">Unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel.</span>—Or rather, as we now take it, <span class= "ital">as with a weaker vessel, with what is female.</span> This explains the saying “according to knowledge.” The thing which the husband is specially to understand and take into account is that he is dealing with a thing less strong than himself. The whole of chivalry is in these words, and St. Peter (next after Christ) may be considered the founder of it. Weakness itself, by being weakness, has a claim upon the strong man’s deference and self-submission. The weakness here ascribed to the female sex is primarily that of the body, as we shall see when we consider the word “vessel,” though it may, perhaps, indicate frailty in other respects as well. If the word “vessel” is to be here a description of a “wife,” as some contend on <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-4.htm" title="That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;">1Thessalonians 4:4</a>, in a sense in which it does not equally describe a husband, it is difficult to see with what the vessel is compared and pronounced weaker. “Dwell with the female as with a more delicate vessel or instrument” than what? If we answer “than yourselves,” it becomes clear that the husbands are, by implication, <span class= "ital">less</span> delicate <span class= "ital">vessels.</span> And this is the case. In the Note on <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-4.htm" title="That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;">1Thessalonians 4:4</a>, it has been shown that the word “vessel” (whether as receptacle or as instrument) is a description of the <span class= "ital">body, </span>or rather of the self as manifested in the body. The word in itself may be used to describe anything made to be serviceable—machinery, tackle and gear, pots and pans, and, in fact, any kind of apparatus or implement—and here it might be very fairly rendered, “as with a weaker thing or object.” That which is translated “the wife” is really a neuter adjective, and it is a question whether we are to supply with it the noun “vessel”—“with the female [vessel] as with a vessel which is weaker”—or whether it is to stand absolutely, “the female,” as we say “the good,” “the evil”—<span class= "ital">i.e., “</span>that which is female.” The latter seems, on the whole, simpler and more forcible, as calling closer attention to the fact of weakness being inherent in the sex.<p><span class= "bld">Giving honour.</span>—The word for “giving” implies rendering a portion which is <span class= "ital">due.</span> And what is here called “honour” is not to be understood only of the wife’s maintenance (as some say), though such is probably the interpretation of the word in <a href="/1_timothy/5-17.htm" title="Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine.">1Timothy 5:17</a>, and comp. <a href="/exodus/21-10.htm" title="If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.">Exodus 21:10</a>; nor is the wife only to be honoured by being consulted in affairs of moment and put in charge of the household. The “honour” to be accorded to wives “as to joint heirs of a grace of life” is the same kind of “honour” as St. Paul, in <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-4.htm" title="That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor;">1Thessalonians 4:4</a>, says must be accorded to oneself. Indeed, from the juxtaposition of three significant words there, we can hardly escape the conclusion that St. Peter was remembering that passage of St. Paul, “that every one of you should <span class= "ital">know</span> how to obtain possession of the <span class= "ital">vessel</span> of himself in sanctification and <span class= "ital">honour.”</span> It is that chaste respect for the wife which is meant in the Prayer Book by the phrase, “With my body I thee worship.” It means that the husband must not dare to take any <span class= "ital">liberties</span> with his wife. Would the Christian husband be likely to approve his religion to the unbelieving wife if she found that he took a coarse view of the conjugal tie?<p><span class= "bld">And as being heirs together of the grace of life.</span>—There is here a very intricate question of readings, on which it depends whether the “heirs” are to be nominative or dative, the husbands or the wives. The present annotator prefers, on the whole, to follow Tischendorf, and read the dative, “paying respect as to persons who are also joint heirs (<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>with you) of a grace of life.” Happily, it comes to much the same thing, the only difference being that in the one case deference is paid to the wife on the ground of her possessing a joint dignity with the husband, and in the other case on the ground that the husband does not possess his dignity except conjointly with the wife. That dignity which they conjointly “inherit”—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>possess as a gift from God—is called “the grace (or perhaps, a grace) of life.” This is generally interpreted to mean, “the gracious gift of everlasting life.” Undoubtedly, “life” is often used absolutely in the New Testament to mean eternal life—<span class= "ital">e.g., </span><a href="/matthew/18-8.htm" title="Why if your hand or your foot offend you, cut them off, and cast them from you: it is better for you to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.">Matthew 18:8</a>; and it gives a very intelligible sense, that the husband should reverence the wife as being equally with himself an everlasting soul. But this neither gives sufficient force to the <span class= "ital">conjoint</span> nature of the possession, nor does it take into account the possibility of such a case as, in fact, we suppose to be here intended, viz., of a believing husband and unbelieving wife. Although, in a sense, “the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband” (<a href="/1_corinthians/7-14.htm" title="For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.">1Corinthians 7:14</a>), yet not in such a sense as for them to be called conjoint possessors of eternal life. It seems best, therefore, to suppose that the “grace (or dower) of life” which husband and wife hold, not only in common, but <span class= "ital">conjointly, </span>is life in the <span class= "ital">natural</span> sense. This “grace,” this mysterious and divine gift—not apart from one another, but conjointly—they are privileged by the Creator’s primeval benediction (<a href="/genesis/1-28.htm" title="And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.">Genesis 1:28</a>) to transmit. They have the power (no Archangel has the like) to bring human beings into existence. And in consideration that such is the dignity and the intention of marriage, a man may well be called upon to revere his partner in the great prerogative.<p><span class= "bld">That your prayers be not hindered</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, the husbands’ prayers, not necessarily their prayers <span class= "ital">with</span> their wives. It is easy to feel how the consciousness of having treated a wife with less awe than is indicated by the foregoing words would clog the man’s prayers, whether for himself or for his wife’s conversion—the latter being, probably, what St. Peter chiefly meant. Very likely he had in view what St. Paul writes in <a href="/1_corinthians/7-5.htm" title="Defraud you not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.">1Corinthians 7:5</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-8.htm">1 Peter 3:8</a></div><div class="verse">Finally, <i>be ye</i> all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, <i>be</i> pitiful, <i>be</i> courteous:</div>(8) <span class= "bld">Finally, be ye all.</span>—A return from the special to the general. St. Peter has not, however, forgotten the <span class= "ital">purpose</span> with which the former rules were given; his thought is still how to produce a right impression on the unbelieving world, although some of these injunctions touch only <span class= "ital">internal</span> relations between members of the Church. “By this shall <span class= "ital">all men</span>” says our Lord, “know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love <span class= "ital">one to another”</span> (<a href="/john/13-35.htm" title="By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.">John 13:35</a>); and, again, “That <span class= "ital">they</span> all may be <span class= "ital">one</span> . . . that the <span class= "ital">world</span> may believe that thou hast sent me” (<a href="/john/17-21.htm" title="That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me.">John 17:21</a>). Accordingly, this verse, like <a href="/1_peter/3-1.htm" title="Likewise, you wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;">1Peter 3:1</a>; <a href="/1_peter/3-7.htm" title="Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.">1Peter 3:7</a>, is attached to <a href="/1_peter/2-13.htm" title="Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;">1Peter 2:13</a>, and should be translated, <span class= "ital">Finally, being all.</span><p><span class= "bld">Of one mind.</span>—Or, <span class= "ital">unanimous.</span> Though the Greek word does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament, the duty is enjoined often, <span class= "ital">e.g., </span><a href="/romans/12-16.htm" title="Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.">Romans 12:16</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/13-11.htm" title="Finally, brothers, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.">2Corinthians 13:11</a>; <a href="/philippians/2-2.htm" title="Fulfill you my joy, that you be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.">Philippians 2:2</a>. It involves an agreement not only in doctrine but in practical aims, the affections of all being in the same direction. This unanimity requires <span class= "ital">expression</span> to be conscious, and therefore it strikes at the root of the reserve by which Christian people do not open out their hearts to each other in the matter of religion. Such unity of mind is no product of indifference, which Leighton describes as “not a knitting together, but a freezing together, as cold congregates all bodies how heterogeneous soever, sticks, stones, and water.”<p><span class= "bld">Having compassion one of another.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">sympathetic.</span> The word “compassion” has lost the meaning which it once had, and signifies little more than pity. Here the command includes the “rejoicing with them that do rejoice,” as much as the “weeping with them that weep” (<a href="/romans/12-15.htm" title="Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.">Romans 12:15</a>). The same word only occurs again in <a href="/hebrews/4-15.htm" title="For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.">Hebrews 4:15</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-34.htm" title="For you had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.">Hebrews 10:34</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Love as brethren.