1 Peter 2:16

1 Peter 2:16. as free, and not as having your freedom for a covering of wickedness, but as bond servants of God. Liberty is apt to degenerate into licence. Milton speaks of those who

‘Bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

And still revolt when truth would set them free;

Licence they mean when they cry liberty.'

The man possessed by the new sense of freedom in Christ might think it strange to be the servant of men, and of such men as heathen rulers were. Peter guards his readers against this secret danger of making their liberty in Christ a plea for insubordination in the State, and presents it both as a reason for order and subjection, and as the spirit in which these duties should be rendered. Because they were free they were to be submissive; for (the ‘and' introduces an explanation of the ‘free') their freedom was not to be used as a means for concealing or palliating wickedness, and they themselves, while free, were also God's bond-servants and under obligation to fulfil His will. ‘The freedom of Christians is a bond freedom, because they have been set free in order to be bond-servants to God; and a free bondage, because they obey God and Magistrate not of constraint, but spontaneously' (Gerhard). The ‘cloke' of the A. V. is apt to mislead. The Greek term simply means a ‘covering,' and is used in the Old Testament to denote the covering of badgers' skins upon the tabernacle (Exodus 26:14). It has no reference (as Beza strangely supposes) to the cap put on by manumitted slaves. Neither does it mean ‘cloak,' except in the figurative sense of something that hides the true character of conduct. The English Versions mostly give ‘malice' or ‘maliciousness' as the rendering of the other noun, in this following, and perhaps misunderstanding, the Vulgate. The Bishops' Bible, however, gives ‘naughtiness,' and, though the word has also the more specific sense, and not a few interpreters prefer it here, this more general meaning of ‘wickedness,' ‘evil conduct,' is more in harmony with the context. (See also on 1 Peter 2:1; and for the idea as a whole, compare 2 Peter 2:19; Galatians 5:13; as also 1 Corinthians 8:10; Romans 14:13.) The connection of this 16th verse is uncertain. Our view of its application will be modified according as we relate it to what precedes or to what follows. Some take it as an introduction to 1 Peter 2:17, and as stating, therefore, that Christian freedom means the giving of their dues to all the four subjects distinguished there (Steiger, Lachmann, Plumptre, etc.). But it is not easy to see how the statement of 1 Peter 2:16 bears particularly on such a precept as the third in 1 Peter 2:17, ‘Fear God.' Others connect it with 1 Peter 2:15; in which case its import is that the ‘well-doing' by which adversaries are to be silenced must be in the exercise of a liberty implying freedom from deceit, and rejoicing in service (so Tyndale, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Hofmann, Wiesinger, Alford, etc.). A third connection is also proposed (by Chrysostom, Bengel, Schott, Huther, etc.), namely, with 1 Peter 2:13; in which case it becomes a definition of the general injunction, ‘Submit yourselves,' which rules the whole section. This last is on the whole the best, as giving the principle that the submission which was enjoined in all these civil and political relations was to be rendered not in an abject spirit, or with concealed motives, but in consistency with a liberty in Christ which was also free subjection to God's will and entire loyalty to His service.