2 Peter 1

10. The God of all grace.** By reason of our many wants and great weakness, we had need to have a very full hand and a very strong hand to go to for supplies and support. And such we have indeed; our Father is the God of all grace, a spring that can not be drawn dry, no, nor so much as any whit diminished. The work of salvation is all grace from beginning to end—free grace in the plot of it laid in the counsel of God and performed by his own hand all of it; his Son sent in the flesh, and his Spirit sent into the hearts of his chosen to apply Christ. All grace is in him the living spring of it, and flows from him; all the various actings and all the several degrees of grace. He is the God of pardoning grace, that blots out the transgressions of his own children, for his own name’s sake; makes one act of oblivion serve for all reckonings betwixt him and them. So he is the God of sanctifying grace, who refines and purifies all those he means to make up into vessels of glory, and hath in his hand all the fit means and ways of doing this; purges them by afflictions and outward trials. For the further opening up of his riches expressed in this title, the God of all grace, is added one great act of grace, which doth indeed include all the rest; for we have in it the beginning and end of the work linked together: the first effect of grace upon us in effectual calling, and the last accomplishment of it in eternal glory. Who hath called us to his eternal glory. Consider what is there, how worthy the affection, worthy the earnest eye and fixed look of an heir of this glory! What can he either desire or fear whose heart is thus deeply fixed? Who would refuse this other clause, to suffer awhile, a little while, anything outward or inward he thinks fit? How soon shall all this be overpast, and then overpaid in the very entry, at the beginning of this glory that shall never end! L.—If my reaching the goal depended on myself and on my strength, I should never get there; but through God’s free grace I expect to reach it. I build not my salvation on my vows of eternal faithfulness to Jesus. I build on God’s promise, that he will “perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle” me. I might perhaps let him go, but he holds me fast; and my salvation is sure because it rests on Jesus and his blood. A. C.

The hand that beckons us to glory waves out of impenetrable clouds. We walk in a way which we know not. We lay wise plans, and they miscarry. We commit gross blunders, and they are overruled for good. We run toward the light, and find it darkness. We sink shivering into the darkness, and find it light. We run toward the doors to which worldly ambition has called us, and only a solid granite wall is across our path. We move against that wall at the call of duty, and it opens to let us through. What shall befall us, we can not know. What is expedient, we can not tell. Only this we know, that God would shape us to himself, whether by the discipline of joy or of sorrow. To make us perfect as he is perfect, this is the choice of our heavenly Father, this is the end of all his revelations. Everything not helpful to this he hides away out of our sight. R. D. H.—At every step the disciple takes his rewards as he goes on; and they are rewards in the kind of his toil; for the charity that suffereth long and thinketh no evil there will be given a mightier power of love, till tongues shall cease and that which is perfect is come; for the struggles of uncomplaining patience there will be the grand endurance which smiles on pain; for faith, the sunlit country where no doubt ever casts a shadow; and for that Christlike purity of heart which is the transparent air in which all spiritual graces live and move, the vision beatific and divine, a vision not to be wholly postponed and waited for till death changes us. Death to sin is always changing us; victory over evil is always transfiguring us. The knowledge of the Son of God will begin where the purity begins. It will be an immediate and ever-growing “blessedness” even here. The vision will be ever-brightening, till we see not in the least “as through a glass darkly,” but “face to face.” F. D. H.

11. “To Him, the God of all grace, the glory and might to the ages of the ages. Amen.” Let all the people of the Lord say Amen. Let none of them seek their own glory or boast of their own might; but let all, catching the spirit of this precious Epistle, hope in God, live in the world as pilgrims, and wait patiently for Christ. D. F.

