1 Peter 3

1. LIKEWISE, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the 2 word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while 3 they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning, let it not be that 4 outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of ap- 5 parel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the 6 ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after 7 this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, 8 being in subjection unto their own husbands: even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him 9 lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amaze- 7 ment. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them 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. 8 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be 9 pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise 10 blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that 11 they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: 13 but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, 14 if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, 15 happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord 16 God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a 17 reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear: having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse 18 your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer 19 for well doing, than for evil doing. 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 20 the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime 21 were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while 22 the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even 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 23 Christ: who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

WE may disparage the power that is operating within us. It is the common mistake of retired and suffering Christians. Because they are not called to public manifestations, they think there is no advancement. But faith may be diffusing its mighty influence on every side. Holy devotion may be sending up clouds of incense, acceptable to God. Intercessory prayer may be stretching its arms of love, to take in all the brotherhood of Christ and all the family of man. Appetite and passion may be dying, by repeated blows. Patience may be approaching to its perfect work. Submission to God’s chastising hand may be gaining strength in the furnace. The world may be waning, and the attraction of heaven waxing more luminous. Joy in the Lord may be like the fragrance of a field which God hath blessed. And gentle humility, the ornament and preservative of all graces, may be growing more constant. Is all this nothing? Is it not the very process to which our Master calls us? J. W. A.—The slowness of those steps by which you are following after your blessed Master—slow in spite of your best efforts—has disheartened you. But think. You have not to overtake your Lord, in order to be sure of his comfort and his blessing. He is not hurrying away from you. He has come to you. All the way from heaven—down to our poor, miserable mortality he has come, that he might seek after us, and find us, and stand with us just where we are, and love us here—if only our willing hearts will let him. Would he have been likely to do and to give all that if he did not love you; if he did not mean to have you for his own? F. D. H.

1. That which is here said of their conversation holds of the husband in the like case, and of friends and kindred and of all Christians, in reference to them with whom they converse; that their spotless holy carriage as Christians, and as Christian husbands, wives, or friends, is a hopeful means of converting others who believe not. Men who are prejudiced observe actions a great deal more than words. In those first times especially, the blameless carriage of Christians did much to the increasing of their number.

3,4. Though clothing was first drawn on by necessity, yet 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 putting on of apparel, for his not is comparative; not this adorning but the ornament of a meek spirit, that rather and as more comely and precious. The apostle doth, indeed, check and forbid vanity and excess in apparel, and excessive delight in lawful decorum, but his prime end is to recommend this other ornament of the soul, the hidden man of the heart. The particular grace he recommends, this meekness and quietness of spirit, is, withal, the comeliness of every Christian in every estate; it is not a woman’s garment or ornament, improper for men.

7. That the Christian husband and wife are equally coheirs of the same grace of life is that which most strongly binds all these duties on the hearts of husbands and wives; and most strongly indeed binds their hearts together and makes them one. If each be reconciled unto God in Christ, and so heirs of life and one with God, then are they truly one in God; and that is the surest and sweetest union that can be. Natural love hath risen very high in some husbands and wives; but the highest of it falls very far short of that which holds in God. Hearts concentrating in him are most excellently one. That love which is cemented by youth and beauty, when these moulder and decay it fades too. That is somewhat purer and so more lasting, that holds in a natural or moral harmony of minds, yet these likewise may alter and change. But the most refined, most spiritual, and most indissoluble is that which is knit with the highest and purest Spirit. And the ignorance or disregard of this is the great cause of so much bitterness, or so little true sweetness, in the life of most married persons, because God is left out, because they meet not as one in him.

That your prayers be not hindered. He takes it for granted that the heirs of life can not live without prayer. This is the proper breathing and language of these heirs. Can the husband and wife have that love, wisdom, and meekness that may make their life happy, and that blessing that may make their affairs successful, while they neglect God, the only giver of these and all good things? It is prayer that sanctifies, seasons, and blesses all.

8. This one verse hath a cluster of five Christian graces or virtues. That which is in the middle as the stalk or root of the rest, love, and the other growing out of it, two on each side; unanimity and sympathy on one side, and pity and courtesy on the other.

Be pitiful. Christian pity is more than manly, it is divine. There is of natural pity most in the best and most ingenuous natures, but where it is spiritual it is a prime lineament of the image of God; and the more absolute and unselfish it is in regard of those toward whom it acts, the more it is like unto God; looking upon misery as a sufficient incentive of pity and mercy, without the ingredient of any other consideration. Be courteous. It is not that graver and wiser way of external plausible deportment that answers fully this word, it is the outer half indeed; but the thing is a radical sweetness in the temper of the mind that spreads itself into a man’s words and actions. And this is not merely natural, a gentle, kind disposition, which indeed some have; but this is spiritual, from a new nature descended from heaven, and so in its original and nature it far excels the other, supplies it where it is not in nature, and doth not only increase it where it is, but elevates it above itself, renews it, and sets a more excellent stamp upon it. Religion is in this mistaken sometimes, in that men think it imprints an unkindly roughness and austerity upon the mind and carriage. L.—The most earthly of earthly actions, those which are most bound up with this transitory state of things, and which have no intrinsic dignity or sacredness whatever, may be spiritualized by importing into them a spiritual intention. The little courtesies, for example, which society requires may be yielded simply because they are social requirements, in which case they will be often done “grudgingly, and of necessity”; or they may be regarded as so many opportunities of compliance with the inspired precept, “Be courteous,” in which case they will be done cheerfully, “as to the Lord, and not unto men.” A. M.