</span>—Again a single adjective, <span class= "ital">fraternal, </span>or, loving the brethren. For the meaning see <a href="/1_peter/1-22.htm" title="Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit to unfeigned love of the brothers, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently:">1Peter 1:22</a>, Notes.<p><span class= "bld">Be pitiful.</span>—Rather (omitting the word “be”), <span class= "ital">tender-hearted.</span> So it is translated in <a href="/ephesians/4-32.htm" title="And be you kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.">Ephesians 4:32</a>, the only other place where it occurs. It differs from “sympathetic “in being limited to yearnings over the afflicted. Strangely enough, in profane Greek, the word is only found to mean “strong-hearted.”<p><span class= "bld">Be courteous.</span>—The injunction is so charming, and so appropriate in the mouth of St. Peter, that one is almost loth to correct the reading, and substitute (undoubtedly the right word) <span class= "ital">humble-minded.</span> This adjective brings us back to that mutual <span class= "ital">subjection</span> and complaisance which is the main subject of all these rules. Comp. also <a href="/1_peter/5-5.htm" title="Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves to the elder. Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble.">1Peter 5:5</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-9.htm">1 Peter 3:9</a></div><div class="verse">Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">Not rendering.</span>—So far St. Peter has been speaking of <span class= "ital">internal</span> conduct. The two last adjectives, however, lead gradually into the wider field of conduct, and probably now he is thinking solely of relation to the adverse world. Among the Christians surely there would be no “evil” or “railing” to <span class= "ital">provoke</span> a retort! “Evil,” in act; “railing,” in word. (See <a href="/1_peter/2-23.htm" title="Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously:">1Peter 2:23</a>, and <a href="/romans/12-17.htm" title="Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.">Romans 12:17</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">But contrariwise blessing.</span>—No doubt a reminiscence of the Sermon on the Mount (<a href="/matthew/5-44.htm" title="But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you;">Matthew 5:44</a>). The word “blessing” here is not substantive, but a participle, opposed to “rendering:” “not rendering them evil or railing, but on the contrary blessing them.” Though the word is chosen as the exact opposite of the bad <span class= "ital">language</span> used against the Christians, “blessing” may perhaps involve the opposite of unkind <span class= "ital">action</span> as well. It is used for the conferring of <span class= "ital">benefits</span>: (1) spiritual, in <a href="/acts/3-26.htm" title="To you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.">Acts 3:26</a>; <a href="/galatians/3-8.htm" title="And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel to Abraham, saying, In you shall all nations be blessed.">Galatians 3:8</a>; (2) material, in <a href="/2_corinthians/9-5.htm" title="Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brothers, that they would go before to you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof you had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.">2Corinthians 9:5</a>, (Comp. <a href="/2_kings/5-15.htm" title="And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray you, take a blessing of your servant.">2Kings 5:15</a>; <a href="/joel/2-14.htm" title="Who knows if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering to the LORD your God?">Joel 2:14</a> : <a href="/haggai/2-19.htm" title="Is the seed yet in the barn? yes, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, has not brought forth: from this day will I bless you.">Haggai 2:19</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Knowing that ye are hereunto called.</span>—Comp. <a href="/1_peter/2-21.htm" title="For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps:">1Peter 2:21</a>. It should be, <span class= "ital">were called, </span>viz., when St. Paul and others first preached to you. What, then, does he mean that they were called to? to the foregoing, or to the following? to blessing instead of rendering evil and railing? or to receive a blessing? The comparison of <a href="/1_peter/2-21.htm" title="For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps:">1Peter 2:21</a> seems to support the former, for there the “hereunto” points to what preceded. The argument will then be precisely the same as in that passage: “You ought not now to shrink from so hard a duty, for you were given clearly to understand, when you were admitted into Christianity, that you would have to act thus.”<p><span class= "bld">That ye should inherit a blessing.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">in</span> <span class= "ital">order that ye may inherit a blessing.</span> God had a purpose in calling them to so hard a task, and in now requiring of them the fulfilment of it; and that purpose is that they may receive a blessing. They must not think it an arbitrary hardship, or a restriction which will not in the end be found gainful to themselves. God’s full and eternal blessing is only to be obtained through such a course of self-suppression and of love even to those who hate us. The argument thus becomes more forcible, and the question which follows more appropriate, than if we adopt the other view, viz., “Bless, instead of retorting, for it is more suitable for men who are expecting to be blessed.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-10.htm">1 Peter 3:10</a></div><div class="verse">For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:</div>(10) <span class= "bld">For.</span>—St. Peter will show that he is not going beyond his book when he says that the blessing is only to be obtained by those who bless.<p><span class= "bld">He that will love life.</span>—The “will” here is not merely the future tense, but “he that hath a mind to love life.” St. Peter’s quotation, from <a href="/context/psalms/34-12.htm" title="What man is he that desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good?">Psalm 34:12-16</a>, is not exact, according to either Septuagint or Hebrew, but the divergence is probably not due to a confusion of memory, but (as often) designed to bring out an additional significance. The Psalmist had asked merely, “What man is he that lusteth to <span class= "ital">live</span>?” and he promises merely long life to self-restraint. The Apostle asks, Who cares to have a life <span class= "ital">worth having, </span>a life which makes a man <span class= "ital">glad to live?</span> This is the “blessing” spoken of in <a href="/1_peter/3-9.htm" title="Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that you are thereunto called, that you should inherit a blessing.">1Peter 3:9</a>—not simply everlasting life, but a life of unruffled happiness. (Comp. <a href="/psalms/133-3.htm" title="As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended on the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for ever more.">Psalm 133:3</a>.) This healthy enjoyment of life, the opposite of a morbid craving for death (see <a href="/ecclesiastes/2-17.htm" title="Therefore I hated life; because the work that is worked under the sun is grievous to me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.">Ecclesiastes 2:17</a>), is implied to be competent for any person to attain who “wills.”<p>“Serene will be our days, and bright,<p>And happy will our nature be,<p>When love is an unerring light,<p>And joy its own security.”<p><span class= "bld">See good days.</span>—“See” in the same sense as—<span class= "ital">e.g., </span><a href="/psalms/27-13.htm" title="I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.">Psalm 27:13</a>; <a href="/john/3-3.htm" title="Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.">John 3:3</a>; <a href="/hebrews/11-5.htm" title="By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.">Hebrews 11:5</a>—for to “experience”—consciously to enjoy or to suffer, as the case may be.<p><span class= "bld">Let him refrain.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">let him stop.</span> The evil word is on the very tip of his tongue.<p><span class= "bld">No guile.</span>—“Guile” is often used, in a very wide sense, of almost anything wrong (see <a href="/1_peter/2-22.htm" title="Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:">1Peter 2:22</a>); but here, probably, the distinction is that “evil” means open railing and bitter speech, while “guile” may mean the words which are “softer than butter, having war in his heart” (<a href="/psalms/55-21.htm" title="The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.">Psalm 55:21</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-11.htm">1 Peter 3:11</a></div><div class="verse">Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.</div>(11) <span class= "bld">Let him eschew evil.</span>—Literally swerve <span class= "ital">out of the way from evil.</span> The two former clauses dealt with the domain of <span class= "ital">word</span>; these two with the domain of <span class= "ital">action.</span> It suits St. Peter’s intention better to take the verse, not as an exhortation to virtue in general, but as an instruction how to behave under provocation and in danger. The “good” which the man is to do is what is <span class= "ital">kind, </span>not merely what is virtuous; and so, by contrast, the “evil” to be eschewed probably means chiefly what is <span class= "ital">malicious.</span><p><span class= "bld">Seek peace, and ensue it.</span>—“As much as in <span class= "ital">you</span> lieth,” says St. Paul, “live peaceably with all men.” It is to be a matter of diligent <span class= "ital">search</span>; and if it seems to flee away it is to be “ensued”—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>pursued. The active practical measures here prescribed confirm the surmise that “blessing” in <a href="/1_peter/3-8.htm" title="Finally, be you all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brothers, be pitiful, be courteous:">1Peter 3:8</a> covered more ground than benedictory prayers.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-12.htm">1 Peter 3:12</a></div><div class="verse">For the eyes of the Lord <i>are</i> over the righteous, and his ears <i>are open</i> unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord <i>is</i> against them that do evil.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">For.</span>—Or, <span class= "ital">Because.