THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
Editor of "The Expositor"
THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER
BY
J. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCIII
THE
EPISTLES OF ST. PETER
BY
J. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
LADY MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
London:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCIII
The two letters which bear the name of St. Peter
have from the earliest times met with very
different degrees of acceptance. The genuineness of
the First Epistle is attested by the unanimous voice
of primitive Christendom. As it is addressed to Christians
dwelling in different parts of Asia Minor, it is
natural to look for a knowledge of it in those countries.
And nowhere is it earlier noticed. Polycarp, Bishop
of Smyrna, a contemporary of the last surviving Apostle,
and whose martyrdom took place about the middle of
the second century, has repeated quotations from this
Epistle. It was known also to Papias († 163), Bishop
of Hierapolis, and to Melito (170), Bishop of Sardis.
That it was known to the Greeks is seen from the
Epistle to Diognetus, which for a long time was attributed
to Justin Martyr († 165), while the "Shepherd"
of Hermas, written at Rome, testifies that it was
known there also at about the same date. The inclusion
of it in the Peschito-Syriac Version bears
witness to its early circulation in the Eastern Church,
as also does its quotation in the writings of Theophilus
of Antioch (178). Heretics, no less than the faithful,
regarded it as a portion of authoritative Christian
literature. Basilides in Alexandria and the Marcosians
But although so abundantly vouched for in ancient
days, the Epistle has not been exempt from the assaults
of modern criticism. Primitive Christendom regarded
St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul as heralds of one and
the same Gospel, founded on the same promises,
strengthened by the same faith. They were at one
in what they taught and what they opposed. But
some modern thinkers, taking as a thesis that the
Gospel as set forth by the Apostle of the circumcision
differed widely from the doctrines of St. Paul, have
proceeded to make an eclectic Christian literature, out
of which the First Epistle of St. Peter has been rejected.
Its language is too much in harmony with accepted
writings of St. Paul. It can only have been compiled
by some later hand to promote the opinion that there
was no discord between the teachings of the first
Christian preachers. Moreover, it is inconceivable, they
consider, that a letter should be addressed by St. Peter
to the Christians in those very lands where the missionary
labours of St. Paul had been specially exerted,
Now in this first letter of St. Peter there is unquestionably much that corresponds in tone with the Epistle to the Romans, especially with the twelfth and thirteenth chapters. In both letters Christians are exhorted to offer their bodies as spiritual sacrifices, to shun conformity with the world, to study to be sober in mind, and to use duly all the gifts which they possess; the same unfeigned love of the brethren is inculcated, the same patience under suffering. Christians are not to retaliate, but to overcome evil with good; they are to be in subjection to all lawful authority, and this for conscience' sake, to avoid all excesses, rioting, drunkenness, chambering, and wantonness, and to be ever looking forward to the coming of the Lord.
In like manner there will be found numerous passages
in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians which
in spirit and tone greatly resemble the words of St.
Peter. At the very outset St. Paul addresses his
converts as "chosen of God in Christ before the
foundation of the world, that they should be holy
and without blemish before Him in love"; tells them
that they were "foreordained unto adoption as sons
through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure
of His will, to the praise and glory of His grace,
which He freely bestowed on them in the Beloved"
(
Nor is it easy to see reason why St. Peter might not
be expected to write a letter to the congregations formed
first by St. Paul. No Evangelist or Apostle could publish
the message of the Gospel—that is, the life and
works—of Christ without telling of His chosen followers;
and amongst them, if our Gospels be a true picture,
St. Peter must ever have filled a prominent place. The
Churches in Asia assuredly had heard much of him,
and in a time of persecution or impending trial nothing
could be more fit than that the Apostle who had been
This was likely enough even had St. Peter never
visited the districts to which his letter was addressed.
But we seem to find traces of him in Corinth (
But there are internal tokens in the Epistle which
seem more powerful evidence of its genuineness than
anything else. The writer calls himself "Peter, an
Apostle of Jesus Christ"; and he declares his personality
by touches and allusions which a forger would never
have fabricated. Thus he says, "All of you gird
yourselves with humility, to serve one another" (v. 5).
The verb which he employs here indicates a sort of
So, too, the Master's exhortation, "Feed My sheep," "Feed My lambs," comes to mind as we read, "Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly" (v. 2). And St. Peter's own words spoken in the house of Cornelius are reproduced when the Father is declared to be One "who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to each man's work" (i. 17).
But it is in the allusions to Christ's passion and resurrection, those events which marked the deep fall and the rising again of St. Peter, that the personality of the Apostle becomes most manifest. He has been himself "a witness of the sufferings of Christ" (v. 1). He can speak as an eye-witness of the Lord's death in the flesh (iii. 18; iv. 1) and His quickening in the spirit; can exhort men to courage because they are partakers of the sufferings of Christ (iv. 13). Who does not feel that the writer of the words, "Let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator" (iv. 19), is thinking of the scene on the cross, of the Saviour's finished work, of the dying cry, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit"?
Perhaps the most striking instance of this peculiarity,
this tendency to dwell on the events of the Passion, is
found in ii. 19-24. Speaking to servants, he argues,
"What glory is it if when ye sin and are buffeted for
it ye shall take it patiently?" And having used the
Again, the writer makes you feel without quoting that he has the words of Jesus constantly in his mind. Thus in the exhortation, "Cast all your anxiety upon God, for He careth for you" (v. 7); when he says, "If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye" (iv. 14), or "Be sober; be vigilant" (v. 8), or "Be sober unto prayer" (iv. 7), or commends "not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but contrariwise blessing" (iii. 9), at each of the sentences—and the letter abounds with examples—there rise in the reader's mind some similar words of Christ, making him feel that he is perusing a writing of one to whom the Lord's language was abundantly familiar.
With the marks of personal character and associations
meeting us constantly, and with the unbroken
consensus of antiquity in favour of St. Peter's authorship,
we shall not lightly allow speculations about hypothetical
differences between the teaching of the Apostles
Of the Second Epistle the whole history is very
different. It appears to have been little known in the
early Church, and is included by Eusebius (330) among
the ἀντιλεγόμενα, "books to which objection was raised"
as late as his day. It is true that in Clement of Rome
there is a sentence (Ep. i., chap. xi.) which many have
accepted as containing a clear allusion to the passage
(
This is a very small amount of early evidence, and among the more voluminous writers of the first three centuries we find no mention of the Epistle. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that by Eusebius it is classed among the works of less acceptance. But the same fate befell larger and more important writings than this Epistle. The Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews stand in the same list in Eusebius. And St. Peter's second letter has not the same general interest as the first, and therefore is likely to have been less widely circulated; and this is all that Eusebius's classification means. The books were not generally received because there was a less general knowledge of their existence and history.
But when the Church entered on the settlement of
the New Testament Canon at the Council of Laodicæa
(366), the Second Epistle of St. Peter was accepted;
and no doubt there was evidence then before the
assembled Fathers which time has now destroyed.
Yet in the letter itself there are points which no doubt
weighed with them, and which are patent to us as they
were then. The writer claims to be St. Peter, an
Apostle and the writer of a previous epistle. He
speaks solemnly of his death as near at hand; and
still more solemn, when viewed as evidence, is the
declaration that he had been one of the witnesses of
Moreover, when we consider the kind of teaching
against which St. Peter's epistle is directed, it is
difficult to place it anywhere except at about the same
date as St. Paul's epistles. It speaks of the "fables"
(μῦθοι, i. 16), the groundless, baseless fancies, of the
early heretics in the same manner which we find in
St. Paul (cf.
There is another morsel of evidence from the New
Considerable discussion has arisen about the passages
in 2 Peter which are like the language of St. Jude.
There can be no doubt that either one Apostle copied
the words of the other, or that both drew from a
common original. But this point, in whatever way it
be settled, need not militate against St. Peter's authorship.
It is nothing unworthy of the Apostle, if he find
to his hand the words of a fellow-teacher which will
serve his need, to use what he finds. Nay, the letter
itself tells us that he was prepared to do this. For he
refers his readers (iii. 15) to the writings of St. Paul
for support of his own exhortations. St. Peter's seems,
however, to be the earlier of the two epistles, if we
compare his words, "There shall be false teachers,
who shall bring in heresies of destruction," etc. (ii. 1),
with St. Jude, who speaks of these misleading teachers
as already existent and active: "There are certain
men crept in unawares"; "These are spots now existing
But there are two or three features of resemblance between the style of St. Peter's first epistle and the second which support strongly the genuineness of the latter. The First Epistle has a large proportion of words found nowhere else in the New Testament. There are a score of such words in this short composition. Now the Second Epistle presents us with the same peculiarity in rather larger abundance. There are twenty-four words there which appear in no other New Testament writing. It seems to have been a peculiarity of the writer of both letters to use somewhat uncommon and striking words. Now take the Second Epistle to have been the work of an imitator. He would be sure to notice such a characteristic, and sure also to repeat, for the sake of connexion, some distinctive expressions of the first letter in the second. But the case is much otherwise. There is the same abundance of unusual words in both epistles, but not a single repetition; the same peculiarity is manifest, but displays itself in entirely new material. This is an index of authorship, not of imitation.
There are one or two differences between the two
epistles which in their way are of equal interest. The
first letter was one of encouragement and consolation;
Again, the sufferings of Christ are a theme much dwelt on in the First Epistle, where they are pointed to as the lot which Christians are to expect, and the Lord is the pattern which they are to imitate; in the Second they are hardly noticed. But was there not a cause for such reticence? Was it a time to urge on men the imitation of Christ when the danger was great that they would deny Him altogether?
No doubt many other points of evidence, which are lost to us, were presented to the Fathers of the Laodicæan Council, and with the result that the Second Epistle of St. Peter was received into the Canon side by side with the first. But the three centuries of want of acknowledgement have left their mark on its subsequent history, and many earnest minds have treated it as of less authority than other more accepted portions of the New Testament. Among these is Luther, who speaks of the First Epistle as one of the noblest in the New Testament, but is doubtful about the claims of the Second. Similar was the judgment of Erasmus and of Calvin.
We cannot, however, go back to the evidence produced
at Laodicæa. Time has swept that away, but, while
doing so, has left us the result thereof; and the acceptance
And we ourselves can observe some points still which draw to the same conclusion. The letter harmonises in tone with the other New Testament writings, and some of its linguistic peculiarities are strikingly in accord with the universally accepted letter of St. Peter. We are therefore not unwilling, though we have not the early testimony which we could desire, and though the primitive Church held its genuineness for doubtful, to believe that ere this second letter was classed with the other New Testament writings these doubts were cleared away, and would be cleared away for us could we hear all the evidence tendered before those who fixed the contents of the Canon.
