c. Living as servants: be subject to your masters (2:18–25)
c. Living as servants: be subject to your masters (2:18–25)
1. Even to evil ones (2:18–20)
18. Peter addresses servants, using a less common word, oiketēs. The term is nearly synonymous to doulos, the common New Testament word for ‘servant’ (TDNT 2, p. 261), but oiketēs suggests a nuance of service within a household (LSJ, p. 1202). Both terms have also been translated ‘slave’ (NIV), but the horrible degradation of slaves in 19th-century America gives the word ‘slave’ a far worse connotation than is accurate for most of the society to which Peter was writing. Although mistreatment of slaves could occur then too, it must be remembered that 1st-century slaves were generally well treated and were not only unskilled labourers but often managers, overseers, and trained members of the various professions (doctors, nurses, teachers, musicians, skilled artisans). There was extensive Roman legislation regulating the treatment of slaves. They were normally paid for their services and could expect eventually to purchase their freedom (OCD, p. 995; also p. 793, art. ‘peculium’).
Nevertheless, their service was involuntary (in earlier Roman history slaves had been acquired through war or kidnapping from foreign lands, but by the 1st century most slaves had simply been born into slave households). Their legal status, social standing, and opportunity for economic independence were clearly lower than others in Roman society. So a word stronger than ‘servant’ but weaker than ‘slave’ is needed—something meaning ‘semi-permanent employee without legal or economic freedom’. Although ‘servant’ comes the closest, no single English word is adequate—perhaps because no comparable institution exists in modern Western society.
Therefore, even though there is no exact parallel to such ‘servant’ status in modern society, the fact that this was by far the most common kind of employee-employer relationship in the ancient world, and that it encompassed a broad range of degrees of functional and economic freedom, means that the application of Peter’s directives to ‘employees’ today is a very appropriate one. (Free men who worked for others as day labourers were closer to ‘independent contractors’ today, since they seemed to resist any suggestion that their employers could tell them what to do.) In fact, the word ‘employee’, though not conveying the idea of absence of freedom, does reflect the economic status and skill level of these ancient ‘slaves’ better than do either of the words ‘servant’ or ‘slave’ today.
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect encourages servants to have a continuing mental attitude of acceptance of the legal and economic authority over them, and a willing obedience to the directives given by their owners or ‘masters’. The same verb used in verse 13 to command submission to human authorities generally (hypotassō) is used here to urge submission to authorities specifically in the economic realm (see discussion at 3:1 on the meaning of this verb). The verb is participial in form but it is used as an imperative (as in 2:1; 3:1, 7).
The word translated respect (phobos) commonly means ‘fear’ in the New Testament (so 1:17; 3:14), but when used of relationships to human authorities does not seem quite as strong as ‘fear of punishment or harm’ (which would seem unnecessary for Peter to command) but rather ‘a healthy desire to avoid their displeasure’ (so also phobos in Rom. 13:7; 1 Pet. 3:2, 16; and the related verb in Eph. 5:33). Usually respect is taken to be the nearest English equivalent, but this will hardly do for its use in a very similar context in Ephesians 6:5, ‘with fear (phobos) and trembling (tromos, ‘quivering’)’. (‘Fear of God’ might be suggested as the meaning in all these contexts, except that ‘the husband’ is specified as the one to fear in Eph. 5:33.) The probable sense is ‘with healthy apprehension of their displeasure’. Peter affirms that such an emotion is appropriate, and thereby warns against careless disregard of, or disdain for, such authority (cf. 1 Tim. 6:1–2).
It is easier (but by no means automatic) to give such submission to masters who are kind (Gk. agathos, ‘good’,) and gentle, but much more difficult to do so with the overbearing (the word skolios literally means ‘crooked’, see Luke 3:5, but metaphorically means ‘dishonest, morally evil’, as in Acts 2:40; Phil. 2:15; Deut. 32:5, LXX; Ps. 78(LXX 77):8; Prov. 4:24; 8:8; 16:28; 28:18). Both ‘overbearing’ (RSV) and ‘harsh’ (NIV) are based on a supposed necessity to make the meaning opposite to ‘good and gentle’ in the previous phrase, but (1) no other instances of the term in this sense have been found (none are cited in BAGD, p. 756, 2); (2) the idea of moral perversity, essential to the metaphorical use of the term, is thereby lost; and (3) the contrast in the verse is not merely between two terms but between two kinds of masters, the best and the worst, the ‘good and gentle’ on the one hand and the ‘crooked’ or ‘perverse’ on the other. The ‘crookedness’ of such masters suggests not only physical mistreatment but also dishonesty regarding pay, working conditions, expectations, etc. Even to these, submission and the obedience it implies are required ‘for the Lord’s sake’ (v. 13; note Jacob’s example in Gen. 31:6–9). Yet the servant must not obey if commanded to sin (see discussion at v. 13). Though the persons exercising authority in a fallen world are necessarily sinful, such lines of authority have been established by God and must be respected.