</span> In the Psalm there is no such connecting particle, but it is involved in the juxtaposition. The sense that the Lord’s eyes are over you is a sufficient reason for self-restraint under provocation: especially, perhaps, when we see that by “the Lord” St. Peter understands Jesus Christ. That this is the case is clear from his use of the same Psalm in <a href="/1_peter/2-3.htm" title="If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.">1Peter 2:3</a>. If Christ, the model of meekness under persecution (<a href="/1_peter/2-23.htm" title="Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously:">1Peter 2:23</a>), is watching, we not only <span class= "ital">need</span> no passionate self-defence, but should be ashamed to use it. Was St. Peter thinking how once, while he himself was cursing and swearing at those who accused him of being a Christian, he felt the eyes of the Lord turn upon him? The thought of His eyes being over Us is chiefly that of guardianship.<p><span class= "bld">Open unto their prayers.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">are towards their prayer</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>directed towards it. Here, as in <a href="/1_peter/2-3.htm" title="If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.">1Peter 2:3</a>, the Prayer Book version has influenced our translation.<p><span class= "bld">Against them that do evil.</span>—There is no difference in the Greek between this preposition and that just rendered “over.” <span class= "ital">But the countenance of the Lord is over them that do evil things.</span> He <span class= "ital">marks</span> what they are doing. This is sufficient comfort when men injure us (<a href="/1_peter/2-23.htm" title="Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judges righteously:">1Peter 2:23</a>); sufficient warning not to injure in return. It is instructive now to turn and see the circumstances in which this lovely Psalm was composed. The moment was one of David’s extremest peril among an infuriated heathen population. The danger and dread he was in are shown in Psalms 56. Yet nothing can be brighter and more serene than Psalms 34. He had obtained life and days; and it was all through confidence in God on the one hand, and inoffensive self-submission on the other. Had he used violence—“shown spirit,” as we say—like the “young lions,” he would have come worse off. It seems to be for this cause that St. Peter deemed the Psalm so appropriate to his readers, misjudged and suspiciously watched (<a href="/context/psalms/56-5.htm" title="Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.">Psalm 56:5-6</a>) by unbelievers, who only waited the opportunity to shed their blood (<a href="/context/psalms/56-1.htm" title="Be merciful to me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresses me.">Psalm 56:1-2</a>). But the striking change is that, whereas David’s trust in Jehovah was a trust simply in the Eternal Being without distinction of Persons, St. Peter bids the Hebrews of Asia read that Psalm into an act of faith in Jesus. We shall see the same thing in <a href="/1_peter/3-15.htm" title="But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:">1Peter 3:15</a>, as we saw it in <a href="/1_peter/2-3.htm" title="If so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.">1Peter 2:3</a>. The force of the change will be felt by any one who reads through that Psalm, substituting (like the Rheims version) “our Lord” for “the Lord.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-13.htm">1 Peter 3:13</a></div><div class="verse">And who <i>is</i> he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?</div>(13) <span class= "bld">And who is he that shall harm you?</span>—There is always a ring of scornful assurance in an interrogative introduced by “and:” “And who, pray?”<p><span class= "bld">If ye be followers.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">if ye make yourselves zealots.</span> The phrase looks on into the future; not merely “if at present ye be.” And the word which means “follower” (<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>imitator) is here a false reading for <span class= "ital">zelotes, </span>the name by which St. Peter’s lesser namesake among the Apostles was known, probably because of his enthusiastic attachment to the old or to the new Law. The same <span class= "ital">zelotes</span> is found in <a href="/titus/2-14.htm" title="Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.">Titus 2:14</a> and elsewhere. The translation, “of Him which is good,” is perfectly possible, but does not quite so well suit the context. Some writers (Leighton among them) take the verse to mean, or at least to include, that when men see the goodness and loving-kindness of our lives they will not be <span class= "ital">disposed</span> to hurt us. This thought is, however, foreign to the passage. It means that men and devils may try their worst, as they did on Christ, and cannot harm us.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-14.htm">1 Peter 3:14</a></div><div class="verse">But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy <i>are ye</i>: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;</div>(14) <span class= "bld">But and if ye suffer.</span>—The old-fashioned phrase would read more intelligibly thus: <span class= "ital">Nay, if ye should even suffer.</span> So far are men’s attempts to “harm” us (by acts of malice to property or good name, &c.) from really injuring us, that even if it should come to be a matter of “suffering” we are to be congratulated. What he means by this “suffering,” which is so much more than being “harmed,” may be seen from <a href="/1_peter/2-21.htm" title="For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps:">1Peter 2:21</a>; <a href="/1_peter/3-17.htm" title="For it is better, if the will of God be so, that you suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.">1Peter 3:17</a>; <a href="/1_peter/4-1.htm" title="For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin;">1Peter 4:1</a>; <a href="/1_peter/4-15.htm" title="But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters.">1Peter 4:15</a>. He means the horrors of capital punishment. He does not speak of this as something that was already occurring, nor as though it were something immediately and certainly impending, but as a case well supposable. There had then as yet been no martyrdoms in Asia. The letter is therefore earlier in date than the Apocalypse (<a href="/revelation/2-13.htm" title="I know your works, and where you dwell, even where Satan's seat is: and you hold fast my name, and have not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwells.">Revelation 2:13</a>). It is a noticeable point that in all St. Paul’s Epistles the word “to suffer” occurs but seven times, and nowhere twice in the same Epistle; whereas it comes twelve times in this one short Letter of St. Peter.<p><span class= "bld">For righteousness’</span> <span class= "bld">sake.</span>—Like the “suffering wrongfully” of <a href="/1_peter/2-19.htm" title="For this is thank worthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.">1Peter 2:19</a>. It is not <span class= "ital">as</span> suffering that it is valuable.<p><span class= "bld">Happy are ye.</span>—Quite the right word: yet the use of it obscures the obvious reference to the Sermon on the Mount (<a href="/matthew/5-10.htm" title="Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.">Matthew 5:10</a>). The reference to it is all the clearer in the Greek from the significant way in which St. Peter leaves his sentence incomplete, merely giving the catchword of the beatitude. We might represent it to ourselves by putting “Blessed” in inverted commas, and a dash after it. He makes sure his readers will catch the allusion. There is no part of our Lord’s discourses which seems (from the traces in the earliest Christian literature) to have taken so rapid and firm a hold on the Christian conscience as the Sermon on the Mount.<p><span class= "bld">Be not afraid of their terror.</span>—Here the translators might with advantage have kept the same word, and said (as in the original passage from which St. Peter is quoting, <a href="/isaiah/8-12.htm" title="Say you not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.">Isaiah 8:12</a>), <span class= "ital">Fear ye not their fear</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>the thing which makes them fear; do not regard with dread the same object as they do. In the original, the persons whose fears Isaiah and the faithful Jews are not to fear are those who were in dread of Syria and Israel. Here the persons are not named; but, of course, according to this interpretation, “they” cannot be the enemies who try to harm the Christians, but, if any one, those of the Christians who, for fear of man, were beginning to abandon Christianity. The intention, however, is not to press this clause for its own sake, but to throw greater force upon the clause which begins the next verse. It argues carelessness about the passage in Isaiah to interpret, “Be not afraid of the fear which your foes strike into you.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-15.htm">1 Peter 3:15</a></div><div class="verse">But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and <i>be</i> ready always to <i>give</i> an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:</div>(15) <span class= "bld">But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.</span>—The tense of this and the two preceding imperatives shows that St. Peter meant this for advice to be acted <span class= "ital">upon</span> at the moment of being called on to suffer. The passage, as it stands in Isaiah, runs literally, “Jehovah Sabaoth, Him shall ye sanctify, and He (shall be) your fear, and He your dread.” It becomes, therefore, very striking when we find that, without a shadow of doubt, the right reading here is, <span class= "ital">But sanctify the Lord the Christ in your hearts.