from this battle. They owe a duty to those who are out of the way, and
must not shrink from it, be it ever so painful: _having your behaviour
seemly among the Gentiles_. Their lives are to be led in the sight of
their fellow-men, to be so led as to have the approval of a clear
conscience, and to be void of offence in the eyes of others. This
outward seemliness is what Christian love exhibits as a testimony to
Christ's grace and an attraction unto the world, making known unto all
men the unsearchable riches of Christ: _that, wherein they speak
against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they
behold, glorify God in the day of visitation_. The seemly conduct of
believers must be continuous, or it will fail of its effect. It is not
one display of Christian conduct, nor occasional spasmodic
manifestations thereof, which will win men to love the way of Christ.
And this is the result without which Christ's people are not to rest
satisfied. The evil reports of the adversaries are ill-grounded, but
they do not think so; and the only means of removing their perverse
view is by a continuous revelation of the excellence of Christ's
service. They may rail, but we must bless; they may persecute: we must
not retaliate, but returning good always for their evil, make them see
at length that this way which they are attacking has a character and a
power to which they have been strangers. This enlightenment is implied
in the word "behold": _They behold your good works_. It denotes
initiation into a mystery. And to unbelievers Christ's religion must
be a mystery. The clearing of the vision leads them up to faith. The
word in every place where it occurs in the New Testament is St.
Peter's own, and he employs it once (2 Peter i. 16) to describe the
vision, the insight, into the glory of Christ, which he and his
fellows gained at the Transfiguration. Such a sight removes all
questionings, and constrains the enlightened soul to join in the
exclamation, "Lord, it is good for us to be here." The victory for
Christ is to be won on the very ground where the opposition was made.
In the very matter over which the enemy reviled, there shall they
praise God for that which they erewhile maligned. This it is which
constitutes their day of visitation. Some have thought the visitation
intended was to be one of punishment for obstinate withstanding of the
truth, but it surely harmonises better with the glory of God that the
dispensation should be one of instruction and light. We seem to have a
notable example of what is meant in the history of St. Paul. He in all
earnestness persecuted the Way unto the death. The day of visitation
came to him, a day which, while darkening the bodily vision, gave a
clearness to the soul. The persecutor became the Apostle to the
Gentiles, and the world bore him witness that now he preached the
faith of which he had once made havoc (Gal. i. 23). This was God's own
conquest, but in the same manner will believers be helped to win their
victory. They are to aim at nothing less, never to rest content till
the accusers of their good deeds are brought to glory in the
performance of the same. So was Justin Martyr won to the side of
Christianity: "When I heard the Christians accused and saw them
fearless of death and of everything else that is counted fearful, I
was sure they could not be living in wickedness and in the love of
pleasures" (2 Apol. xii.). Well-doing shall not fail of its reward.
Men will testify, as of Isaac of old "We saw plainly that the Lord was
with thee, and we said, Let there now be an oath betwixt us" (Gen.
xxvi. 28).
The Apostle now turns to one illustration of Christian behaviour
wherein the converts might be tempted to think themselves absolved
from some portion of their duty. They were living under heathen
rulers. Did their freedom in Christ release them from obligations to
the civil powers? The question was sure to arise. St. Peter supplies
both a rule and a reason: _Be subject to every ordinance of man for
the Lord's sake_. Christians, just as other men, hold their place in
the commonweal. All that the state requires citizens to do in aid of
good government, order, the support of institutions and the like, will
fall upon them, as upon others. Whether the demands made upon them in
this wise be always for ends of which they would approve, they are not
to discuss so long as their rulers provide duly for the social order
and welfare. This is the apostolic rule. The reason is, Men are to
submit thus for the Lord's sake. The powers that be are ordained of
God, and He would have obedience yielded to them. The Bible knows
nothing about forms of government; these are to be ordered as men at
various times and under various conditions deem most helpful. But the
Bible doctrine is that God uses all powers of the world for His own
purposes and to work out His will. Of Pharaoh, who had deliberately
despised God's messages through Moses, the Divine voice declared that
he would long ago have been cut off from the earth, but was made to
stand that he might show God's power, and that His name might be
declared throughout all the earth (Exod. ix. 15, 16); and of the
Assyrian at a later day (Isa. x. 10, 12) God tells how he was used as
the rod of the Divine anger, but that the fruit of his stout heart and
the glory of his high looks would surely be punished. God employs for
His ends instruments with which He is not always well-pleased. These
can inflict His penalties, yea even may be made to advance His glory.
