May we not trace some analogy between the Lord's works of healing and
that mightier deliverance from sin won by Christ upon the cross, an
analogy which may help, if but a little, to give meaning to the
bearing by Christ of human sins? A power went forth when the sick were
healed; and through that imparted power they were restored to health,
faith being the pathway which brought the Divine virtue to their aid.
Thus Jesus bore their diseases and took them away. Look through this
figure on the work of our redemption. Christ has borne the burden of
sin. He has died for sin that men may die from sin, that sin may be
slain in us, the fell disease healed by the power of His suffering. We
cannot comprehend what was done for the sick when Christ was on earth,
nor what is wrought for sinners by His grace in heaven. Those alone
who reap the blessing know its certainty; and they can but say, as the
blind man whose sight was restored, "One thing I know: that, whereas I
was blind, now I see" (John ix. 25).
To this teaching, that Christ's suffering wrought man's rescue, St.
Peter adds emphasis by another quotation from that chapter of Isaiah
which he has so much in mind: _by whose stripes ye were healed_.
Christ was stricken, and God grants to His sufferings a power to heal
the souls of those whom He loves because they strive to love Him.
Healing through wounds! Soundness through that which speaks only of
injury! Mysterious dispensation! But long ago it had been
foreshadowed, and shown also how little connexion there was to be,
except through faith, between the remedy and the disease. Those who
were bitten of the serpents in the wilderness gazed on the brazen
serpent, and were healed. In the dead brass was no virtue, but God was
pleased to make of it a speaking sacrament; so has it pleased Him to
give healing of sins to those who by faith appropriate the sacrifice
on Calvary. Christ has claimed the type for Himself: "I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself" (John xii.
32).
And now, as is so often his wont, St. Peter varies the figure. The
wounded sinner finding cure becomes the wandering sheep that has been
brought back into the fold: _For ye were going astray like sheep, but
are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls_. But the
message, the teaching, the love, is all the same. He who before was
the great Exemplar, whose footsteps we should follow, is now the
Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, who goes before His sheep. This Shepherd
has been a Sufferer, too. He has given Himself up as a prey to the
wolves that His flock might be saved. Now, with a voice of love, He
calls His sheep by name; and hearing, they follow Him.
But He is more than this. Brought within the fold, the sheep still
need His care; and it is freely given. He is the Bishop, the Overseer,
the Watchman for His people's safety, who, having gathered them within
the fold, tends them with constant watchfulness. The figure passes
over thus into the reality in the Apostle's closing words. The cure
which the great Healer desires to accomplish is in the souls of men.
For them His care is bestowed, first to bring them safe out of the way
of evil, then for ever to keep them under the sheltering care of His
abundant love.
IX
_CHRISTIAN WIVES AND HUSBANDS_
"In like manner, ye wives, _be_ in subjection to your own
husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without
the word be gained by the behaviour of their wives; beholding
your chaste behaviour _coupled_ with fear. Whose _adorning_ let
it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of
wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel; but _let it be_
the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible _apparel_ of a
meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great
price. For after this manner aforetime the holy women also, who
hoped in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their
own husbands: as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose
children ye now are, if ye do well, and are not put in fear by
any terror.
"Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with _your wives_ according
to knowledge, giving honour unto the woman, as unto the weaker
vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life; to the
end that your prayers be not hindered."--1 PETER iii. 1-7.
The Apostle gave at first (ii. 13) the rule of Christian submission
generally; then proceeded to apply it to the cases of citizens and of
servants. In the same way he now gives injunctions concerning the
behaviour of wives and husbands. The precept with which he began holds
good for them also. _In like manner, ye wives, be in subjection to
your own husbands._ The life and teaching of Jesus had wrought a great
change in the position of women, a change which can be observed from
the earliest days of Christianity. We can gather in what estimation
women were generally held among the Jews at that time from the
expression used in the account of our Lord's interview with the woman
of Samaria. There it is said (John iv. 27) that the disciples
marvelled that Jesus was talking with a woman. Such a feeling must
afterwards have been entirely dispelled, for all through the earthly
life of Christ we find Him attended by women who ministered unto Him;
we read of His close friendship with Mary and Martha, and are told, at
the time of His death (Matt. xxvii. 55), that many women beheld the
Crucifixion afar off, having followed Him from Galilee. Women were the
earliest visitors to the tomb on the great Easter morning, and to
them, among the first (Luke xxiv. 22), was the Lord's resurrection
made known.
