2 Peter 2

Chap. II. Ver. 1—22. Warnings against false prophets, and teachers of base principles, and corrupt minds.—The chapter begins with stating, that as there were false prophets among the Jews, so we must not be’surprised to find false teachers in the Christian church; not. mefely weak or mistaken brethren, but men of the worst principles, and the most pernicious ways; men who would privately introduce the most pestructive heresies, such as “denying the Lord who bought them.” The nature of heresy has been already considered in our remarks on (Titus 3:10); and it is clear, that heresies must be the more destructive in proportion to their practical effects. To deny tle Lord who bought us, is certainly one of the worst; since it is to deny our Master and Redeemer, and to bring a reproach upon the truth itself.

We are ready to hope of such men, (and this proceeds from a Christian temper,), that they may be led astray through inadvertence or persuasion; but the persons of whom St. Peter speaks were the leaders, and not the led; covetolis and designing men, who wished to take advantage of the simple, in order to make a merchandise of them, and raise themselves to opulence and power. By comparing these men with the fallen angels, it seems intimated that they were actuated by a like principle of ambition and of pride; and by classing them with the inhabitants of the old world, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is evident that they were men of the most vicious and abominable lives. Of such men, it is said, that their destruction had been long predicted and was now rapidly approaching.

At the same time, as Lot was delivered from Sodom, and Noah from the sinners of the old world; so the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of trials and temptations, while he visits their tempters and oppressors with the most signal judgments. We are now called upon to contemplate “the goodness and severity of God’ his righteous severity in the doom of fallen angels; in the drowning of the old world, and in the destruction of the cities of the plain: his free and unmerited goodness in providing for the salvation of man, and in rescuing Noah and Lot, with both their families, from the dreadful ruin in which the sinners dround them were involved. From these facts our apostle draws this obvious practical inference—“ that the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations;”

that is, out of all the trials in which their own sins, scorners who dispute against it: 8 warning ibe godly, for the long patience of God, | k Ha.2.3. mise. aS some men count slackness; but is to hasten their repentance. 10 He desecribeth also the manner how the world shall be | | Ps.86.15. ) < ieee

Notes on the verses

Chap. Il. Ver. 1. Damnable heresies.—Literally (says Macknight) “ Heresies of destruction,” or “‘ destructive heresies.” So Doddridge.——Denying the Lord that bought them.—The word here used for ‘* Lord’ (despotes) signifies a master when connected with servants, and a rte ed ak when with subjects. It being doubted whether this word is in any other place applied to Christ, makes it questionable here: but see (1 Timothy 2:21), and compare Jude 4. Ver. 3. With feigned words.—Doddridge, *‘ Deceitful words.’’—— Whose tudgment now of a long time lingereth not.—Macknight, ‘‘‘To them, the punishment [threatened] of old (Jude 4.) lingereth not.”, Ver. 4. Heil.—Greek, Tartarus. Homer describes these dolefwl regions as “a deep gulf under the earth with a brazen entrance.”

(Iliad, bk. viii.) Hesiod also speaks of Yartarus as the place where the Titans (or rebellious giants,) are bound with chains in thick darkness. (7’heog.) Compare Jude, ver. 6. The word is used only in these two places in the New Testament. _ Ver. 5. The eighth person.—Perhaps meaning the head of his family, containing eight persons. (1 Peter iii. 20.) But Bishop Peavson supposes Noah to have been the eighth patriarch who was a preacher of righteousness, which ia very possible, though ha was the tenth person from Adam in the genealogy; for we are not sure that all of them were preachers. Ver. 6. Into ashes—i. e. burnt them into ashes by a storm of fire and brimstone. See (Genesis 19:23-30). An ensample—i.

e. example. Ver. 9. Temptations—i. e. trials. See note en (James 1:2). Ver. 10. In the lust of uncleanness.—This is supposed to refer to the sin of Sedom above mentioned. Compare Jude 7.—To speak evil.—Literally, “ to b. aspheme dignities;” implying falsehood, as well as abuse. ‘The dignities here meant are magistrates. See (Romans 13:1-4). Ver. 11. Against them—i. e. dignities or magistrates: but the margin says, some copies read, “ against themselves;”’ though it should rather be, as Macknight says, ‘‘ against each other.’’ The common version is, however, best supported.. Ver. 12. As natural brute beasts.—[‘‘ As natural animals, void of reason,” following only the gross instinct of their nature.

|—Bagster.— Made to be taken and destroyed.—Macknight, ** Made for capture and destruction.” Ver. 13. While they feast with you—i. e. join with you in your sacred feast. Ver. 14. Full of adultery.— Margin, “ an adulteress.” ‘The idea is, that the objects of ihaie tant were always present to their imaginations. — Cursed children—i. e. “ children of a curse,” as was Canaan. Ver. 15. Balaam the son of Bosor.—Bither Baiaam’s father had two names, Beor and Bosor, or the latter (as Ainsworth and Lightfoot suppose) was the Chaldaic pronunciation of the former. /. Ver. 17. The mist of darkness.—Doddridge and Macknight, ‘’ Blackness of darkness.” See ver. 4, and compare Jude 13. 1378 or the sins of others, may involve them; an inference peculiarly consolatory in the then present situation of the world, when one of the heaviest judgments which ever visited it, was about to be poured out upon the nation of the Jews.

Dreadful is the character now drawn of these false and wicked teachers, against whom our apostle had already warned his brethren, and now again warns them. They are not only detestably licentious in their personal conduct, but presumptuous and self-willed; despising all civil government, and grossly reviling all governors: whereas angels, though far greater in power and higher in rank, bring no such accusations:—except, indeed, that fallen spirit, who, on this account, has been branded with that odious name, “the accuser of the brethren.” ((Revelation 12:10).) As natural brute beasts—wild and savage animals—created (as it should seem) only for rapine and destruction, these men are governed only by their passions; and when offended or displeased, they secruple not to reproach and revile conduct, which they have neither ability to judge of, nor temper duly to weigh.