The discovery last year in Egypt of some fragments
of the Gospel and Apocalypse once current under the
name of St. Peter has drawn attention once more to
the genuineness and authenticity of the Second Epistle
in our canon. But the difference in character between
it and these apocryphal documents is very great.
The Gospel ascribed to Peter seems to have been
written by some one who held the opinion, current
among the early heretics, that the Incarnation was
unreal, and that the Divine in Christ Jesus had no
participation in the sufferings at the Crucifixion.
Hence our Lord is represented as having no sense of
pain at that time. He is said to have been deserted by
His "power" in the moment of death. The stature of
the angels at the Resurrection is represented as very
great, but that of the risen Christ much greater. To
The study of these fragments, of which the Gospel may be dated about 170 A.D., sends us back to the contemplation of the Second Epistle of St. Peter more conscious than before at what a very early date errors, both of history and doctrine, were promulgated among the Christian societies, while at the same time we are impressed more strongly with the sense that the accord of the Second Epistle with Gospel history, where it is alluded to, as well as the simplicity of Christian doctrine which it enforces, mark it as not unworthy of that place in the Canon which was accorded to it in the very earliest councils which dealt with the contents of New Testament Scripture.
"Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace be multiplied."—1 Peter i. 1, 2.
That a letter by St. Peter should be, as this is, of a very practical character is no more than we might expect from what we know of the Apostle from the Gospels. Prompt in word and action, ever the spokesman of the twelve, he seems made for a guide and leader of men. What perhaps we should not have expected is the very definite doctrinal language with which the Epistle opens. Nowhere in the writings either of St. Paul or St. John do we find more full or more instructive teaching concerning the Holy Trinity. And herein St. Peter has been guided to choose the only order which tends to edification. Sound lessons for Christian life must be grounded upon a right faith, and a brother can afford no strength to his brethren unless first of all he point them clearly to the source whence both his strength and theirs must come.
Of the previous intercourse between St. Peter and
those to whom he writes we can only judge from the
Epistle itself. The Apostle's name disappears from
New Testament history after the Council of Jerusalem
(
He writes to them as sojourners of the dispersion.
But it would be a mistake to restrict the word
"dispersion" here to the Jewish converts. The Apostle
speaks more than once in his letter to those who had
never been Jews, to men who (i. 14) had been fashioned
according to their former lusts in ignorance; who had
in times past (ii. 10) no share with God's people; who
(iv. 13) had wrought the will of the Gentiles, walking
in lasciviousness, lusts, and abominable idolatries. To
these too since their conversion the name "dispersion"
Yet God had a mission for them in the world. This is a special portion of St. Peter's message. As the scattered Jews of old had opened a door for the spreading of the Gospel, so the Christians of the dispersion were to be its witnesses. Their election had made them a peculiar people; but it was that they might show forth the praises of Him who had called them out of darkness into His marvellous light, and that by their good works the heathen might be won to glorify God when in His own time He should visit them too with the day-star from on high.
But beside the words which speak of severance and
pilgrimage, the Apostle uses one of a different character.
With that large charity and hope which is stamped
upon the whole of the New Testament, he calls these
scattered Christian converts the elect of God. Just as
St. Paul so often includes whole Churches, even though
he find in them many things to blame and to reprove,
under the title of "saints" or "called to be saints," so
it is here. And the sense of their election is intended to
be a mighty power. It is to bind them wherever they
may be scattered into one communion in Christ Jesus.
Through the world they are dispersed, but in Christ
Later generations have witnessed much unprofitable controversy round this word "election." Some men have seen nothing else in the Bible, while others have hardly acknowledged it to be there at all. Then some have laboured to reconcile to their understandings the two truths of God's sovereignty and the freedom of the human will, not content to believe that in God's economy there may be things beyond their measure. St. Peter, like the other New Testament writers, enters on no such discussions. Whether amid the full assurance of newly quickened faith the first Christians found no room for intellectual difficulties, or whether the spirit within them led them to feel that such questions must ever be insoluble, we cannot know; but it is instructive to note that the Scripture does not raise them. They are the growth of later days, of times when Christianity was wide-spread, when men had lost the feeling that they were strangers and pilgrims of the dispersion, and were no longer prepared to welcome, with St. Peter and St. Paul, every Christian brother into the number of God's chosen ones, counting them as those who had been called to be saints.
Of the election of believers the Apostle here speaks
in its origin, its progress, and its consummation. He
views it as a process which must extend through the
whole life, and connects its various stages with the
Three Persons of the Trinity. But, with the same
practical instinct which has already been noticed, he
It begins according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father. Here St. Peter may be his own interpreter.
In his sermon on the day of Pentecost he employs the
same word, "foreknowledge," and he is the only one
who uses it in the New Testament. There (
To limited human knowledge the course of the
world has ever been, must ever be, full of darkness and
In this wise would St. Peter have us think of the grace of election. It has its beginning from our Father; its fulfilment will also be with Him. The measure and the manner of its bestowal are according to His foreknowledge, according to the same foreknowledge which provided in Christ an atonement for sin, which appointed Him to die, and that not for some sinners only, but for the sins of the whole world.
But in the call according to God's foreknowledge the
believer is not perfected. He must live worthily of his
calling. And as his election at the first is of God, so
the power to hold it fast is a Divine gift. He who
would rejoice over God's election must feel and constantly
foster within himself the sanctification of the
Spirit. To be made holy is his great need. This
demands a life of progress, of renewal, a daily endeavour
to restore the image which was lost at the Fall. "Be
For us there is opened a more excellent way: the
inward, spiritual cleansing of the heart. Christ has
gone away where He was before, and sends down to
His servants the Holy Ghost, who bestows power that
the election of the Father may be made sure. Hence
we can understand those frequent exhortations in the
epistles, "Walk in the Spirit"; "Live in the Spirit";
"Quench not the Spirit." The Christian life is a
struggle. The flesh is ever striving for the mastery.
This enemy the believer must do to death. And as
aforetime, so now, sanctification begins with purification.
Christ sanctifies His Church, those whom He has
called to Him out of the world; and the manner is by
cleansing them through the washing of water with the
word. Here we gladly think of that sacrament which
He ordained for admission into the Church as the
beginning of this Divine operation, as the wonted
entrance of the Holy Ghost for His work of purifying.
But that work must be continued. He is called
"holy" because He makes men holy by His abode
with them. And Christ has described for us how this
is brought to pass. "He shall take of Mine," says
our Lord, "and shall show it unto you. All things that
the Father hath are Mine" (
In this daily enlightenment must God's faithful ones live, a life whose atmosphere is the hallowing influence of the Holy Ghost. But it is to be no mere life of receptivity, with no effort of their own. The Apostle makes this clear elsewhere, when he says, "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" (iii. 15)—make them fit abodes for His Spirit to dwell in; lead your lives in holy conversation, that the house may be swept and garnished, and you be vessels sanctified and meet for the Master's use.
Thus chosen by the Father and led onward by the
Spirit, the Christian is brought ever nearer to the full
purpose of his calling: unto obedience and the sprinkling
of the blood of Jesus Christ. The Christ-pattern which
the Spirit sets before men is in no feature more striking
than in its perfect obedience. The prophetic announcement
of this submission sounds down to us from the
Psalms: "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God"; and
the incarnate Son declares of Himself, "My meat is to
do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His
work": and even in the hour of His supreme agony
But when such obedience was connected with the
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, the Jews among
St. Peter's converts must have been carried in thought
to that scene described in
For Christians there is a Mediator of a better
covenant. We are not come unto the mount that
burned with fire, but unto Mount Zion (
Thus does the Apostle set forth his practical, profitable lessons on the work of the Trinity in man's election and salvation; and he concludes them with a benediction part of which is very frequent in the letters of St. Paul: Grace to you and peace. The early preachers felt that these two blessings travelled hand in hand, and comprised everything which a believer could need: God's favour and the happiness which is its fruit. Grace is the nurture of the Christian life; peace is its character. These strangers of the dispersion had been made partakers of the Divine grace. This very letter was one gift more, the consolation of which we can well conceive. But St. Peter models his benediction to be a fitting sequel to his previous teaching. Grace, he says, to you and peace be multiplied. The verb "be multiplied" is only used by him here and in the Second Epistle, and by St. Jude, whose letter has so much in common with St. Peter's.
In this prayer the same thought is with him as when he spake of the stages of the Christian election. There must ever be growth as the sign of life. Let them hold fast the grace already received, and more would be bestowed. Grace for grace is God's rule of giving, new store for what has been rightly used. This one word of his prayer would say to them, Seek constantly greater sanctification, more holiness, from the Spirit; yield your will to God in imitation of Jesus, who sanctified Himself that His servants might be sanctified. Then, though you be strangers of the dispersion, though the world will have none of you, you shall be kept in perfect peace, and feel sure that you can trust His words who says to His warfaring servants, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold temptations, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth, though it is proved by fire, might be found unto praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ: whom not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls."—1 Peter i. 3-9.
We can understand the fervency of his thanksgiving: Blessed be God, which hath begotten us again by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. No better image than the gift of a new life could he find to describe the restoration that came with the words of the angel from the empty tomb, "He is risen; go your way: tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee." The Lord forgave His sinning, sorrowing servant, and through this forgiveness he lived again, and bears printed for ever on his heart the memory of that life-giving. The very form of his phrase in this verse is an echo from the resurrection morning: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Only in a few passages resembling this in St.
Paul's epistles
That these gifts are purely of God's grace he also implies: He begat us again. Just as in natural birth the child is utterly of the will of the parents, so is it in the spiritual new birth. According to God's great mercy we are born again and made heirs of all the consequent blessings. This passage from death unto life is rich, in the first place, in immediate comfort. Witness the rejoicing amidst his grief which St. Peter experienced when he could cry to the Master, "Lord, Thou knowest all things: Thou knowest that I love Thee." But the new life looks for ever onward. It will be unbroken through eternity. Here we may taste the joy of our calling, may learn something of the Father's love, of the Saviour's grace, of the Spirit's help; but our best expectations centre ever in the future. The Apostle terms these expectations a lively, or rather a living, hope. The Christian's hope is living because Christ is alive again from the dead. It springs with ever-renewed life from that rent tomb. The grave is no longer a terminus. Life and hope endure beyond it. And more than this, there is a fresh principle of vitality infused into the soul of the new-born child of God. The Spirit, the Life-giver, has made His abode there; and death is swallowed up of victory.
