1 Peter 5:5 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Peter 5:5

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In verse 5 we come more strongly to the whole issue of humility, but it is implied in the preceding verses: ‘Likewise, ye younger.’ ‘Ye younger’ is really everybody who is not an elder, but it applies in a special way to the young. The younger we are, the more self-assertive we tend to be. These are such important words. Submit yourselves unto the elder; listen to the elder, to the preacher! Not because of him, but because he is delivering God’s instructions and if he can establish that these commands and exhortations come from this wonderful book, then we are open to them, we receive them. The word ‘submit’ means ‘arrange yourself under, place yourself under’. It doesn't mean clothe your preacher with infallibility, so that you do everything he says. It means, accord him a hearing and respect insofar as he preaches the word of God. Place yourself under the ministry of the word, and the private ministrations of the elders. Submit yourselves in that sense. Just in case that should go to the head of the elder, look at the next exhortation. ‘Yea all of you’ – including the elders – ‘be subject one to another.’ So the elder is to be subject to the hearer, and the hearer is to be subject to the elder. The elder sees himself as serving the flock. He is not their boss. He is the under-shepherd appointed to ensure their safety, and their development, and their nourishment spiritually. He sees himself as ultimately accountable to them and to God. His manner of submission is to be ready at all hours to be approached by them, to listen, to help, to tend them, to sympathise, to encourage, to warn and reprove if necessary. He is considering them. He is not preaching to get a name for himself, or so that other people should notice him. He’s preaching – and it’s a commission God has given him – in order to develop and to help and to nourish the flock. They submit to him in the sense of giving a respectful hearing and weighing what he says in the light of Scripture. ‘Be clothed with humility.’ Clothed – what an interesting word it is. The Greek term suggests the tight fastening around you of a girdle. It has to do with tying a knot and the idea is, tie on yourself a garment – the suggestion is an outer, protective garment, like an apron. But that is what slaves did, so other call it ‘the slave’s robe’, the characteristic slaves overall or cape that had to be worn. They would put on the apron to indicate that they were not free men. It was their badge of submission, their token of being servants in the household. Perhaps that's what Peter has in mind. God ‘resisteth.’ It is a military term in the original. It means God arranges himself against the proud. He arranges his armies, his hosts. He is waging a campaign against the proud. Well, you see it in secular society. You see it in the world. What is the reason for the world’s failings? What is the reason for the crashing down of proud empires? It is God. How did that empire fall? Because God decided its time was up. Almighty God arranges his troops, as it were, his forces, against us to resist us, if we’re proud.

Application

The word translated ‘humility’ means lowness, or lowliness of mind. Humility starts in the mind. I have a lowly view of myself. It doesn't mean you are super lowly necessarily in deportment. In your profession, in your work, indeed, as a parent in your family, you have to carry a certain amount of authority, and you have to give instructions to people, perhaps, and sometimes you have to do it quite firmly for safety's sake and efficiency's sake. It is not saying that you should go about looking like somebody who feels low, lowly. But in your mind, you must be. I'm here to notice needs. I'm here to tend to them. I'm here to be helpful. I'm here to reach out to people. By nature we like to think well of ourselves. By nature we like other people to think well of us, and we work for flattery, or acclaim, or notice. It goes right through even the people of God. And you look at the famous or the prominent pastors, and how much attention they give to being seen, and to being noticed. The devil can bring pride into anyone. ‘Be clothed with humility.’

Actually, it is a strangely encouraging word. Pride is so persistent; surely it is going to take me all my life to be humble. I must keep going month after month, year after year, stripping off all the pride. No, put on today and tie around you the apron, the clothing of humility. Do you mean it is easier than I thought? It is a battle, yes, but do you mean I can be humble tomorrow? That I can do something decisive even tomorrow that will make me a more humble person and will deliver a great blow to my pride? Yes, says the illustration. Clothe yourself, as you would dress, as you put on this protective apron, with humility. What a wonderful relief, that by the help of the Spirit of God, I can get early results. Pride is terrible. Pride inflates, bursts the bow, the knot and the apron of humility flies off and maybe you have got to pick it up time and time again through the day and put it back on again and consciously pray for and adopt humility.

God is arrayed against pride even in his people. If we become proud, then the time will come, he will bring us down; he will humble us; we shall suffer chastisement and loss for it. We may hear an exhortation in the goodness of God, we may read a warning in the word. But suppose we ignore it, and we do nothing about growing pride, and desire for notice, and thinking well of ourselves, and how we are going to be seen, and how we are going to do, and so on. Well then God may have to discipline us in some way. How? Your pathway will be blocked. Various things you hope to achieve, you would like to do; various things even in Christian service – you will be blocked. It simply won't work out. Instead of blessing you and helping you, God is arranging his powers against you and blocking your progress.

Peter takes his exhortation a stage further when he says, ‘Yea, all of you be subject one to another’. It is a safe and spiritual assumption that the lives of others are more worthy of praise than our own, and it is only jealously and pride that cannot easily adopt this position. Each one of us is familiar with our own hearts and we see enough of the plague of our own hearts to count ourselves the chief of sinners. It is not for us to begin guessing about what is in the hearts of others. We lose nothing by esteeming others more highly than ourselves, for the final evaluation will be the Lord’s – he exalts one and puts down another according to what he counts as virtue, while the flesh sees virtue through biased eyes in a way that favours self. But besides this, we are subject to others for Christ’s sake, for we see Christ in each brother and sister, knowing that he has loved them with an everlasting love and we should set the same value on them that he has.

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1 Peter 5:5 Commentary and Bible Study