1 Peter 2

1. WHEREFORE laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil 2 speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, 4 disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are 5 built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to 6 God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion 7 a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. 8 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the 9 stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone 10 of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disob- 11 dient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal 12 priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a 13 people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained 14 mercy. Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, 15 which war against the soul; having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, 16 whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they 17 shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 18 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the 19 king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment 20 of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with 21 well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your 22 liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the 23 brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all 24 fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, 25 if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is 26 it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do 27 well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto 28 were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should 29 follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was 30 reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to 31 him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, 32 that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 33 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of 34 your souls.

“I AM not come to destroy,” said Christ, “but to fulfill”; and as in his own sacrifice he fulfilled the ritual of the law, and in his own mediation now fulfills its priesthood, so in his Church he realizes the ideal of the temple as the spiritual habitation of God. How wondrous is this temple! built upon the stone that God had chosen and designated as his offering of love before the world began; built of living stones, conscious of their position, feeling their union with the foundation, and radiating the glory which they receive from the presence of God—even as stones hewn from the quarry, and set on high in ordered beauty, they “show forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.” J. P. T.—We often think and speak as if little was accomplished, because little is seen on earth. But we forget that only part of the living structure is here, and this a small part. Every moment, blessed souls, fitted by gracious discipline in this vale, by the axe and hammer and furnace of trial, and the molding hand of sanctification, are carried away in angelic arms, to be placed in the house above. This is only the preparatory state. Out of this mass God is gathering his elect, and taking them to his temple. There is nothing which we can do in life so important as to contribute in some humble measure to the upbuilding of the Church. It is the only work of which the fruit can not be lost. One soul saved by our means is a living stone added to the edifice. One soul made holier and better through our labors is a new ornament to the unseen sanctuary. Not a toil, a self-denial, or a tear shall fail of recognition; though lost to the view of men, “the day will reveal it.” J. W. A.

2. Grow thereby.** The word feeds faith, by setting before it the free grace of God, his rich promises, and his power and truth to perform them all; showing it the strength of the new covenant, holding in Christ, in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen; and drawing faith still to rest more entirely upon his righteousness. It feeds repentance by making the vileness and deformity of sin daily more clear and visible. It increaseth love to God by opening up still more and more of his infinite excellency and loveliness. But, above all other considerations, the word is the increaser of grace in that it holds forth Jesus Christ to our view to look upon, not only as the perfect pattern, but as the full fountain of all grace, from whose fullness we all receive. The contemplating of him as the perfect image of God, and then drawing from him as having in himself a treasure for us—these give the soul more of that image, which is truly spiritual growth.

3. This looks back to the whole exhortation. For, if you have tasted of that kindness and sweetness of God in Christ, there will be nothing but love and meekness and singleness of heart; therefore they that have bitter, malicious spirits evidence they have not tasted of the love of God. This graciousness is first conveyed to us by the word; there we taste it, and there still we are to seek it; there the love of God in Christ streams forth in the several promises; the heart that cleaves to the word of God, and delights in it, can not but find in it daily new tastes of his goodness; there it reads his love, and by that stirs up its own to him, and so grows, and loves every day more than the former, and thus is tending from tastes to fullness.

4,5. The whole building is Christ mystical: Christ, together with the entire body of the elect; he as the foundation, and they as the stones built upon him; he the living stone, and they likewise, by union with him, as living stones; he having life in himself, and they deriving it from him; he primitively living, and they by participation. For therefore is he called here a living stone, not only because of his immortality and glorious resurrection, but because he is the principle of spiritual and eternal life unto us, a living foundation, that transfuses this life into the whole building and every stone of it, in whom all the building is fifty framed together. L.—Shut the eyes of the body, open the eyes of the soul, and you will say with Pascal, “Oh, with how great pomp and magnificence has he come in the eyes of the heart, and of those who see wisdom!” Behold for once, behold the true temple of the true God! Vast thoughts, secular traditions, splendid recollections, all these are stones; cold materials, hard and dead. There are other stones, living stones, which form together a spiritual building, a holy priesthood. Of the number of those living stones are all those sincere and humble souls who by repentance have been born to the new life which is hidden with Christ in God; souls, some of whom perhaps have not been able to give God anything but themselves, but given unreservedly. A. V.—By various discipline here God fits and polishes each living stone for the place which it is destined to occupy in the spiritual temple; and, when all the stones are made ready, he will build them together each into its place, and exhibit to men and angels their perfect unity. E. M. G.

