2 Peter 3

20,21. Those that religiously name the name of Christ and do not depart from iniquity, how will they die? and how will they look that man in the face, unto the profession of whose name they have entailed an unrighteous conversation? or do they think that he doth not know what they have done, or that they may take him off with a few cries and wringing of hands, when he is on the throne to do judgment against transgressors? It had been better they had not known, had not professed; yea, better they had never been born. And as Christ says it had been good, so Peter says it had been better—good they had not been born, and better they had not known and made profession of the name of Christ. Bsn.—The truth is perceived by the understanding, and has commended itself to the conscience, but the blindness of the heart still maintains its gloomy and obstinate resistance. They believe it in every sense which can create responsibility, enhance guilt, and secure perdition, and that is all. And, I ask, if they are thus blind to truth; if they can confess the majesty and glory of God, when presented in visible manifestation before them; if they can see and acknowledge that the claims of their Redeemer are brought to them by the actual presence of their Redeemer, and yet remain blind to the perception of the reality; if they can admit that heaven and hell are opened before them, that death is at hand, their final Judge at the door, and yet slumber on; if all the appointed means of impression are thus counteracted, and nothing new will be furnished—I ask if such men are not outcasts of condemnation? N. W. T.

Whatever be the fate of human speculations on this tremendous topic, be it ours to cultivate the simplicity of faith which is independent of them. Even though in its vastness and mystery it continue to rebuke our feeble reason, let it stand in the naked simplicity of fact; a TRUTH—great, and terrible, and certain; planted deep in the nature of God’s attributes, and therefore unfathomable as all things are that are of him; but, withal, addressing itself to the simplest and strongest feelings of man—his dread of pain, his horror of shame, and misery, and death; meeting him at every turn to evil, and casting a fearful shadow across those pleasures that are not of God, and those glories where God’s glory is forgotten; meeting him at the first fatal steps upon that course which ends in the abyss of woe it denounces; warning him to flee the bondage of seductions which grow as they are obeyed and strengthen with every victory; warning him that all the temporal results of sin—the shame of detection, the loss of reputation, the ruin of prospects, the destruction of health, the early grave—all are but shadows of the overwhelming penalty it brings, when the mercy which still restrains to these limits the fullness of divine vengeance shall have ceased, and the sin and the punishment, which are now but temporary, passing together into the world of eternity, and still, as ever, bound in inseparable links, shall become themselves alike eternal! W. A. B.

1. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of, ungodly men. 8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein 11 shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of 12 persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, 13 and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his prom- 14 ise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in 15 peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him 16 hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable 17 wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, be- loved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the 18 error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

THE coming of Christ may be distant as measured on the scale of human life, but may be “near,” “at hand,” “at the door,” when the interval of the two advents is compared, not with the four thousand years which were but its preparation, but with the line of infinite ages which it is itself preparing. View the interval that spans the first and second coming, as we now do in the midst of it, and it swells to a vast extent; view it as we shall yet do from some far height in the measureless eternity of the Church triumphant, view it as these holy men were wont to do, the first stage in an infinite progress, and it lessens to a point! The use of terms importing nearness, rapidity, immediate approach, which startle us as with the very presence of Christ, seem specially adapted to keep alive expectation, by bringing emphatically before us the perpetual possibility of an immediate manifestation, and thus indirectly second all those express exhortations which make the hope and desire of the coming of Christ a leading motive and impulse in the whole life of the Christian disciple. It is the confessed object of our blessed Master, in training his disciples for glory, that they should, in the school of this world, learn such divine arts as those of hope, of watchfulness, of fidelity, of humility, of earnest inquiry, of reverential awe. And this he accomplishes, as in other ways, so by shrouding his march in mystery, revealing enough to win affection and to guide duty, but reserving his deeper purposes for the council-chamber of the Holy Trinity. It is his gracious will that this matter shall be the perpetual subject of watchfulness, expectation, conjecture, fear, desire—but no more. To cherish anticipation, he has permitted gleams of light to cross the darkness; to baffle presumption, he has made them only gleams. He has harmonized, with consummate skill, every part of his revelation to produce this general result—now speaking as if a few seasons more were to herald the new heaven and the new earth, now as if his days were thousands of years. He who knows us best knows the deep devotion of watchfulness, humility, and awe to be the fittest posture for our spirits; therefore does he preserve the salutary suspense that insures it, and therefore will he determine his Advent to no definite day in the calendar of eternity. W. A. B.

5. Willingly ignorant.** Men will not know that which they have a mind to hate. It argues a secret fear and suspicion of the truth; men are unwilling to follow it too close lest it cross their lusts and interests; they “will not come to the light lest their deeds be reproved”; “they are willingly ignorant”; those that can please themselves in the ignorance of any truth err not only in their minds but hearts. T. M.