19. For introduces a reason for such submission, which Peter will explain in verses 19 to 25: God is pleased when his people trust him in the midst of unjust suffering, imitating the example of Christ. (This is an additional reason to the opportunity for witness mentioned in v. 12.)
One is approved means ‘approved by God’ as the recipient of his favour (charis; for the word as meaning ‘God’s favour’ see Luke 2:52; 6:32–34). The person who pleases God is one who endures pain while suffering unjustly, although the word translated ‘pain’ (lypē) is better rendered ‘sorrow’ or ‘grief (see note on the related verb ‘suffer’ at 1:6, and cf. BAGD, p. 482: the term is used of mental pain or ‘grief, sorrow’, but never in the New Testament is the noun [sixteen occurrences] or the verb [twenty-six occurrences] used of physical pain itself). Peter’s emphasis is on enduring the various kinds of mental anguish (the word is actually plural, ‘sorrows’) which accompany unjust suffering.
Yet he does not say that it is pleasing to God merely to endure unjust suffering and the accompanying sorrow. Rather, it is only such action endured while one is mindful of God, or, more accurately, ‘because he is conscious of God’ (NIV). It is not a stoic self-motivated tenacity which holds out against all opposition but rather the opposite, the trusting awareness of God’s presence and never-failing care, which is the key to righteous suffering. It is the confidence that God will ultimately right all wrongs which enables a Christian to submit to an unjust master without resentment, rebelliousness, self-pity, or despair.
20. Peter here makes explicit what he implied in verse 19, namely, that it is not just any kind of endurance through suffering that God approves, but endurance through unjust suffering (note the same theme in 3:14, 17; 4:14–16). For what credit is it (i.e. there is no special approval or honour due to you) if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? Patient endurance of justly deserved punishment is not remarkable or especially commendable—many wrongdoers know that they are getting what they deserve, and bear the punishment without complaint.
Far different are the times when you do right and suffer for it. Although Peter may have in mind suffering specifically for the ‘right’ one does, the words for it are not in the Greek text, and it is better to understand a reference to the general situation of doing right and suffering (whether specifically for the right one has done or for some other reason). It is at such times that the natural man’s sense of justice and self-protection would seek revenge, or would turn to insubordination and perhaps hatred against his master. The surprising response of a Christian is to take it patiently (more literally, ‘you keep enduring’, but the kind of endurance Peter intends, patient endurance while trusting in God, may be inferred from ‘mindful of God’ in v. 19). This kind of endurance is something only made possible by being ‘conscious of God’ (v. 19 NIV) and continually trusting him to care for those rights which have been trampled underfoot by others. At such times trusting God is not easy, for it goes against our natural inclinations. But it is then that faith shows itself to be genuine, something that in God’s eyes is ‘far more precious than gold’ (1:7; cf. 3:4). Then you have God’s approval (i.e. you have ‘favour’ [charis, see v. 19] in God’s sight).
2. For Christ suffered for you, trusting God (2:21–25)
21. For to this you have been called indicates the situation into which Christians have been summoned by God at conversion. Although the specific focus of Peter’s concern is ‘servants’, the general principles regarding suffering in verses 19 to 25 apply readily to all others under higher authority, whether in business, in marriage or family, in education, or in respect to government. Especially here in verses 21 to 25, the teachings are put in terms that apply to Christians generally.
