1 Peter 1:14-16
Verse 14: As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. Verse 15: But as he who has called you is holy, so be you holy in all manner of conversation. Verse 16: Because it is written, be you holy, for I am holy.
Your word is a lamp to my feet, says David, and a light to my paths — not only comfortable as light is to the eyes, but also directive, as a lamp to his feet. Thus here the Apostle does not only furnish consolation against distress, but exhorts and directs his brethren in the way of holiness, without which the apprehension and feeling of those comforts cannot subsist.
This is no other but a clearer and fuller expression, and further pressing of that sobriety and spiritualness of mind and life that he jointly exhorted to with that of perfect hope, verse 13, as inseparably connected with it. If you would enjoy this hope, be not conformed to the lust of your former ignorance, but be holy.
There is no doctrine in the world either so pleasant or so pure as that of Christianity. 'Tis matchless, both in sweetness and holiness. The faith and hope of a Christian have in them an abiding precious balm of comfort, but this is never to be so lavished away as to be poured into the puddle of an impure conscience. No, that were to lose it unworthily. As many as have this hope purify themselves, even as he is pure (1 John 3:3). Here they are commanded to be holy as he is holy. Faith first purifies the heart, empties it of the love of sin, and then fills it with the consolation of Christ and hope of glory.
'Tis a foolish, misgrounded fear, and such as argues inexperience of the nature and workings of divine grace, to imagine that the assured hope of salvation will beget unholiness and presumptuous boldness in sin, and therefore that the doctrine of that assurance is a doctrine of licentiousness. Our Apostle, we see, is not so sharp-sighted as these men think themselves; he apprehends no such matter, but indeed supposes the contrary as unquestionable. He takes not assured hope and holiness as enemies, but joins them as nearest friends: hope perfectly and be holy.
They are mutually strengthened and increased each by the other: the more assurance of salvation, the more holiness, the more delight in it, and study of it as the only way to that end; and as labor is then most pleasant when we are made surest it shall not be lost, nothing does make the soul so nimble and active in obedience as this oil of gladness, this assured hope of glory. Again, the more holiness is in the soul, the clearer always is this assurance, as we see the face of the heavens best when there are fewest clouds. The greatest affliction does not damp this hope so much as the smallest sin; indeed, it may be the more lively and sensible to the soul by affliction, but by sin it always suffers loss, as the experience of all Christians does certainly teach them.
The Apostle exhorts to obedience and enforces it by a most persuasive reason. His exhortation is: 1. Negative — not fashioning yourselves. 2. Positive — be you holy.
That which he would remove and separate them from is lusts. This is in Scripture the usual name of all the irregular and sinful desires of the heart, both the polluted habits of them and their corrupt streams — both as they are within and as they outwardly vent themselves in the lives of men. The Apostle St. John (1 John 2:17) calls it the lust of the world, and verse 15, the love of the world. And then verse 16 branches it into those three that are indeed the base anti-trinity that the world worships: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
The soul of man unconverted is no other but a den of impure lusts, wherein dwells pride, uncleanness, avarice, malice, etc., just as Babylon is described (Revelation 18:2), or as Isaiah 13:21. Were a man's eyes opened, he would as much abhor to remain with himself in that condition as to dwell in a house full of snakes and serpents, as St. Augustine says. The first part of conversion is once to rid the soul of these noisome inhabitants, for there is none at all found naturally vacant and free from them. Thus the Apostle here expresses it of the believers he wrote to, that these lusts were theirs before in their ignorance.
There is a truth in it, that all sin arises from some kind of ignorance, or at least from present inadvertence and inconsideration — turning away the mind from the light, which therefore, for the time, is as if it were not, and is all one with ignorance in the effect. Therefore the works of sin are all called works of darkness; for were the true visage of sin seen at a full light, undressed and unpainted, it were impossible, while it so appeared, that any one soul could be in love with it, but would rather flee it as hideous and abominable. But because the soul unrenewed is all darkness, therefore it is all lust and love of sin, no order in it because no light. As at the first in the world, confusion and darkness went together, and darkness was upon the face of the deep — 'tis so in the soul: the more ignorance, the more abundance of lusts.