5-7. The heavens and the earth became the instruments of destruction of the then existing world of human beings and animals. The heavens became such an instrument of destruction when their windows were opened and it rained as never before since the creation of the world. The earth, which had been founded upon the waters and risen out of the water (Ps. 24 : 2), in obedience to the command of God was compelled to pour forth its treasures of water (Gen. 8 : 2), in order to destroy man and beast. The same divine omnipotence which commanded the water to destroy men and to lay waste the earth, will hereafter destroy the present world by fire, and not only change the surface of the earth. Fronmüller.—After passing symptoms of destruction, destined to give note of warning that the earth itself with all its inhabitants subsists only by mercy, the earth and the heavens have continued to see an uninterrupted series of day succeeding night, and night day, the sea ebbing and flowing under the gravitation of the heavenly bodies, and these again performing their wonted orbits in the heavens. But the sentence is only delayed. This temple itself, with its movable architecture, amid which the earth occupies so small a spot, must sink into an ocean of fire in order that the catastrophe, by its easy and sudden accomplishment, may establish in all created minds this eternal principle of the divine government—matter is made for mind, and mind for truth and God. A. V.

8. To short-lived creatures a few years may seem an age; but Scripture, measuring all things by the existence of God, reckons otherwise. Human reason sticks altogether in the outward sense and feeling, and therefore, as man measures his happiness by temporal accidents, so his duration by temporal existences. When shall we look within the veil, and learn to measure things by faith and not by sense? We count moments long; and God, who is of an eternal duration, counts thousands of years a small moment. All outward accidents have their periods beyond which they can not pass; but eternity is a day that is never overcast with the shadows of a night. T. M.—God hath not made a creature that can comprehend him; ’tis the privilege of his own nature. I am that I am, was his own definition unto Moses; and ’twas a short one to confound mortality, that durst question God or ask him what he was; indeed, he only is; all others have been and shall be, but in eternity there is no distinction of tenses. To his eternity, which is indivisible and all together, the last trump is already sounded, the reprobates in the flame, and the blessed in Abraham’s bosom. Peter speaks modestly when he saith a thousand years to God are but as one day; for those continued instances of time which flow into a thousand years make not to him one moment; what to us is to come, to his eternity is present, his whole duration being but one permanent point without succession, parts, or division. Browne.

9. Not slack concerning his promise. God oftentimes delays, that his people may come to him with greater importunity; he puts them off, that they may put on more life and vigor. God seems to be slack, that he may make us the more earnest; he seems to be backward, that he may make us the more forward in pressing upon him. Brooks.—Never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here, and never fail to do daily that good which lies next to your hand. Do not be in a hurry, but be diligent. Enter into the sublime patience of the Lord. Be charitable in view of it. God can afford to wait; why can not we, since we have him to fall back upon? Let patience have her perfect work, and bring forth her celestial fruits. Remember that the grand harvest of the ages shall come to its reaping, and the day shall broaden itself to a thousand years, and the thousand years shall show themselves as a perfect and finished day. McD.—Long-suffering. God does not love to condemn, but to save; and the reason why he is patient with bad men is that he may change them into good ones. Aug.

10. Forbearance may be long, but it will end abruptly. Then comes sudden judgment, with crashing ruin and a blazing sky. The earth itself, on the stability of which the scoffers count so confidently, will be wrupt in all-dissolving fire. How long or short will be that day of judgment, no mortal man can tell. We are warned not to apply the scale of human days to the day of God. But what it most concerns us to know is that the day will come surely and suddenly. D. F.—The passages in the Bible are but few in which anything like a detailed description of the incidents of the judgment-day is given us. Of the great fact itself, that the Lord hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, we are frequently and earnestly reminded. But of the mode or outer circumstances of the event comparatively little is revealed. Nearly all that is told us in the Scriptures is comprised in four passages: Matt. 25: 31-46; 1 Thes. 4: 13-18; Rev. 20: 11-15; and 2 Peter 3—a chapter to which we are inclined to attach the greater importance, as it is so purely didactical in its character. One leading feature of the great day of reckoning—the one perhaps more than any other pressed upon our regard in Holy Writ—shall be its suddenness, its unexpectedness, the world’s unpreparedness for it. The day before its last shall see them all going on as usual. Then, without a herald sent or note of warning given, the Son of man shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God. That trumpet-call of heaven shall span at once the globe, and be heard the same moment at either pole. At its summons the million sleepers of the earth shall all start up from their last repose, their dreamings of earthly to-morrows all cut short. But that trumpet-call shall do more than waken all the sleeping and arrest all the living inhabitants of the globe. It shall go where sound never went before—it shall do what sound never did. It shall pierce the stony monument; it shall penetrate the grassy mound; far down through many a fathom of the ebbing waters shall it make its way; over the deep bed of ocean shall it roll; and the sea shall give up at once the dead that are in it, and the earth the dead that are there. And all the dead, small and great, shall arise. And in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, by the fortifying of one fiat of the Omnipotent, over all the vast congregation of the living with which that still vaster congregation of the dead is to mingle, over all the bodies of the living, a change shall pass that shall make them like to those new bodies of the raised. And all shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. W. H.