1. SIMON PETER, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: 2 grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our 3 Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and

4 godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7 and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things 8 be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the 9 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot 10 see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, 11 ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

12. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, 13 though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as 14 long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed 15 me. Moreover I will endeavor that ye may be able after my decease to have these things 16 always in remembrance. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewit- 17 nesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 18 well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him 19 in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the 20 day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any 21 private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

ADMISSION to his kingdom, the reception of his Spirit, communion with himself, participation in his knowledge, the unutterable happiness conferred by his love, the entire and sweet repose of affection exalted yet satisfied in him, the boundless and sublime freedom that comes with acquiescence in the will of the Infinite, the exultant and interminable progress of heaven, heirship with Christ to the forces, the enjoyments, and the dominions of God—all these are promised to those who receive redemption in the Son. God promises himself! We shall not only be “sons” and “heirs” of God, but we shall be partakers of the divine nature. We know not what we shall be, but we shall be like God; seeing him as he is. We shall be filled with all the fullness of God. The language of earth fails fully to utter these mysteries of glory. It staggers beneath the wealth of the heavenly revelations. What no aspiring desire in its loftiest flight has dared to deem possible, they offer to all on condition of faith. On the ground of acceptance, established in the cross, illustrated in the ascension, recorded in the gospel, and ever symbolized in the ordinance of the supper, they offer to man the felicity of the Godhead! R. S. S.

THE First Epistle was written to fortify Christian brethren in the endurance of afflictions from without. This bids them watch against dangers within the Church, in the form of deceptive teachers and mocking skeptics, who would turn them away from the hope of the gospel. D. F.—The object and aim of the Epistle are best set forth in the last two verses of it, as being a caution to the readers against falling from their steadfastness, and an exhortation to grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. To the fervent enforcing of this latter and main purpose, chapter 1: 1-11 is devoted. Then (1: 12-21) the grounds of this knowledge are stated to consist in the apostolic testimony and prophetic announcement. This serves as an introduction to the description of the false teachers and prophets who were coming in among them (ch. 2). In chapter 3 the further error which should arise, that of rejecting ing the hope of the Lord’s coming, is stigmatized, with a reference to the Epistles of Paul, as teaching the same truths, but being perverted, like the other Scriptures, by the ignorant and unstable. The main purpose of exhortation is, notwithstanding many allusive and polemical digressions, kept closely in view throughout. The later portions are all based on the earlier. The whole sprang from a holy desire to build up and confirm the readers, in especial reference to certain destructive forms of error in doctrine and practice which were then appearing, and would continue to wax onward. A.

2. Through the knowledge of Jesus our Lord.** Take the Holy Scriptures and see how often Christ is there spoken of as an indwelling Christ, present now, formed within, living in the believer and the believer in him, the very Life of life.

Light even breaks in on that almost inexplicable and incredible saying of Peter, that, by the “exceeding great and precious promises” of the Word made flesh, men may be “partakers of the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Reason, blind and anxious, may still have its difficulties, and toil and grind in its prison-house, “bound in affliction and iron”; but Faith marches right over them as if they were not—nay, she takes wings and leaves them out of her sight. What we want, that our gospel gives. While Reason is puzzling herself about the mystery, Faith is turning it into her daily bread, and feeding on it thankfully in her heart of hearts. While Reason is applying the tests of her earthly chemistry, threatening to dissolve the very cross of Calvary in her crucibles, Faith has quietly set the holy doctrine to the music of her joy, and is singing it as her hymn of Benedictus or Magnificat in unquestioning peace. The doctrine may crucify the proud, but it crowns the meek with salvation. F. D. H.

4. The word which is here given to us is full of promises, and they are “exceedingly great and precious”: great in their range, because there is no circumstance which they do not reach; precious in their character, because there is no exigency in our affairs to which they are not adapted. E. M.—The grant includes all that the infinite God can do for the well-being of man; it far surpasses all human comprehension and thought. It is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, which is concerned for the believer’s interests; it is that he may know this by experience, and that he may be filled with all the fullness of God, that God has made a covenant with him. It is pardon, grace, and eternal glory. Thus, all there is in heaven is opened to man by the promises of God; all there is in God, all there is in the universe, concentrated and poured upon the heart of man by the promises of the immutable God. For what? To allure him “to be a partaker of the divine nature”—the holiness of God. N. W. T.

Every promise is built upon four pillars: God’s justice, which will not suffer him to deceive; God’s grace or goodness, which will not suffer him to forget; God’s truth, which will not suffer him to change; God’s power, which makes him able to accomplish! T. M.—The promises are a precious book; every leaf drops myrrh and mercy. They are golden vessels, laden with the choicest jewels that heaven can afford or the soul desire. There is nothing you can truly call a mercy but you will find it in the promises. Brooks.

