ver the multitude of sins.'--1 Peter
iv. 1-8.

Christian morality brought two new things into the world--a new type of
life in sharp contrast with the sensuality rife on every side, and a new
set of motives powerfully aiding in its realisation. Both these
novelties are presented in this passage, which insists on a life in
which the spirit dominates the flesh, and is dominated by the will of
God, and which puts forward purely Christian ideas as containing the
motives for such a life. The facts of Christ's life and the prospect of
Christ's return to judge the world are here urged as the reason for
living a life of austere repression of 'the flesh' that we may do God's
will.

I. We have, first, in verses 1 and 2, a general precept, based upon the
broad view of Christ's earthly history. 'Christ hath suffered in the
flesh.' That is the great fact which should shape the course of all His
followers. But what does suffering in the flesh mean here? It does not
refer only to the death of Jesus, but to His whole life. The phrase 'in
the flesh' is reiterated in the context, and evidently is equivalent to
'during the earthly life.' Our Lord's life was, in one aspect, one
continuous suffering, because He lived the higher life of the spirit.
That higher life had to Him, and has to us, rich compensations; but it
sets those who are true to it at necessary variance with the lower types
of life common among men, and it brings many pains, all of which Jesus
knew. The last draught from the cup was the bitterest, but the
bitterness was diffused through all the life of the Man of Sorrows.

That life is here contemplated as the pattern for all Christ's servants.
Peter says much in this letter of our Lord's sufferings as the atonement
for sin, but here he looks at them rather as the realised ideal of all
worthy life. We are to be 'partakers of Christ's sufferings' (v. 13),
and we shall become so in proportion as His own Spirit becomes the
spirit which lives in us. If Jesus were only our pattern, Christianity
would be a poor affair, and a gospel of despair; for how should we
reach to the pure heights where He stood? But, since He can breathe
into us a spirit which will hallow and energise our spirits, we can rise
to walk beside Him on the high places of heroic endurance and of holy
living. Very beautifully does Peter hint at our sore conflict, our
personal defencelessness, and our all-sufficient armour, in the
picturesque metaphor 'ar