1 Peter 3:12

Over.. against] RV 'upon.. upon.' God's aspect is the same to each, it is man who turns 'grace' into 'wrath': cp. Exodus 14:24.

C (i) 1 Peter 3:13;, deals chiefly with faith, (ii) 1 Peter 4:1 with conduct. It brings out deeper and deeper doctrine as it proceeds about the purpose and meaning of suffering. 'Who will harm you if you are zealous for the good? Even if you should suffer for the righteous cause you would be blessed. Take the ancient encouragement of Israel to yourselves. Enter into its fullest meaning by using the interpretation of the old words which Christ's life has given, and sanctify Him in your hearts, though in visible form you cannot see Him, as the Lord of whom the Psalmist spoke. Be ready to give answer to any one that asks you about this hope which is in you, and which seems so strange to him; but answer meekly, and remember that though you need not fear him, you do fear God. Have therefore a good conscience. Your own hope will die away if you have not that, but with it you will find that the very slanders you suffer from will turn out to be the means of doing good to your enemies. Even as Christ did, for He suffered, the just for the unjust, that He might thus bring us who were among the unjust to God. His sufferings were the means of His doing so. Through suffering death in His flesh He entered into a wider life in His spirit, and went a journey that none could go in the flesh, and as a spirit preached to spirits. For us another way of salvation is appointed. The time when those spirits lived on earth prefigured the times of Christ. As then God prepared a place of safety from destruction, by directing Noah to build an ark into which eight persons were brought into safety through the dangerous waters of the flood, so now we have the fellowship of Christ into which we are brought by baptism, that is, through the resurrection of Christ which was the outcome of His painful death. Baptism, itself a painful step for the convert in a heathen land to take, is indeed our sharing in Christ's death and resurrection; not so, however, if we look upon it as a mere form, but truly so, if we receive it with a good conscience, which, as we submit to the symbolic washing, appeals to God to accept it through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has completed His redeeming work by ascending into heaven in the perfection of His human and divine nature, and sits supreme, as the Psalmist prophesied, at the right hand of God.'