5-7. We venture to affirm that this passage is fraught at once with philosophical justness of classification and with prophetic truth. To convey the full sense of the apostolic language, it is necessary to resort to a paraphrase of the passage. “Divinely endowed,” says the apostle, “with whatever is important to (spiritual) life and piety; enriched also with those inestimable promises which insure to us a participation in the divine nature—a participation we derive from our acquaintance with him who has challenged us to so high a glory; and having, by the same means, gained freedom from the defilement of mundane passions, my brethren, take heed that you beseem yourselves worthily of your vocation—using the utmost assiduity in the pursuit of Christian excellence—see that your faith in these promises is always associated with manly energy or vigor—that your faith be not pusillanimous—and then, that your courage (virtue) be duly informed by evangelical principles (knowledge). Again, take heed that your knowledge (of the gospel) be not abused to licentiousness, but rather be united with self-command and temperance. Nor must this control of the appetites spring from a haughty and fanatical temper, but must consist with humility and submission. Yet let your humility be religious (not stoical). Then remember that your piety is not to be unsocial (or anchoretic), but fraught with brotherly affection. And lastly, that your affection toward your fellow-Christians is not to be sectarian, but expansive, and that it is to spring from the principle of universal love.” I. T.

5. Add. The root of the word is a chorus—a chorus, not of voices, but a hand or company of persons united in one group by the taking hold of hands. So have we here a circle of properties in which each supports and qualifies every other; beginning with one quality, this striking hands with the next, and so through the whole, till the last named is joined again to the first in one organic whole, a chorus of most musical harmony. W. A.—To faith virtue. Faith being laid, in the individual soul, as the “foundation” on which a Christian life is to be erected, every believer is to build upon it the virtues and excellences of that life. Each of these is as a separate stone which is to be added to the structure. Virtue stands, according to the exact import of the original term, for “force,” “energy,” “manly strength.” It describes a readiness for action and effort; the disposition and the power of strenuous achievement. “Add,” then, “to your faith,” force. Be strong. Have manly energy, and let it be manifested by promptness, decision, and resolute action. T. B.—It would conduce to childlike humility if the use of the term virtue, in that comprehensive and notional sense in which it was used by the ancient Stoics, were abandoned as a relic of paganism, and if Christians, restoring the word to its original import, viz., manhood, or manliness, used it exclusively to express the quality of fortitude; strength of character in relation to the resistance opposed by nature and the irrational passions to the dictates of reason; energy of will in preserving the line of rectitude tense and firm against the warping forces and treacheries of temptation. S. T. C.—To virtue knowledge. Practical wisdom to direct force. By this union of “energy” and “wisdom,” standing together on the basis of “faith,” there will come to be within you the harmonious coöperation of great powers, principles, and habits: high aims, true thoughts, sound judgment, rectitude of purpose, strong impulse, practicable plan, indomitable perseverance, tact to discern “time and opportunity”— all issuing in a wise and intelligent course of action, fruitful in noble deeds, and crowned with frequent success.

6. To knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience.** These two virtues have relation to life as a scene of mixed enjoyment and suffering. In respect to both, we want “temperance,” that is, self-government, self-control—a regal power to limit or resist. But the same nature and the same constitution of things that render “temperance” necessary expose us to that which requires “patience.” There is nothing for it but to bear up and to oppose to suffering a store of determined passive force in the form of the “patience” inculcated by the apostle. The circle of duty seems to be getting complete. “Energy” and “knowledge”—motive force and practical wisdom; “temperance” and “patience”—masterhood of self in two noble forms; these elements of heroic action, of regulated joy and uncomplaining endurance, based on “faith” and beautified by “godliness,” would seem to make provision for almost all the excellence that can be demanded of humanity. But men are not living alone now. Goodness in us is not only to be divine and personal, but is especially to have a social and human aspect. 7. Therefore add to godliness brotherly kindness, or the love of the brotherhood, “the household of faith.” It is the fraternal or family affection of Christianity which unites together, or ought to unite, all those who profess to regard themselves as “heirs together of the grace of life.” The feeling that comes next to the love of God is, or ought to be, the love of godlike men. And to brotherly kindness charity. Charity here signifies “philanthropy”—universal love; the love of all mankind. This love is not, as a Christian sentiment, to be a bit of barren though beautiful idealism, a vague, philosophic glow of “fraternity,” but a really deep, earnest, intense thing as to its nature, and a real, effective doer of work as to its expression. T. B.

