The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Peter — Section 226

exalted an ide& of the fulness a.nd variety of the operations of God's grace that he heaps toge~her here all ~hese terms which substantially express the same i<lea. 'l'he accumulat10~, however, 1s 1:1ot empty tautology. It witnesses to the joyful emotion which fill~ his h~art. It brings to view the completeness of the multiform help which o~r :need m all 1~s aspects ma;r expect to receive. That great river of ever-flowing D1vme co=unicat1on parts mto the four heads which water all the Eden of the renewed soul. Though the ideas be closely connected, yet we may distinauish between them, and may let our thoughts dwell on these words, in which the apostle seeks to breathe his own cheerful confidence into sorrowful a.nd tried hearts as illustratin?; both man's manifold need and God's manifold grace. 'l'he whole ver~e ia best reganlcd, with the Revised Version, not as a prayer, but as an assurance: "God slw.U perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." I. OUR FAILURES AND IMPEBFEC'l'IONS WILL BE REPAIRED. The word here translated "perfect" properly means "to restore to a state of completeness." It is used to describe the process of mending nets. It is used in its ethical sense (Gal. vi. 1) to express the Christian duty of restoiing the brother overtaken in a fault. .And so it is employed here for that great work of Divine grace by which our defects are made good, the rents which sin has made mended, the tarnished purity given back, the scars effaced. That form of the Divine help answers to the deepest of our needs, and, in its incipient stages, is the firstfruits of the great harvest of God's grace which a believing soul reaps. We need first of all forgiveness and the removal of the guilt of our sins. All restoration of fallen men to the lost ideal of man, which is the likeness of God, must begin there, and then there follows a long process which the patient God carries on, mending us by slow degrees, and step by step supplementing this defect and repairina the results of that sin, till there be no gaps remaining needing to be filled and no flaw~ in character needing to be corrected. "''.ris a lifelong task till the lump be leavened." The restoring grace has to permeate all the crannies and corners of the soul. It must transform and expel, if it is to mend and restore. When we think of our own defects and sec how much is lacking in our characters, we may well feel that notbing can ever fill up these. Then the confidence of this brave text may hearten us. It is the God of all grace to whom we look for our perfecting. No emptiness can be so vast and so empty that that "all" cannot fill it. No man can have gone so far from the right way, or haJ bis nat•.ll'e so lacerated by sin's cruel fangs, that that "all" cannot heal a.nd repair the damage. Therefore the more we sound the height, and length, and breadth, and depth of our imperfections and sins, the more joyfully should we think of the complete- ness of that power which overlaps them on all sides and surpasses them in every dimension, and the more confidently should we exclaim, "The God of all grace shall restore us and complete us." II. OU11 FLUCTUATIONS WILL BE STEADIED. The God of all grace will stablish us. The asaurance comes with special force from the life of the apostle whose earlier character had been marked by such extreme variations, and by such an enormous difference between high and low water. If ever there was a believer whose impulsive- ness needed steadying, it was the man who is denying bis Master from fear of a maid- servant's sharp tongue less than four and twenty hours after he had bragged that, whoever fled, he would stand by him. Such quick alternations of hot and cold fits indicate a character very lovable, no doubt, in its transparency and in its generous impulses, but needing much painful discipline, before it can be consolidated into " rock " and Peter deserve his new name. 'l'bere are many indications in this Epistle that the result had been attained, and that Peter's assurance here is in some measure a transcript of his own experience. But however that may be, the operation of the grace of God is to give firmness and solidity of character, both as against our own vacillations, and as against outward oppositions which bring a_constant pr~ssure_ against us to move us from our foundalion. So long as we are on this earth and m this body, we shall be subject to variations both in the clearness of our perceptions of religious truth and in the warmth of our religious emotions, but God's grace is able to diminish the range of our thermometers, so that there shall not be so many degrees between the summer '9laximum and the winter minimum, and to bring about a gradual approximation to a uniformity in which emotion shall be converted into steadfast principle. If we 11.re to be thlll! <jSiablished, we must open our hea.rts for the entry of the grace which will OH. v. 1-14.J THE FIRST EPISTLE GENEil.AL OF PETER. 223