In continuing his description of the living hope of
the believer, the Apostle keeps in mind his simile of
Fatherhood and sonship, and gives to the hope the
further title of an inheritance. As sons of Adam, men
are heirs from their birth, but only to the sad consequences
of the primal transgression. Slaves they are,
and not free men, as that other law in their members
gives them daily proof. But in the resurrection of
Jesus the agonised cry of St. Paul, "Who shall deliver
me?" (
How beggared earthly speech appears when we
essay by it to picture the glory that shall be revealed
for us! The inheritance of the Christian's hope
demands for its description those unspeakable words
which St. Paul heard in paradise, but could not utter.
The tongues of men are constrained to fall back upon
negatives. What it will be we cannot express. We
only know some evils from which it will be free. It
shall be incorruptible, like the God and Father (
Nor are these the only things which make the heavenly to differ from the earthly inheritance. In this life, ere a son can succeed to heirship, the parent through whom it is derived must have passed away; while the many heirs to an earthly estate diminish, as their number increases, the shares of all the rest. From such conditions the Christian's future is free. His Father is the Eternal God, his inheritance the inexhaustible bounty of heaven. Each and all who share therein will find an increase of joy as the number grows of those who claim this eternal Fatherhood, and with it a place in the Father's home.
St. Peter adds another feature which gives further
assurance to the believer's hope. The inheritance is
reserved. Concerning it there can be no thought of
dwindling or decay. It is where neither rust nor moth
can corrupt, and where not even the archthief Satan
himself can break through to steal. There needs no
preservation of the incorruptible and undefiled, but it
is especially kept for those for whom it is prepared.
He who has gone before to make it ready said, "I go
to prepare it for you." The Apostle has made choice
of his preposition advisedly. He says, ἐις ὑμᾶς The better reading, looking back to the ἡμᾶς of ver. 3, appears
to be εἰς ἡμᾶς, and it is well supported.
For the present life is only a preparation-time. Ere
we are ready to depart we must pass through a probation.
Thus to the faithful warfarer the victory is sure.
And to this certainty St. Peter points as he continues,
and calls the heavenly inheritance a salvation. This
will be the consummation. "Sursum corda" is the
believer's constant watchword. The completed bliss
will not be attained here. But when the veil is lifted
which separates this life from the next, it is ready to
be manifested and to ravish the sight with its glory.
The sense of this salvation ready to be revealed nerves
the heart for every conflict. By faith weakness grows
mighty. Thus comes to pass the paradox of the
Christian life, which none but the faithful can comprehend:
"When I am weak, then I am strong";
Hence comes the wondrous spectacle, which St. Peter was contemplating, and which amazed the heathen world, exceeding joy in the midst of sufferings. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, he says. Some have thought him to be referring to a mental realisation of the last time, about which he has just spoken, a realisation so vivid to the faith of these converts that they could exult in the prospect as though it had already arrived. And this exposition is countenanced in some degree by words which follow (ver. 9), where he describes them as now receiving the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls.
But it seems less forced to consider the Apostle as speaking with some knowledge of the circumstances of these Asian Christians, a knowledge of the trials they had to undergo, and how hope was animating them to look onwards towards their inheritance, which was but a little while in reversion, towards the salvation which was so soon to be revealed. Full of this hope, he says, ye greatly rejoice, though ye have had many things to suffer. Then he proceeds to dwell on some of the grounds for their consolation. Their trials, they knew, were but for a little while, not a moment longer than the need should be. Their sorrow would have an end; their joy would last for evermore.
The form of St. Peter's words, Ἐι δέον ἐστί—if need be, as need there is.
We can gather from the Epistle itself some notion of the troublous life these scattered Christians had amid the crowd of their heathen neighbours. They were regarded with contempt for refusing to mingle in the excesses which were so marked a feature of heathen life and heathen worship. They were railed upon as evil-doers. They suffered innocently, were constantly assailed with threatenings, and passed their time oft in such terror that St. Peter describes their life as a fiery trial.
Yet in the word (ποικίλος) which he here employs to
picture the varied character of their sufferings we seem
to have another hint that these did not fall out without
the permission and watchful control of God Himself.
It is a word which, while it tells of a countless variety,
tells at the same time of fitness and order therein.
The trials are meted out fitly, as men need and can
profit by them. The Master's eye and hand are at
work through them all; and the faithful God keeps
always ready a way of deliverance. In this wise does
St. Peter proclaim that the putting to grief may be
made unto us a dispensation of mercy. Himself
had been so put to grief by the thrice-repeated question,
"Lovest thou Me?" (
The Christian does not allow troubles to overwhelm him. The very comparison which St. Peter here institutes, speaking though it does of a furnace of trial, bears within it somewhat of consolation. Gold that is proved by the fire loses all the dross which clung about it and was mingled with it before the refining. It comes forth in all its purity, all its worth; and so shall it be with the believer after his probation. The things of earth will lose their value in his eyes; they will fall away from him, neither will he load himself with the thick clay of the world's honours or wealth. The ties of such things have been sundered by his trials, and his heart is free to rise above the anxieties of time. And better even than the most refined gold, which, be it never so excellent, will yet be worn away, the faith of the believer comes forth stronger for all trial, and he shall hear at the last the welcome of the Master, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," the joy which He bestows, the joy which He shares with those that follow Him.
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ of which St.
Peter speaks. This is the praise which through His
atonement His servants shall find, and shall become
sharers of the glory and honour which the Father has
bestowed upon Him. To Christ then turns every
affection. Whom not having seen ye love. This is the
test since Christ's ascension, and has the promise of
For faith anticipates the bliss which God hath prepared for them that love Him, and enters into the unseen. The Holy Spirit within the soul is ever making fuller revelation of the deep things of God. The believer's knowledge is ever increasing; the eye-salve of faith clears his spiritual vision. The thanksgivings of yesterday are poor when considered in the illumination of to-day. His joy also is glorified. As his aspirations soar heavenward, the glory from on high comes forth, as it were, to meet him. By gazing in faith on the coming Lord, the Christian progresses, through the power of the Spirit, from glory to glory; and the ever-growing radiance is a part of that grace which no words can tell. But so true, so real, is the sense of Christ's presence that the Apostle describes it as full fruition. Believers receive even now the end of their faith, the salvation of their souls. So assured does He make them of all which they have hoped for that they behold already the termination of their journey, the close of all trial, and are filled with the bliss which shall be fully theirs when Christ shall come to call His approved servants to their inheritance of salvation.
"Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things, which now have been announced unto you through them that preached the Gospel unto you by the Holy Ghost sent forth from heaven; which things angels desire to look into."—1 Peter i. 10-12.
In the preceding verses of the chapter the thoughts of the Apostle have been dwelling on the future, on the time when the hope of the believer shall attain its fruition, and faith shall be lost in sight. He now turns his glance backward to notice how the promise of salvation has been the subject of revelation through all time. To those among the converts who had studied the Jewish Scriptures such a retrospect would be fruitful in instruction. They would comprehend with him how the truths which they now heard preached had been gradually shadowed forth in the Divine economy. That first proclamation of the seed of the woman to be born for the overthrow of the tempter, but who yet must Himself be a Sufferer in the conflict, was now become luminous, and in outline presented the whole scheme of redemption. The study of the development of that scheme would beget a full trust in their hearts for the future as they contemplated the stages of its foreshadowing in the past.
Concerning which salvation, he says, the prophets
sought and searched diligently. The Divine revelation
could only be made as men were able to bear it, and
the sentences of old must needs be dark. At first
God's love was set forth by His covenants with the
patriarchs. Then the wider scope of mercy was proclaimed
in the promises given to Abraham and repeated
to his posterity. In their seed, it was declared, not
the chosen race alone, but all the nations of the earth,
should be blessed. Here all through the history was
ground enough for diligent searching among the faithful.
In the evil days which followed, the hope of the people must often have dwindled down; but yet at times, as to Gideon's diminished army, it was made manifest that the Lord could do great things for His people: and the thought of the seed of the woman promised as a Deliverer lingered in many hearts, and enabled them to sing in thankfulness how the adversaries of the Lord should be broken in pieces, how out of heaven the Lord should thunder upon them, and prove Himself the Judge of all the ends of the earth, giving strength unto His king and exalting the horn of His anointed. In such wise the prophetic teaching, which had advanced from the blessing of an individual to the choice and exaltation of a chosen family, was expanded in the noblest spirits to the conception of a kingdom of God among all mankind, and assumed a more definite form when the promise was made to the Son of David that His throne should be established for ever.
But how imperfectly God's design was comprehended
by the best among them we can see from the last
words of David himself (
He and the other enlightened Israelites who have
left us their thoughts and aspirations in the Psalter
felt that the history of the chosen people was from first
to last a grand parable (
And when we turn to those prophets whose writings
we possess, we recognise that in them the Spirit of
Christ was working and pointing forward to the coming
redemption. But long before the days of Isaiah and
Micah the Spirit of the Lord had come mightily upon
His servants, and that picture of a glorious future
which both those seers have given to us was not
improbably the utterance of some earlier servant of the
Lord: "It shall come to pass in the last days that the
mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in
the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above
the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it" (
Of the same character are those words of Joel, which
St. Peter quoted in his sermon on the day of Pentecost,
"It shall come to pass afterward" (ii. 28). Beyond
this was not yet revealed. But it was the voice of God
But the language of St. Peter in this clause deserves
special notice. He does not use the ordinary words
by which the personal sufferings of Christ would
generally be expressed, but he says rather, "the sufferings
which pertain unto Christ." And here we may
well consider whether the variation of phrase be not
designed. St. Paul uses the simple direct expression
(
Those prophecies of Isaiah which speak of the
sufferings of the servant of the Lord had long been
expounded as meant of the Jewish nation, and with
such interpretation St. Peter was doubtless familiar.
Hence may have come his altered phrase, capable of
being interpreted, not only of Christ Himself, but of the
sufferings of those who, like these Asiatic converts,
were for the Lord's sake exposed to manifold trials.
This double application of the words, to Christ and to
His servants also, explains, it may be, the unique use
of the word "glories" in the clause which follows:
It would also serve as consolation to the sufferers,
who were thus pointed on to the future for Christ's
best gifts, to know that a similar forward glance had
been the lot of the prophets under the ancient dispensation.