</span> How is it possible, except on the supposition that the Catholic doctrine is really a statement of fact, that a Jew like St. Peter should ever have come to apply to a Man whom he had known familiarly, a Man who had served him at table and had washed his feet, the words which Isaiah had said about the “Lord of Hosts?” This passage immediately precedes that which was quoted in <a href="/1_peter/2-8.htm" title="And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.">1Peter 2:8</a>, and (like that) is not caught up at random, but as coming in the great Immanuel passage. That presence of God which was the palladium of Israel in the days of Hezekiah has found fulfilment in “the Christ” now given. But what is meant by “sanctifying” Him? The phrase is not elsewhere used in the New Testament, except in the Lord’s Prayer; but in the Old Testament see <a href="/leviticus/10-3.htm" title="Then Moses said to Aaron, This is it that the LORD spoke, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.">Leviticus 10:3</a>; <a href="/isaiah/29-23.htm" title="But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the middle of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.">Isaiah 29:23</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/38-23.htm" title="Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.">Ezekiel 38:23</a>. As to “glorify” God means (in word and deed) to recognise His glorious perfections; as to “magnify” Him means to recognise His greatness; as to “justify” Him means to recognise His inherent justice; so to “sanctify” Him means to recognise, in word and deed, His full holiness, and therefore to treat Him with due awe. This not only substitutes the fear of God for the fear of man (since they mutually exclude each other), but enforces purity of life, thus catching up again “that which is good” and “for righteousness’ sake.” This, adds St. Peter, is to be done “in your hearts.” This does not mean simply “<span class= "ital">with</span> your hearts,” or “<span class= "ital">from</span> your hearts” (<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>inwardly, or, with all sincerity and devotion), but it signifies the local habitation where the Christ is to be thus recognised. That is to say: St. Peter, like St. Paul (<a href="/ephesians/3-17.htm" title="That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,">Ephesians 3:17</a>), acknowledges an indwelling of <span class= "ital">C</span>hrist in the hearts of the faithful; and this indwelling not merely subjective, consisting of their constant recollection of him, but real and objective: there He is, as in a shrine, and they must pay due reverence to His presence. The Apostle does, in fact, in those words “in your hearts,” purposely call attention to the difference between Isaiah’s use of the name Immanuel and the Christian meaning of it. To Isaiah, God dwelt in the midst of a people in its corporate capacity; St. Peter knew that, through the Incarnation, each individual Christian has God in him, united with him.<p><span class= "bld">And be.</span>—The better reading omits the connecting particle, so that we should put “being” instead of “and be.”<p><span class= "bld">Ready always to give an answer.</span>—This is the consequence of sanctifying Christ within by the worship of a pure life, that no moment, no questioner finds us unprepared to speak with freedom of our hope in Him. The word for “answer” here is <span class= "ital">apologia, </span>an apology; not, of course, in the modern sense of an <span class= "ital">excuse, </span>but a defence, the reply of an accused person, like the well-known <span class= "ital">Apologia Socratis, </span>or the great modern <span class= "ital">Apologia pro Vita Sua, </span>or the works from which Tertullian, Athenagoras, St. Justin, and others are called “The Apologists.” It does not mean that every person is bound to be able to state intellectually the nature and grounds of the Christian creed, though such a duty may, perhaps, be fairly <span class= "ital">deduced</span> from the text. It does not say that every Christian ought to know why he is a Christian, but that every Christians own life ought to be so free from taint, so conscious of Christ enshrined within, as to cause him no misgiving in defending the faith from the calumnies (see <a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>) brought against it. The constant readiness, or freedom from encumbrance of sin, is the main point, “which intimates,” says Leighton, “it was not always to be <span class= "ital">done</span> to every one, but we, being <span class= "ital">ready</span> to do, are to consider when, and to whom, and how far.” Consciousness of impurity of life shuts a man’s mouth from defending Christian morality.<p><span class= "bld">That asketh you a reason.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">that demandeth of you an account.</span> It does not mean inquirers about Christian doctrine, but those who call Christians to account for their profession of the Gospel hopes. Though it must not be exclusively so taken, St. Peter evidently means chiefly the being called into the law court to give account. Probably he is thinking of our Lord’s charge to himself and his co-apostles, in St. <a href="/luke/12-11.htm" title="And when they bring you to the synagogues, and to magistrates, and powers, take you no thought how or what thing you shall answer, or what you shall say:">Luke 12:11</a>. (Comp. <a href="/matthew/10-5.htm" title="These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter you not:">Matthew 10:5</a>; <a href="/matthew/10-16.htm" title="Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the middle of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.">Matthew 10:16</a>; <a href="/matthew/10-19.htm" title="But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak.">Matthew 10:19</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Of the hope that is in you.</span>—More literally, <span class= "ital">with regard to the hope that is in you: i.e., </span>with regard to the Christianity in which you share. It is, of course, quite a modern application to the text to see in this anything of the individual assurance of salvation. However fairly it may be argued that a Christian ought to know why he, personally, expects to be saved, it is not the thought of St. Peter here. Christianity is here called a hope, rather than a faith, as in <a href="/acts/28-20.htm" title="For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.">Acts 28:20</a>, <a href="/colossians/1-23.htm" title=" If you continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;">Colossians 1:23</a>, because, especially in times of persecution, so much of our creed has a future tinge.<p><span class= "bld">With meekness and fear.</span>—There ought certainly to be added a warning <span class= "ital">But</span> before these words. The readiness of the Christian’s defence of himself and the Church from all moral aspersions is not to be marred by any self-exaltation or improper confidence. Archbishop Leighton says, “Not, therefore, blustering and flying out into invectives because he hath the better on it against any man that questions him touching this hope, as some think themselves certainly authorised to use rough speech because they plead for truth. On the contrary, so much the rather study meekness, for the glory and advantage of the truth.” The “fear” will be, in large measure, a dread of overstepping the bounds of truth or modesty in speaking of the Christian morals. The Acts of the Martyrs, with all their splendour, too often show how St. Peter’s cautious <span class= "ital">But</span> was needed.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-16.htm">1 Peter 3:16</a></div><div class="verse">Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Having a good conscience.</span>—This strikes the key-note of the paragraph. How vigorously St. Peter repeats it! “Zealous for that which is good,” “for righteousness’ sake,” “<span class= "ital">sanctify</span> the Lord,” “with meekness and fear,” “a good conscience,” “your good conversation.”<p><span class= "bld">Whereas.</span>—The word means precisely the same as in <a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>, where see Note.<p><span class= "bld">They speak evil of you, as of evil doers.</span>—Tischendorf follows one of the best manuscripts and the Pesehito-Syriac version in reading <span class= "ital">whereas ye are evil spoken of.</span> It is easy to see how the ordinary reading would come in, from the similarity of <a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>; and we may pretty confidently adopt the emendation. In any case, the words “as of evil doers” should be removed.<p><span class= "bld">They may be ashamed</span> (or, <span class= "ital">confounded</span>)<span class= "ital">.</span>—When? St. Peter is evidently thinking of the Christian at the bar of the curator or pro-consul, and the mortification of the <span class= "ital">delator, </span>or spy, who had given information against him.<p><span class= "bld">Falsely accuse.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">insult, </span>that is, “odiously calumniate.” The word occurs again only in <a href="/luke/6-28.htm" title="Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which spitefully use you.">Luke 6:28</a>.<p><span class= "bld">In Christ.</span>—This is the nearest approach in St. Peter to a use of this word as a proper name. Still, it is not so. Other Hebrews, he reminds them in this word, were safe from persecution only by rejecting the national hope of a Messiah. It is simply because these men are “in Christ” that the heathens (perhaps also their fellow Jews) insult their conversation. The phrase “in Christ,” <span class= "ital">i.e., </span>as members of the Church, occurs again in <a href="/1_peter/5-10.htm" title="But the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.">1Peter 5:10</a>; <a href="/1_peter/5-14.htm" title="Greet you one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.">1Peter 5:14</a>, and the thought is common enough in St. John (<span class= "ital">e.g.</span> <a href="/1_john/5-20.htm" title="And we know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.">1John 5:20</a>), but it does not come in 2 Peter, nor in Hebrews, St. James, or St. Jude. Of course, St. Paul’s writings teem with it. It contains the converse side of the Incarnation doctrine to that involved in <a href="/1_peter/3-15.htm" title="But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:">1Peter 3:15</a>; we not only have the whole Christ dwelling in us, but He embraces us all; “Ye in me, and I in you” (<a href="/john/14-20.htm" title="At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.">John 14:20</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-17.htm">1 Peter 3:17</a></div><div class="verse">For <i>it is</i> better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.</div>(17) <span class= "bld">For it is better.</span>—There is a kind of ironical suppression in this comparison.<p><span class= "bld">If the will of God be so.</span>—A strikingly reverent phrase in the original, <span class= "ital">If the will of God should will it.</span> This is, of course, to be taken only with the word “suffer,” which itself means, as in <a href="/1_peter/3-14.htm" title="But and if you suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are you: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;">1Peter 3:14</a>, to suffer <span class= "ital">capitally.</span> St. Peter is thinking of the legal process of <a href="/context/1_peter/3-15.htm" title="But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:">1Peter 3:15-16</a>, coming to a verdict of “guilty.” He was himself daily expecting such a death.<p><span class= "bld">For well doing.</span>—Better, perhaps, <span class= "ital">as well doers.</span> It does not necessarily mean, in the Greek, that the well doing was the <span class= "ital">reason</span> of the suffering, but simply that it accompanied it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-18.htm">1 Peter 3:18</a></div><div class="verse">For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:</div>(18) <span class= "bld">For Christ also.