An holy priesthood. The New Testament owns the idea of the priesthood, but applies it expressly to all true Christians. All have immediate access to Christ by faith, and should daily offer him the sacrifices of praise and intercession. In virtue of their union with Christ they are here called “a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices.” It is by this universal priesthood that we are to account for the liberty of teaching and the participation of the people in the worship and government of the Church which we observe in the apostolic age. P. S.—The priesthood of the law represented Him as the great High Priest that offered up himself for our sins, and that is altogether incommunicable; neither is there any peculiar office of priesthood for offering sacrifice in the Christian Church but His alone who is Head of it. But this dignity here mentioned, of a spiritual priesthood offering spiritual sacrifice, is common to all those that are in Christ; as they are living stones built on him into a spiritual temple, so they are priests of that same temple. As he was, after a transcendent manner, temple and priest and sacrifice, so, in their kind, are Christians all these three through him; and by his Spirit that is in them their offerings through him are made acceptable. L.—It is the certain doctrine of Scripture that God requires from Christians, not indeed a sin- or trespass-offering, which we could never render, but offerings of sweet savor, as a testimony of their love and gratitude. These are generally described as “spiritual sacrifices,” which we are ordained to offer. E. M. G.

6. The rapid transition of mind here certainly gives origin to a double figure: for the same persons who in one clause are called the temple are in the next represented as the worshipers. Both temple and worshipers, in the type, were intended to show forth the Church of God, or the entire body of sanctified believers. J. W. A.—The prophecy here cited we find inserted in the middle of a very sad denunciation of judgment against the Jews. And this is usual with the prophets—particularly with this evangelical prophet Isaiah—to uphold the spirits of the godly in the worst times with this one great consolation, the promise of the Messiah; as weighing down all, both temporal distresses and deliverances. Hence are those sudden ascents (so frequent in the prophets), from their present subject, to this great Hope of Israel. And, if this expectation of a Saviour was so pertinent a comfort in all estates so many ages before the accomplishment of it, how wrongfully do we undervalue it, being accomplished, if we can not live upon it and answer all with it, and sweeten all our griefs in this advantage, that there is a foundation-stone laid in Zion, on which they that are builded shall be sure not to be ashamed! L.

7. Every man obeys Christ as he prizes Christ, and no otherwise. The higher price any soul sets upon Christ, the more noble will that soul be in its obedience to Christ. Brooks.

9. Hath called. That God, who is the author of all-kind of being, hath called you from darkness into his marvelous light. If you be a chosen generation, it is he that hath chosen you. If you be a royal priesthood, you know that it is he that hath anointed you. If a holy nation, he hath sanctified you. If a peculiar or purchased people, it is he that hath bought you. All are in this calling. L.—The Church Catholic, despite all appearances to the contrary, is a holy body, for they only are its members who are in true and living fellowship with Christ. All others, however they may have the outward notes of belonging to it, are in it, but not of it. They are like chaff on the same barn-floor with the grain, tares growing in the same field with the wheat, endured for a while, but in the end to be separated off, the evil from the good. Aug.

11. This entreaty is strengthened much by the words Dearly beloved. Scarce can the harshest reproofs, much less gentle reproofs, be thrown back that have upon them the stamp of love. That which is known to come from love can not readily but be so received too, and it is thus expressed for that very purpose, that the request may be the more welcome. L.—Warnings and cautions against the lusts of the flesh are so often accompanied by expressions of love and tenderness as to make you think that the connection is not accidental. Hear how the Holy Ghost speaks to us here in warning us of certain sins, the consciousness of which disposes us to indulge fear and despair. Oh, the tenderness of God, in dealing with us as sinners in this world of mercy! N. A.

Strangers and pilgrims. If you were citizens of this world, then you might drive the same trade with them; but, seeing you are chosen and called into a new society, made free of another city, and are therefore here but travelers passing through to your own country, there should be this difference betwixt you and the world, that while they live as at home, your carriage be such as fits strangers; as wise strangers living warily and soberly, minding most of all your journey homeward, suspecting dangers and snares in your way, and so walking with holy fear, as the Hebrew word for a stranger imports. We are to abstain not only from the serving of our flesh in things forbidden, as unjust gain or unlawful pleasures, but also from immoderate desire of and delighting in any earthly thing, although it may be in itself lawfully desired and used; yea, to have any feverish, pressing thirst after even just gain, or after earthly delights though lawful, is a thing very unbeseming the dignity of a Christian. It was a high speech of a heathen, that he was greater and born to greater things than to be a servant to his body; how much more ought he that is born again to say so, being born heir to a crown that fadeth not away!

12. Honest. Fair or beautiful; the same word doth fitly signify goodness and beauty. Could the beauty of virtue be seen, said a philosopher, it would draw all to love it. A Christian, holy conversation hath such a beauty, as when they that are strangers to it begin to discern it anywise a right, they can not choose but love it; and where it begets not love, yet it silences calumny, or at least evinces its falsehood. Trouble not yourselves with many apologies and clearings when you are evil spoken of, but let the tract of your life answer for you, your honest and blameless conversation. That will be the shortest and most real and effectual way of confuting all obloquies. It was a king that said, It was kingly to do well and be ill spoke of. Well may Christians acknowledge it to be true, when they consider that it was the lot of their king, Jesus Christ; and well may they be content, seeing he hath made them likewise kings (as we heard, verse 9), to be conformable to him in this too. This is a kingly way of suffering, to be unjustly evil spoken of and still to go on in doing the more good, always aiming in so doing, as our Lord did, at the glory of our heavenly Father. L.