One here and there had felt, as Malachi
(iii. 1), that the Lord whom they were seeking was
soon to come; but we know of none before the aged
Simeon to whom it had been made known that they
should not die till they had seen the Lord's Christ. To
the former generations it was revealed, says the Apostle,
that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister
these things. They beheld them, and greeted them, but
it was afar off. They spake often one to another
of a bliss that was to come; yet though praying,
longing, and hoping for it, they saw it only with the
eye of faith. The psalmists supply many illustrations
of this forward projection of the thoughts which dwelt
on the Messianic hope. Thus in
But the things which prophets and psalmists
ministered have now been announced unto you through
them that preached the Gospel unto you. You, St. Peter
would say, are now not heirs expectant, but possessors
of the blessings which former ages of believers foresaw
and foretold, just as in his pentecostal address he
testifies, "This is that which was spoken by the
prophet Joel." And those who have preached these
glad tidings unto you, he continues, have not done so
without warrant. They are joined by an unbroken
link to the prophets who went before them. In those
the Spirit of Christ wrought at such times as He found
fit instruments for raising a little the veil that lay over
the purposes of God. The preachers of the Gospel
have the same Spirit, and speak unto you by the Holy
Ghost sent forth from heaven. These (and of St. Peter
is this specially true) had witnessed the sufferings of
Christ, and been made partakers of the glories of the
outpoured Spirit. The promise of the Father had
been fulfilled to them, and they had received a mouth
and wisdom which their adversaries were not able to
And that he may further magnify that salvation
which he has been describing as published in part
under the Law and now assured by the message of the
Gospel, he adds, which things angels desire to look
into. Of the whole Divine plan for man's redemption
the angels could hardly be cognisant. Of God's love for
man they had been made conscious, had been employed
as His agents in the exhibition of that love, both under
the old and under the new covenant. Their ministry,
we know, was exercised in the lives of Abraham and
Lot; they watched over Jacob and over Elijah in their
solitude and weariness. One of their host was sent to
deliver Daniel and to instruct the prophet Zechariah.
At a later day they, who stand above mankind in the
order of creation, and are pure enough to behold the
presence of the Most High, were made messengers to
announce how the Son of God had deigned to assume,
not their nature, but the nature of humanity, and would
by His suffering lift up the race from its slavery to sin.
They proclaimed the birth of the Baptist, and brought
the message of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin.
They heralded the birth of Christ to the shepherds of
Bethlehem, and a multitude of their glorious company
sang the song of glory to God in the highest. They
tended the God-Man at His temptation, strengthened
Him in His agony, were present at His sepulchre, and
gave the news of the Resurrection to the early visitants.
Nor were their services at an end with Christ's ascension,
though they were present on that occasion also.
To Cornelius and to Peter angels were made messengers,
These immortal spirits whose home is before God's
throne, and whose great office is to sing His praise, yet
find in those ministrations to mankind in which they
have been employed matter for admiration, matter
which kindles in them fervent desire. They long to
comprehend in all its fulness that grace which they are
conscious God is shedding forth upon mankind. They
would scan παρακύψαι is the word employed to describe the stooping of the
disciples and Mary that they might look into the grave of Jesus
(
And if such be the aspiration of angels, sinless beings who feel not the need of rescue, shall the tongues of men be dumb, men who know, each from the experience of his own heart, how great is the evil of sin in which they are entangled, how hopeless without Christ's death was their deliverance from its thraldom; who know how constant and how undeserved is the mercy of which they are partakers, how true to Himself God has been in their case? "I am Jehovah; I change not: therefore ye children of men are not destroyed."
"Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance: but like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear: knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ: who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake, who through Him are believers in God, which raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory; so that your faith and hope might be in God."—1 Peter i. 13-21.
And the Christian life is no light care, as St. Peter
pictures it. First, he says, Be sober. To train the
mind to exercise self-restraint is no easy duty at any
time, but specially in a season of religious excitement.
We know how converts in the very earliest
days of Christianity were carried into excesses both
in action and in word; and in every age of quickened
activity some have been found with whom freedom
degenerated into licence, and emotion took the
place of true religious feeling. The Jewish converts
in the provinces of Asia might be tempted to despise
those who still clung to the ancient faith, while
some of those who had been won from heathenism
And this obedience is the next precept for which they are to be made ready by the girding up of the loins of their minds, as children of obedience, the obedience not of slaves, but of sons. Children they are become by virtue of the new birth, and obedience it is which gives them a claim upon God's Fatherhood. They must seek for the docility and trustfulness of the childlike character; they must accept a law other than their own wills, having taken upon them the yoke of Christ and aiming, in the light of His example, to become worthy of being reckoned among His true followers.
When they contemplate their own lives, they must
feel that a mighty change is needed from what they
were aforetime. St. Peter's words mark the completeness
of the needed change: not fashioning yourselves
according to your former lusts. In time past they had
sought no further for a guide and pattern than their
own perverted desires; now they must school themselves
to say, "Do with me as Thou wilt, for I am
Thine." And He whose grace has begotten them again
will help them to frame their lives by His rule, will
Just so does St. Peter; Like as He who called you is
holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living.
This has been God's call from the first day until now,
but what a hopeless height is this for the sinner to aim
after, holy as God is holy! Yet it is the standard
which Christ sets before us in the Sermon on the
Mount: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is
in heaven is perfect." And why does He propose to
us that which is impossible? Because with the command
He is ready to supply the power. He knows
our frailty; knows what is in man both of strength and
weakness. At the same time He proclaims to us by
this command what God intends to make of us. He
will restore us again to His own likeness. That which
was God's at first shall be made God's once more.
The marred image, on which not even the superscription
Because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. This command comes down to us from the earliest days of the Law. But in those old times it could not be said, in all manner of living. These words betoken the loftier standard of the New Testament. The patriarchs and prophets and the people among whom they lived were trained, and could only be trained, little by little. Even in the best among them we cannot hope for holiness in all manner of living. It was only by the types and figures of external purification that their thoughts were directed to the inner cleansing of the heart, and long generations passed before the lessons were learnt. The full sense of the Fatherhood of God was not attained under the Law, nor did men under it learn fully to live as children of obedience, children of a Father who loves and will succour every effort which they make to walk according to His law. The Incarnation has brought God nearer to man, and on this relationship of love the Apostle grounds his further exhortation.
And if ye call on Him as Father, who without respect
of persons judgeth according to each man's work, pass the
time of your sojourning in fear. But the fear which
St. Peter means is a fear which grows out of love, a
fear to grieve One who is so abundant in mercy. Who
can call on God as Father but the children of
obedience? About the Father's will and His power to
make you holy there need be no fear. He has called
men and bidden them strive after holiness. The way
is steep, but they will not be unattended. What fear
then of failing to attain the goal? For the Father will This would appeal with force to the hearts of those who were of
the dispersion. Therein they would behold a picture of what all
earthly life is as compared with the home to come.
But in the hearts of men the world and its allurements
die very hard. The men for whom St. Peter
wrote would surely find this so. They had many of
them lived long either under Judaism or in heathendom,
and would be surrounded still by friends and kinsmen
who clung to the ancient teaching and customs. Prejudices
were sure to abound, and the ties of blood in
such cases are very strong, as we know ourselves from
mission experience in India. The Apostle speaks of
their manner of life as handed down from their fathers.
He may have had in his thought the corruption of the
human race from the sin of our first parents. Generation
after generation has been involved in the consequences
of that primal transgression. But he probably
thought rather of the converts from idolatry and the
life which they had led in their days of ignorance. Of
God's covenant with the chosen people, though now it
was abolished, St. Peter would hardly speak as a vain
manner of life. But to the worship of the heathen the
word might fitly be applied. Paul and Barnabas
entreat the crowd at Lystra, who would have done
But the price which has been paid for their ransom
may convince them how precious they are in the eyes
of a Father in heaven. They are redeemed with
precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot, even the blood of Christ. For ages the offering of
sacrifices had kept before the minds of Israel the need
of a redemption, but they could do no more. The
blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer
suffice only to the purifying of the flesh, and can never
take away sin. But now the true fountain is opened,
and St. Peter has learnt, and bears witness, what was
the meaning of the words of Jesus, "If I wash thee not,
thou hast no part with Me" (
And this counsel of God has been from all eternity.
Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world
as the Lamb to be offered for human redemption. The
world and its history form but a tiny fragment of God's
mighty works, and yet for mankind a plan so overflowing
with love was included in the vision of Jehovah
before man or his home had existence except in the
Divine mind. Now by the Incarnation the secret
counsel is brought to light, and the foretokenings of
"Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently: having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever. And this is the word of good tidings which was preached unto you. Putting away therefore all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation; if ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious."—1 Peter i. 22-ii. 3.
Christ's intention was to found a Church, a communion,
a brotherhood, and all His language looks that
way: "One is your Master, and all ye are brethren";
"So let your light shine before men that they may see
your good works and glorify your Father which is in
heaven." And of like character is the teaching of the
Epistles: "Be kindly affectioned in love of the brethren"
(
This first and most needful step the Apostle believes,
Such souls must be filled with the Spirit; a steadfastness
like this comes only of the new birth. And
of this the converts are reminded in the words which
follow: having been begotten again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God. It
is true they are but at the outset of their Christian
course; but if any man be in Christ, he is made a new
And herewith is bound up a very solemn thought.
The word may be neglected, may be choked, in
individual hearts; but still it liveth and abideth, and will
appear to testify against the scorners: "He that
rejecteth Me and receiveth not My words hath one
that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken, the
same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not
spoken of Myself" (
And confirming this lesson by the prophecy of Isaiah
(xl. 6-8), the Apostle thus links together the ancient
Scriptures and the New Testament. But in so doing
he shows by his language how he regards the latter
as more excellent and a mighty advance upon the
former. The margin of the Revised Version helpfully
indicates the difference of the words. In Isaiah the
teaching is styled a saying. It was the word whereby
God, through some intermediary, made known His will
to the children of men. But under the Gospel the
word is that living, spiritual power which is used as
And we of to-day can see what ground there was for the Apostle's faith and for his teaching, how true the prophetic word has been found in the events of history. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever." When we cast our thoughts back to the time when St. Peter wrote, we see the converts who had accepted the word of God a mere handful of people amid the throngs of heathendom, the religion which they professed the scorn of all about them, to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness, and its preachers in the main a few poor, untrained, uninfluential men, of no rank or conspicuous ability. On the other hand, worshipping crowds proclaimed the greatness of Diana of the Ephesians; and the power of the Roman empire was at its height, or seemed so, with the whole of the civilised world owning its sway. And now that world's wonder, the temple at Ephesus, is a pile of ruins, and over the Roman power such changes have passed that it has utterly faded out of existence; but the doctrines of the Galilean, who claimed to be the Incarnate Word of God, are daily extending their influence, proving their vitality to be Divine.