</span>—This gives a reason for thinking it no such formidable thing to suffer when one is innocent. It has been tried before, and the precedent is encouraging. “It is,” says Archbishop Leighton, “some known ease to the mind, in any distress, to look upon examples of the like or greater distress in present or former times . . . As the example and company of the saints in suffering is very considerable, so that of Christ is more than any other, yea, than all the rest together.” If King Messiah (note that he does not call Him Jesus) could endure to be cut off (but not for Himself), was it for any one who clung to the promises to shrink from the like test?<p><span class= "bld">Hath once suffered.</span>—Even if we retain the verb, it should be <span class= "ital">suffered, </span>not “hath suffered,” it is all past now; but much the better reading is <span class= "ital">died, </span>which leaves no doubt about the meaning of “suffering” in <a href="/1_peter/3-17.htm" title="For it is better, if the will of God be so, that you suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.">1Peter 3:17</a>. And this He did “once.” In this significant word St. Peter strikes out the main argument of a great portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews (<a href="/hebrews/7-27.htm" title="Who needs not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.">Hebrews 7:27</a>; <a href="/hebrews/9-27.htm" title="And as it is appointed to men once to die, but after this the judgment:">Hebrews 9:27</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-10.htm" title="By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.">Hebrews 10:10</a>). The thought that Christ suffered or died “once” conveys comfort to these Christians for several reasons: (1) because His death has, once for all, taken all terror from an innocent death; (2) because no Christian will have to die more than one death; (3) because one death, so soon over for ever, contains the further idea of happiness and peace beyond. The word “to die” in Greek is often used in a penal sense—“to be put to death”—and is to be so taken here.<p><span class= "bld">For sins.</span>—When the Apostle says “Christ <span class= "ital">also,” </span>he raises a comparison between Christ and the Christian martyr. Now the parallel does not merely consist in the fact that both “suffer” or are put to death. Both are put to death but once. Both are put to death innocent: the martyr “while well-doing,” Christ acknowledged to be “just.” But this does not exhaust the likeness. The Messiah is said to be put to death “for sins.” Now this expression “for sins” (literally, <span class= "ital">in connection with sins</span>) is that which is used to mean “as a sin-offering.” (See <a href="/romans/8-3.htm" title="For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:">Romans 8:3</a>; <a href="/galatians/1-4.htm" title="Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:">Galatians 1:4</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-6.htm" title="In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have had no pleasure.">Hebrews 10:6</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-8.htm" title="Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin you would not, neither had pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;">Hebrews 10:8</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-18.htm" title="Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.">Hebrews 10:18</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-26.htm" title="For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins,">Hebrews 10:26</a>; <a href="/hebrews/13-11.htm" title="For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.">Hebrews 13:11</a>; <a href="/1_john/2-2.htm" title="And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our's only, but also for the sins of the whole world.">1John 2:2</a>; <a href="/1_john/4-10.htm" title="Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.">1John 4:10</a>.) If, therefore, “Christ <span class= "ital">also</span> was put to death as a sin-offering,” it is implied that, in a sense, the Christian martyr is also a sin-offering, and (though in an infinitely lower degree) dies, like Him, “just for unjust.” This is a fresh encouragement to St. Peter’s first readers to meet death bravely. In what sense they can be sacrifices for other men’s sins we shall consider presently.<p><span class= "bld">The just for the unjust.</span>—That preposition “for” contains a volume of theology. Though it is not so weak a word as the one which occurs in the phrase “for sins,” it does not express the notion of <span class= "ital">substitution.</span> (Comp. Note on <a href="/1_peter/2-21.htm" title="For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps:">1Peter 2:21</a>.) It is simply “on behalf of.” As a substitute for the unjust, we make bold to say that (according to Holy Scripture, and the primitive fathers, and the conscience of man) neither the martyrs nor Christ Himself could have made atonement; “on behalf of” other men, the martyrs could very easily be said to die. It is, perhaps, a pity that the definite article has been inserted in our version. Though, of course, our Lord is the only human being who can in strictness be called just, St. Peter means the word here to cover others besides Him; “Christ <span class= "ital">also</span> died, a just man on behalf of unjust men.”<p><span class= "bld">That he might bring us to God.</span>—Or, better, <span class= "ital">bring you;</span> though it cannot be stated peremptorily in this case that such is the reading. (See Note on <a href="/1_peter/1-12.htm" title="To whom it was revealed, that not to themselves, but to us they did minister the things, which are now reported to you by them that have preached the gospel to you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.">1Peter 1:12</a>.) The substantive derived from this verb appears as “access” in <a href="/romans/5-2.htm" title="By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.">Romans 5:2</a>; <a href="/ephesians/2-18.htm" title="For through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.">Ephesians 2:18</a>; <a href="/ephesians/3-12.htm" title="In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.">Ephesians 3:12</a>. A most important doctrinal passage. St. Peter says not a word about the Atonement in its effect upon the mind of the Father towards man. Though there is, no doubt, some deep truth in the phrase which occurs in the second of the Thirty-nine Articles—“suffered . . . to reconcile His Father to us”—it is a side on which the New Testament writers do not much dwell. It is too high a mystery for our minds to reach. The phrase is itself not Scriptural. The New Testament, as has been well pointed out, never even speaks of the reconciliation as <span class= "ital">mutual.</span> The quarrel is treated as one-sided, so far, at least, as in connection with the Atonement. When, then, our Lord was put to death as a sacrifice for sins—a righteous man on behalf of unrighteous men—St. Peter explains these terms by the expression “in order that He might bring you to God,” not “in order that He might bring God to you.” The voluntary death of a righteous man upon the cross, in the calm calculation that nothing else would so attract sinful men to Himself, and thus to the Father who sent Him (<a href="/john/12-32.htm" title="And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me.">John 12:32</a>—this is the aspect of the Atonement which St. Peter sets forth. Perhaps on another occasion he might have set forth a different aspect; but now he is still thinking of the effect of Christian conduct upon the outer world, and his object is to make the Christians feel that they too can, in their measure, bring the unjust, the persecuting heathens and Jews, to God by innocent and voluntary deaths. Thus their deaths are carrying on the work of reconciliation; and what Christ did for them (“died for you”) they do for others. Well then may they be called blessed when they suffer (<a href="/1_peter/3-14.htm" title="But and if you suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are you: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;">1Peter 3:14</a>).<p><span class= "bld">Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit</span>.—The interpreters of this sentence may be classified in two groups, according as they understand the fact referred to in the second clause to be (1) the resurrection of Christ, or (2) something which took place between His death and His resurrection. Now, if we could accept the translation in the English Bible, “by the Spirit,” it would be pretty obvious to accept (1); and we should point to such passages as <a href="/romans/1-4.htm" title="And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:">Romans 1:4</a>; <a href="/romans/8-11.htm" title="But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you.">Romans 8:11</a>, to show that the resurrection of Christ was due to the action of the Holy Ghost. It would not be possible to follow Oecumenius, Calvin, Beza, and Leighton, in taking “the flesh” to mean generally the human nature of Christ, and “the Spirit” by which He was quickened to mean His own divine nature; for Christ has a human spirit as truly as a human body and soul, and it would be heresy to call His divine nature His spirit, as though it occupied in Him the position which is occupied in men by the human spirit. But, as a matter of fact, we cannot translate it “quickened <span class= "ital">by</span> the Spirit.” It is literally, <span class= "ital">killed indeed in flesh, but quickened in spirit.</span> Now, how can “quickened in spirit” be a description of the Resurrection? It cannot be answered (with Huther) that the “spirit” here means the resurrection body; for though that is indeed a spiritual body, yet it is playing fast and loose with words to identify “spirit” and “spiritual body.” If the resurrection body be only spirit, where is the resurrection? Neither would the antithesis be correct between “flesh” and “spirit,” if by “spirit” is meant the new form of body given at the Resurrection. Or, again, taking “spirit” in its true sense of the inward incorporeal self, could the Resurrection be described as a quickening of it? True, the spirit itself will <span class= "ital">gain</span> in some way by its re-incorporation (<a href="/2_corinthians/5-4.htm" title="For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed on, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.">2Corinthians 5:4</a>); but as the spirit has been alive all along, but the flesh has been dead, the contrast would be very forced to express death and resurrection by “killed in flesh, but quickened in spirit,” instead of saying rather “killed in flesh, but soon quickened in the same.” Thus we are driven to (2). As a matter of fact, there is nothing in the words to suggest an interval between the quickening and the killing. They both are parts of the same act, and both are used to explain the word “died.” It is a kind of apology for having used the word death at all (for we have seen that St. Peter’s object is to help the future martyrs to despise death, <a href="/1_peter/3-14.htm" title="But and if you suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are you: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;">1Peter 3:14</a>): “Died, do I say? yes, killed in flesh, it is true, but actually quickened to fresh energies in spirit by that very act of death.” (Comp. our Lord’s charge to the Twelve, <a href="/matthew/10-28.htm" title="And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.">Matthew 10:28</a>.) But how can His death be said to have been a quickening of His human spirit? Some take the word to mean simply “preserved alive,” a word almost identical, being used apparently in that sense in <a href="/luke/17-33.htm" title="Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.">Luke 17:33</a>, <a href="/acts/7-19.htm" title="The same dealt subtly with our kindred, and evil entreated our fathers, so that they cast out their young children, to the end they might not live.">Acts 7:19</a>. The notion, however, would be too weak here; some energetic action seems required to balance “being killed.” That St. Peter is speaking of something not altogether peculiar to Christ, but common to men, may still be inferred from his saying “Christ <span class= "ital">also.”