Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16) A.J. Mason observed that no Christian “should mistake the nature of his Christian liberty so as to dream of an exemption from obedience either to God or man.”
Two sources of authority to which man must give an answer are God and governments ordained by God God, the ultimate source and power, deserves our complete and full surrender to His holy will. Man, as appointed by God, is deserving of our obedience so long as his law does not contradict the law of God.
B,C, Caffin noted that “The meaning of this verse is that Christian freedom must show itself, not in license, but in willing obedience to constituted authorities.”
Christianity has always been the friend and promoter of liberty….To spread the gospel in its purity everywhere would be to break every yoke of oppression and bondage, and to make people everywhere free. (Albert Barnes)
Some of these Jews to whom Peter directed this “used their liberty for a cloak of maliciousness – for a pretext of rebellion, and by it endeavored to vindicate their seditious and rebellious conduct.” (Adam Clarke). In doing so they were never really free. (cf. Romans 13:1-5)
The ones who were truly free were those “living as servants of God”. These were free from sin in the blood of Jesus, living obediently and faithfully to God and as such were being subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution whether it be to the emperor as supreme, “or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” (1 Peter 2:13,14)
Freedom is not a license for doing evil. It is the responsibility to do what is right – to obey God, to live as a servant of God