1 Peter 5:9

5:5-9 Humility preserves peace and order in all Christian churches and societies; pride disturbs them. Where God gives grace to be humble, he will give wisdom, faith, and holiness. To be humble, and subject to our reconciled God, will bring greater comfort to the soul than the gratification of pride and ambition. But it is to be in due time; not in thy fancied time, but God's own wisely appointed time. Does he wait, and wilt not thou? What difficulties will not the firm belief of his wisdom, power, and goodness get over! Then be humble under his hand. Cast all you care; personal cares, family cares, cares for the present, and cares for the future, for yourselves, for others, for the church, on God. These are burdensome, and often very sinful, when they arise from unbelief and distrust, when they torture and distract the mind, unfit us for duties, and hinder our delight in the service of God. The remedy is, to cast our care upon God, and leave every event to his wise and gracious disposal. Firm belief that the Divine will and counsels are right, calms the spirit of a man. Truly the godly too often forget this, and fret themselves to no purpose. Refer all to God's disposal. The golden mines of all spiritual comfort and good are wholly his, and the Spirit itself. Then, will he not furnish what is fit for us, if we humbly attend on him, and lay the care of providing for us, upon his wisdom and love? The whole design of Satan is to devour and destroy souls.

He always is contriving whom he may insnare to eternal ruin. Our duty plainly is, to be sober; to govern both the outward and the inward man by the rules of temperance. To be vigilant; suspicious of constant danger from this spiritual enemy, watchful and diligent to prevent his designs. Be stedfast, or solid, by faith. A man cannot fight upon a quagmire, there is no standing without firm ground to tread upon; this faith alone furnishes. It lifts the soul to the firm advanced ground of the promises, and fixes it there. The consideration of what others suffer, is proper to encourage us to bear our share in any affliction; and in whatever form Satan assaults us, or by whatever means, we may know that our brethren experience the same.

Whom resist stedfast in the faith, {12} knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your {c} brethren that are in the world. (12) The persecutions which Satan stirs up, are neither new nor proper to any one man, but from old and ancient times common to the whole Church, and therefore we must suffer patiently, in which we have such and so many fellows of our conflicts and combats. (c) Amongst your brethren which are dispersed throughout the world.

Resist (ἀντίστητε) The Rev., very judiciously, substitutes withstand; resist having been already used in 1 Peter 5:5 for ἀντιτάσσεται. Withstand is, moreover, the more accurate rendering; as the verb means rather to be firm against onset than to strive against it. With in withstand is the Saxon wid, against, which appears in the German wider. Steadfast (στερεοὶ) Compare 2 Timothy 2:19; and the kindred verb στερεόω, to strengthen (Acts 3:7, Acts 3:16; Acts 16:5). Paul, in Colossians 2:5, uses a cognate noun, στερέωμα, evidently as a military metaphor: "Beholding your order (τάξιν, compare ἀντιτάσσεται, 1 Peter 5:5) and your solid front or close phalanx" (στερέωμα). It might be difficult to find, on the whole, a better rendering than steadfast, yet it falls a little short of the meaning. Steadfast is Anglo-Saxon, stede, a place, and faest, fast; and hence means firm in its place; but στερεοὶ conveys also the sense of compactness, compact solidity, and is appropriate, since a number of individuals are addressed and exhorted to withstand the onset of Satan as one compacted body. Στερεός implies solidity in the very mass and body of the thing itself; steadfastness, mere holding of place. A rock is στερεός, firm, solid; but a flexible weed with its tough roots resisting all efforts to pull it up, may be steadfast. The exhortation is appropriate from Peter, the Rock. The same afflictions (τὰ αὐτὰ τῶν παθημάτων) Rev., better, sufferings.

A very peculiar construction, occurring nowhere else in the New Testament. Lit., the same things of sufferings, emphasizing the idea of identity. Are accomplished (ἐπιτελεῖσθαι) More correctly, are being accomplished. The present infinitive denotes something in process of accomplishment. Brethren (ἀδελφότητι) Lit., brotherhood. Only here and 1 Peter 2:17.

1 Peter 5:9 . Τῇ πίστει , through or by the faith ) Constructed with resist [not “stedfast in the faith,” as Engl. Vers.]— τὰ αὐτὰ τῶν παθημάτων , the very same sufferings ) Not merely like sufferings, but the very same. The same governs the Dative ἀδελφότητι , brotherhood . Thus Lucretius: eadem aliis sopitus quiete est . Chrysost. de Sacerd., p. 202: εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν ἐκείνοις ἐκπίπτειν μανίαν , to fall into the same madness with them . The meaning of the apostle is: the same sufferings which happen to your brethren are also undergone by you . Comp. Matthew 5:12 ; 2 Corinthians 1:6 ; Php 1:30 . [Therefore it is not a bad sign in a person, if the devil harasses him with sufferings.—V. g.]— ἐν κόσμῳ ) in the whole of this world , which lies in the evil one, the devil : 1 Peter 5:8 . It is antithetical to the eternal glory of God , 1 Peter 5:10 .— ὑμῶν ἀδελφότητι , to your brotherhood ) of Jews and Gentiles.— ἐπιτελεῖσθαι , are accomplished ) The measure of sufferings is gradually filled up.