We are not surprised, therefore, in the history of the infant Church,
to read (Acts i. 14) that women were present among the disciples who
waited at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, nor to learn how
the daughters of Philip the evangelist (Acts xxi. 9) took a share in
the labours of their father for the cause of Christ, or that Priscilla
(Acts xviii. 26), equally with her husband, was active in Christian
good offices. Other examples occur in the Acts of the Apostles:
Dorcas, Lydia, and the mother of Timothy; and the constant mention of
women which we find in the salutations with which St. Paul concludes
his letters makes it clear how large a part they played in the early
propagation of the faith. "Fellow-workers," "servants of the Church,"
"labourers in the Lord," are among the terms which the Apostle applies
to them; and we know from the Pastoral Epistles what help the
primitive Church derived from the labours of its deaconesses and
widows.
To be occupied in such duties was sure to give to women an influence
which they had never possessed before; and the women converts, in
countries such as these Asiatic provinces, were exposed to the same
sort of danger which beset the slave population at their acceptance of
the Christian faith. They might begin to think meanly of others, even
of their own husbands, if they were still content to abide in
heathenism. Such women might incline at times to take counsel for
their life's guidance with Christian men among the various
congregations to which they belonged and to set a value on their
advice above any which they could obtain from their own husbands. They
might come to entertain doubts also whether they ought to maintain the
relations of married life with their heathen partners. With the
knowledge that such cases might occur, St. Peter gives his lesson. And
as in the case of slaves, so here, he gives no countenance to the idea
that to become a Christian breaks off previous relations. Wives,
though they have accepted the faith, have wifely duties still. Like
Christian citizens living in a heathen commonwealth, they are not by
religion released from their previously contracted obligations; they
are to abide in their estate, and use it, if it may be done, for the
furtherance of the cause of Christ. Be in subjection to _your own_
husbands; they have still their claim on your duty.
There is much gentleness in the Apostle's next words. He knows that
there may arise cases where believing wives have husbands who are
heathen. But he speaks hopefully, as thinking they would not be of
frequent occurrence: _even if any obey not the word_. Wives,
especially if they be of such a character as the Apostle would have
them be, could not have been won to the faith of Christ without much
converse with their husbands on so deep a subject; and the word which
was working effectually in the one would often have its influence with
the other. It might not always be so. But husbands, though not obeying
the word as yet, are not to be despaired of.
And here we may turn aside to dwell on the tone of hope in which St.
Peter speaks of these husbands who obey not. For the word
ἀπειθοῦντες, by which they are described, is the same that is used
in ii. 18 of those who stumble at the word, being disobedient. The
lesson here given to Christian wives, not to despair of winning their
husbands for Christ, gives warrant for what was said on the former
passage: that the disobedience which causes men to stumble need not
last for ever, nor imply final obduracy and rejection from God's
grace. But this by the way.
The Apostle adds the strongest motive to confirm wives in holding to
their married state: _That the husbands may without the word be gained
by the behaviour of their wives: beholding your chaste behaviour
coupled with fear_. "Without the word" here means that there is to be
no discussion. They are so to live as to make their lives a sermon
without words, to work conviction without debate; then, when the
victory is won, there will remain no trace of combat: all will tell of
gain, and nothing of loss.