That light that frees the soul and rescues it from the very kingdom of darkness must be something beyond that which nature can attain to. All the light of philosophy, natural and moral, is not sufficient. Indeed, the very knowledge of the law severed from Christ serves not so to enlighten and renew the soul as to free it from the darkness or ignorance here spoken of. For our Apostle writes to Jews that knew the law and were instructed in it before their conversion, yet he calls those times wherein Christ was unknown to them the times of their ignorance. Though the stars shine never so bright, and the moon with them in its full, yet they do not all together make it day — still 'tis night till the sun appear. Therefore the Hebrew doctors, upon that word of Solomon's, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," say, vana etiam Lex, donec venerit Messias. Therefore of him Zacharias says that the day-spring from on high has visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
A natural man may attain to very much acquired knowledge of the doctrine of Christ, and may discourse excellently of it, and yet still his soul be in the chains of darkness, fast locked up under the ignorance here mentioned, and so still of a carnal mind in subjection to these lusts of ignorance.
The saving light of faith is a beam of the sun of righteousness himself, that he sends into the soul, by which he makes it discern his incomparable beauties, and by that sight alienates it from all those lusts and desires that do then appear to be what indeed they are — vileness and filthiness itself — makes the soul wonder at itself, how it could love such base trash so long, and so fully resolves it now on the choice of Jesus Christ, the chief among ten thousands, indeed the fairest of the children of men, for that he is withal the only begotten Son of God, the brightness of his father's glory and the express image of his person (Hebrews 1:3).
The soul once acquainted with him can with disdain turn off all the base solicitations and importunities of sin, and command them away, that formerly had command over it, though they plead former familiarities and the interest they once had in the heart of a Christian before it was enlightened and renewed. He can well tell them after his sight of Christ, that it is true, while he knew no better than they were, he thought them lovely and pleasing, but that one glance of the face of Jesus Christ has turned them all into extreme blackness and deformity, that as soon as ever Christ appeared to him, they immediately lost all their credit and esteem in his heart, and have lost it forever — they need never look to recover it any more.
And it is from this that the Apostle enforces this exhortation: it is true the lusts and vanities that are in request in the world were so with you, but it was when you were blind — they were the lusts of your ignorance — but now you know how ill they will suit with the light of that Gospel which you profess, and that inward light of faith which is in the souls of such as are really believers.
Therefore seeing you have renounced them, keep them still at that distance — do not ever admit them more to lodge within you, that surely you cannot do — but do not so much as for custom's sake and compliance with the world about you, outwardly conform yourselves to any of them, or make semblance to partake of them. As Saint Paul says, have no more fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them — reprove them by your conduct, and let the light of your holy lives discover their [reconstructed: foulness].
2. Positive: Be indeed holy. This includes the former — the renouncing of the lusts and pollutions of the world, both in heart and life — and adds further the filling of their room, being cast out, with the beautifying graces of the Spirit of God, and the acting of those in their whole conduct in private and abroad, in conversing with themselves and conversing with others, whether good or bad, in a constant even course, still like themselves and like him who has called them. For it is a most unseemly and unpleasant thing to see a man's life full of ups and downs, one step like a Christian and another like a worldling — it cannot help but both pain himself and discourage others.
But as he that calls you is holy, consider whose you are, and you cannot deny that it becomes you to be holy. Your near relation to the holy God — this is expressed two ways, namely, as children, and as he who has called you. Which is all one as if he had said, has begotten you again: the very outward vocation of those that profess Christ presses holiness upon them, but the inward far more. You were running to destruction in the way of sin, and there was a voice together with the Gospel preached to your ear that spoke into your heart and called you back from that path of death to the way of holiness, which is the only way of life. He has severed you from the mass of the profane world, and picked you out to be jewels for himself — he has set you apart for this end, that you may be holy to him, as the Hebrew word that signifies holiness is from setting apart, or fitting for a peculiar use. Be not then untrue to his design — he has not called you to uncleanness, but to holiness (1 Thessalonians 4). Therefore be holy: it is sacrilege for you to dispose of yourselves after the impure manner of the world, and to apply yourselves to any profane use, whom God has consecrated to himself.