11. Having warned the scoffers, Peter concludes by exhorting the believers to vigilance and piety. What is to other men a fearful prospect should be by them expected with a solemn joy. It is incumbent on them to use well the present time, and serve Christ with diligence during this period of toil and struggle on the part of the Church, patience and long-suffering on the part of God. D. F.

A believer is “the light of the world,” “the salt of the earth,” “a child of God,” “a friend of God,” “an heir of God,” “a joint heir with Christ.” He is a “partaker of the divine nature”; he is “one with Christ, and Christ is one with him.” Christ “liveth in him,” “dwells in his heart,” “sups with him, and he with Christ”; the Father, Son, and Spirit (the blessed Trinity in Unity) “make their abode with him,” and condescend to have “fellowship and communion” with him. He hath “put on Christ!” is “in Christ,” is “crucified with Christ,” is “risen with Christ,” is “set down in heavenly places with Christ.” Oh, love passing knowledge! “What manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness!” Hill.

12. Looking for the coming.** It is one of the mightiest, most overwhelming truths of our existence, that we are all advancing into the immediate presence of God. It is the great event to which we are all hastening. It is the event which is to determine our eternal destiny, according to the character with which we meet God. And one would think the sense of this truth, the remembrance of it, and a watchfulness accordingly, would never be out of our minds. One would think that the very breath of ceaseless prayer in our hearts, and the thought and the yearning co-present with all other thoughts, would be: O Thou, whom I must shortly meet, take possession of me now for thyself! let the refining flame of thy love kindle within me and never go out, but burn on till every sinful thing shall be consumed, every native faculty transfigured, and every impulse of will, feeling, and emotion baptized in that regenerating flame! G. B. C.

15,16. The specific doctrine here quoted from Paul, that “the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation,” is found in the Epistle to the Romans (2: 4), an interesting confirmation of what is implied in the context, that all Paul’s Epistles were in general circulation throughout the churches, and, with the other books of the New Testament that were already written (included, like the Epistles, in the phrase the other Scriptures), were regarded as parts of Holy Scripture. So early do we trace the formation of the New Testament Canon by a progress of vital growth, not of arbitrary selection. . . . This celebrated passage, the very key-stone of apostolic evidence to the divine authority of all Paul’s Epistles, and by inference of the other Scriptures of the New Testament as well as of the Old, gives at the same time the clearest exhibition of an apostle applying his ordinary human intelligence to the study of those Scriptures. What a suggestive picture: *Peter perusing

Paul’s Epistles!* Such an attentive study, perused with an anxiety to clear up the doubts at which the unlearned and unstable might stumble, could not but leave its mark on Peter’s style. Nor can we think that he would despise the aid of Paul’s companion, the Hellenist Silvanus, whose name was joined with Paul’s in the superscription of some of these very Epistles, and in the declaration of the gospel taught by the apostle. S.

16. “In which are some things hard to be understood.” Our three most ancient MSS. have the relative “which” in the feminine gender, and therefore referring to “Epistles,” which has preceded, not to “things” or “subjects” understood. It will be best, therefore, to read, “in which Epistles.” A.—Although there are acknowledged difficulties in the Epistles and in other Scriptures, and though these are misinterpreted by incompetent persons, no argument ought to be founded thereon against the right and duty of appeal to Holy Writ. No composition has been so twisted and wrested as sacred Scripture. So much the worse for those who misuse it. It is “to their own destruction”; but the Scriptures can not be destroyed, and to them should all religious questions be taken with competent learning and spiritual power of insight. D. F.

Holy Mr. Gifford’s doctrine, by God’s grace, was much for my stability. This man made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those hard and unsound tests that by nature we are prone to. He would bid us take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust, as from this or that or any other man or men; but cry mightily to God that he would convince us of the reality thereof, and set us down therein by his own Spirit in the holy word; “for,” said he, “if you do otherwise, when temptation comes strongly upon you, you, not having received them with evidence from heaven, will find you want that help and strength now to resist that once you thought you had.” Now was my soul led from truth to truth by God; even from the birth and cradle of the Son of God to his ascension and second coming from heaven to judge the world. Bun.

18. Read “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord.” A.—Those who are weak in grace dwell more upon their sins than upon the Saviour; more upon their misery than upon free grace and mercy; more upon that which may feed their fears than upon that which may strengthen their faith; more upon the cross than upon the crown; more upon those that are against them than upon those that are for them; and this keeps them low and weak in spirituals, it causes a leanness in their souls. Brooks.—Past attainments can not serve us. We rest on them, and we wither and become weak and emasculated. We can only be strong and joyous as we go on growing more and more day by

day. A Christian does not have to go down into the dark recesses of his own soul and beget and nourish the law of growth. All he has to do is to comply with the conditions of growth, the law of it being already in him. It is alike our privilege and duty to grow all through life. Though our outward man may perish, though our intellects become torpid and stiff, yet our hearts may become more and more mellow, devout, loving, and sweet. J. D.