Whom resist - See the notes at James 4:7. You are in no instance to yield to him, but are in all forms to stand up and oppose him. Feeble in yourselves, you are to confide in the arm of God. No matter in what form of terror he approaches, you are to fight manfully the fight of faith. Compare the notes at Ephesians 6:10-17.

Steadfast in the faith - Confiding in God. You are to rely on him alone, and the means of successful resistance are to be found in the resources of faith. See the notes at Ephesians 6:16.

Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world - Compare for a similar sentiment, 1 Corinthians 10:13. The meaning is, that you should be encouraged to endure your trials by the fact that your fellow-Christians suffer the same things. This consideration might furnish consolation to them in their trials in the following ways:

(1) They would feel that they were suffering only the common lot of Christians. There was no evidence that God was especially angry with them, or that he had in a special manner forsaken them.

(2) the fact that others were enabled to bear their trials should be an argument to prove to them that they would also be able. If they looked abroad, and saw that others were sustained, and were brought off triumphant, they might be assured that this would be the case with them.

(3) there would be the support derived from the fact that they were not alone in suffering. We can bear pain more easily if we feel that we are not alone - that it is the common lot - that we are in circumstances where we may have sympathy from others. This remark may be of great practical value to us in view of persecutions, trials, and death. The consideration suggested here by Peter to sustain those whom he addressed, in the trials of persecution, may be applied now to sustain and comfort us in every form of apprehended or real calamity. We are all liable to suffering. We are exposed to sickness, bereavement, death. We often feet as if we could not bear up under the sufferings that may be before us, and especially do we dread the great trial - death. It may furnish us some support and consolation to remember:

(1) that this is the common lot of people. There is nothing special in our case. It proves nothing as to the question whether we are accepted of God, and are beloved by him, that we suffer; for those whom he has loved most have been often among the greatest sufferers. We often think that our sufferings are unique; that there have been none like them. Yet, if we knew all, we should find that thousands - and among them the most wise, and pure, and good - have endured sufferings of the same kind as ours, and perhaps far more intense in degree.

(2) others have been conveyed triumphantly through their trials. We have reason to hope and to believe that we shall also, for:

(a) our trials have been no greater than theirs have been; and,

(b) their natural strength was no greater than ours. Many of them were timid, and shrinking, and trembling, and felt that they had no strength, and that they should fail under the trial.

(3) the grace which sustained them can sustain us. The hand of God is not shortened that it cannot save; his ear is not heavy that it cannot hear. His power is as great, and his grace is as fresh, as it was when the first sufferer was supported by him; and that divine strength which supported David and Job in their afflictions, and the apostles and martyrs in theirs, is just as powerful as it was when they applied to God to be upheld in their sorrows.

(4) we are especially fearful of death - fearful that our faith will fail, and that we shall be left to die without support or consolation. Yet let us remember that death is the common lot of man. Let us remember who have died - tender females; children; the timid and the fearful; those, in immense multitudes, who had no more strength by nature than we have. Let us think of our own kindred who have died. A wife has died, and shall a husband be afraid to die? A child, and shall a father? A sister, and shall a brother? It does much to take away the dread of death, to remember that a mother has gone through the dark valley; that that gloomy vale has been trod by delicate, and timid, and beloved sisters. Shall I be afraid to go where they have gone? Shall I apprehend that I shall find no grace that is able to sustain me where they have found it? Must the valley of the shadow of death be dark and gloomy to me, when they found it to be illuminated with the opening light of heaven? Above all, it takes away the fear of death when I remember that my Saviour has experienced all the horrors which can ever be in death; that he has slept in the tomb, and made it a hallowed resting-place.

Whom resist - Stand against him, αντιστητε. Though invulnerable, he is not unconquerable: the weakest follower of God can confound and overpower him, if he continue steadfast in the faith - believing on the Son of God, and walking uprightly before him. To a soul thus engaged he can do no damage.

The same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren - It is the lot of all the disciples of Christ to suffer persecution. The brotherhood, αδελφοτης, the Christian Church, everywhere is exposed to the assaults of men and devils; you are persecuted by the heathen among whom ye live, and from among whom ye are gathered into the fold of Christ: but even those who profess the same faith with you, and who are resident among the Jews, (for so I think εν κοσμῳ, in the world, is here to be understood), are also persecuted, both heathens and Jews being equally opposed to the pure and holy doctrines of the Gospel. Any man who has read the Greek Testament with any attention must have observed a vast number of places in which the word κοσμος, which we translate world, means the Jewish people and the Jewish state, and nothing else.

Whom resist,.... By no means give way to him, by indulging any sin, or yielding to any temptation, but oppose him, and stand against his wiles, his cunning and his power:

steadfast in the faith; both in the doctrine of faith, which Satan endeavours to remove from, or cause to stagger in; and in the grace of faith, exercising it on the promises of God, and his perfections, particularly his power and faithfulness concerned in them, and in the blood, righteousness, sacrifice, and person of Christ, which faith is capable of making use of, as a shield, to good purpose, against all the fiery darts of Satan; as also in a profession of faith, which, as it should be held fast without wavering, and which the devil is very busy to keep persons from making, or to cause them to drop it when they have made it, by violent suggestions, strong temptations, and a flood of reproaches and persecutions; all which should be disregarded:

knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world; and therefore should not be surprised and staggered by them, nor think them strange, but endure them without murmuring, and with patience and cheerfulness; since they are the "same afflictions" and trials which others have been exercised with in all ages: the same which the fraternity, or "brotherhood", as the word signifies, see 1 Peter 2:17 who stand in the same relation to God and Christ as they do, endure; yea, the same which Christ himself, who stands in this relation to them, has endured: and which must be expected while they are "in the world"; but this is the great mercy, that they are only endured in this world; there will be none in the world to come; they will be "accomplished" and finished here; and every believer has his measure, which must be filled up; and so has the whole of Christ, his church, and when they are fulfil they will be no more.