Religion begins with faith and ends in love, and the circle is complete—for of him and to him are all things. We set out with believing; we graduate at last in that holy affection which makes us “partakers of the divine nature.” We can make no advance beyond the point we have now reached. We stand on that summit which has nothing higher than itself. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” He who liveth in love is one with his Maker. W. A.—Such is the edifice which every individual Christian, as a wise, diligent, and honest workman, is to build up on the “foundation” of his faith. It is wonderfully comprehensive and exquisitely beautiful, this enumeration of virtues, this catalogue of the materials, which, being put together according to rule, shall stand forth a noble, symmetrical, divine thing, the becoming embodiment of a divine life. T. B.

8. Neither barren nor unfruitful.** Study if you will, nay, study because you ought, the historical or logical evidences of Christianity. Trace the symmetry of its form, the minute and marvelous articulations of all the joints and bones of its doctrinal system, but remember, when you have thus reconstructed its frame, you have not discovered its life, any more than the knife of the anatomist can lay bare for him the life of the frame he examines. That is to be seen in its actings only. For that, you must come out into the world where Christianity lives, breathes, moves, and acts, a living thing. You must see it in the beauty and the grace and the might of its life. Magee.

10. Give diligence.** Depending with an apparent faith, a real negligence, upon the agency of the Spirit of God, we too much forget that the Spirit urges us by means and to the use of means; that his object is not to supersede the prudence and the reason, but to disentangle it of encumbrance, and call it more forcibly, clearly, and constantly into action. Employ every means to rise from sense to faith. Consult with candor your own experience of your own temptations, and then the sincere prayer of faith will be heard—God will direct and overrule. W. A. B.—Make your calling sure, and by that your election; for, that being done, this follows of itself. We are not to pry immediately into the decree, but to read it in the performance. Though the mariner sees not the pole-star, yet the needle of the compass that points to it tells him which way he sails. Thus the heart that is touched with the loadstone of divine love, trembling with godly fear and yet still looking toward God by fixed believing, points at the love of election, and tells the soul that its course is toward the haven of eternal rest. He that loves may be sure he was loved first, and he that chooses God for his delight and portion may conclude confidently that God hath chosen him to be one of those that shall enjoy him and be happy in him for ever—for that our love and electing of him is but the return and repercussion of the beams of his love shining upon us. L.

Christian salvation is a spiritual state, here or hereafter, where nobler and heartier service can be done for God and man. It is right to exhort men to make sure their calling and election in heaven. Only we must remember, heaven is not a spot to lie down in, and there, on our couches, tuning our harps, to think how much misery we have personally escaped. The Christian heaven is an exalted society of self-sacrificing spirits, bound together in mutual fellowship by their common consecration to him who is above them, where each accepted soul will go from strength to strength, run and not be weary, toil and not faint, aspire and not be baffled, do good and not be misinterpreted, and will be assimilated in ever closer and closer affinity to him who is its light and life. F. D. H.

11. Shall be ministered.** The “add” in the fifth verse and “ministered” in the eleventh are both parts of the same verb; as if it were said, “add” to your faith these virtues in this world, and God will “add” to them—or to you because of them—“an abundant entrance” into that which is to come. T. B.

Everlasting. This word in the New Testament is employed seventy-two times. In four instances it is loosely used in describing long past events, as in 2 Tim. 1: 9, where it is translated with its accompanying noun, “before the world began”; in two instances it is used to represent a complete eternity, without beginning or end—once of God and once of Christ; in eight instances it refers to an eternal future, as in 2 Cor. 4: 18, “the things which are not seen are eternal”; in seven instances it is applied to the future of Christ’s kingdom as here, the “everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”; in forty-four instances it describes the unending life of the good; and in the remaining seven instances it similarly describes the unending death of the wicked. There is absolutely no indication in its New Testament use that, in Mat. 25 or any similar one, it was intended to include any limit to its significance. And, whatever that significance may be, it is clear that Christ attaches it as effectually to the life of the good as to the death of the bad; so that, if the latter be limited, the former must be also. Dexter.

