1 Peter 3:4

1 Peter 3:4. but the hidden man of the heart. This phrase is taken by some to be practically equivalent to what is elsewhere called the ‘new man' (Colossians 3:10), or the ‘new creature' (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15), i.e the regenerate life itself on its inward side, the new nature that is formed by the Spirit of God ‘in the secret workshop of the heart,' ‘the new way of thinking, willing, and feeling' (Fronmüller, so also Alford, Wiesinger, Beza, etc.). It is analogous, however, rather to the other Pauline expressions, the ‘inner man' (Ephesians 3:16), or the ‘inward man' (Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 4:16). Of itself it denotes not the regenerate life specifically, but simply the inner life, the true self within, the contrast here being between those external accessories of ornamentation on which it is vain to depend for power of attraction or persuasion, and those inner qualities of character which are the secret of all permanent, personal influence (so substantially Calvin, Bengel, Huther, Hofmann, Schott, Weiss, etc.). The term ‘man' is used much as we use the I, the self, the personality. It is described as ‘hidden,' in antithesis to those exterior, material adornments which are meant to catch the eye. And it is defined as ‘of the heart,' as found in the heart, or identified with it. Clement, in the treatise already referred to (Pad. 1 Peter 3:1), defines the ‘inner man' as the ‘rational nature which rules the outer man.'

in the imperishableness of the meek and quiet spirit. The inner personality of moral beauty which makes the wife's true adorning, which belongs to the heart and cannot be seen by the outer eye, is further defined in respect of what it consists in. That is, as the phrase literally runs, ‘in the imperishable of the meek and quiet spirit;' the adjective meaning not ‘without stain,' or ‘uncorrupted,' as Grotius, Luther, Erasmus, take it, but in accordance with 1 Peter 1:7, simply ‘permanent' in opposition to the transitory and decaying. This is construed, therefore, in several ways; either as = in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit (so A. V., but with a certain strain upon the Greek); or = in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit (so R. V., with Hofmann, Alford, etc.); or = in the imperishableness of a meek and quiet spirit, i.e in what cannot perish, namely, a meek and quiet spirit. This last is most in harmony with the previous contrast (in 1 Peter 1:7) between proved faith which is to be found unto praise at Christ's coming, and gold that perisheth. So the Rhemish gives ‘in the incorruptibility of a quiet and a modest spirit.' The other old English Versions are in confusion, e.g. Wycliffe's ‘in incorruption and of mild spirit,' Tyndale's ‘incorrupt with a meek and a quiet spirit' (so also the Genevan), and Cranmer's ‘without all corruption, so that the spirit be at rest and quiet.' The quality of meekness implies more than gentleness. In the old Greek ethics it amounts only to mildness, in the sense of the opposite of roughness and violence (Plato, Rep. 558A, etc.), or in that of the subsidence of anger (Herod, 1 Peter 2:18). It is defined by Aristotle as the mean between passionate temper and the neutral disposition which is incapable of heated feeling, and as inclining to the weakness of the latter (Nic. Eth. iv. 5). In the New Testament it is not mere equanimity, but the grace of a positive denial of self which holds disputings alien to it, and curbs the tendency of nature to passion, resistance, and resentment (cf. also Matthew 5:5; Matthew 21:5, and, above all, Christ's application of it to Himself, Matthew 11:29). The quality of quietness expresses a tranquility or peaceableness (the adjective is the same as the ‘peaceable' of 1 Timothy 2:2, its only other New Testament occurrence) which has its deep source within. Together, therefore, the two epithets may describe the beauty of the spirit which, as Bengel suggests, at once shrinks from giving trouble by the assertion of one's rights, and bears in calmness the grievances which come from others.

which is in the sight of God of great price. The estimate which is put upon such a spirit by Him who has said of Himself that He ‘seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart' (1 Samuel 16:7), should be a further recommendation of it to these women. The same epithet is used to describe the array as costly (1 Timothy 2:9), and the spikenard as very precious (Mark 14:3). It is another, with a similar sense, which occurs in 1 Peter 1:7, and is used to describe the pearl (Matthew 13:46) as one ‘of great price,' and Mary's spikenard as ‘very costly' (John 12:3; cf. Matthew 26:7). With Peter's statement of the wife's true adorning, compare above all the picture of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 (specially Proverbs 31:25); and such classical parallels as this from Plutarch's Nuptial Precepts ‘that adorns a woman which makes her more becoming; and this is not done either by gold, or emerald, or purple, but by those things which give her the appearance of dignity, orderliness, modesty.'