And once again St. Peter uses his special word (ἐποπτέυειν)
as he describes how the husbands shall be affected by the behaviour of
their wives. They shall gaze on it as a mystery, the key to which they
do not possess. The wives in heathen homes must have been obliged to
hear and see many things which were grievous and distasteful. The
husbands could hardly fail to know that it was so. If, then, they
still found wifely regard and respect, wifely submission, with no
assertion of a law of their own, no comparison of the lives of
Christian men with those of their own husbands, if a silent,
consistent walk were all the protest which the Christian wives offered
against their heathen environments, such a life could hardly fail of
its effect. There must be a powerful motive, a mighty, strengthening
power, that enabled women to abide uncomplainingly in their estate.
For this the husbands would surely search, and in their search would
learn secrets to which they were strangers, would learn how the tongue
was restrained where remonstrance might seem more natural, how pure
life was maintained in spite of temptations to laxity, and the
marriage bond exalted with religious observance even when reverence
for the husband was meeting with no equal return. Such lives would be
more powerful than oratory, have a charm beyond resistance, would win
the husbands first to wonder, then to praise, and in the end to
imitation.
And from describing the grace of such a life the Apostle turns to
contrast it with other adornments of which the world thinks highly.
_Whose adorning_, he says, _let it not be the outward adorning of
plaiting the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, and of putting on
apparel_. We can see from the catalogue in Isaiah (iii. 18-23) that
the daughters of Zion in old days had gone to great lengths in this
outside bravery, and provoked the Lord to smite them. These had
forgotten the simplicity of Sarah. But that in the house of Abraham
there were found no such ornaments is hardly to be believed. The
patriarch, who sent (Gen. xxiv. 53) to Rebekah jewels of silver and
jewels of gold, did not leave his own wife unadorned. Nor does the
language of St. Peter condemn Rebekah's bracelets, if they be worn
with Rebekah's modesty. The New Testament does not teach us to neglect
or despise the body. A misrendering in the Authorised Version, "Who
shall change our vile body" (Phil. iii. 21), has long seemed to lend
countenance to such a notion. It is one of the gains of the Revised
Version that we now read in that place, "Who shall fashion anew the
body of our humiliation." Sin has robbed the body of its primal
dignity, but it is to be restored and made like unto the body of
Christ's glory. And He did not despise the body when He deigned to
wear it that He might draw nearer unto us. If these things be present
to our thoughts, we shall seek to bestow on the body whatever may make
it comely. The mischief arises when the adornment of the outer brings
neglect of the inner man, when fine apparel has for its companions the
haughtiness, the stretched-forth necks, and wanton eyes which Isaiah
rebukes. Then it is that it rightly comes under condemnation. When the
jewel is (as Rebekah's was) the gift of some dear one--a parent, a
husband, a near kinsman--it rouses grateful reminiscences, and may
fitly be prized, and holily worn, and ranked near to the rings of
betrothal and of marriage.
Let these be the feelings which regulate womanly adornment, and it may
be made a part of the culture of the heart, the inner man, which St.
Peter urges the Christian wives to be careful to adorn: Let your
adorning _be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel
of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great
price_. All Scripture regards man as of twofold nature, the outward
and the inward, of which the latter is the more precious. He is a Jew
who is one inwardly (Rom. ii. 29); the inward man delighteth in the
law of God (Rom. vii. 22); while the outward man perishes the inward
man may be renewed day by day (2 Cor. iv. 16), being strengthened with
power through God's Spirit. This hidden man is the centre from which
all the strength of Christian life comes. Let this be rightly adorned,
and the outward life will need no strict rules; there will be no fear
of excess, least of all when the inner life is cared for because it is
precious before God. Its pure array passeth gold and gems, be they
ever so beautiful. This is a grace which never fades, but will
flourish through eternity.