But though in his language he has seemed to mark
the superiority of the Gospel message, the Apostle is
deeply conscious that the office of the preacher has
much, nay its chief character, in common with that of
Here St. Peter seems to allude to a preaching earlier than his own, and to none can we attribute the evangelisation of these parts of Asia with more probability than to St. Paul and his missionary colleagues. But there was no note of disagreement between these early ambassadors of Christ. They could all say of their work, "Whether it were I or they, so we preached, and so ye believed."
Having spoken of the seed, the Apostle now turns to the seed-plot which needs its special preparation. It must be cleared and broken up, or the seed, though scattered, will have small chance of roothold.
But here St. Peter recurs to his former metaphor.
He has spoken (i. 13) of the Christian's equipment,
how with girded loins he should prepare himself for
the coming struggle. He now speaks of what he must
lay aside. He has been purified, or made to long after
purification, through his obedience to the truth, so that
he can with earnest desire seek to make known his
love to the brethren; and the word of God is powerful
to overcome such dispositions as are destructive of
brotherly love. Hence it is to no hopeless, unaided
conflict that the Apostle urges his converts when he
Guile was the sin of Jacob, a sin which brake the
bond of brotherhood between him and Esau, and
That hypocrisy is a foe to brotherhood our Lord
makes evident as he reproaches the Pharisees for this
sin. "I thank Thee that I am not as other men are,
nor even as this publican," are words which could
never rise to the lips of him whose heart was purified
by the Spirit of God; and envy brings hatred in its
train. It was by envy that Saul was incited to seek
the death of David; it was from envy that Joseph's
brethren sold him into Egypt; through envy a
greater than Joseph was sold to be crucified (
From evil-speaking these Asian converts themselves
had to suffer, and would know by experience its
mischievous effects. They were spoken against as
evil-doers, as the Apostle notes twice over ( Hermas, Mand. ii. 2.
But the transformation to which the Apostle exhorts
them must be verily to become a new creation, and so
he goes on to speak of their condition as one akin to
that of new-born babes. These by natural instincts
turn away from all that will hurt them, and seek only
what can nourish and support. To such right inclinations,
to such simplicity of desire, must the Christian
be brought. He has been born again of the word of
God. From this he is to seek his constant nurture, as
instinctively as the babe turns to its mother's breast.
This is able to save the soul (
Christians are to long for the spiritual milk which is
without guile. This food for babes in Christ is the
word, which is taken by the Spirit and offered a
nurture for the soul. But there must be a longing
for, a readiness to accept, what is offered. For the
spiritual appeals to the reason of man, and though
offered, is not forced on him. The Spirit takes of the
things of Christ and shows them unto us. And the
purification, the clearing off and putting away corrupt
"Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame. For you therefore which believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."—1 Peter ii. 4-10.
A rock is no unusual figure in the Old Testament
to represent God's faithfulness, and its use is specially
frequent in Isaiah and the Psalms. "In the Lord
Jehovah is an everlasting rock" (
But the language of the New Testament goes farther than that of the Old. Strength, protection, permanence—these were attributes of the rock of which Isaiah spake and David sang. The life-possessing and life-imparting virtue of the Spirit of Christ is a part of the glad tidings of the Gospel. Through Him were light and immortality brought to light. The rock which lives is found in Jesus Christ. In Him is life without measure, ready to be imparted to all who seek to be built up in Him.
Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of
men, but with God elect, precious. By purification of
thought, and act, and word, that childlike frame has
been sought after which fits them to draw near; and
they come with full assurance. Jesus they know as
the Crucified, as the Lord who came to His own, and
they received Him not. Generations of preparation
had not made Jewry ready for her King's coming, Παρὰ θεῷ ἐκλεκτόν speaks of Christ in His glory, in that place
where the reward of the faithful is kept in store. Cf. the words of
Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.
Not because they are living men does the Apostle speak
of them as living stones. They may be full of the
vigour of natural life, yet have no part in Christ. The
life which joins men to Him comes by the new birth.
And the union of believers with Christ makes itself
patent by a daily progress. He is a living stone; they
are to be made more and more like Him by a constant
drawing near, a constant drinking in from His fulness
of the life which is the light of men. In this light new
graces grow within them; old sins are cast aside. By
this preparation, this shaping of the living stones, the
Spirit fits Christians for their place in the spiritual
building, unites them with one another and with Christ,
fashions out of them a true communion of saints—saints,
First, they are to be a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
From the day when God revealed His will on Sinai,
such has been the ideal set before His chosen servants.
"Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation" (
But the Apostles could add to the exhortations of
the prophets and psalmists a ground of blessed assurance,
It was only from oral teaching that these Asian
Christians knew of those lessons which we now can
quote as the earliest messages to the Church of Christ.
The Scripture was to them as yet the Scripture of
the Old Testament, and to this St. Peter points them
for the confirmation which it supplies. And his quotation
is worthy of notice both for its manner and its
matter: Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold,
I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he
that believeth on him shall not be put to shame. The
passage is from Isaiah (xxviii. 16); but a comparison
with that verse shows us that the Apostle has not
quoted all the words of the prophet, and that what he
has given corresponds much more closely with the
Greek of the Septuagint than with the Hebrew. The
latter concludes, "He that believeth shall not make
haste," and contains some words not represented in
the version of the Seventy. The variations which
St. Peter accepts are such as to assure us that for him
(and the same is true for the rest of the Apostles) the For illustration of what is here said, Hence the New Testament writers quote from the LXX. in a very
large proportion. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews quotes
nothing else.
But "shall not be ashamed" was a form of the
promise more suited to the days of St. Peter and these
infant Churches. For the name of Christ was in many
ways made a reproach; and only men of faith, like
Moses and the heroes celebrated with him in
But all men have not faith. The Bible tells us this
on every page. God knows what is in man, and in
His revelation He has set forth not only invitations and
blessings, but warnings and penalties. Life and good,
death and evil—these have been continually proclaimed
as linked together by God's law, but ever with the
exhortation, "Choose life." Of such warning messages
St. Peter gives examples from prophecy and psalm:
But for such as disbelieve, the stone which the builders
rejected, the same was made the head of the corner (
Whereunto also they were appointed. The Apostle has
in mind the words of Isaiah, how the prophet, in that
place from which he has just quoted, declares that many
shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be snared,
and be taken. This is the lot of the disobedient.
These penalties dog that sin. It is the unvarying law
of God. The Bible teaches this from first to last, by
precepts as well as by examples. The disobedient must
stumble. But the Bible does not teach that any were
appointed unto disobedience. Such fatalist lessons are
alien to God's infinite love. The two ways are set
before all men. God tries us thus because He has
gifted us above the rest of creation, that we may render
Him a willing service. But neither prophet nor Apostle
teaches that to stumble is to be finally cast away.
Both picture God's mercy in as large terms as those in
which St. Paul speaks of the Jews: "Did God cast off
His people? God forbid.... They, if they continue
not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in, for God is able
to graft them in again" (
A hardening in part hath befallen Israel, and to the
And this kingdom of God's priests has its duty to
the world as well as unto God. Israel in time past
was chosen to be God's witness to the rest of mankind,
so that when men saw that no nation had God so nigh
unto them as Jehovah was whenever Israel called
upon Him, that no nation had statutes and judgements
so righteous as all the Law which had been given from
Sinai, they might be constrained to say, "Surely this
great nation is a wise and understanding people," and
might themselves be won to the service of a God so
present and so holy. And now each member of the
Christian body, while offering himself a living sacrifice
That ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who
called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
This theme fills the rest of the letter. The Apostle
teaches that in every condition this duty has its place
and its opportunities. Subjects may fulfil it, as they
yield obedience to their rulers, servants in the midst
of service to their masters, wives and husbands in
their family life, each individual in the society where
his lot is cast, and specially those who preside over the
Christian congregations. Wherever the goodness of
God's mercy has been tasted, there should be hearts
full of thanksgiving, voices tuned to the praise of Him
who has done great things for them. Lives led with
this aim will make men to be truly what God designs:
a holy nation; a kingdom of priests. And ever as
The opportunities for winning men to Christ differ in modern times from those which were open to the earliest Christian converts; but there is still no lack of adversaries, no lack of those by whom the hope of the believer is deemed unreasonable: and now, as then, the good works which the opponents behold in Christian lives will have their efficacy. These cannot for ever be spoken against. A good manner of life in Christ shall, through His grace, finally put the gainsayers to shame. They shall learn, and gain blessing with the lesson, that the stone which they have so long been rejecting has been set up by God to be the foundation of His Church, the head stone of the corner, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
"Beloved, I beseech you, as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; having your behaviour seemly among the Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king."—1 Peter ii. 11-17.
I beseech you, as sojourners and pilgrims. The Christian
looks for a life eternal. In comparison thereof the
best things of this time are of little account, while the
evil of the world renders it no safe resting-place. It
is but as a lodging for a brief night, and at dawn the
traveller sets forward for his true home. Hence the
argument of the apostolic entreaty. You have no long
time to stay, and none to waste; your motto is ever,
"Onward!" I beseech you to abstain from fleshly lusts,
which war against the soul. Of the perils of life's
journey the Psalmist gives us a telling sketch in the
first verse of
Yet the Apostle does not counsel the new-made
Christians to run away from this battle. They owe
a duty to those who are out of the way, and must not
shrink from it, be it ever so painful: having your
behaviour seemly among the Gentiles. Their lives are
to be led in the sight of their fellow-men, to be so
led as to have the approval of a clear conscience, and
to be void of offence in the eyes of others. This
outward seemliness is what Christian love exhibits as
a testimony to Christ's grace and an attraction unto
the world, making known unto all men the unsearchable
riches of Christ: that, wherein they speak against you
as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they
behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. The seemly
conduct of believers must be continuous, or it will
fail of its effect. It is not one display of Christian
conduct, nor occasional spasmodic manifestations
The Apostle now turns to one illustration of Christian
behaviour wherein the converts might be tempted to
think themselves absolved from some portion of their
duty. They were living under heathen rulers. Did
their freedom in Christ release them from obligations to
the civil powers? The question was sure to arise.