Elsewhere Peter says that Christians have been called by God ‘out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (2:9); or called to return blessing for cursing (3:9); or called ‘to his eternal glory in Christ’ (5:10). But here-in a great change from his view of suffering in Matthew 16:22—Peter says they have been called to suffer unjustly: in the phrase to this you have been called, ‘this’ must refer back to trusting in God while suffering for doing right, the theme of verses 19 to 20. The New Testament elsewhere affirms that Christians can expect to be treated unjustly (1 Pet. 5:9; John 15:18–20; 16:33; Acts 14:22; 1 Thess. 3:3; 2 Tim. 3:12; cf. Ps. 34:19). But why are we called to suffer? Because such suffering was part of the life of Christ, which we have been called to imitate: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
Peter uses suffered (paschō) rather than ‘died’ in order to focus on Christ’s life of sufferings, and especially the sufferings leading up to his death, as a pattern for Christians. Later, Peter will speak of Christ’s bearing the punishment that was due to us for our sins (v. 24). But here Peter has a slightly different focus. The way in which Christ suffered for you is explained by the phrase leaving you an example; that is, it is not so much Christ’s bearing of the penalty for sin (what theologians call Christ’s ‘passive’ obedience) to which Peter refers here, but his perfect obedience to God in the face of the most difficult opposition and hardship (what has been called Christ’s ‘active’ obedience). Moreover, while Christ’s perfect obedience is elsewhere said to earn for us God’s approval which Adam failed to earn and which we could not earn for ourselves (cf. Rom. 5:18–19), Peter here emphasizes that Christ’s obedience through unjust suffering has left us an example to imitate, an example of the kind of life that is perfectly pleasing in God’s sight. When one is suffering unjustly, trust in God and obedience to him are not easy, but they are deepened through undeserved affliction, and God is thereby more fully glorified (cf. 1:6–7 and notes there; also 4:13, 16, 19; Jas 1:2–4; Luke 24:26; Phil. 3:10; Heb. 2:10; 12:2–4).
The knowledge that we have been called to a life which will include some unfair suffering, while it may at first dismay us, should not ultimately unsettle our minds. We should not of course seek suffering (Matt. 6:13), but when it comes we may even ‘rejoice’ (1 Pet. 4:13; Jas 1:2), knowing that in it God will draw us near to himself, and we shall know the fellowship of Christ who understands our suffering, and ‘the spirit of glory and of God’ (4:14) will rest upon us.
22. Peter explains in more detail the pattern of life left by Christ: He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips (a quotation from Isa. 53:9). The New Testament affirms Christ’s total sinlessness in several places (Matt. 27:4; John 8:29, 46; 18:38; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1 John 3:5); here especially the absence of guile or deceitfulness is mentioned (see note on ‘guile’ in 2:1). ‘This verse provides noteworthy testimony to the complete sinlessness of Jesus by one who had been on the closest terms of intimacy with Him’ (Stibbs/Walls, p. 118). God’s requirement of all people is perfect sinlessness even when under the most intense pressure to sin, a requirement which was fulfilled by Christ as an example and encouragement to us (cf. Heb. 12:3–4).
All four verses in this section are dependent on Isaiah 53. Verse 22 quotes Isaiah 53:9, and verse 23 apparently alludes to Isaiah 53:7. Verse 25 echoes Isaiah 53:6 (‘All we like sheep have gone astray’). Similarly, verse 24 includes not exact quotations but words and phrases drawn unmistakably from Isaiah 53:12 (‘he bore the sin [LXX: “sins”] of many’; cf. Isa. 53:4, 11) and 53:5 (‘with his stripes we are healed’).
23. Christ’s response to unjust treatment was that When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten. Reviled refers to insulting and abusive speech (note the same term in Num. 20:3 in the LXX, where the people so ‘reviled’ Moses that they provoked him to a harsh retort and to smiting the rock in anger, see Num. 20:10–11; cf. also John 9:28; 1 Cor. 4:12). The ‘reviling’ of Christ was especially intense during his trial and crucifixion (Matt. 26:67–68; 27:12–14, 28–31, 39–44; Luke 22:63–65; 23:9–11). The instinctive response of human beings when so abused is to try to get even, to hurt in return for being hurt. Or if that is impossible people will threaten to get even later, trying to give their enemies at least the anxiety that revenge may be taken sometime in the future.
But these responses are natural only to people who depend on themselves and believe that God does not have control of the situation. To the suffering person who trusts deeply in God and believes that God is indeed in control of every situation, there is another response, one perfectly exhibited by Jesus: he trusted to him who judges justly. The word trusted (paradidomi) means ‘handed over, delivered, committed’, an idea better conveyed by the English word ‘entrusted’. The Greek text does not specify what Jesus entrusted to God, but since the options of threatening and reviling in return both have effects on the wrongdoers as well as the one suffering, we are incorrect to limit the thought just to ‘entrusting himself to God (as NIV, NASB). He entrusted not only himself but also the wrongdoers, and his followers, and indeed the entire situation ‘to the one who judges justly’. The imperfect tense here implies repeated action in the past, well rendered by the NASB: ‘kept entrusting’. Once again faith is seen as the attitude necessary in righteous suffering. Rather than depending on his own abilities to retaliate (which were far greater than the powers of his opponents), when Jesus was suffering he kept entrusting the situation to God the Father, knowing that God would be just and fair, for he is the one who judges justly.