</span> The doctrine, then, seems to be (as Bengel and others say) that the spirit, set free from the body, immediately receives new life, as it were, thereby. To purely spiritual realities it becomes alive in a manner which was impossible while it was united to the flesh. The new powers are exemplified in what follows immediately. So long as Christ, so long as any man, is alive in the flesh, he cannot hold converse with spirits as such; but the moment death severs flesh and spirit the spirit can deal with other spirits, which Christ proceeded forth with to do.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-19.htm">1 Peter 3:19</a></div><div class="verse">By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;</div>(19) <span class= "bld">By which.</span>—If “by the Spirit” had been right in the former verse, this translation might have stood here, though the word is literally <span class= "ital">in;</span> for “in” is often used to mean “in the power of,” “on the strength of:” <span class= "ital">e.g., </span><a href="/romans/8-15.htm" title="For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.">Romans 8:15</a>. But as that former rendering is untenable, we must here keep strictly to <span class= "ital">in which</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>in spirit. This might mean either of two things: (1) “spiritually speaking,” “so far as thought and sympathy goes,” as, for instance, <a href="/1_corinthians/5-3.htm" title="For I truly, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that has so done this deed,">1Corinthians 5:3</a>, <a href="/colossians/2-5.htm" title=" For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, rejoicing and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.">Colossians 2:5</a>; or else (2) “in spirit,” as opposed to “in the body”—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>“out of the body” (<a href="/2_corinthians/12-2.htm" title="I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knows;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.">2Corinthians 12:2</a>; comp. <a href="/revelation/1-10.htm" title="I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,">Revelation 1:10</a>), as a disembodied spirit. We adopt the latter rendering without hesitation, for reasons which will be clearer in the next Note.<p><span class= "bld">He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.</span>—There are two main ways of interpreting this mysterious passage. (1) The spirits are understood as being <span class= "ital">now</span> in prison, in consequence of having rejected His preaching to them while they were still on earth. According to this interpretation—which has the support of such names as Pearson, Hammond, Barrow, and Leighton (though he afterwards modified his opinion). among ourselves, besides divers great theologians of other countries, including St. Thomas Aquinas on the one hand and Beza on the other—it was “in spirit,” <span class= "ital">i.e., </span>mystically speaking, our Lord Himself who, in and through the person of Noah, preached repentance to the old world. Thus the passage is altogether dissociated from the doctrine of the descent into hell; and the sense (though not the Greek) would be better expressed by writing, <span class= "ital">He had gone and preached unto the spirits</span> (<span class= "ital">now</span>)<span class= "ital"> in prison.</span> In this case, however, it is difficult to see the purpose of the digression, or what could have brought the subject into St. Peter’s mind. (2) The second interpretation—which is that of (practically) all the Fathers, and of Calvin, Luther (finally), Bellarmine, Bengel, and of most modern scholars—refers the passage to what our Lord did while His body was dead. This is the most natural construction to put upon the words “in which also” (<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>in spirit). It thus gives point to the saying that He was “quickened in spirit,” which would otherwise be left very meaningless. The “spirits” here will thus correspond with “in spirit” there. It is the only way to assign any intelligible meaning to the words “He went and” to suppose that He “went” straight from His quickening in spirit—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>from His death. It is far the most natural thing to suppose that the spirits <span class= "ital">were</span> in prison at the time when Christ went and preached to them. We take it, then, to mean that, directly Christ’s human spirit was disengaged from the body, He gave proof of the new powers of purely spiritual action thus acquired by going off to the place, or state, in which other disembodied spirits were (who would have been incapable of receiving direct impressions from Him had He not Himself been in the purely spiritual condition), and conveyed to them certain tidings: He “preached” unto them. What was the substance of this preaching we are not here told, the word itself (which is not the same as, <span class= "ital">e.g., </span>in <a href="/1_peter/1-25.htm" title="But the word of the Lord endures for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached to you.">1Peter 1:25</a>) only means to publish or proclaim like a crier or herald; and as the spirits are said to have been disobedient and in prison, some have thought that Christ went to proclaim to them the certainty of their damnation! The notion has but to be mentioned to be rejected with horror; but it may be pointed out also that in <a href="/1_peter/4-6.htm" title="For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.">1Peter 4:6</a>, which refers back to this passage, it is distinctly called a “gospel;” and it would be too grim to call that a gospel which (in Calvin’s words) “made it more clear and patent to them that they were shut out from all salvation!” He brought <span class= "ital">good</span> tidings, therefore, of some kind to the “prison” and the spirits in it. And this “prison” must not be understood (with Bp. Browne, <span class= "ital">Articles, </span>p. 95) as merely “a place of safe keeping,” where good spirits might be as well as bad, though etymologically this is imaginable. The word occurs thirty-eight times in the New Testament in the undoubted sense of a “prison,” and not once in that of a place of protection, though twice (<a href="/revelation/18-2.htm" title="And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.">Revelation 18:2</a>) it is used in the derived sense of “a cage.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-20.htm">1 Peter 3:20</a></div><div class="verse">Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.</div>(20) <span class= "bld">Which sometime were disobedient.</span>—The absence of the definite article here in the Greek (contrary to St. Peter’s usage in participial sentences—<span class= "ital">e.g., </span><a href="/1_peter/1-5.htm" title="Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.">1Peter 1:5</a>; <a href="/1_peter/1-7.htm" title="That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:">1Peter 1:7</a>; <a href="/1_peter/1-10.htm" title="Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come to you:">1Peter 1:10</a>; <a href="/1_peter/1-17.htm" title="And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judges according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:">1Peter 1:17</a>) makes it possible to think that the spirits mentioned in this verse are not co-extensive with those in prison. It is, literally, <span class= "ital">to men who once upon a time were disobedient.</span> Our Lord preached to the whole class of spirits in prison, of all times and races; and then, to magnify the bounty of this act, St. Peter instances a particular group of them, who were the most marked criminals of any, and whose case suggested a useful application. He has a reason for using the word “disobedient.” It would not describe <span class= "ital">all</span> sinners, but those who had heard and been convinced by the word of God, but refused to accept it. (See Note on <a href="/1_peter/3-2.htm" title="While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.">1Peter 3:2</a>.) This was the case with those to whom Noah preached (<a href="/2_peter/2-5.htm" title="And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;">2Peter 2:5</a>); and, in spite of their “disobedience,” Christ, after His innocent and sacrificial death, went in spirit and preached a gospel to them. Now, let it be recollected that St. Peter’s object through the whole of this section is to encourage the Hebrew Christians to be ready, through a good conscience, for a brave martyrdom, if need be. They are to think how their deaths, like Christ’s, may bring their persecutors to God. Nay—he seems to imply—their very spirits going forth into the world of spirits may conceivably carry a gospel of some kind even to Hebrew relatives who have passed away, like those Antediluvians, in the “disobedience” which was characteristic of the Jews. St. Clement of Alexandria, who derives the notion from the <span class= "ital">Shepherd</span> of Hermas, gives his belief that the Apostles also, when they died, preached to those who had died before them; and though there is little that throws light on our occupation in the intermediate state, it can hardly be pronounced impossible for some spirits to be allowed to follow Christ’s example there by preaching to spirits in prison. Many expositors, afraid of the consequences of admitting that there could be a possible gospel for men who died impenitent, have supposed that the imprisoned spirits to whom Christ went were the less wicked people destroyed by the Flood; others that they were those who had some motions of penitence when the rain began to fall; but these ideas are foreign to the text, which only tells us that they “were disobedient,” and adds nothing to extenuate their crime. They are a typical instance of men who died “as evil doers” (<a href="/1_peter/3-17.htm" title="For it is better, if the will of God be so, that you suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.">1Peter 3:17</a>).