13-17. Christianity does not prescribe any peculiar form of government, but regulates the respective duties, both of those who govern and those who are governed. It reminds the latter that their Christian profession does by no means dissolve or weaken their political obligations, but confirms and strengthens them; that their religion makes no other alteration than that of rendering them still better citizens and better subjects, and of enforcing every civil tie by the sanction of divine as well as human authority. They are not, therefore, to use their spiritual freedom “as a cloak of maliciousness,” as a cover for faction and mischief, as a pretense for disturbing the peace and order of society; but they are to submit themselves patiently to “every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” P.

It is obviously not every part of his life that was intended to be an example to man, but only that in which he stood in the relations common to men, in which he moved and walked as one of them. And he did move and mingle freely with men of all classes and of all conditions. He was placed not only in such a condition in life, but in so many situations—he came into collision with human passion and interest in so many ways—as most fully to test his character and make him an example to all. M. H.—As man, he had specific traits of character, the assemblage of which in harmony, resting on a foundation of spotless godliness, constituted his perfection. These traits of character were cultivated under the guiding hand of Providence and the control of godliness, until they reached their highest beauty and excellence. Hence the beauty of his example, hence his nearness to our hearts, and the soft attractiveness of his love. T. D. W.—In imitating Christ no man is led out of his sphere. The rich and the poor, the contemplative and the active, the gifted and the ungifted, men of every class and of all dispositions, find in him the teaching they need; and all are led, by looking to him, into that path which is most suitable for them. He is the contrast of all that men should shun and the perfection of all they should copy. J. A.

23. “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again.” Ah! why are we who call ourselves his disciples so little like him? and when shall we understand that we are not genuine Christians so long as the crown of meekness is wanting to our sullied brow? We always wish to gain it through the maintenance of our real or imagined rights: Jesus overcame through suffering wrong, but never doing wrong. Van O.—Instead of revilings and threatenings, he committed all to him that judgeth righteously. And this is the true method of Christian patience, that which quiets the mind and keeps it from the boiling, tumultuous thoughts of revenge: to turn the whole matter into God’s hand, to resign it over to him to prosecute when and as he thinks good. Not to reply to reproach with reproach, as our custom is, to give an ill word for another, or two for one to be sure not to be behind. Men take a pride in this, and think it ridiculous simplicity to suffer; and this makes strifes and contention so much to abound. But it is true greatness of spirit to despise the most of those things which set you usually on fire one against another. It were a part of the Spirit of Christ in you, and is there any spirit greater than that, think you? Oh, that there were less of the spirit of the dragon, and more of the spirit of the dove, among us!

24. That Jesus Christ is in doing and suffering our supreme and matchless example, and that he came to be so, is a truth. But that he is nothing further, and came for no other end, is a high point of falsehood; for how should man be enabled to learn and follow that example of obedience unless there were more in Christ? and what would become of that great reckoning of disobedience that man stands guilty of? No, these are too narrow; he came to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, and for this purpose had a body fitted for him and given him to bear this burden; to do this as the will of his Father; to stand for us instead of all offerings and sacrifices; and by that will, says the apostle, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. L.—If Christ in any real sense died instead of sinners, he was in his death their representative; this character which he thus assumed can not be disassociated from his death, and therefore his death is vicariously penal. He bears on his cross “our sins and the penalty of our sins.” Bright.—In virtue of the union constituted by the wisdom and grace of God between the Saviour and mankind, he voluntarily put himself in their place, and suffered as if he had been a transgressor, in order that they might be delivered from the guilt or legal condemnation of their sins, and by consequence from the pollution and practical power of sin. The Saviour of mankind voluntarily yielded himself a sacrifice of expiation, bearing the guilt and punishment of sin not his own. The fire of heaven consumed the sacrifice. The tremendous manifestations of God’s displeasure against sin he endured, though in him was no sin; and he endured them in a manner of which even those unhappy spirits, who shall drink the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, will never be able to form an adequate idea. They know not the holy and exquisite sensibility which belonged to this immaculate sacrifice. Pye Smith.—I rest on the fact that on him all our iniquities were laid; that he, by the satisfaction of his meritorious death, standing in the root of our nature as Adam did, suffered, exhausted once for all, the punishment of the world’s sin. A.

The sublime idea of the incarnation and death of the Son could only have originated in the mind of him who is wonderful in counsel and unsearchable in his judgments. In Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, we behold a kinsman, who, through the eternal Spirit, is able to endure the wrath of God—a man who can satisfy justice and yet recover from the stroke—a being who could die and in dying conquer death. Great indeed is the mystery of godliness, but it is no less glorious than great. Through the infinite wisdom of God a suitable substitute is found who takes the place of the guilty; the law is executed in its utmost rigors, and God is just, perfectly and gloriously just, in justifying those who believe. J. H. T.