That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Ver. 15. Blameless and harmless] Gr. ακεραιοι, hornless, or sincere, without mixture of deceit or guile, Israelites indeed.
The sons of God] Dignity enforceth duty. Remember that thou art a king's son, said he to Antigonus, and thou canst not do amiss.
Without rebuke] Αμωμητα, such as envy itself cannot justly tax, or fasten her fangs on. Si Luthero faverem ut viro bono, quod fatentur et hostes, &c., saith Erasmus, who yet loved him not. Luther is a good man, as his very enemies cannot but acknowledge. So Bucer, Bradford, Melancthon. Christians should excel others, standing as standard bearers, higher than others, as Saul was by the head and shoulders; being without blemish from head to foot, as Absalom; fair to the eye and good to the taste, as the tree of knowledge, Genesis 3:6 .
In the midst of a crooked] As Noah was righteous in his generation; as Joshua would serve Jehovah, though alone; as David therefore loved God's testimonies, because other men kept not his law; as Elijah amidst the Baalites cries, Zelando zelavi; the worse they were, the better was he. Baruch kindled himself (accendit seipsum, Trem.) from other men's coldness, and quickened himself from other men's dulness, Nehemiah 3:20 .
As lights in the world] φωτηρες, luminaries, great lights, such are the sun and moon, that give light to others. Some wicked have greater common gifts than the godly; as many metals are brighter and more orient than the heavens: yet as those metals are not fit to convey the light of the sun, nay indeed they would stop it; so neither are the wicked fit to shine the true light into us; but Christ and Christians, those lights of the world. Such as Chrysostom was, whom Theodore styleth eximium orbis terrarum luminare, a famous light of the Church; and others said, that the sunlight might better be spared than Chrysostom's preaching.