St. Peter supplies both a rule and a reason: Be subject
to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Christians,
just as other men, hold their place in the
commonweal. All that the state requires citizens to do
in aid of good government, order, the support of
institutions and the like, will fall upon them, as upon
others. Whether the demands made upon them in this
wise be always for ends of which they would approve,
they are not to discuss so long as their rulers provide
How extreme must after this be the case of those
who would claim freedom to resist the rulers under
whom they live. God has allowed them to stand, He
is using them for His own purposes, they may be the
ministers of His vengeance, and to Him alone does
vengeance belong. He intends them also to recognise
the merit of the doers of good. It may be that they do
not fulfil God's intent in either wise, yet while He
suffers them to keep their power the Christian's duty
is obedience to every civil enactment, for anarchy
would be a curse both to him and to others, bringing
in its train more hurt than help. When Christians
shall be found among those who abide by the law of the
lands wherein they dwell, even should their faith not
be accepted by their rulers, their good citizenship will
hardly fail to disarm hatred and abate persecution.
And so they are to range themselves ever on the side
of order. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing ye
should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. For
this end believers are to abide in the world, that
through them the world may be renewed. The opponents
of their faith suffer, says the Apostle, from lack
of knowledge. As he says in another place, "they rail
in matters whereof they are ignorant" (
The first part of the Apostle's exhortation in our
verse had in view, it may be, more especially the
Gentile converts. Their past life had been one of evil-doing
in the sight of God; those whom they had left,
and who were most likely to be their adversaries, were
still walking in the same ways, and were to be won
over and conquered for Christ. He now turns more
directly to those who had been Jews. These were no
longer bound to the observance of the ceremonial law,
and we know from the New Testament as well as from
Church history that with this release there were exhibited
in the lives of many such excesses as made
And the Apostle binds together all his teaching in
four closing precepts: Honour all men; Love the
brotherhood; Fear God; Honour the king. All men,
without distinction, are to be honoured, because in all
there remains the image of God. It may be defaced,
blurred exceedingly. The more needful is it to deal
considerately with such, that we may help to restore
what has been marred. Those who are our brethren
in Christ, the brotherhood, we shall own with affection,
seeking to be of one heart and one soul with them,
because they belong to Christ. For them we shall
"Servants, be in subjection to your masters, with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted for it, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well and suffer for it, ye shall take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously; who His own self bare our sins in His body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were going astray like sheep, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."—1 Peter ii. 18-25.
It need not therefore much surprise us if St. Peter,
now that he begins to classify his counsels, addresses
himself first to "household servants": Servants, be in
subjection to your masters, with all fear. We have,
however, to bear in mind, as we consider the Apostle's
exhortation, that most of those whom he addresses
were slaves. They had no power of withdrawing
themselves, though their service should prove burdensome
and grievous. St. Paul, in writing to the same
class, nearly always employs the word which means
"bondservants." Yet his counsel agrees with St.
Peter's. Thus he exhorts that their service be "with
fear and trembling" (
When St. Peter and St. Paul wrote, this slave
population was everywhere very numerous. Gibbon
calculates that in the reign of Claudius the slaves were
at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of the
Roman world; Robertson places the estimate much
higher. These formed, then, a very large share of the
public to which the first preachers had to appeal, and
we can understand the importance to the Christian
cause of the behaviour of these humble, but doubtless
Men wonder nowadays that there is so little said
by any of the Apostles about freeing slaves from their
bondage. The best men in those times and long
before appear to have regarded slavery as one of the
institutions with which they were bound to rest content.
It flourished everywhere; it was countenanced in the
Scriptures of the older dispensation. Eleazar was
Abraham's slave, and the Law in many passages contemplates
the possession by Israelites of persons who
were bought with their money. Hence we find no
remonstrance against slave-holding in the New Testament
writings, only advice to those who were in such
bondage to cultivate a spirit which would render it less
galling and to strive that by their behaviour the cause
of Christ might be advanced. St. Paul represents the
ideas of his age when, writing to the Corinthians, he
says, "Wast thou called being a bondservant? Care not
for it; but if thou canst be made free, use it rather"
(
So in apostolic days the rights and claims of slave-masters
were looked upon as indisputable. Be subject,
not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
There is to be no resistance, no lapse in duty. About
service rendered to good masters there might be little
apprehension, but even here St. Paul finds occasion
for warning. "They that have believing masters," he
says, "let them not despise them because they are
brethren" (
The world counts such conduct weakness, and is still far from comprehending the Divineness of the virtue of yielding patiently to wrong. God has long been teaching the lesson, but it has been slowly learnt. He chose the milder, timid Jacob rather than the fiery Esau. Both had faults in multitude. With the world Esau is oft the favourite. At a later day He stamps with approval the noble mercy of David in sparing Saul, while round Daniel and his companions in Babylon there gathers something of a halo of New Testament sanctity by reason of the noble confession which they made under persecution. These are chapters in the Divine lesson-book. Such lives marked stages in the preparation for the Servant of the Lord. Men, if they would have hearkened, were being trained to estimate such a character at God's value. Now Christ's example is before us, and we are bidden to follow it.
For hereunto were ye called. Strange invitation to be
dictated by love, a call to suffering! And yet the
Master at first promises nothing else to His followers:
"If any man would come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (
So far the Apostle speaks of the example of Christ,
which, though far above and beyond us, we are exhorted
and called on to follow. And there are many
who will go with him thus far who value our Lord's
work only for its lofty example. Indeed, it is characteristic
of those who deny the mediatorial office of
Christ to be loudest in magnifying the grandeur of His
character. To His good works, His love for men, His
spotless life, His noble lessons, they accord untiring
praise, as though thereby they would atone for denying
Him that office which is more glorious still. But St.
Peter stops at no such half-way house. He knows in
whom he has believed, knows Him for the Son of the
living God, a Teacher with whom were the words of
eternal life. So in pregnant words he sets forth the
doctrine of the Atonement as the end of Christ's
suffering: Who His own self bare our sins in His own
body upon the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might
The Bible recognises everywhere the analogy between
sin and sickness. May we not trace some analogy
between the Lord's works of healing and that mightier
deliverance from sin won by Christ upon the cross, an
analogy which may help, if but a little, to give meaning
to the bearing by Christ of human sins? A power
went forth when the sick were healed; and through
that imparted power they were restored to health, faith
being the pathway which brought the Divine virtue to
their aid. Thus Jesus bore their diseases and took
To this teaching, that Christ's suffering wrought
man's rescue, St. Peter adds emphasis by another
quotation from that chapter of Isaiah which he has so
much in mind: by whose stripes ye were healed. Christ
was stricken, and God grants to His sufferings a power
to heal the souls of those whom He loves because
they strive to love Him. Healing through wounds!
Soundness through that which speaks only of injury!
Mysterious dispensation! But long ago it had been
foreshadowed, and shown also how little connexion
there was to be, except through faith, between the
remedy and the disease. Those who were bitten of
the serpents in the wilderness gazed on the brazen
serpent, and were healed. In the dead brass was no
virtue, but God was pleased to make of it a speaking
sacrament; so has it pleased Him to give healing of
sins to those who by faith appropriate the sacrifice on
Calvary. Christ has claimed the type for Himself:
"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto Myself" (
And now, as is so often his wont, St. Peter varies
the figure. The wounded sinner finding cure becomes
the wandering sheep that has been brought back into
But He is more than this. Brought within the fold, the sheep still need His care; and it is freely given. He is the Bishop, the Overseer, the Watchman for His people's safety, who, having gathered them within the fold, tends them with constant watchfulness. The figure passes over thus into the reality in the Apostle's closing words. The cure which the great Healer desires to accomplish is in the souls of men. For them His care is bestowed, first to bring them safe out of the way of evil, then for ever to keep them under the sheltering care of His abundant love.
"In like manner, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behaviour of their wives; beholding your chaste behaviour coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner aforetime the holy women also, who hoped in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose children ye now are, if ye do well, and are not put in fear by any terror.
"Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honour unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint heirs of the grace of life; to the end that your prayers be not hindered."—1 Peter iii. 1-7.
We are not surprised, therefore, in the history of the
infant Church, to read (
To be occupied in such duties was sure to give to women an influence which they had never possessed before; and the women converts, in countries such as these Asiatic provinces, were exposed to the same sort of danger which beset the slave population at their acceptance of the Christian faith. They might begin to think meanly of others, even of their own husbands, if they were still content to abide in heathenism. Such women might incline at times to take counsel for their life's guidance with Christian men among the various congregations to which they belonged and to set a value on their advice above any which they could obtain from their own husbands. They might come to entertain doubts also whether they ought to maintain the relations of married life with their heathen partners. With the knowledge that such cases might occur, St. Peter gives his lesson. And as in the case of slaves, so here, he gives no countenance to the idea that to become a Christian breaks off previous relations. Wives, though they have accepted the faith, have wifely duties still. Like Christian citizens living in a heathen commonwealth, they are not by religion released from their previously contracted obligations; they are to abide in their estate, and use it, if it may be done, for the furtherance of the cause of Christ. Be in subjection to your own husbands; they have still their claim on your duty.
There is much gentleness in the Apostle's next
words. He knows that there may arise cases where
believing wives have husbands who are heathen. But
he speaks hopefully, as thinking they would not be of
frequent occurrence: even if any obey not the word.
Wives, especially if they be of such a character as the
Apostle would have them be, could not have been won
And here we may turn aside to dwell on the tone of hope in which St. Peter speaks of these husbands who obey not. For the word ἀπειθοῦντες, by which they are described, is the same that is used in ii. 18 of those who stumble at the word, being disobedient. The lesson here given to Christian wives, not to despair of winning their husbands for Christ, gives warrant for what was said on the former passage: that the disobedience which causes men to stumble need not last for ever, nor imply final obduracy and rejection from God's grace. But this by the way.
The Apostle adds the strongest motive to confirm wives in holding to their married state: That the husbands may without the word be gained by the behaviour of their wives: beholding your chaste behaviour coupled with fear. "Without the word" here means that there is to be no discussion. They are so to live as to make their lives a sermon without words, to work conviction without debate; then, when the victory is won, there will remain no trace of combat: all will tell of gain, and nothing of loss.
And once again St. Peter uses his special word
(ἐποπτέυειν) as he describes how the husbands shall
be affected by the behaviour of their wives. They
shall gaze on it as a mystery, the key to which they
do not possess. The wives in heathen homes must
have been obliged to hear and see many things which
were grievous and distasteful. The husbands could
And from describing the grace of such a life the
Apostle turns to contrast it with other adornments of
which the world thinks highly. Whose adorning, he
says, let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair,
and of wearing jewels of gold, and of putting on apparel.