16. Not cunningly devised fables.** Those who are not convinced of the truth of the gospel must at any rate admit that Christianity exists. How it came here, how it thrives, and how it works more than all other energies, are questions that no man has solved without assuming far more unlikely things than the existence of a Christ such as the Scriptures describe. The phenomenon appeared, they must allow, some eighteen centuries ago, and among a few fishermen upon Bethsaida beach. These simple folk carved out the only Godlike image ever seen. They devised the most novel and successful scheme of moral conduct, and kept on preaching doctrines that convicted every day their own falsehood and deception. They invented the very best plan for benefiting other people, but they utterly failed to get anything out of it themselves except weeping and loss. These simpletons, that could not see through the flimsy veil of fable, saw deeper into human hearts than any other men, and gave voice to yearnings that were felt everywhere, but were never understood before. These dupes exposed all other deceptions that had deceived the wisest of philosophers. Macgregor.

16-18. One closing testimony he hears, consciously or unconsciously, for the Church of all time, to the reality of that which he calls “the power and presence” of Christ; in other words, the great and glorious advent which is to be the Revelation, the Epiphany, of the King of kings. I have been, he says, an eye-witness of his majesty. I heard with these ears that voice from heaven, on the holy mount of transfiguration, which attested him as the beloved Son of God. And, therefore, I can not be misled, I can not be misleading, when I bid you to believe, to expect, and to adore. V.—“The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is, our Lord’s coming in his kingdom with power, and glory, and majesty, to judge the world. Peter here proves that he will so come by declaring that he and the two other disciples, James and John, were eye-witnesses of his majesty; that is, they actually saw him on the mount, invested with majesty and glory similar to that which he would assume in his kingdom at the last day. P.—To a few quickened eyes and elevated spirits, and through them to the Christian multitudes and ages, for a demonstration never to be forgotten, the gates of the unseen home were opened; the curtain of the hidden glory was lifted; the sublime forms of the great religious masters of antiquity, long since withdrawn from the flesh into the tabernacle of their eternal worship, were revealed. They came in shapes like those of their mortality, indicating some mysterious and transcendent correspondence between the perishable and the celestial bodies. Above all, in the center of all, was seen, for once, the glorified appearance of the Redeemer, not marred or mortal any more; and the wonderful words spoken were of the suffering that was to be borne for the remission of the sins of mankind. F. D. H.

19. Peter’s description of the office of the Bible—its office and the limit of it. “A light shining in a dark place until a dawning day.” The day—that which has still to dawn, that of which the day-star has not yet risen, though already some streaks, prognostics of daybreak, are visible in the horizon of the far eastern sky. The day is the advent, not the first advent—for that was past when he wrote—nor only the spiritual advent—wherein Christ comes, with his Father, by the Spirit, to make his abode with the believing and loving one, for after this advent there is but the more need of that lamp of the word by which the Christian man must walk, warily and circumspectly, till his change come—but the great advent, that to which the eye of longing expectation should ever be turned in awe and hope, that of which, although the world, dead and living, shall see the glorious, dazzling brightness, the Christian alone shall behold in his heart the beauty and the satisfaction. Till then let us study, let us love, let us live by the light of God’s word. Let us say, and find it true, “Thy word is a lantern unto my feet, and a lamp to my step.” “Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them.” So living, so dying, it shall be said to each one, as he prepares to exchange the dark chamber of his earthly being for the light of an everlasting day: “Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off.”

20,21. “Knowing this first”—as a condition of all profiting from it—“that no prophecy,” no utterance, “of Scripture is of private solution”—due, that is, to the writer’s individual will or effort to solve one of God’s mysteries—it is not that the human writer, of any book or any chapter of Scripture, volunteers to explain God, his way and his doing, his will and his counsel, to the creatures of his hand. The prophecy comes to solve; and in coming to solve, it comes not of itself, not of the will or the wisdom of the man who writes, but of God who sends and who inspires. No testimony was ever stronger or more comprehensive to the inspiration of the Bible. Every part of it, Peter declares, is due, not to man, but to God. Every part of it has its divine purpose, and every writer his

divine mission. V.—Whether we look at the prophecies that related to events before the time of Christ, or to those relating to him, or to those which he uttered, or to the present state of the Jews, and indeed of the world, as indicating a complete fulfillment of the prophecies, we shall see the fullest reason to believe that “the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” M. H.