1Pe 3:9-22 | Geneva | STEP | {11} Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; {12} knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. (11) We must not only not recompense injury for injury, but we must also recompense them with benefits. (12) An argument taken by comparison: Seeing that we ourselves are unworthy of so great bountifulness, than forgive one another's faults? And from this verse to the end of the chapter, , there is a digression, to exhort us valiantly to bear afflictions.

1 Peter 3:9-22

{11} Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; {12} knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

(11) We must not only not recompense injury for injury, but we must also recompense them with benefits. (12) An argument taken by comparison: Seeing that we ourselves are unworthy of so great bountifulness, than forgive one another's faults? And from this verse to the end of the chapter, 1Pe 3:9-22, there is a digression, to exhort us valiantly to bear afflictions. {13} For he that will love life, and {h} see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:

(13) A secret objection: But this our patience shall be nothing else but an inciting and hardening of the wicked in their wickedness, to make them set upon us more boldly and destroy us. Indeed (faith the apostle by the words of David) to live without doing harm, and to follow after peace when it flies away, is the way to that happy and quiet peace. If so be any man be afflicted for doing justly, the Lord marks all things, and will in his time deliver the godly, who cry to him, and will destroy the wicked. (h) Lead a blessed and happy life. For the eyes of the Lord [are] over the righteous, and his ears [are open] unto their prayers: but the {i} face of the Lord [is] against them that do evil.

(i) This word "face" after the manner of the Hebrews, is taken for "anger". {14} And who [is] he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

(14) The second argument: when the wicked are provoked, they are more wayward: therefore they must instead be won by good deeds. If they cannot be gained by that means also, yet nonetheless we shall be blessed if we suffer for righteousness sake. But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy [are ye]: {15} and be not afraid of their {k} terror, neither be troubled;

(15) A most certain counsel in afflictions, be they never so terrible, to be of a steady mind and to stand fast. But how shall we attain to it? If we sanctify God in our minds and hearts, that is to say, if we rest upon him as one that is almighty that loves mankind, that is good and true indeed. (k) Be not dismayed as they are. But {l} sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: {16} and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

(l) Give him all prayers and glory, and hang only on him.

(16) He will have us, when we are afflicted for righteousness sake, to be careful not for redeeming of our life, either with denying or renouncing the truth, or with like violence, or any such means: but rather to give an account of our faith boldly, and yet with a meek spirit, and full of godly reverence, that the enemies may not have anything justly to object, but may rather be ashamed of themselves. {17} For [it is] better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

(17) A reason which stands upon two general rules of Christianity, which nonetheless all men do not allow. The one is, if we must suffer afflictions, it is better to suffer wrongfully than rightfully: the other is this, because we are so afflicted not by accident, but by the will of our God. {18} For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, {19} the just for the unjust, {20} that he might bring us to God, {21} being put to death in the {m} flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

(18) A proof of either of the rules, by the example of Christ himself our chief pattern, who was afflicted not for his own sins (which were none) but for ours, and that according to his Father's decree. (19) An argument taken by comparison: Christ the just, suffered for us that are unjust and shall it grieve us who are unjust, to suffer for the cause of Christ. (20) Another argument being partly taken of things coupled together, that is, because Christ brings us to his Father that same way that he went himself, and partly from the cause efficient: that is, because Christ is not only set before us for an example to follow, but also he holds us up by his power in all the difficulties of this life, until he bring us to his Father. (21) Another argument taken from the happy end of these afflictions, in which Christ also goes before us both in example and power, as one who suffered most grievous torments even to death, although but only in one part of him, that is, in the flesh or man's nature: but yet became conqueror by virtue of his divinity. (m) As touching his manhood, for his body was dead, and his soul felt the sorrows of death. {22} By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

(22) A secret objection: Christ indeed might do this, but what is that to us? Indeed (faith the apostle) for Christ has showed his power in all ages both in the preservation of the godly, were they never so few and miserable, and in avenging the rebellion of his enemies, as it appears by the history of the flood: for Christ is he who in those days (when God through his patience appointed a time of repentance to the world) was present, not in corporal presence, but by his divine power, preaching repentance, even by the mouth of Noah himself who then prepared the ark, to those disobedient spirits who are now in prison, waiting for the full recompence of their rebellion, and saved those few, (that is, only eight people) in the water. Which sometime were disobedient, when {n} once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight {o} souls were saved by water.

(n) This word "once" shows that there was a furthermost day appointed, and if that were once past, there should be no more. (o) Men. {23} 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 {p} God,) {24} by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:

(23) A proportional applying of the former example to the time which followed the coming of Christ: for the preservation of Noah in the waters, was a figure of our baptism, not as though the material water of baptism shows us, as those waters which bare up the ark saved Noah, but because Christ with his inward virtue, which the outward baptism shadows, preserves us being washed, so that we may call upon God with a good conscience. (p) The conscience being sanctified, may freely call upon God. (24) That same virtue, by which Christ rose again, and now being carried up into heaven has received all power, does at this day defend and preserve us.