Pilate was assured by Christ Himself that the power which he was about
to exercise was only by Divine permission: "Thou wouldest have no
power against Me except it were given thee from above" (John xix. 11);
and St. Paul enforces obedience to authorities equally with St. Peter:
"He that resisteth the power withstandeth the ordinance of God" (Rom.
xiii. 2). Be subject, therefore, _whether it be to the king, as
supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers
and for praise to them that do well_. The order under which these
converts were living was superintended by some officer appointed by
the Roman emperor, and to this the form of the Apostle's words
applies. The king is the Cæsar; the governor is the procurator or
subordinate official by whom the imperial power was represented in the
provinces. When St. Peter wrote, Nero ruled in Rome, and was
represented abroad by ministers often of a like character.
How extreme must after this be the case of those who would claim
freedom to resist the rulers under whom they live. God has allowed
them to stand, He is using them for His own purposes, they may be the
ministers of His vengeance, and to Him alone does vengeance belong. He
intends them also to recognise the merit of the doers of good. It may
be that they do not fulfil God's intent in either wise, yet while He
suffers them to keep their power the Christian's duty is obedience to
every civil enactment, for anarchy would be a curse both to him and to
others, bringing in its train more hurt than help. When Christians
shall be found among those who abide by the law of the lands wherein
they dwell, even should their faith not be accepted by their rulers,
their good citizenship will hardly fail to disarm hatred and abate
persecution. And so they are to range themselves ever on the side of
order. _For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to
silence the ignorance of foolish men._ For this end believers are to
abide in the world, that through them the world may be renewed. The
opponents of their faith suffer, says the Apostle, from lack of
knowledge. As he says in another place, "they rail in matters whereof
they are ignorant" (2 Peter ii. 12). Had men known, they would not
have crucified the Lord of glory; and did they know, they would not
persecute His followers. But knowledge will not come without a
preacher. Such preachers of the excellence of their faith shall the
law-abiding Christians in each community be made. They shall publish
the lessons of their own experience; they shall win favour by their
example. The world will recognise that these men have a secret which
others do not possess, will find that they yield obedience to earthly
rulers because they are above all things servants of God. It was
through convicting them of their ignorance that Jesus put the
Sadducees to silence. "Ye do err," was His argument, "not knowing the
Scriptures nor the power of God" (Matt. xxii. 34). And when men are
made sensible of such ignorance, they are silenced for very shame (1
Cor. xv. 34). This word "silenced" is very expressive both in the
Gospel and here. It implies that a bridle or muzzle is put upon the
mouth of ignorance, so that it may either be guided into a better way,
or, if not so, be checked from doing harm. For some there are who not
only will be ignorant, but foolish also, whom no teaching will profit.
But even these will in the end be silenced. So, as says the brother
Apostle, "be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom.
xii. 21).
The first part of the Apostle's exhortation in our verse had in view,
it may be, more especially the Gentile converts. Their past life had
been one of evil-doing in the sight of God; those whom they had left,
and who were most likely to be their adversaries, were still walking
in the same ways, and were to be won over and conquered for Christ. He
now turns more directly to those who had been Jews. These were no
longer bound to the observance of the ceremonial law, and we know from
the New Testament as well as from Church history that with this
release there were exhibited in the lives of many such excesses as
made them a disgrace to the Christian name. We find much about these
in the Second Epistle. St. Peter would not keep the Jewish converts
under the burden of the Law, but he warns them against their besetting
danger: _as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of
wickedness, but as bondservants of God_. There were bad Jews, even as
there have been bad Christians. These would welcome a rule which set
them at liberty from the Mosaic observances, to which their adherence
aforetime had been in outward seeming rather than in earnest zeal. To
these St. Peter preaches that to lay aside Judaism is not to embrace
Christianity. The Leader of the new faith had ever taught a different
lesson. He came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it, and to set
forth God's will in a nobler aspect. Those who would follow Him must
take up the cross. His service is a yoke which restrains from all
evil. Those who come to Christ come as bondservants of God, free only
because they are bound to the observance of the noblest law. They must
lay aside the flesh, with its affections and lusts, and not vindicate
their freedom by using it as an occasion to riot and self-indulgence.
And the Apostle binds together all his teaching in four closing
precepts: _Honour all men; Love the brotherhood; Fear God; Honour the
king_. All men, without distinction, are to be honoured, because in
all there remains the image of God. It may be defaced, blurred
exceedingly. The more needful is it to deal considerately with such,
that we may help to restore what has been marred. Those who are our
brethren in Christ, the brotherhood, we shall own with affection,
seeking to be of one heart and one soul with them, because they belong
to Christ. For them we shall have, if we be true to our faith, that
mighty love which passeth in excellence both faith and hope. But the
exhortation of St. Peter speaks in this wise: Ye who hold your
brethren in Christ unspeakably dear, do not allow that love to
suffice, to swallow up all regard for other men. They also need your
thoughts, your help. The heathen, the unbelievers--these have the
strongest possible claim, even their great need. And so with the other
pair of precepts. Ye who fear God, which is your foremost duty, do not
let that fear lessen your willingness to do honour to your earthly
rulers. The feelings toward God and the king differ in character and
in degree, but both have their place in proper share in the heart of
the true servant of Christ.