9. “Not rendering to others evil for evil, or reproach for reproach, but contrariwise blessing them.” A.

10, 11. Life, long life, and days of good, is the thing men most desire. But he that will wisely love it, that will take the way to it, must refrain his tongue from evil; he must eschew evil and do good; seek peace and ensue it. To be deprived of peace calls for our prayers and tears to pursue it, and entreat its return; to seek it from his hand that is the sovereign Dispenser of peace and war; to seek to be at peace with him, and thereby good, all good shall come unto us. We may pursue it among men and not overtake it; we may use all good means and fall short. But pursue it up as far as the throne of grace; seek it by prayer, and that will overtake it, will be sure to find it in God’s hand.

12. Against them that do evil.** Prosper they may in their affairs and estates, may have riches and friends, and the world smiling on them on all hands; but there is that one thing that damps all, the face of the Lord is against them. This they feel not indeed for the time; it is an invisible ill, out of sight and out of mind with them. But there is a time of the appearing of this face of the Lord against them, the revelation of his righteous judgment. L.

15. Light in the understanding is scarcely less an object with Christianity than purity in the affections. Its whole scope and tendency is to magnify the importance of truth. The enemies of Christianity can not point out anything, either in its letter or spirit, which would restrict knowledge or cramp the intellect. We are, indeed, required to have faith; but we are also required to “add to faith knowledge.” We are to adopt no conviction on the ground of any blind impulse; we are always to be able to give a reason of the hope that is in us. We glory in Christianity as a religion of light not less than a religion of love. M. H.—We are to answer every one that inquires a reason, or an account; which supposes something receptive of it. We ought to judge ourselves engaged to give it, be it an enemy if he will hear; if it gain him not, it may in part convince and cool him; much more, should it be one who ingenuously inquires for satisfaction, and possibly inclines to receive the truth, but has been prejudiced by false representations of it. S. T. C.—With meekness. Truth needs not the service of passion; yea, nothing so disserves it as passion when set to serve it. The spirit of truth is withal the spirit of meekness. The dove that rested on that great champion of truth, who is the truth itself, is from Him derived to the lovers of truth, and they ought to seek the participation of it. The soul that hath the deepest sense of spiritual things, and the truest knowledge of God, is most afraid to miscarry in speaking of him, most tender and wary how to acquit itself when engaged to speak of and for God.

16. The goodness of conscience here recommended is the integrity and holiness of the whole inward man. The ingredients of it are (1) a due light or knowledge of our rule—so much knowledge of the will of God as may regulate you and shew you your way, may teach you how to do and speak and think, as in his presence; (2) a constant using of this light, applying it to all; still seeking a nearer conformity with the known will of our God; daily redressing and ordering the affections by it; not sparing to knock off whatsoever we find irregular within, that our hearts may be polished and brought to a right frame by that rule. And this is the daily inward work of the Christian, his great business, to purify himself, as the Lord is pure. L.—In order to have a good conscience, it is not necessary that a man should be without sin, but that in spiritual things he seeks and desires but one object; that not indeed without stumbling, but yet without willful deviation, he walks in the path of obedience, and longs to be tried by the searcher of hearts, because, in fellowship with God, he desires above all things truth in the inward part. He who in humility can profess this with regard to himself has, in spite of all momentary neglects and failures (which a faithful conscience incessantly points out to him), grounds for a good conscience toward God. Van O.

17. The mind feels itself invincibly firm and content when it hath attained self-resignation to the will of God; to agree to that in everything. This is the very thing wherein tranquillity of spirit lies. And what is gained by our reluctances and repinings but pain to ourselves? God doth what he will whether we consent or not; our disagreeing doth not prevent his purposes, but our own peace. If we will not be led, we are drawn. We must suffer if he will; but if we will what he wills even in suffering, that makes it sweet and easy; when our mind goes along with his, and we willingly move with his providence.

18. The whole life of a Christian is a steady aiming at conformity with Christ; so that whether doing or suffering, there can be no argument so apposite and persuasive as his example. The apostle doth not decline the frequent use of it. Here we have it thus, for Christ also suffered. There can be no higher example. Not only are the sons of adoption sufferers, but the only begotten Son, the eternal heir of glory, in whom all the rest have their title, sonship, and heirship, derived from and dependent on his: not only all the saints, but the king of saints. Who shall now repine at suffering?

