The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 152

HOMILIES BY V.A.lUOUS AUTHORS • . Ver. 1_3.-Tli.e armour of rig~teoiu;ness. This is a promise. in the shape of a ques- twn, which makes the aflirmatwn stronger, not weaker. It 1s the question of trium- phant faith, a trumpet-blast of confident defiance of all foes, like the wonderful series of bimila.r challenges in the Epistle to the Romans (viii. 31-35), or that in Isaiah (i. 9), the Septuagint Version of which is evidently the basis of our text. We have probably here a consideration additional to that preceding, in order to confirm the conclusion of the blessed.ness of holiness. The apostle has been quoting, with evident delight in the flowing periods, the assurance of the psalm, that God's watchful eye is upon the righteous. Here he a.sit were says-and, besides, it is the general experience of the world-lovers of good get good from men. As Christ said, "Sinners also love those that love them." I. TrrE sonT OF :MEN THAT GEKERALLY G-O UNHARMED. The Revised Version reads "zealous" instead of "followers," a□ d probably is right in the substitution. If· " followers," or more literally, "imitators," were retained, it would be most natural to transl.a.te "him who is" instead of "that which is" good. But the itntithesis with the previous verse (" them that do evil") and with the word translated ·'.harm,". which is from the same root as that rendered "evil," makes the neuter more probable. If, then, we take "zealous for that which is good" as the descripti_on of the kind of men to whom the promise implied in our text is made, we may say. that it is not the actual possession of purity and virtue which draws men's affections, so much as a. certain enthusiasm for goodness and aspiration after it. It is possible to be good in a very disagreeable fashion-to be pure as the eternal snows on the Alps, and cold and for- bidding as they. And it is possible to have the whiteness of even an austere morality lit up with a rosy gleam of ardour and emotion which shall make it lovely as that F.a.we snow as it blushes in the rising sun. The morality which caste, for the most part, a shield around its possessor is "morality touched by emotion," in which good is evidently loved as well as practised, and practised because it is loved. It is precisely there that so much gooc.nees presents an unlovely face to the world. The doer does not seem to find delight in it himself, and so the onlookers have little in him. If our practice of purity be obviously reluctant and constrained it will not dispose men to look on us with respect or favour. ,ve must be" zealous of good" if we are to claim the benefit of this promise. And it is extremely improbable t.hat such zeal or enthu- siastic emotion i;hall be continuously cherished towards a mere neuter abstract-that which is good. A living Person is needed to evoke it. If the abstract" good" be tlic penmnal God our Father; if it be incarnated in Jesus Christ our Brother who loves UH, and to whom as their conscious and responsive Object our hearts may turn ;-then thtrc may be such zeal, but scarcely if we have to be zealous only for that cold and vogue impersonal idea.--goodness. It is very hard to keep up enthui;ia,m for anythiu:~ ending in "-ness." Men must have a person 1.o love, and their desire after purity i, deepened and changed into a more ardent earnestness when "that which 1B good" takes human form and becomes "him who is good, the perfect Christ, the Image of God, tl,e ouly Good." All earnest seekin2; after moral excellence leads the seeker 11.t last cu. m. 1-22.] THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PE'fER. 147