We can see from the catalogue in Isaiah (iii. 18-23)
that the daughters of Zion in old days had gone to
great lengths in this outside bravery, and provoked the
Lord to smite them. These had forgotten the simplicity
of Sarah. But that in the house of Abraham there
were found no such ornaments is hardly to be believed.
The patriarch, who sent (
Let these be the feelings which regulate womanly
adornment, and it may be made a part of the culture
of the heart, the inner man, which St. Peter urges the
Christian wives to be careful to adorn: Let your
adorning be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible
apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is
in the sight of God of great price. All Scripture regards
man as of twofold nature, the outward and the inward,
of which the latter is the more precious. He is a Jew
who is one inwardly (
The Apostle proceeds to commend it by a noble
example. The Old Testament Scriptures do not dwell
largely on the lives of women, but a study of what
is said will oftentimes reveal deeper meaning in the
record and put force into a solitary word. The
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews couples Sarah
with Abraham in the list of heroes and heroines of
faith, and St. Peter from a single word finds a text
to extol the submission which she showed to her
husband. He probably refers to
The Apostle now addresses Christian husbands. In
his counsel to subjects and slaves he has not dwelt on
the duties of rulers and masters. Perhaps he judged
it unlikely that his letter would come to the hands of
many such, or it may be he thought the lessons which
he had to give were more needed by the subject
people, if Christ's cause were to be furthered. But
with husbands and wives life has of necessity a great
deal in common, and the one partner can hardly receive
counsel which is not of interest to the other. To the
wives the Apostle spake as though examples of unbelieving
husbands might be rare. Christian husbands
with unbelieving wives he hardly seems to contemplate.
We know from St. Paul (
But beyond and above these daily graces of domestic and social intercourse, the Apostle would have husband and wife knit together by a higher bond. They are joint heirs of the grace of life. Both are meant to be partakers of the heavenly inheritance, and such participation makes their chief duty here to be preparation for the life to come. Those who are bound together not by wedlock only, but by the hope of a common salvation, will find a motive in that thought to help each other in life's pilgrimage, each to shun all that might cause the other to stumble: That your prayers be not hindered. They are fellow-travellers with the same needs. Together they can bring their requests before God, and where the two join in heart and soul Christ has promised to be present as the Third. And in praying they will know one another's necessities. This is the grandest knowledge the husband can attain to for the honouring of his wife; and using it, he will speed their united supplications to the throne of grace, and the union of hearts will not fail of its blessing.
"Finally, be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: and let him turn away from evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their supplication: but the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good? But and if ye should suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled; but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear: having a good conscience; that, wherein ye are spoken against, they may be put to shame who revile your good manner of life in Christ."—1 Peter iii. 8-16.
It is manifest that if such harmony, kind feeling,
attachment, affection, and humility flourished among
believers, these virtues would put discord to the rout,
and leave no occasion for rending the oneness of the
Christian body. They would also be proof against
evil from without, both in deed and speech, neither
tempted to render evil for evil in their actions nor
reviling for reviling in their words. They have a duty
to the world, and cannot thus belie their Christian
profession. They are called to adorn the doctrine of
their Saviour, and the Master's sermon has among its
prominent precepts "Bless them that curse you."
This is the spirit of St. Peter's exhortation, But contrariwise
blessing; that is, Be ye of those who bless.
For there is a law of recompense with God in good
things as in evil; the blessers shall be blessed: For
hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
The psalmists knew much of such trials, and it is
from the words of one of them (
And the actions need watchfulness also. They must
not only possess the negative quality of abstinence
from evil, but the positive stamp of good deeds done.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." And the work
will be no light one. Peace is to be sought, and the
Apostle uses a word which implies that a chase is
needful to obtain it. St. Paul has a passage very
much in the spirit of St. Peter's teaching here, and the
words of which picture distinctly the difficulties which
the Christian will have to labour against: "Giving
diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace" (
But when all is done, when men have not been
sitting with folded hands waiting and dreaming that
peace would come without pursuit, but have laboured
for it, they do not always attain to it. "I am for
peace," says the Psalmist, "but when I speak, they are
for war" (
Thus far St. Peter has used the language of the
Psalmist, and among the converts the Jews would be
sure to supply from the context those other words, "O
fear the Lord, all ye His saints; for they that fear
Him lack nothing." The Apostle clothes that same
thought in his own words: And who is he that will
harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good? He
has repeatedly dwelt on the power of goodness to win
unbelievers to its side (ii. 12, 15; iii. 1), and the same
idea shapes his words now. In those days the Zealots
were well known, and their unbounded enthusiasm for
their evil cause. Josephus lays the destruction of
Jerusalem at their door. The Apostle would have
Christ's disciples "zealots" for Him. Let there be
nothing half-hearted in their service, and its power
Isaiah's message to disheartened Judah was, "The Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify." On His word shall ye rely, assured that He, the holy God, will fail neither in wisdom nor power. To think otherwise is not to sanctify Him. The Lord knoweth how to deliver out of temptation. St. Peter, who knew Christ as the Son of the living God, applies to the Son the words first spoken of the Father. The Son is one with the Father. Hence he bids the afflicted converts, suffering for righteousness' sake, not to be afraid of the world's terror, but to sanctify Christ in their hearts as Lord. He is the Emmanuel, whom Isaiah was sent to promise. God has dwelt among men, and will be the God and the Deliverer of all His faithful ones. This sense of "God with us" they know, and with the knowledge comes a power not their own, and they fear no more the fear of their adversaries.
It is against foes of another sort that the Christian has now to hold fast his faith, and sanctify Christ as his Lord. There are those who deny Him all that is supernatural, all that speaks of the Divine in His history; who treat the resurrection and ascension of the Lord as groundless legends, due to the ignorance of His followers; and who leave to the Jesus of the Gospels only the qualities of a better fellow-man. These are the enemies of the cross of Christ.
And of such dangerous teaching it would seem as
if St. Peter had been thinking in the words that follow:
Being ready always to give answer to every man that
asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you.
The believer rests on Christ in faith. But though in
his belief there must be much which he cannot fathom,
yet it is a belief for men. His service is a reasonable
service; he can point to abundance of evidence as
ground for his faith; he believes because he has
experienced the power of the Spirit, and fears not to
trust the Christ whom he has sanctified in his heart
as Lord; he knows in whom he has believed. But
beside this, he can study the Old Testament; and
there he learns how the coming incarnation dominates
every portion of the volume, how from the first
redemption through the seed of the woman was made
known; and he follows the revelation step by step
till in the evangel of Isaiah he has predictions almost
as vivid and plain as the narrative of the Gospels.
Those four narratives are another warrant for his
faith, their wondrous agreement amid multitudinous
divergences, divergences so marked that none could
have ventured to put them forth as history except
while the knowledge of those who had seen the Lord
and been witnesses of His actions was available
to vouch for and stamp as true these varicoloured
pictures of the life of Jesus. He has further vouchers
in the lives and letters of those who knew and followed
the Lord, followed Him, most of them, on the road
that led through persecution unto death. And beside
all this, there stands and grows the Church built upon
this history, strong with the power of this faith and
in her holy worship sanctifying Christ as her Lord.
These are things to which the Christian appeals.
These reasons he gives with meekness and fear—with
meekness, because in that spirit all the victories
of the Lord are to be won; with fear, lest by feeble
advocacy the cause of Christ may suffer. And he does
not bring words alone with him to the struggle, but
the power of a godly life; he is prepared for the
conflict by the possession of a good conscience before
God and men; he bears in mind the prophetic exhortation,
"Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of
the Lord" (
"For it is better, if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who is on the right hand of God, having gone unto heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him."—1 Peter iii. 17-22.
He shows that this is God's will by two examples. Christ, the sinless, suffered at the hands of sinful men, and for their sakes, as well as for all sinners; and though we only can approach the subject with deep reverence and use the language of Scripture rather than our own about the effect of suffering on Christ Himself, we are taught therein that He was made perfect as the Leader of salvation by the things which He suffered: and the Apostle here describes the sequel of those sufferings by the session on the right hand of God in heaven, where angels and authorities and powers are made subject unto Him.
But God's ordinance in respect of the suffering of
the godly has been the same from of old. In the
ancient world Noah had found grace in God's sight
in the midst of a graceless world. He was made a
witness and a preacher of righteousness; and the faithful
building of the ark at God's command was a
constant testimony to the wrong-doers, whose sole
response was mockery and a continuance in the corruption
of their way. But God had not left them
without witness; and when the Deluge came at length,
some hearts may have gone forth to God in penitence,
though too late to be saved from the destruction. To
Noah and those with him safety was assured; and
when the door of the ark was opened, and the small
band of the rescued came forth, it was to have the
welcome of God's blessing and to be pointed to a
token of His everlasting covenant. In this wise St.
Peter adds once more to the consolations of those who
For it is better, if the will of God should so will, that
ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. For evil-doing
suffering is certain to come. It cannot be
escaped. God has linked the two together by an unalterable
law. Such suffering is penal. But when the
righteous are afflicted their lot is not of law, but of
God's merciful appointment and selection, and is
ordained with a purpose of blessing both to themselves
and others. The words of St. Peter are very emphatic
concerning God's ordinance: If the will of God so
will. It is not always clear to men. Therefore St.
Paul ( The LXX. translators use the word θέλωθέλω
very frequently to
translate such expressions as "to delight in," "to have pleasure
in." Cf.
Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit. The suffering of Jesus went thus far, that there might be nothing in the cup of human woe which He had not tasted. His spirit was parted from the flesh, as when we die. The body lay in the grave; the spirit passed to the world of the departed. But the triumph of death was short. After the three days' burial came the miracle of miracles. The dead Jesus returned to life, and that resurrection is made the earnest of a future life to all believers. Thus began the recompense of the righteous Sufferer, and the power of the resurrection makes suffering endurable to the godly, makes them rejoice to be conformed unto Christ's death and forgetful of all things save the prize of the high calling, which lies before them to be won. Nor was it with Christ's spirit during those three days as with the souls of other departed ones. He, the sinless One, had no judgement to await; His stay there was that dwelling in paradise which He foreknew and spake of to the penitent thief.