Resist (ἀντίστητε)

The Rev., very judiciously, substitutes withstand; resist having been already used in 1 Peter 5:5 for ἀντιτάσσεται. Withstand is, moreover, the more accurate rendering; as the verb means rather to be firm against onset than to strive against it. With in withstand is the Saxon wid, against, which appears in the German wider.

Steadfast (στερεοὶ)

Compare 2 Timothy 2:19; and the kindred verb στερεόω, to strengthen (Acts 3:7, Acts 3:16; Acts 16:5). Paul, in Colossians 2:5, uses a cognate noun, στερέωμα, evidently as a military metaphor: "Beholding your order (τάξιν, compare ἀντιτάσσεται, 1 Peter 5:5) and your solid front or close phalanx" (στερέωμα). It might be difficult to find, on the whole, a better rendering than steadfast, yet it falls a little short of the meaning. Steadfast is Anglo-Saxon, stede, a place, and faest, fast; and hence means firm in its place; but στερεοὶ conveys also the sense of compactness, compact solidity, and is appropriate, since a number of individuals are addressed and exhorted to withstand the onset of Satan as one compacted body. Στερεός implies solidity in the very mass and body of the thing itself; steadfastness, mere holding of place. A rock is στερεός, firm, solid; but a flexible weed with its tough roots resisting all efforts to pull it up, may be steadfast. The exhortation is appropriate from Peter, the Rock.

The same afflictions (τὰ αὐτὰ τῶν παθημάτων)

Rev., better, sufferings. A very peculiar construction, occurring nowhere else in the New Testament. Lit., the same things of sufferings, emphasizing the idea of identity.

Are accomplished (ἐπιτελεῖσθαι)

More correctly, are being accomplished. The present infinitive denotes something in process of accomplishment.

Brethren (ἀδελφότητι)

Lit., brotherhood. Only here and 1 Peter 2:17.

Whom resist stedfast in the faith, {12} knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your {c} brethren that are in the world.

(12) The persecutions which Satan stirs up, are neither new nor proper to any one man, but from old and ancient times common to the whole Church, and therefore we must suffer patiently, in which we have such and so many fellows of our conflicts and combats.

(c) Amongst your brethren which are dispersed throughout the world.

5:9 Whom resist. See Jas 4:7. When the devil is resisted he flees.

Stedfast in the faith. Firm in the faith.

Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren. That your sufferings are not unusual, but that the brethren everywhere suffer as you do.

5:9 Be the more steadfast, as ye know the same kind of afflictions are accomplished in - That is, suffered by, your brethren, till the measure allotted them is filled up.

Margin world

kosmos = mankind. See Scofield Note: "Mt 4:8".

9. (Lu 4:13; Eph 6:11-17; Jas 4:7.)

steadfast-Compare established in the truth," 2Pe 1:12. Satan's power exists only in respect to the unbelieving; the faithful he cannot hurt (1Jo 5:18). Faith gives strength to prayer, the great instrument against the foe (Jas 1:6, &c.).

knowing, &c.-"encouragement not to faint in afflictions": your brethren suffer the same; nothing beyond the common lot of Christians befalls you (1Co 10:13). It is a sign of God's favor rather than displeasure, that Satan is allowed to harass you, as he did Job. Your fellow Christians have the same battle of faith and prayer against Satan.

are-are being accomplished according to the appointment of God.

in the world-lying in the wicked one, and therefore necessarily the scene of "tribulation" (Joh 16:33).

5:5-9 Humility preserves peace and order in all Christian churches and societies; pride disturbs them. Where God gives grace to be humble, he will give wisdom, faith, and holiness. To be humble, and subject to our reconciled God, will bring greater comfort to the soul than the gratification of pride and ambition. But it is to be in due time; not in thy fancied time, but God's own wisely appointed time. Does he wait, and wilt not thou? What difficulties will not the firm belief of his wisdom, power, and goodness get over! Then be humble under his hand. Cast all you care; personal cares, family cares, cares for the present, and cares for the future, for yourselves, for others, for the church, on God. These are burdensome, and often very sinful, when they arise from unbelief and distrust, when they torture and distract the mind, unfit us for duties, and hinder our delight in the service of God. The remedy is, to cast our care upon God, and leave every event to his wise and gracious disposal. Firm belief that the Divine will and counsels are right, calms the spirit of a man. Truly the godly too often forget this, and fret themselves to no purpose. Refer all to God's disposal. The golden mines of all spiritual comfort and good are wholly his, and the Spirit itself. Then, will he not furnish what is fit for us, if we humbly attend on him, and lay the care of providing for us, upon his wisdom and love? The whole design of Satan is to devour and destroy souls. He always is contriving whom he may insnare to eternal ruin. Our duty plainly is, to be sober; to govern both the outward and the inward man by the rules of temperance. To be vigilant; suspicious of constant danger from this spiritual enemy, watchful and diligent to prevent his designs. Be stedfast, or solid, by faith. A man cannot fight upon a quagmire, there is no standing without firm ground to tread upon; this faith alone furnishes. It lifts the soul to the firm advanced ground of the promises, and fixes it there. The consideration of what others suffer, is proper to encourage us to bear our share in any affliction; and in whatever form Satan assaults us, or by whatever means, we may know that our brethren experience the same.