It is important to note that Peter here commends neither the supposed therapeutic value of expressing one’s anger when wronged, nor merely holding the anger in and trying to suppress it (both are self-dependent solutions), but rather repeatedly and continually committing the situation into God’s hands.
When Peter calls God the one who judges justly it suggests that Jesus was conscious that God, as Judge, would either repay the wrongdoer justly (cf. 4:5), or would forgive because the punishment would be taken by Jesus himself on the cross (v. 24). This knowledge that God will ultimately right all wrongs is essential to a Christian response to suffering, for God has put within us all a sense of justice which will not allow us simply to forget wrongs suffered for which we think there will be no punishment for those who have done them. But committing the situation to God, knowing that ultimately ‘the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality’ (Col. 3:25; cf. 2 Thess. 1:5–6; Jas 5:7–8), means that our sense of wrong suffered can be put at rest, and enables us then to imitate Jesus in praying, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34). We thus seek for the wrongdoers not forgiveness without cost (which is impossible in God’s just universe) but forgiveness paid for by the great cost of the blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:19).
24. Here is an explicit statement of the heart of the gospel: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. The fact that Christ bore our sins means that God the Father counted our sins against Christ and, in a way not fully understood by us, ‘laid on him the iniquity of us all’ (Isa. 53:6). The Father thought of our sins as belonging to Christ; he ‘made him to be sin who knew no sin’ (2 Cor. 5:21), and then punished him with that anger against sin, separation from God, and consequent death which we deserved. In this way Christ was a substitute for his people, one who stood in their place.
Tree could also be translated ‘cross’, since the word is not dendron, ‘tree’, but xylon, ‘wood, object made of wood’, and is translated various ways according to the context (‘clubs’ in Matt. 26:47, 55; ‘stocks’ in Acts 16:24; ‘tree’ in Rev. 22:2). Peter’s use of the word xylon rather than stauros, ‘cross’, here seems to be an intentional attempt to recall to the readers’ minds the curse imagery associated with judicial punishments for sin in Deuteronomy 21:23 (cf. Gal. 3:13; also Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29). The reason for translating it ‘tree’ here is that it makes the allusion to Deuteronomy 21:23 more obvious.
Bore translates a word (anapherō) which can mean ‘carried up’, and if that is the sense here it would mean Christ ‘carried up’ our sins in his body ‘onto’ (epi) the cross (cf. NASB mg., RSV mg., NEB). But anapherō can also mean ‘bear, carry, endure’ (sufferings, dangers, hardships), and since that is the sense in Isaiah 53:11–12 (and in Heb. 9:28, citing Isa. 53:12), it is best to understand it to mean ‘he bore our sins’ here as well. (See Additional note below.)
The purpose of Christ’s bearing our sin, Peter says, was that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. The verb die is in a form (aorist participle before the main verb) which frequently indicates action prior to the main verb of the clause (here, ‘live’). This would give the sense, ‘that we, having died to sin, might live to righteousness’. Such a remarkable statement is similar to Paul’s teaching in Romans 6:1–23 that at conversion Christians have died to (the dominating power of) sin (Rom. 6:2–11, 14), and are able to make progress in sanctification of life.
By his wounds you have been healed is drawn from Isaiah 53:5. Peter here applies the words morally: by Christ’s wounds we have been ‘healed’ from sin. Here again is the idea of the punishment of a substitute: the punishment deserved by us Christ took on himself and thus made us (spiritually and morally) well.
25. For you were straying like sheep recalls Isaiah 53:6, ‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.’ This lies in the past, for now they have returned (at conversion) to Christ the Shepherd and they should therefore follow him in lives of ‘righteousness’ (v. 24). He is also the Guardian who watches over all their actions, protects them and expects lives of righteousness.
Returned does not suggest that they had been with Christ prior to their straying, for the verb (epistrephō) is used elsewhere of ‘turning’ or ‘being converted’ from sin (Acts 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 1 Thess. 1:9). By specifying the one to whom they turned, Peter suggests that genuine turning away from sin also includes turning to Christ and submitting to his leadership as ‘Shepherd and Guardian’.