As children] This is no doubt relative to that which he spoke in verse 3 by way of thanksgiving, and that "therefore" of verse 13 draws it down here by way of exhortation. Seeing you are by a spiritual and new birth the children of so great and good a Father, he commands you holiness — be obedient children in being holy, and seeing he himself is most holy, be like him as his children: be holy as he is holy.
As obedient children] Opposite to that in Ephesians 2 — sons of disobedience, or unbelief, as the word may be rendered, and that is always the spring of disobedience. Sons of unpersuadableness, that will not be drawn and persuaded by the tenderest mercies of God. Now though this Hebrew manner of speech — sons of obedience and disobedience — signify no more but obedient or disobedient persons, yet it does signify it most emphatically and means a high degree of obedience or disobedience. These sons of disobedience (verse 2) are likewise sons of wrath (verse 3).
Of all children, the children of God are most obliged to obedience, for he is both the wisest and the most loving of fathers. And the sum of all his commands is that which is their glory and happiness — that they endeavor to be like him, to resemble their heavenly Father. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, says our Savior. And here the Apostle, citing out of the Law: be holy for I am holy (Leviticus 11:44) — law and Gospel agree in this. And as children that resemble their fathers as they grow up in years, they grow more like them — thus the children of God do increase in their resemblance, and are daily more and more renewed after his image. There is in them an innate likeness by his image impressed on them in their first renovation, and his Spirit dwelling within them, and there is a continuing increase of it by their pious imitation and study of conformity, which is here exhorted to.
The imitation of vicious men and the corrupt world is here forbidden; the imitation of men's indifferent customs is base and servile; the imitation of the virtues of good men is commendable — but the imitation of this highest pattern, this primitive goodness, the most holy God, is the top of excellence. And it is well said: Summa Religionis est imitari quem colis. All of us offer him some kind of worship, but few seriously study and endeavor this blessed conformity.
There is no question among those that profess themselves the people of God, a select number, that are indeed his children, and bear his image both in their hearts and in their lives, this impression of holiness is on themselves, and their conversation; but with the most, a name and a form of godliness is all they have for religion. Alas! We speak of holiness, and we hear of it, and it may be we commend it, but we act it not, or if we do, it's but acting of it, in that sense the word is taken, for a personated acting, as on a stage in the sight of men, not as in the sight of our lovely God, lodging it in our hearts, and from there diffusing it into all our actions. A child is then truly like his father, when not only his visage resembles him, but more his mind and inward disposition. Thus are the true children of God, like their heavenly father in their words, and in their actions; but most of all in heart.
It's no matter though the profane world (that so hate God that it cannot endure his image) do mock and revile, it's your honor as David said to be thus more vile, in growing still more like to him in holiness, and though the civil man count your fashion a little odd, and too precise, it's because he knows nothing above that model of goodness he has set himself, and therefore approves of nothing beyond it, he knows not God, and therefore does not discern, and esteem what is most like him. When courtiers come down into the country, the common homebred people possibly think their habit strange, but they care not for that, it's the fashion at court. What need then the godly be so tender-foreheaded, as to be out of countenance because the world looks on holiness as a singularity, it's the only fashion in the highest court, indeed, of the King of Kings himself.
For I am holy] As it will raise our endeavor high to look on the highest pattern, so it will lay our thoughts low concerning ourselves: men compare themselves with men, and readily with the worst, and flatter themselves with that comparative betterness; this is not the way to see our spots, to look into the muddy streams of profane men's lives; but look into the clear fountain of the Word, and there we may both discern and wash them, and consider the infinite holiness of God, and this will humble us to the dust, when Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord, and heard the Seraphim cry, holy, holy, holy, he cried out of his own and the people's unholiness. Woe is me for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hosts.