Bring us to God. Though the heart once gone from God turns continually farther away from him, yet even wandering it retains that natural relation to God as its center, that it hath no true rest elsewhere. It is made for him, and is therefore restless till it meet with him. And there is no other but the power of Christ alone that is able to effect this, to persuade a sinner to return, to bring home a heart unto God. L.

19, 20. “The meaning of the text appears to be, that the Spirit of Christ influenced Noah, who was a ‘preacher of righteousness,’ to warn the unhappy men, whose spirits were then, and still are, in prison, of the danger which was so near them while the ark was preparing.” Quoted by J. W. A.

—This preaching was done, as to time, while the ark was preparing; as to place, on this earth, not in Hades; on the point by whom, by Christ really, but through Noah instrumentally, whom Peter speaks of (2:5) as a “preacher of righteousness”; on the point to whom specifically, to those hardened, defiant sinners, with whom God in long-suffering waited so long, and of whom he at length said, “My Spirit shall not always strive.” Peter tells the Christians to whom he is writing that it is better to suffer for doing well than for doing ill, and would enforce this by the example of Christ. He suffered for us even unto death, but rose to a more glorious life, and by the Spirit of God was exalted to a deathless, omnipotent power. Expanding and illustrating the latter point, he thinks of the divine Spirit as the embodiment of divine power, and as having been manifested first in his striving with the generation of Noah’s time, but reaching his climax of force after the resurrection of Jesus. The going (of Christ, by the Spirit) to preach to the wicked men of Noah’s time (verse 19) is set over against the going into heaven (verse 22), which shortly followed his resurrection. The former going and preaching proved unavailing; but the latter going, following close upon his death of agony, opened a new era of unsurpassed power and majesty. Therefore, let his saints have no fear of suffering, be it only for righteousness’ sake; there is unspeakable glory to follow. H. C.

20,21. The manner of salvation, as well as the necessity for it, is taught from the history of Noah. He was delivered “by water,” passed through the death in which others were swallowed up, concealed or buried out of sight for a time, and then emerged as by resurrection to render to God his sacrifice of praise. So are we saved by baptism into the death of Christ, by burial with him through “baptism into death,” and by resurrection with him who is risen and gone into heaven. Then and therefore have we good cause to offer our sacrifice of praise to God continually. D. F.

The passage may, with strict justice to the original, be thus paraphrased: “Noah and his family were carried in the ark through the whelming waters of the flood, and thus saved from present temporal death. The antitype to this—I mean baptism, not, however, the mere putting away of the filth of the flesh, but what this material washing signifies, in the answer of a good conscience toward God, given as the result of the inward baptism of the Spirit—now saves us also, or assures us, as God’s pledge, the seal of his promise and his oath, that our bodies shall hereafter be raised from the grave through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or by the same power which raised him from the dead.” J. S. S.

21. Baptism doth save us.** Not by a natural force of the element, though adapted and sacramentally used. But it is in the hand of the Spirit of God, as the word itself is, to purify the conscience and convey grace and salvation to the soul by the reference it hath to and union with that which it represents. It saves by the answer of a good conscience unto God, and it affords that by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Thus we have a true account of the power of sacraments and a discovery of the error of two extremes: 1. Of those that ascribe too much to them, as if they wrought by a natural inherent virtue and carried grace in them inseparably; 2. Of those that ascribe too little to them, making them only signs and badges of our profession. Signs they are, but more than signs merely representing: they are means exhibiting and seals confirming grace to the faithful. But the working of faith and the conveying of Christ into the soul to be received by faith is not a thing put into them to do of themselves, but still in the Supreme Hand that appointed them. And he indeed both causes the souls of his own to receive these his seals with faith, and makes them effectual to confirm that faith which receives them so. They are, then, neither empty signs to them that believe, nor effectual causes of grace to them that believe not.

The taking away of spiritual filthiness as the true and saving effect of baptism, the apostle here expresses by that which is the further result and effect of it, the answer of a good conscience unto God. The purified and good condition of the whole soul may well, as here it doth, go under the name of the good conscience, it being so prime a faculty of it, and as the glass of the whole soul wherein the estate of it is represented. This answer of a good conscience unto God is touching two great points, that are of chief concern to the soul, its justification and sanctification; for baptism is the seal of both, and purges the conscience in both respects. That water is the figure both of the blood and water, the justifying blood of Christ and the pure water of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ: he takes away the condemning guiltiness of sin by the one, and the polluting filthiness by the other.

22. This is added on purpose to show us further what he is, how high and glorious a Saviour we have. The particulars are clear in themselves. The sitting at the right hand of God is a borrowed expression, drawn from earth to heaven, to bring down some notion of heaven to us; to signify to us the supreme dignity of Jesus Christ, God and man, the Mediator of the new covenant, his matchless nearness unto his Father, and the sovereignty given him over heaven and earth. And the subjection of angels is but a more particular specifying of that his dignity and power, as enthroned at the Father’s right hand, they being the most elevated and glorious creatures; so that his authority over all the world is implied in that subjection of the highest and noblest part of it. L.