Peter exhorts believers to bear suffering and persecution after the example of Jesus, Who did not reply in like manner when wicked men reviled Him, and did not threaten those who persecuted and murdered Him.
Peter concludes by explaining Christ's attitude in all this: Jesus committed Himself into the hands of God His Father Who judges in righteousness.
This is a profound observation, that Jesus relied upon, and trusted in, His Father to set all things right, to judge all things in righteousness, to accept Christ's offering for His people's sin, and to vindicate Him and exalt Him in glory.
This reliance by Jesus upon His Father's justice in all things is the great explanation of Christ's calm acceptance of the cruelty that He suffered.
Jesus relied upon the promised justice of God as the complete resolution of all the evil that He suffered.
And so too, Peter insists, ought the saints! This patient resting of Jesus in God's justice is the final part of Christ's example to us in how we ought to behave and respond to suffering and affliction and persecution - by waiting on God our Father's promised righteous justice in Jesus Christ His Son.
Jesus never tried to "set things right" for Himself, leaving that up to His Father's promise to do so.
So too we are to leave the settling of scores and our vindication up to the Lord Jesus when He comes back to judge in righteousness.
Peter no doubt had in mind how Christ on the cross, when the work was finally done, commended His spirit into the hands of His Father.
He lay down His life on the cross as the substitute for His people in God's wrath and judgment, and trusted in His Father to receive it all for us.
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