With eyes full of adultery, and hearts filled with covetousness, they make a sport of sin, and even riot in the*open day ! The ruling motive in these men’s minds is again stated to be covetousness, or ‘ the love of money,’”’ which, as Paul tells us, is “the root of all evil.’ ((1 Timothy 6:10).) Andif there is any class of society to whom it is more especially injurious, it is to preachers or to prophets. Thus it was to these false teachers, ‘following the way of Balaam.” He loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity by the most senseless of all animals—“ the dumb ass,” miraculously endowed with a human voice, ‘‘ rebuking the madness of the prophet:’’ madness indeed it must have been, to incur the curse of God and everlasting misery, for the temporal rewards of an idolatrous prince.

(See expos. of Num.-xxii. 22—41.) To show the emptiness and unsteadiness of such characters, he compares them to wells without water, and clouds driven by a tempest. Yet by sensual temptations they allure back to the world many who appear to have escaped it: and while they hold out the promise of liberty, they bring them under the yoke Ver. 18. Those that were clean escaped.—Doddridge, ‘‘ quite escaped.” Chap. Ill. Ver. 4. For since —Grotius, ‘‘ except that;” so Hammond and Grove. But Doddridge and Mucknight prefer the common rendering. Ver. 5. By the word of God, &c.—| Kypke. renders, *‘ The heavens were of old, and the earth, which is framed, by the word of God, from the waters, and between the waters.”

It was the opinion of the remotest antiquity, that the earth was formed out of water, or primitive moisture, which they termed ule, first matter; and Thales taught, “all things derive their existence from water,”’ This also appears to be the doctrine of Moses, ((Genesis 1:1, 25)) and that the earth was at first in a fluid state is evident from its form; for it has teen demonstrated by measuring some degrees near the pole, that the earth is not round, but an oblate spheroid, a figure nearly resembling an orange, and one which any soft or elastic body would assume if whirled rapidly round a centre, as the earth is round its axis. When the waters retired into one place, and when ** God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament,”

then the earth was placed “ between the waters.’’]—Bagster.—The earth standing out of the water and in the water—i. e. part rising above the water, and part submerged; or, perhaps, above the waters “ under the earth,” and beneath those treasured in the clouds, by the meeting of which in the deluge, ‘‘ the world that then was”’ being overflowed, was drowned. See (Genesis 1:6-10); vii. 11—20. of sin, and reduce them to a state worse than that which they had escaped. The great bait held out by the advocates of licentiousness is comprised in the sacred name of liberty; whereas no men are more deeply enslaved to their prejudices and their passions, the full eae of which, uncontrolled by reason or religion, is what they mean by liberty!

But, alas! when they have drawn heedless professors into their snare, they find it the liberty of wearing chains—the chains of error and of sin. Such men, according to the saying of Solomon, return, like the dog and the sow, to their original filth:—an image, in those countries, much stronger than appears to us, since dogs, in general, are there no more domesticated than are the swine.. Chap. II. Ver. 1—18. The certainty of Christ coming to judgment, and the effect it ought to have upon us.—Having spoken in strong language of false teachers, who pretended to be Christians, he now warns us against infidels and scoffers, who derided the very name of Christianity, and from the long delay of threatened judgment, became so hardened as to laugh at the idea.

This, a every other plea of ancient infidelity, has been adopted by the modern sceptics, and is thus stated and answered by that able advocate for revealed truth—the (Revelation 5)Robert Hall, in his Sermon on Modern Infidelity. “Why, it will be said, may we not suppose the world has always continued as itis; that is, that there has been a constant succession of finite beings, appearing and disappearing on the earth from all eternity? I answer, (says Mr. Haill,) whatever is supposed to have occasioned this constant succession, exclusiveof an intelligent cause, will never account for the undeniable marks of design visible in all finite beings; nor is the absurdity of supposing a contrivance without a contriver diminished by this imaginary succession, but rather increased by being repeated at every step of the series.

“ Besides, an eternal succession of finite beings inyolves in it a contradiction, and is, therefore, plainly impossible, As the supposition is made to get quit of the idea of any one being having existed from eternity, each of the beings n the succession*must have begun in time; but the succession itself ig Ver. 7. Reserved unto fire.—Scee ver. 10, 11.—Perdition of ungodly men. —To obviate the direct bearings of this passage, Universalist writers say, that this earth is to be the hell of wicked men; and that as the burning of it will not be eternal, so the perdition of the ungodly will be but temporary. There are, however, three serious difficulties to this gloss. 1. The Seriptures speak of a hell already existing, wherein the angels who kept not their first estate are reserved in everlasting chains unto darkness, unto the Fei Kona | of the great day; and in which the departed spirits of wicked men now lift up their eyes, being in torment.

2. The Scriptures declare that this hell now existing will be the hell for all ungodly men; for they are doomed to depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. 3. If the earth, as being dissolved by fire, is to be the hell of ungodly men, then punishment must precede the day of judgment; for the conflagration is uniformly represented as prior to that event. See (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10). See also noteson Mat. XXVv. 46. Ver. 8. One day, &c.—This is said to be a Jewish proverb, but it is evidently taken from Ps. xe. 4. Ver. 9. Is not slack.—Doddridge, ‘‘ slow.’——Count slackness.—Doddridge, “‘ slowness.”"——Not willing.—Macknight, ‘* not desiring,” Compare (Romans 2:4). (1 Timothy 2:4). Ver.

3. As thief in the night.—Sec Mat, xxiv. 42—4.