Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. 1 Peter 2:22,23
One of the modern language versions of the Bible renders the first part of our text ‘Who never sinned and never told a lie’. That rendition is incomplete at best and inaccurate at worst. The expression ‘neither was guile found in His mouth’ goes much further than telling lies. One can speak the truth and still speak guile, if the truth is spoken with intent to deceive or misrepresent something. Guile is a common failing of many people. A used car salesman, for example, uses guile when he praises the good points of a car while neglecting to mention the leaking transmission. Many a job resume contains guile while telling the truth about work experience but avoiding mention of the inability to get along with fellow workers. We are all guilty of small acts of guile in which we tell no direct lie but still manage to deceive others. That could never be said of the Lord Jesus. His words were always true and His intentions were always straightforward and pure. This is one of the ways in which He differed from the rest of humanity.
The thought behind our text is also contained in Isaiah 53:9: ‘And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth.’ And in our text, the Lord Jesus is identified as not retaliating when He was reviled and caused to suffer. If it had been us, we would have said that we would be justified in retaliating. In fact. we could not imagine not retaliating against such indignities and torture. But the Lord Jesus would not have been justified in retaliating, regardless of how wrong the shame and torment against Him was. That’s because it was His Father’s purpose that He should go to the cross and bear our sins in His own body on the tree. Retaliating would have been opposing His Father’s purposes. He never could and never would do that. That’s why our text declares that He committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.
Reread today’s text and wonder at the love and devotion of the Lord Jesus for His Father, and of the display of that love in the amazing grace that provided a Saviour for us. -Jim MacIntosh