Whom resist; by not yielding to his temptations, Ephesians 4:27 , and by employing your spiritual armour against him, Ephesians 6:11-13 , &c.: see Jam 4:7 . Stedfast in the faith; either: 1. Hold your faith, persevering in it, which the devil would fain bereave you of, (as soldiers used in war to look to their shields, it being dishonourable to lose them), and without which ye will never be able to stand out against the devil: or: 2. Stedfast or strong by faith; intimating, that faith is a Christian’s greatest strength, it being by faith that he engageth the power of God and grace of Christ on his side, whereby he comes to be victorious over all his enemies, 1Jo 5:4 . Knowing that the same afflictions; either: 1. The devil’s temptations, which here he calls afflictions, because believers are passive in them, and count them the greatest afflictions; or rather: 2. Persecutions, which though they come upon them immediately from the men of the world, yet it is by the instigation of the devil, the prince of the world, who hath a principal hand in them, and acts by men as his instruments: so that when men oppress them, they are to resist the devil, who thereby tempts them. They have a spiritual enemy to deal with even in temporal afflictions. Are accomplished in your brethren; or, fulfilled, or perfected: either: 1.

Others of your brethren are filling up the measure of sufferings God hath allotted them, for the mortifying of the flesh, and conforming them to Christ their Head, as well as you are filling up yours, Colossians 1:24 ; or: 2. He speaks of the community of their sufferings: q.d. What afflictions ye endure, others endure too, and therefore ye should not grudge to suffer, when ye have so good company in your sufferings. That are in the world; either this notes the sufferings of the saints to be universal, so as to reach them all, wheresoever they are dispersed throughout the world; or, to be short, as being confined to the time only of their abode in the world.

1 Peter 5:9 . ᾧ ἀντίστητε . St. James adds the same exhortation to his quotation of Prov. The connexion is not obvious but is perhaps due to the traditional exposition of לץ = ὑπερηφάνοις as referring to the Devil and his children. As God ranges Himself against scoffers, so must Christians resist the Devil who is working with their slanderous tempers. Oecumenius and Cramer’s Catena both appeal to an extract from Justin’s book against Marcion (?) which is preserved in Irenæsus and quoted by Eusebius. The main point of the passage is that before Christ came the devil did not dare to blaspheme against God, for the prophecies of his punishment were enigmatic; but Christ proclaimed it plainly and so he lost all hope and goes about eager to drag down all to his own destruction.— στερεοὶ τῇ πίστει , rock like in your faith , abbreviation of ἐπιμένετε τῇ πίστει τεθεμελιωμένοι καὶ ἑδραῖοι , Colossians 1:23 ; cf. τὸ στερέωμα τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως , Colossians 2:5 and Acts 16:5 , αἱ … ἐκκλησίαι ἐστερεοῦντο τῇ πιστει . The metaphorical use of στ . in a good sense is not common. Peter perhaps thinks of the στερεὰ πέτρα ( צור ) of Isaiah 51:1 and warns them against his own failing.— εἰδότες … ἐπιτελεῖσθαι .

The rendering (first suggested by Hoffmann) knowing how to pay (that you are paying) the same tax of sufferings as the brotherhood in the world is paying seems preferable to the common knowing that the same kinds of sufferings are being accomplished for ( by ) … it assumes the proper idiomatic force of ἐπιτελεῖσθαι and accounts for τὰ αὐτά ( sc. τέλη ) followed by the genitive. Xenophon who is a good authority for Common Greek uses ἐ . thus twice:—Mem. iv. 8. 8, “but if I shall live longer perhaps it will be necessary to pay the penalties of old age ( τὰ τοῦ γήρως ἐπιτελεῖσθαι ) and to see and hear worse …” Apol , 33 nor did he turn effeminate at death but cheerfully welcomed it and paid the penalty ( ἐπετελέσατο ). For the dative with τὰ αὐτά . same as , cf. 1 Corinthians 11:5 , ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ τῇ ἐξυρημένῃ .

9. (Lu 4:13; Eph 6:11-17; Jas 4:7.) steadfast—Compare established in the truth," 2Pe 1:12. Satan's power exists only in respect to the unbelieving; the faithful he cannot hurt (1Jo 5:18). Faith gives strength to prayer, the great instrument against the foe (Jas 1:6, &c.). knowing, &c.—"encouragement not to faint in afflictions": your brethren suffer the same; nothing beyond the common lot of Christians befalls you (1Co 10:13). It is a sign of God's favor rather than displeasure, that Satan is allowed to harass you, as he did Job. Your fellow Christians have the same battle of faith and prayer against Satan. are—are being accomplished according to the appointment of God. in the world—lying in the wicked one, and therefore necessarily the scene of "tribulation" (Joh 16:33).

9 . whom resist stedfast in the faith ] The word for “resist” is the same as that used in the parallel passage of James 4:7 . “Faith” is probably used in its subjective rather than its objective sense, for unshaken trust in God rather than unwavering orthodoxy. Comp. the “shield of faith” in Ephesians 6:16 . knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren ] Better, that the same sufferings (as keeping up the continuity of thought with chaps. 1 Peter 1:11 , 1 Peter 4:13 , 1 Peter 5:1 ) are being wrought out for your brotherhood (the same collective term as in chap. 1 Peter 2:17 ) that are in the world . The Apostle appeals to the thought of sympathy with other sufferers as a ground of steadfastness. Those to whom he wrote were not isolated in their afflictions. Far and near there were comrades fighting the same battle. It was at once their duty and their privilege to follow all examples of steadfastness of which they heard elsewhere, and to set that example, so that others, cheered by it, might be strengthened to endure even to the end.