VIII
_CHRISTIAN SERVICE_
"Servants, be in subjection to your masters, with all fear; not
only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is
acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs,
suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and
are buffeted _for it_, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when
ye do well and suffer _for it_, ye shall take it patiently, this
is acceptable with God. For hereunto were ye called: because
Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye
should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found
in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when
He suffered, threatened not; but committed _Himself_ to Him that
judgeth righteously; who His own self bare our sins in His body
upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto
righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were going
astray like sheep, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and
Bishop of your souls."--1 PETER ii. 18-25.
The Gospel history shows very clearly that during our Lord's lifetime
His followers were drawn largely from the ranks of the poor. It was
fitting that He who had been proclaimed in prophecy as "the Servant of
the Lord" should enter the world in humble estate; and, from the lowly
position of the virgin-mother and her husband, the life of Jesus for
thirty years must have been spent in comparative poverty and amid poor
surroundings. The major part of His chosen disciples were fisherfolk
and such-like. And though we read of the wife of Herod's steward among
the women who ministered unto Him and of the richer Joseph of
Arimathæa as a secret disciple, these are marked exceptions. To the
poor His Gospel was preached, and among the poor it first made its
way. The question of the chief priests, "Hath any of the rulers
believed on Him, or the Pharisees?" (John vii. 48), tells its own
tale, as does also the significant record, "The common people heard
Him gladly" (Mark xii. 37).
It need not therefore much surprise us if St. Peter, now that he
begins to classify his counsels, addresses himself first to "household
servants": _Servants, be in subjection to your masters, with all
fear_. We have, however, to bear in mind, as we consider the Apostle's
exhortation, that most of those whom he addresses were slaves. They
had no power of withdrawing themselves, though their service should
prove burdensome and grievous. St. Paul, in writing to the same class,
nearly always employs the word which means "bondservants." Yet his
counsel agrees with St. Peter's. Thus he exhorts that their service be
"with fear and trembling" (Eph. vi. 5); in Col. iii. 22, "Obey in all
things them that are your masters." And to Timothy and Titus it is
given as a part of their charge to "exhort servants to be in
subjection to their own masters and to be well-pleasing to them in all
things" (1 Tim. vi. 1; Titus ii. 9).
When St. Peter and St. Paul wrote, this slave population was
everywhere very numerous. Gibbon calculates that in the reign of
Claudius the slaves were at least equal in number to the free
inhabitants of the Roman world; Robertson places the estimate much
higher. These formed, then, a very large share of the public to which
the first preachers had to appeal, and we can understand the
importance to the Christian cause of the behaviour of these humble,
but doubtless most numerous, members of the society. Their lives
would be a daily sermon in the houses of their masters. Hence the very
earnest exhortations addressed to them that by their conduct they
should adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things; that they
should count their masters worthy of all honour; that the name of God
and of the doctrine be not blasphemed; that they should be in
subjection _with all fear_. Everything in the New Testament concerning
slaves goes to show that they were a most important factor in the
early Christian societies.
Men wonder nowadays that there is so little said by any of the
Apostles about freeing slaves from their bondage. The best men in
those times and long before appear to have regarded slavery as one of
the institutions with which they were bound to rest content. It
flourished everywhere; it was countenanced in the Scriptures of the
older dispensation. Eleazar was Abraham's slave, and the Law in many
passages contemplates the possession by Israelites of persons who were
bought with their money. Hence we find no remonstrance against
slave-holding in the New Testament writings, only advice to those who
were in such bondage to cultivate a spirit which would render it less
galling and to strive that by their behaviour the cause of Christ
might be advanced. St. Paul represents the ideas of his age when,
writing to the Corinthians, he says, "Wast thou called being a
bondservant? Care not for it; but if thou canst be made free, use _it_
rather" (1 Cor. vii. 21). Freedom was worth having, but any heroic
effort to get rid of the yoke is not encouraged in the Epistles. Yet
it must have been a lot which called for the exercise of much moral
strength to make it bearable. Even from the house of the Christian
Philemon the slave Onesimus found cause to run away. But St. Paul in
his letter admits no right on the slave's part to take this course.
With the Apostle there is no question that the first duty is to go
back to his master. All that he urges is that the common profession of
Christianity by slave and master ought to, and doubtless would,
alleviate the conditions of servitude. There were in Christianity, as
time has shown, germs which would fructify, a spirit which some day
would strike on the chains of slaves. But the vision of such a time
had not dawned either for St. Paul or St. Peter. Christ has overcome
the world in many other matters beside slavery. It is only that
Christians are so tardy in awaking to the fulness of His lessons.