The Apostle proceeds to commend it by a noble example. The Old
Testament Scriptures do not dwell largely on the lives of women, but a
study of what is said will oftentimes reveal deeper meaning in the
record and put force into a solitary word. The writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews couples Sarah with Abraham in the list of heroes and
heroines of faith, and St. Peter from a single word finds a text to
extol the submission which she showed to her husband. He probably
refers to Gen. xviii. 12, where she gives the title of "lord" to
Abraham, as Rachel in another place (Gen. xxxi. 35) does to her father
Laban: _For after this manner aforetime the holy women also, who hoped
in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands:
as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord_. A Scripture example which
has more in common with the experience of the Asian women is the life
of Hannah. Her lot, for a time at least, was as full of grief and
disappointment as theirs could be; but her trust in God was unshaken.
Her patience under provocation was exemplary, while the picture of her
home life is one full of touching affection on the part of both
husband and wife; and the mother's gratitude, when her prayer was
granted, is set forth in her noble hymn of thanksgiving and in the
devotion of her child to the service of the God who had bestowed him.
Ruth is another of those holy women who must have been in St. Peter's
thoughts, who, though not of the house of Israel, manifested virtues
in her life which made her fit to be the ancestress of King David. The
Apostle, however, seems to have had a purpose in his special mention
of Sarah. As the sons of Israel looked back to Abraham and to the
covenant sealed with him, yea, not seldom prided themselves on being
his children, so the daughters of Israel counted themselves as Sarah's
daughters after the flesh. St. Peter now gives them another ground for
that claim. God's promises to Abraham have been fulfilled in Christ,
and so Christian Jewesses are more truly than ever daughters of Sarah.
_Whose children ye now are._ But to the heathen converts the same door
was opened. They by their faith were now made partakers of the ancient
covenant. They too were become Sarah's daughters. Let them, one and
all, continue in the well-doing which has been commended; let it be
seen in the daily round (ἀναστροφὴ) of their lives, led in
quietness and humility. The excessive love of adornment against which
they are warned marks a condition of boldness and unrest. But unrest
may enter into the other actions of their life. Their behaviour is to
be coupled with fear and reverence, but it should eschew everything
which partakes of flighty irregularity. It should be steady and
consistent, running into no extremes either of humiliation or the
contrary. _Do well, and be not put in fear by any terror._
The Apostle now addresses Christian husbands. In his counsel to
subjects and slaves he has not dwelt on the duties of rulers and
masters. Perhaps he judged it unlikely that his letter would come to
the hands of many such, or it may be he thought the lessons which he
had to give were more needed by the subject people, if Christ's cause
were to be furthered. But with husbands and wives life has of
necessity a great deal in common, and the one partner can hardly
receive counsel which is not of interest to the other. To the wives
the Apostle spake as though examples of unbelieving husbands might be
rare. Christian husbands with unbelieving wives he hardly seems to
contemplate. We know from St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 16) that there were
such. But doubtless heathen wives hearkened to Christian husbands more
readily than heathen husbands to their Christian wives. The husbands
are to use their position as heads of their wives with judgement and
discretion: _Dwell with your wives according to knowledge_. The
knowledge of which St. Peter speaks is not religious, godly, Christian
knowledge, but that foresight and thoughtfulness which the
responsibility of the husband calls for. He will understand what
things for his wife's sake he should do or leave undone. This
knowledge, which results in considerate conduct towards her, will
manifest itself in Christian chivalry. The woman is physically the
feebler of the two. No burden beyond her powers will be laid upon her;
and by reason of her weaker nature regard and honour will be felt to
be her due. For the woman is the glory of the man (1 Cor. xi. 7). Such
observance will not degenerate into undue adulation nor foolish
fondness, apt to foster pride and conceit, but will be inspired by the
sense that in God's creation neither is the man without the woman,
nor the woman without the man.