<p><span class= "bld">When once the longsuffering of God waited.</span>—The word “once” has no business in the text, originating only in an ingenious but unnecessary guess of Erasmus. The clause serves to heighten the guilt of the poor sinners to whom Christ preached in prison. Not only did they die a judicial death for their extreme sensuality (<a href="/genesis/6-3.htm" title="And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.">Genesis 6:3</a>; <a href="/genesis/6-11.htm" title="The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.">Genesis 6:11</a>), not only did they disobey an isolated call to repentance from Noah, but continuously, through all the time of the building of the ark (traditionally 120 years), they went on refusing to listen. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed without a preacher to warn them, the Canaanites were annihilated without an offer of repentance, but these abandoned Antediluvians sinned in spite of the long ministry of Noah, and died impenitent. Both their wickedness and God’s longsuffering with them were embodied in Hebrew proverbs, which St. Peter’s readers would know, and yet Christ had a gospel for them.<p><span class= "bld">While the ark.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">while an ark.</span> It does not merely describe the period of the disobedience, but rather changes the thought altogether. We now turn from the destruction of the majority to the salvation of the few.<p><span class= "bld">Wherein.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">whereinto</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>by getting into which.<p><span class= "bld">Few, that is, eight souls were saved.</span>—The mention of disobedience calls up to the Apostle’s mind at once the vast number of Hebrews who rejected the gospel of Christ. As in <a href="/1_peter/2-4.htm" title="To whom coming, as to a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,">1Peter 2:4</a> <span class= "ital">et seq., </span>so here, he establishes the readers against the thought, “Can I be right and all these people wrong?” by showing that from the beginning it was always a small number who accepted salvation, and they should naturally expect it to be so now. It is better to be one of the eight in the ark than of the many disobedient in the water.<p><span class= "bld">By water.</span>—Or, <span class= "ital">through water.</span> The very water which drowned the disobedient was the instrument of saving to those who believed, for it floated their ark. It cannot be denied that this is a little forced. So, in the same way, in <a href="/1_peter/2-8.htm" title="And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.">1Peter 2:8</a>, the same stone is to some a sanctuary, to some a stumbling-block. This pregnant word “water” leads on to the next thought.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-21.htm">1 Peter 3:21</a></div><div class="verse">The like figure whereunto <i>even</i> baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:</div>(21) <span class= "bld">The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us.</span>—There are two undoubted false readings in this sentence which must be cleared away before we can consider the meaning. First, the word “whereunto” is a mistake for the more difficult <span class= "ital">which;</span> and second, it should be <span class= "ital">you, </span>not “us.” We may then translate, either, <span class= "ital">Which baptism also, in antitype, doth now save you, </span>or else, <span class= "ital">Which</span> (w<span class= "ital">ater</span>)<span class= "ital"> also, in antitype, now saveth you</span>—<span class= "ital">baptism.</span> The first is less likely, both from the order of the words in Greek, and also because of the difficulty of calling the Flood point-blank a baptism. According to the second translation, the water <span class= "ital">through</span> which Noah was saved is said in the present day (“now,” as opposed to “in the days of Noe”) to save <span class= "ital">us</span> (the “you” is emphatic). It does so, in the same sense as we might say, for instance, that the sprinkling of the paschal blood saves us: that is to say, it foreshadowed something which does as a fact save us. This St. Peter expresses by the adjective which may be rendered “in antitype.” The thing it represented is Christian baptism. Where, then, lies the likeness between the two? Not merely in the identity of the element water, which serves but to arrest the fancy, and make one think of the deeper resemblance. One obvious point is that the number of persons accepting the proffered salvation at the present crisis is, as in the days of Noe, very small compared with those who reject it. The main thought, however, is not of the Christians, as a body or family (like Noe’s), being saved while others are lost. For each individual by himself there is a meaning in his baptism which is prefigured by the Flood; and the explanation of baptism which follows, and the opening of the next chapter, show that the Apostle was thinking chiefly of this individual application. As the passage of Israel through the Red Sea is described as a baptism (<a href="/1_corinthians/10-2.htm" title="And were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea;">1Corinthians 10:2</a>) because it marked their transition from the state of bondage to a new national life, and left their enemies destroyed in the water, so Noe’s safe passage through the Flood is a type of baptism, because it was a regeneration of humanity, it was a destruction of the carnal, sensual element (<a href="/genesis/6-3.htm" title="And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.">Genesis 6:3</a>. “he also is <span class= "ital">flesh</span>”)<span class= "ital">, </span>it washed the human race from its pollutions, and man rose to a new and more spiritual existence for the time being, with the bow for a sign of a perpetual covenant made. So baptism is a destruction and death to the flesh, but a new life to the spirit. It must be observed how carefully St. Peter expresses the <span class= "ital">permanent</span> effect of baptism by the present tense “saveth:” not “saved you,” nor “hath saved you;” it is a living and ever present fact, the “<span class= "ital">everlasting</span> benediction of His heavenly washing;” it washes the neophyte not from past sins only, but from those which he afterwards commits, if only he still repents and believes.<p><span class= "bld">Not the putting away of the filth of the flesh.</span>—The Apostle is not cautioning his readers against the thought that baptism acted <span class= "ital">ex opere operato, </span>as a charm, but he is telling them, on the contrary, that it is no external rite. He was writing to Jews, who were very familiar with ceremonial washings, or “baptisings,” which, though <span class= "ital">they symbolised</span> a cleansing from sin, really <span class= "ital">effected</span> nothing but to make the skin less dirty.<p><span class= "bld">But the answer of a good conscience toward God.</span>—An expression which has caused almost as much difficulty as any in the New Testament. The difficulty lay especially in two points: first, that the context was so involved as to give little indication what to <span class= "ital">expect;</span> secondly, that the Greek word (<span class= "ital">eperôtêma</span>) which is here rendered “answer” is so seldom found. and might easily take such various shades of meaning. (1) Touching the word itself, we may at once reject the translation “answer,” for it could only mean an “answer” in that sense in which “question” and “answer” are identical, both of them being “the thing asked,” the subject matter of both being the same; but so cumbersome a sense is not in keeping here. (2) Next we may consider the attractive theory that it means a “contract.” The form in which a contract was made was as follows: N says to M, “Dost thou promise?” and M answers, “I promise.” Now in Byzantine Law-Greek such a contract is known as an <span class= "ital">eperôtêma, </span>or “questionment,” from the question with which proceedings began. And, as a matter of fact, the baptismal covenant has undoubtedly been entered upon from the earliest times with just such questions and answers. Tertullian speaks of this (<span class= "ital">De Corona, </span>chap. iii.) as an ancient custom in the end of the second century. There are, however, three serious objections: first, that “the contract of a good conscience” is a somewhat vague and imperfect phrase, and far more difficult in Greek than in English; secondly, that there is no trace of the legal term <span class= "ital">eperôtêma</span> until centuries after the date of St. Peter, or of Tertullian either; thirdly, that had <span class= "ital">eperôtêma</span> been a recognised term for a “contract” in St. Peter’s time, we should have been certain to find this explanation in some of the Greek Fathers. (3) The usual meaning of the verb would lead us towards a less unsatisfactory conclusion. <span class= "ital">Eperôtân</span> is “to put a question” for further information’s sake. And we may remark that the order of the Greek would strongly suggest that the words “toward God” should be attached (in spite of the analogy of <a href="/acts/24-16.htm" title="And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void to offense toward God, and toward men.">Acts 24:16</a>) not to “good conscience,” but to the word <span class= "ital">eperôtêma.