So in apostolic days the rights and claims of slave-masters were
looked upon as indisputable. Be subject, _not only to the good and
gentle, but also to the froward_. There is to be no resistance, no
lapse in duty. About service rendered to good masters there might be
little apprehension, but even here St. Paul finds occasion for
warning. "They that have believing masters," he says, "let them not
despise them because they are brethren" (1 Tim. vi. 2). Christian
freedom was not without its dangers in many forms, especially to minds
wherein liberty was a strange idea. But froward masters are to be
faithfully served likewise, and care is to be taken withal to remove
every occasion for their frowardness. The apostolic lesson is to make
suffering endurable, noble, acceptable to God, by seeing that it be
always undeserved. How strange a doctrine this in the eyes of the
world! The rule of purely human conduct would be just the opposite. If
wrong be undeserved, rebel at once. Christianity supplies a motive
for the contrary course: _conscience toward God_. The world's spirit
is not His spirit, and to have praise with Him should be the
Christian's single aim. Men can at times be patient when rebuke is
deserved, but the world sees that that deserves no credit. "What thank
have ye?" they cry. But they give no praise for the bearing of
unmerited rebuke.
The world counts such conduct weakness, and is still far from
comprehending the Divineness of the virtue of yielding patiently to
wrong. God has long been teaching the lesson, but it has been slowly
learnt. He chose the milder, timid Jacob rather than the fiery Esau.
Both had faults in multitude. With the world Esau is oft the
favourite. At a later day He stamps with approval the noble mercy of
David in sparing Saul, while round Daniel and his companions in
Babylon there gathers something of a halo of New Testament sanctity by
reason of the noble confession which they made under persecution.
These are chapters in the Divine lesson-book. Such lives marked stages
in the preparation for the Servant of the Lord. Men, if they would
have hearkened, were being trained to estimate such a character at
God's value. Now Christ's example is before us, and we are bidden to
follow it.
_For hereunto were ye called._ Strange invitation to be dictated by
love, a call to suffering! And yet the Master at first promises
nothing else to His followers: "If any man would come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matt. xvi.
24). And what can a Christian wish for but to be like Christ? And the
very reason given ought to make us love the cross. We are called unto
suffering because Jesus suffered for us, leaving us an example that we
should follow His steps. He has trodden the hard road, the winepress
of the wrath of God, alone and for men. At this point the Apostle
begins to apply to Christ Isaiah's description of the suffering
"Servant of the Lord," "who did no sin, neither was guile found in His
mouth" (Isa. liii.). But soon the memory of the scenes he had
witnessed is present with him; and his words, though holding to the
spirit of Isaiah's picture, become a description of what he himself
had seen and heard when Jesus was taken and crucified: _Who, when He
was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not, but
committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously_. How the brief
words sum up and recall the dark history--Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod;
the mockery, the scourging, the railing crowd, the dying Jesus, and
the parting prayer, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."
So far the Apostle speaks of the example of Christ, which, though far
above and beyond us, we are exhorted and called on to follow. And
there are many who will go with him thus far who value our Lord's work
only for its lofty example. Indeed, it is characteristic of those who
deny the mediatorial office of Christ to be loudest in magnifying the
grandeur of His character. To His good works, His love for men, His
spotless life, His noble lessons, they accord untiring praise, as
though thereby they would atone for denying Him that office which is
more glorious still. But St. Peter stops at no such half-way house. He
knows in whom he has believed, knows Him for the Son of the living
God, a Teacher with whom were the words of eternal life. So in
pregnant words he sets forth the doctrine of the Atonement as the end
of Christ's suffering: _Who His own self bare our sins in His own body
upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto
righteousness_. He bare our sins. The words tell of something beyond
our powers to comprehend; but some light is shed on them by a kindred
passage (Matt. viii. 17), where the Evangelist applies to the work of
Jesus those other words from Isa. liii., "Himself took our infirmities
and bare our sicknesses." The narrative in the Gospel has just
recorded how Jesus wrought many miracles. First a leper was healed,
then the centurion's servant, next Simon's wife's mother, and
afterwards many sick and demoniacs beside. There is no record here of
the effect produced on Jesus Himself by these exhibitions of
miraculous power, but from other passages in the Gospels we do find
that He was conscious in Himself of a demand on His power when such
cures were wrought. Thus we are told, at the cure of the woman with
the issue, that Jesus perceived in Himself that the power proceeding
from Him had gone forth (Mark v. 30); and again when many were cured,
that "power came forth from Him and healed them all" (Luke vi. 19). Of
the woman Jesus says expressly, "Thy faith hath made thee whole"; and
the manifestation of eagerness to touch Jesus is a sign of the faith
of the others whom the Divine power blessed with health.