But beyond and above these daily graces of domestic and social
intercourse, the Apostle would have husband and wife knit together by
a higher bond. They are _joint heirs of the grace of life_. Both are
meant to be partakers of the heavenly inheritance, and such
participation makes their chief duty here to be preparation for the
life to come. Those who are bound together not by wedlock only, but by
the hope of a common salvation, will find a motive in that thought to
help each other in life's pilgrimage, each to shun all that might
cause the other to stumble: _That your prayers be not hindered_. They
are fellow-travellers with the same needs. Together they can bring
their requests before God, and where the two join in heart and soul
Christ has promised to be present as the Third. And in praying they
will know one another's necessities. This is the grandest knowledge
the husband can attain to for the honouring of his wife; and using it,
he will speed their united supplications to the throne of grace, and
the union of hearts will not fail of its blessing.
X
_THEY WHO BLESS ARE BLESSED_
"Finally, _be_ ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as
brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for
evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for
hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For
he that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his
tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: and let
him turn away from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and
pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and
His ears unto their supplication: but the face of the Lord is
upon them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye
be zealous of that which is good? But and if ye should suffer for
righteousness' sake, blessed _are ye_: and fear not their fear,
neither be troubled; but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord:
_being_ ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you
a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness
and fear: having a good conscience; that, wherein ye are spoken
against, they may be put to shame who revile your good manner of
life in Christ."--1 Peter iii. 8-16.
The Apostle now ceases from his special admonitions, and enforces
generally such qualities and conduct as must mark all who fear the
Lord. _Finally_, he says--and the word may indicate the close of his
counsels; but the virtues which he inculcates are of so important a
character that he may very well intend them as the apex and crown of
all his previous advice--_be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving
as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded_. St. Peter has here
grouped together a number of epithets of which all but one are only
used in the New Testament by himself, and they are of that graphic
character which is so conspicuous in all the Apostle's language.
_Like-minded._ If the word be not there, the spirit is largely
exemplified in the early history of the Church. How often we hear the
phrase "with one accord" in the opening chapters of the Acts. Thus the
disciples continued in prayer (i. 14); thus they went daily to the
Temple (ii. 46); thus they lifted up their voices to God (iv. 24), for
all they that believed were of one heart and one soul (iv. 32). Such
lives exhibit harmony of thought, the same aim and purpose. The men
may not, will not, always use the same means or follow the same
methods, but they will all be seeking one result. Such unity is worth
more than uniformity. _Compassionate._ This feeling St. Paul describes
(Rom. xii. 15) as rejoicing with them that do rejoice and weeping with
them that weep. For the παθήματα of this life are not
always sorrowful, though the best of them are not worthy to be
compared with the glory that shall be revealed (Rom. viii. 18)._Loving
as brethren._ The sense of the brotherhood of Christians is strongly
marked in all the New Testament Scriptures. It is the name by which
our Lord claims fellowship with men, being not ashamed to call them
brethren. It is the designation of the Christian body from the first
(Matt. xxiii. 8), is constantly found in the Acts and the Epistles
(Acts vi. 3, ix. 30, xi. 29), and has been used of the Church in every
age, marking how as one family we dwell in Him. Next comes the word
which is not St. Peter's alone: _Tender-hearted_. St. Paul has it
(Eph. iv. 32), but it is no Greek notion. It was a Jewish idea that
deep feeling was closely connected with some of the organs of the
body; and in the Old Testament, as in the story of Joseph (Gen.
xliii. 30) and elsewhere (1 Kings iii. 26), we come upon such phrases
as "His bowels did yearn upon his brother." This Hebrew notion the
LXX. has conveyed into Greek by the word which St. Peter here uses,
and which those translators had used and consecrated long before. For
them so exalted was the thought contained in it that they employ it in
the prayer of Manasses (ver. 7) to express the tenderness of God
towards the penitent, the yearning love of the Father, who sees the
prodigal afar off, and has compassion. _Humble-minded._ This word and
those akin to it are almost a New Testament creation. The heathen had
no admiration for the temper it expresses, and where they do use the
word it is in a bad sense as signifying "cowardly" and "mean-spirited."
Before Christ none had taught, "He that is greatest among you shall be
your servant" (Matt. xxiii. 11).