1 Peter 2:16

As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. AS FREE - from sin, and to duty: 'the Lord's freemen' (1 Corinthians 7:22), connected with 1 Peter 2:15, doing well as being free. "Well doing" (1 Peter 2:15) is the natural fruit of being Christ's freemen, made free by "the truth" from sin's bondage. Duty is enforced to guard against licentiousness; but the way is by love and the holy instincts of Christian liberty. We have given principles, not details. NOT USING, [ mee (G3361) hos ...

16_As free _This is said by way of anticipation, that he might obviate those things which are usually objected to with regard to the liberty of God’s children. For as men are naturally ingenious in laying hold on what may be for their advantage, many, at the commencement of the Gospel, thought themselves free to live only for themselves. This doting opinion, then, is what Peter corrects; and he briefly shews how much the liberty of Christians differed from unbridled licentiousness. And, in the first place, he denies that there is any veil or pretext for wickedness, by which he intimates, that there is no liberty given us to hurt our neighbors, or to do any harm to others. True liberty, then, is that which harms or injures no one. To confirm this, he declares that those are free who serve God. It is obvious, hence, to conclude, that we obtain liberty, in order that we may more promptly an...

13-17 A Christian conversation must be honest; which it cannot be, if there is not a just and careful discharge of all relative duties: the apostle here treats of these distinctly. Regard to those duties is the will of God, consequently, the Christian's duty, and the way to silence the base slanders of ignorant and foolish men. Christians must endeavour, in all relations, to behave aright, that they do not make their liberty a cloak or covering for any wickedness, or for the neglect of duty; but they must remember that they are servants of God....

Verse 16. _AS FREE_] The Jews pretended that they were a free people, and owed allegiance to God alone; hence they were continually rebelling against the Roman government, to which God had subjected them because of their rebellion against him: thus they _used their liberty for a cloak of maliciousness_-for a _pretext_ of rebellion, and by it endeavoured to vindicate their seditious and rebellious conduct. _BUT AS THE SERVANTS OF GOD._] These were _free_ from sin and Satan, but they were the _servants of God-bound_ to obey him; and, as he had made it their duty to obey the civil magistrate, they served God by submitting to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake....

AS FREE - That is, they were to consider themselves as freemen, as having a right to liberty. The Jews boasted much of their freedom, and regarded it as a birthright privilege that they were free, John 8:33. They never willingly acknowledged their subjection to any other power, but claimed it as an elementary idea of their civil constitution that God only was their Sovereign. They were indeed conquered by the Romans, and paid tribute, but they did it because they were compelled to do it, and it was even a question much debated among them whether they should do it or not Matthew 22:17. Josephus has often referred to the fact that the Jews rebelled against the Romans under the plea that they were a free people, and that they were subject only to God. This idea of essential freedom the

EXPOSITIONS 1 PETER 2:1 WHEREFORE LAYING ASIDE. Those who would wear the white robe of regeneration must lay aside the filthy garments (Zechariah 3:3) of the old carnal life. So St. Paul bids us put off the old man and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22, Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:8, Colossians 3:10; comp. also Romans 13:14

AS FREE,.... These converted Jews might value themselves on their freedom, partly as the descendants of Abraham, and so freeborn, and not to be brought into bondage to other people; and chiefly because of their liberty which they had in and by Christ Jews. The apostle allows that they were freemen, that they were Christ's freemen, were free from sin, its damning and domineering power, and from the curses and condemnation of the law, and had freedom of access to God, and a right to all the privileges and immunities of the house of God; but then they were not free to sin, and to live in the contempt of the laws of God and men, to despise government, speak evil of dignities, and break in upon the rules of civil society: AND NOT USING YOUR LIBERTY AS A CLOAK OF MALICIOUSNESS; under a pretence of Christian liberty, to hurt the persons, properties, and estates of men, without looking upon the...

1 Peter 2:1. _Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious._ When the apostle describes us under the character of «newborn babes,» he would have us lay aside all that is inconsistent with that character. Newborn children have no malice; they have no guile or craftiness; they have no hypocrisies, nor envies, nor evil speakings. They are clear from all these evils; would God we were as clear as they are! It would be better to be infants, not speaking at all, than to be among those who speak evil. It would be better to begin life over again than to live long enough to have gained a treasure of malice, and a hoard of cunning, and to have learned the tricks of hypocrisy. Let us be as simple as little c

III. CHRIST THE PATTERN FOR HIS SAINTS CHAPTER 2:11-3:9 _ 1. Abstinence and submission (1 Peter 2:11)_ 2. Christ the pattern for those who suffer (1 Peter 2:18) 3. Glorifying Christ in the marriage relation (1 Peter 3:1) 4. True Christian character (1 Peter 3:8) 1 Peter 2:11 The first exhortation is addressed to them as strangers and pilgrims. Such all true believers are. Because we belong to a heavenly home we cannot be at home in a world which lieth in the wicked one, which has cast out the Lord of glor

1 Peter 2:13. As Jesus had given them an example so were they to live in all dutiful obedience to human authority from the emperor to his representatives, since they constituted the bulwarks of the State. Their service was not mainly to the commonwealth of men, but to the City of God. Of this they were free men, but for that reason they must act so as to commend it their Emperor had as His servants men whose freedom spelled obedience. It is interesting to compare and contrast the view here taken of civil authority with that of Paul in Romans 13 (pp. 774 f.). The State is a human institution to this writer, while to Paul it is a Divine one, and the magistrate himself a minister of God. St. Peter, throughout the epistle, maintains that God is King, but rules through Law. His frame of mind is constitutional; St. Paul, the Roman citizen, is imperialist both in politics and in theology (Bigg)...