1 Peter 4:8

1 Peter 4:8. Before all things having your love one to another intense. The ‘and' of the A. V. is cancelled by the R. V. and the best authorities. This exhortation and the following are put in the participial form, as being immediately connected with the broad counsels of 1 Peter 4:7. The preference which is given to brotherly love is not given as if it were superior to prayer and the other virtues, or as if these were to be subordinated to the interests of that, but because without it nothing else can make the inner life of the Church what it should be. Neither is it brotherly love in itself that is enjoined (for that is taken for granted), but the duty of giving it fullest scope. It is to be cultivated with ‘persevering intensity' (Huther), as the disposition to which the soul without risk can surrender itself entirely, and which, the more it is cherished, adds new grace to sobriety and the other virtues, and deepens the life of the Church. On the ‘fervent' of the A. V. see 1 Peter 1:22.

because love covereth a multitude of sins. A reason for the pre-eminence assigned to unreserved brotherly love. The reason is found in what love does now and naturally, within the Church. The better reading is the present ‘covereth,' not the future ‘shall cover.' The sentence recalls the similar statement in Proverbs 10:12. Although Peter's version varies somewhat from it (e.g. in introducing a ‘multitude' for ‘all,' using a different term for ‘sin,' etc.), it is plain that he has the Old Testament statement in his mind, whether he is quoting directly from the Book of Proverbs or using what had come to be a current saying. The parallelism in which it is set with ‘hatred' makes its point quite clear. It is that love works for concord, throwing a covering over sins, forgiving them, excusing them, making as little of them as possible, while the genius of hatred is the opposite. ‘ Hatred stirs strife, aggravates and makes the worst of all, but love covers a multitude of sins: it delights not in undue disclosing of brethren's failings, doth not eye them rigidly, nor expose them willingly to the eyes of others' (Leighton). This also is Peter's idea. What he has in view is the influence of love upon the life of the Church. He speaks of it, therefore, as being of the nature to act as Paul describes it in his great hymn of charity, when he says it ‘beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things' (1 Corinthians 13:7). Thus the sins referred to are our neighbour's sins, and the covering meant is the veil of charity. The passage says nothing of the effect of love on ourselves. Far less does it lend any countenance to the Roman Catholic notion of a justification on the ground of a faith informed and animated by love. Neither is Peter's meaning quite the same as that of James. The latter, also, makes use of this proverb (James 5:20), in illustration of what love is in relation to the sins of others. But the case which he has in view is that of the erring brother, and the covering of sins is that which love effects when it seeks and secures the brother's reclamation.