</span> Now, there is a constant use of the verb <span class= "ital">eperôtân</span> in the Old Testament in connection with the name of God. In <a href="/joshua/9-14.htm" title="And the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the LORD.">Joshua 9:14</a>, <a href="/judges/1-1.htm" title="Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?">Judges 1:1</a>; <a href="/judges/18-5.htm" title="And they said to him, Ask counsel, we pray you, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.">Judges 18:5</a>, and many other places, it means “to consult God,” “to inquire of the Lord,” to seek to Him for direction. Or, with a slightly different turn, it is used, as in <a href="/isaiah/19-3.htm" title="And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the middle thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.">Isaiah 19:3</a>; <a href="/isaiah/65-1.htm" title="I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, to a nation that was not called by my name.">Isaiah 65:1</a>, for “to inquire after God,” in which sense it finds its way into the New Testament in <a href="/romans/10-20.htm" title="But Esaias is very bold, and said, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest to them that asked not after me.">Romans 10:20</a>. Thus baptism would be said to be, “not the flesh’s putting away of dirt (for so it might be turned, though it is somewhat forced), but a good conscience’s inquiry at the hands of God,” or “a good conscience’s inquiry after God.” Observe that if the “good conscience” is the agent in this transaction, as here expressed, St. Peter would recognise (as in <a href="/luke/8-15.htm" title="But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.">Luke 8:15</a>) the man’s happy state of soul <span class= "ital">before</span> baptism, and baptism would be the mode of his further approach to God. That this is good doctrine cannot be denied. (4) There is, however, another version for which a still better case can be made out: viz., “demand.” It is true that the verb <span class= "ital">eperôtân</span> more frequently means “to ask” a question than “to ask” a boon, expecting a verbal response rather than a practical one; but it is once used in the New Testament in the latter sense (<a href="/matthew/16-1.htm" title="The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven.">Matthew 16:1</a>), and in the Old Testament also (as <a href="/psalms/137-3.htm" title="For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.">Psalm 137:3</a>). And the only other instance of the word <span class= "ital">eperôtêma</span> in inspired literature makes for this view. This occurs in <a href="/daniel/4-17.htm" title="This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will, and sets up over it the basest of men.">Daniel 4:17</a>, where the English has “demand,” and the Latin <span class= "ital">petitio.</span> There is, indeed, almost as much difficulty in ascertaining the exact sense there as here; but, on the whole, it seems to mean the “demand” for Nebuchadnezzar’s degradation. This was evidently the meaning assigned to our present passage by the anonymous Father in the Catena, for, wrongly joining the words “through the resurrection” with <span class= "ital">eperôtêma, </span>he says: “It teacheth also how we <span class= "ital">beseech</span> of Him; and how? by confessing the resurrection of the Lord.” Taking, then, the rendering “demand,” a further question arises: Does St. Peter mean that baptism is the demand (made by God or the Church upon the man) <span class= "ital">for</span> a good conscience towards God? or the demand <span class= "ital">made by</span> a good conscience upon God, without specifying the demand? or finally, the demand upon God (made by the man) <span class= "ital">for</span> a good conscience? Of these the second seems the weakest, because it leaves the nature of the demand so open, and because the notion of a good conscience <span class= "ital">previous</span> to baptism is less suited to the context. The first would indeed give a vigorous sense. St. Peter would then be saying, “Have a good conscience (<a href="/1_peter/3-16.htm" title="Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.">1Peter 3:16</a>), for, besides all else, it is your baptismal obligation, and in defiling conscience you forfeit your baptismal salvation;” but it labours under the defect of connecting “toward God” with “conscience” instead of with “demand,” and it is imperfect, moreover, in not demanding a good conscience toward men as well as toward God. The last seems both the clearest in itself, the best antithesis to the balancing clause, and the most in keeping with the context. It will then be: “Noah’s flood, in antitype, to this day saves you—that is to say, baptism, which is no cleansing of the skin from dirt, but an application to God for a clear conscience.” A “good conscience,” in this case, will not mean an honest frame of mind, but a consciousness of having nothing against you, such as would come to even the chief of sinners from the baptismal remission of sins. “Conscience” is used in this retrospective sense four times in Hebrews (<a href="/hebrews/9-9.htm" title="Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;">Hebrews 9:9</a>; <a href="/hebrews/9-14.htm" title="How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?">Hebrews 9:14</a>, and <a href="/hebrews/10-2.htm" title="For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.">Hebrews 10:2</a>; <a href="/hebrews/10-22.htm" title="Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.">Hebrews 10:22</a>); and, indeed, in <a href="/1_peter/3-16.htm" title="Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.">1Peter 3:16</a> it meant “having nothing on your mind because of the past,” rather than “being sure that you <span class= "ital">mean</span> well.” And how well this suits the context! The Apostle, from <a href="/1_peter/3-13.htm" title="And who is he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good?">1Peter 3:13</a> to <a href="/1_peter/4-6.htm" title="For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.">1Peter 4:6</a>, is uttering the praises of a clear conscience, and warning from everything that could defile it. “With this,” he says, “you cannot be harmed; with this, you will be always ready to defend the faith when called to account. It was because He had this that Christ was able to atone for you and bring you to God, and to conduct His mission to the dead, and to give by His resurrection an efficacy to your baptism; and that baptism itself only saves you by the fact that in it you ask and receive the cleansing of the conscience.”<p><span class= "bld">By the resurrection.</span>—Rightly joined in our version with “doth save.” Baptism derives all its sacramental efficacy from the fact that Christ has, by the Resurrection, introduced into the world a new kind of life, which in baptism is imparted to the believer. The doctrine here approaches still nearer to that of Romans 6 than to that of <a href="/1_peter/1-3.htm" title="Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,">1Peter 1:3</a>. In the first chapter, the Resurrection of Christ was said to be the means and the moment of our regeneration, but baptism (though of course implied) was not mentioned, nor the death to sin. But here, as in Romans, these two take a prominent place. As humanity died to the flesh in the bad Antediluvians, and rose again, washed clean, in Noe, so to the believer there was in baptism a death to the flesh, and he rose again, with a conscience washed clean through the union thereby effected with the crucified and risen Christ. Note, again, that when the Apostle speaks of glories he uses the name of Jesus: when of sufferings, it is the title of Christ.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/1_peter/3-22.htm">1 Peter 3:22</a></div><div class="verse">Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.</div>(22) <span class= "bld">Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God.</span>—This verse (which partakes of the character of a doxology) serves two purposes. First, it carries on the history of Jesus Christ. How carefully, in spite of what seem at first irrelevant digressions, St. Peter holds his threads. Christ’s passion and death, activity among the dead, resurrection from among them, ascension into heaven, perpetual session in glory, follow one another in due order. The second purpose of the clause runs parallel to the first. St. Peter is teaching the entire conformity of the believer to the Lord. If the believer will but retain his good conscience, he may hope for a precisely similar experience. The Latin and several other good versions, together with several Latin Fathers, add a curious sentence after the words “on the right hand of God,” which runs: <span class= "ital">swallowing up death, that we might be made heirs of eternal life;</span> but there is no sufficient authority for the sentence. The first notion of being “on the right hand of God,” taken, probably, from <a href="/psalms/110-1.htm" title="The LORD said to my Lord, Sit you at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.">Psalm 110:1</a>, seems to be that of occupying the highest post of honour possible, next after that of God—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>the Father—Himself It is not necessary here to consider what else may be implied in the phrase as to the conditions of our Lord’s human existence; but when we compare St. Paul’s statement, in <a href="/ephesians/4-10.htm" title="He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)">Ephesians 4:10</a>, about His now “filling all things,” we feel that these pictorial words, such as “heaven” and “right hand of God,” are intended to convey the notion that His humanity is now entirely <span class= "ital">without</span> conditions, though still retaining all that is truly essential to humanity. It may be observed that, assuming (as even most sceptical critics do) the genuineness of this Epistle, we have here at first hand the deliberate evidence of one who had been perfectly familiar with Jesus Christ as man with man. By what stretch of imagination can we suppose that such a person could ever have invented, or have accepted from others this mode of speaking about his former Teacher, had he not been conscious of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus as simply historical facts, of the same order as the fact of His death?<p><span class= "bld">Angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him</span>.—There can be no doubt that this whole verse is coloured by recollection of the circular letter which St. Paul had sent to the Churches of Asia, which we call the Epistle to the Ephesians. Perhaps the heresy which St. Paul lamented in that Epistle may still have lingered in existence, in cabalistic Jewish circles, among those same Churches when St. Peter thus wrote to them. He may, for the moment, be glancing away from his faint-hearted Hebrew brethren, who, in fear of persecution, were slinking back into Judaism, and turning rather to those Gnosticising Jews who began to abound in Asia, who made “genealogies” of æons, and gave Christ a place among them. In favour of such an opinion one might appeal to the vivid picture of licentiousness in the next chapter, and the development of the same, manifestly under Gnostic influence, in the Second Epistle and in the Apocalypse. From the expression “being made subject,” or, literally, <span class= "ital">having been subdued</span> (or, <span class= "ital">subjected</span>) “we may infer that St. Peter meant <span class= "ital">evil</span> spirits, this being a crowning <span class= "ital">triumph</span> of Christ, and not only a mark of His <span class= "ital">exaltation.</span> We need not think that St. Peter, any more than St. Paul, is distinctly teaching that there <span class= "ital">are</span> such grades of spiritual beings; he is probably only borrowing the titles from the heretics glanced at, and saying that, whatever unseen powers there are, whatever they may be called, they are now cubdued to Christ.<p><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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