In which also He went and preached unto the spirits in
prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering
of God waited in the days of Noah. At this
Those, on the contrary, who refer "quickened in the
spirit" to the human soul of Christ, take this text as
an additional authority for the doctrine in the Apostles'
Creed that our Lord's human soul after the Crucifixion
descended into hell. Thus, they hold, His pure spirit
went beyond this world to experience all that human
spirits can know before the judgement comes. Thither
He came but as a Herald. Death and the grave had
no power to detain Him. In mercy to those who had
passed away before the Incarnation, He brought the
message of the mediatorial work which He had completed
in His crucifixion. The sinners before the Flood
Up to the sixteenth century the latter exposition and
application of the words found most favour, but at
the time of the Reformation the chief authorities It marks the time of this change of opinion that in the first form
of the English Articles (the forty-two of 1553) the text
And if we refer the words "quickened in the spirit"
to the soul of Christ, parted from the body and present
in the spirit-world, they are a link to connect this
passage with words of the Apostle's sermon on the
day of Pentecost. There he does speak of the Lord's
descent into hell, and teaches how David of old spake
thereof and of the Resurrection "that neither was He
left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption"
(
Wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved. The
building of the ark was the test of Noah's faith, the
ark itself the means of his preservation. In the patriarch's
sufferings St. Peter has found an apt parallel
to the life of these Asian Christians: the same godless
surroundings; the same opposition and mockery;
the same need for steadfast faith. But if rightly
And were they few in number? Fewer still were
those who stood with Noah in the world's corruption.
But God was with him; he walked with God, and
found grace in His eyes; and God blessed him when
the Flood was gone, and by the sign of the covenant,
the faithful witness in heaven (
Saved through water. But God appointed the same waves to be the destruction of the disobedient. With no faith-built ark in which to ride safe, the sinners perished in the mighty waters which to Noah were the pathway of deliverance. A solemn thought this for those who have the offer of the antitype which the Apostle turns next to mention! This double use which God makes of His creatures—how to some they bring punishment, to others preservation—is the theme of several noble chapters in the book of Wisdom (xi.-xvi.), expanding the lesson taught by the pillar of a cloud, which was light to Israel, while it was thick darkness to the Egyptians.
Which also after a true likeness doth now save you,
even baptism. Under the new covenant also water has
been chosen by Christ to be the symbol of His grace.
His servants are baptized into the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost. This is the door appointed for
entrance into the family. But the waters of the Flood
would have overwhelmed Noah, even as the rest, had
he not been within the ark, and the ark would not
have been made had he been lacking in faith. So
in baptism must no more saving office be ascribed
to the water. Even the Divine word, "the word of
And that there may be no place for doubting, the
Apostle subjoins a twofold explanation. First he tells
us what baptism is not, then what it is and what
it bestows. It is not the putting away of the filth of
the flesh. Were this all, it would avail no more than
the cardinal ordinances (with meats and drinks and
divers washings) which were imposed of old until
a time of reformation. Through them the way into
the holy place was not made manifest, nor could be.
True baptism is the interrogation of a good conscience
toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is a spiritual purification, wrought through the
might of Christ's resurrection. And the Apostle
describes it by the effect which it produces in the
Others have rendered ἐπερώτημα "an appeal," and have joined it very closely with the words toward God. These have found in the Apostle's explanation the recognition of that power to draw nigh unto God which the purified conscience both feels, and feels the need of. There are daily stumblings, the constant want of help; and through Christ's resurrection the way is opened, a new and living way, into the holiest, and the power is granted of appealing unto God, while the sense of baptismal grace already bestowed gives confidence and certainty that our petitions will be granted.
Who is on the right hand of God, having gone into
heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made
subject unto Him. Now the Apostle turns back to his
main subject. The righteous who suffers for, and in,
his righteousness, may not only be a blessing to others,
but may himself find blessing. We dare only use the
The whole clause before us is worthy of notice for another reason. It was doubtless written before our Gospels were in circulation, when the life and work of Jesus were only published by the oral teaching of the Apostles and their fellows; yet in a summary form it covers the whole field of the Gospel story. Those to whom this Epistle was written had been taught that Jesus was the Christ, had heard of His righteous life among men, of His sufferings, death, and resurrection, had been taught that afterwards He was taken up into heaven. They knew also that the baptism by which they had been admitted into the Christian communion was His ordinance and the appointed door into the Church which He lived and died to build up among men. Thus, without the Gospels, we have the Gospel in the Epistles, and a witness to the integrity of that history of Christ's life which has come down to us in the narratives of the Evangelists. And when all the contributions of the Apostolic Epistles are put side by side, we may easily gather from them that the history of Jesus which we have now is that which the Church has possessed from the beginning of the Gospel.
"Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that ye no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles, and to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revellings, carousings, and abominable idolatries: wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."—1 Peter iv. 1-6.
Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye
yourselves also with the same mind. Though some
strokes of the foe will fall on the flesh, the conflict is
really a spiritual one. The suffering in the body is
to be sustained and surmounted by an inward power;
the armour of light and of righteousness is the equipment
of the soul, which panoply the Apostle here calls
the mind of Christ. Now what is the mind of Christ
which can avail His struggling servants? The word
implies intention, purpose, resolution, that on which the
heart is set. Now the intention of Christ's life was to
oppose and overcome all that was evil, and to consecrate
Himself to all good for the love of His people.
Christ bare willingly all that was laid upon Him that He might bring men unto God. This is the spirit, this the purpose, the intent, with which His followers are to be actuated: to have the same strenuous abhorrence of sin, the same devotion in themselves to goodness, which shall make them inflexible, however fiercely they may be assailed. Let them only make the resolve, and power shall be bestowed to strengthen them. He who says, "Arm yourselves," supplies the weapons when His servants need them. Jesus Himself found them ready when the tempter came, and drew them in all their keenness and strength from the Divine armoury. Satan comes to others as he came to Christ, and will make them flinch and waver, if he can. At times he offers attractive baits; at times he brings fear to his aid. But, in whatever shape he comes or sends his agents, let them but cling to the mind of Christ, and they shall, like Him, say triumphantly, "Get thee behind me, Satan."
For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from
sin. God intends it to be so, and the earnest Christian
That ye no longer should live the rest of your time in
the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
Christians must live out their lives till God calls them,
and for the rest of their time in the flesh they will be
among their wonted surroundings. Just as Christian
slaves must abide with their masters, and Christian
wives continue with their husbands, so each several
believer must do his duty where God has placed him.
But because he is a believer it will be done in a
different spirit. He is daily cutting himself away from
what the world counts for life; he has begun to live
in the Spirit, and the natural man is weakened day by
day; he knows that what is born of the flesh is flesh,
and bears the taint of sin: so he refuses to follow
where it would lead him. Men often plead for evil
habits that they are natural, forgetting that "natural"
thus used means human, corrupt nature. The birth
of the Spirit transforms this nature, and the renewed
man goes about his worldly life with a new motive,
new purposes. He must follow his lawful calling like
other folks, but the sense of his pilgrimage makes
him to differ; he is longing to depart, and holds
himself in constant readiness. Worldly men live as
though they were rooted here and would never be
moved. "Their inward thought is that their houses
shall continue for ever, and their dwelling-places to all
generations; they call their lands after their own
names" (
And as he strives to fulfil God's intent by crucifying the old man and ceasing from sin, the Christian rejoices in a growing sense of freedom. To follow the lusts of men was to serve many and hard taskmasters. Riches, fame, luxury, sensual indulgences, riotous living, are all keen to win new slaves, and paint their lures in the most attractive colours; and one appetite will make itself the ally of another, lust hard by greed, so that the chains of him who takes service with them are riveted many times over, and difficult, often impossible, to be cast off. But the will of God is one: "One is your Master"; "Love the Lord your God with all your heart"; "And all ye are brethren"; "Love your neighbour as yourself." Then shall you enter into life. And the life of this promise is not that fragment of time which remains to men in the flesh, but that unending after-life where the natural body shall be exchanged for a spiritual body, and death be swallowed up in victory.
For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire
of the Gentiles. The Apostle here seems to be addressing
the Jews who, living among the Gentiles, had, like their
forefathers in Canaan, learned their works. The nation
was not so prone to fall away into heathendom after
the Captivity; yet some of them in the dispersion, like
Samson when he went down unto the Philistines, may
have been captured and blinded and made to serve.
The proximity of evil is infectious. To the Gentile
converts St. Peter speaks elsewhere as having been
slaves to their lusts in ignorance (i. 14). But whether
Jew or Gentile, when they had once tasted the joy of
this purer service, this law of obedience which made
St. Peter seems to place in contrast, as he describes
the two ways of life, two words, one by which he
denotes the service of God, by the other devotion to the
world and its attractions. The former (θέλημα) implies
a pleasure and joy; it is the will of God, that which He
delights in, and which He makes to be a joy to those
who serve Him. The other (βούλημα) has a sense of
longing, unsatisfied want, a state which craves for
something which it cannot attain. St. Paul describes
it as "led away by divers lusts, ever learning" (but
in an evil school), "never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth, corrupted in mind, reprobate"
(
Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them
into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you. The
godless love to be a large company, that they may keep
one another in heart. Hence they who have been of
them, and would fain withdraw, have no easy task;
and to win new comrades sinners are ever most
solicitous. Their invitations at first will take a friendly
tone. Solomon understood them well, and described
them in warning to his son: "Come with us," they say:
"let us lay wait for blood; let us lurk privily for the
innocent without cause; let us swallow them up alive
as Sheol, and whole as those that go down into the pit.
We shall find all precious substance; we shall fill our
houses with spoil. Thou shalt cast thy lot among us;
we will all have one purse" (
And if there be no hope of winning recruits or
alluring back those who have escaped, the godless
follow another course. They hate, and persecute, and
malign. Ever since the days of Cain this has been the
policy of the wicked, though not all push it so far as
did the first murderer (
Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge
the quick and the dead. The Christian looks on to
the coming judgement. He can therefore disregard the
censures of men. Neither the penalties nor the
revilings of the world trouble him. They are a part of
the judgement in the present life; by them God is
chastening him, preparing him by the suffering in the
flesh to be more ready for the coming of the Lord. In
that day it will be seen how the servant has been made
like unto his Master, how he has welcomed the purging
which Christ gives to His servants that they may bring
forth more fruit. He believes, yea knows, that in the
Such has been the mercy of God even from the days of Eden. In the first temptation Eve adds one sin upon another. First she listens to the insidious questioning which proclaims the speaker a foe to God: then without remonstrance she hears God's truth declared a lie; hearkens to an aspersion of the Divine goodness; then yields to the tempter, sins, and leads her husband into sin. Not till then does God's judgement fall, which might have fallen at the first offence; and when it is pronounced, it is full of pity, and gives more space for repentance. So, though the Judge be ready, His mercy waits. For He will judge the dead as well as the living, and while men live His compassion goes forth in its fulness to the ignorant and them that are out of the way.
For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the
dead, that they might be judged according to men in the
flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. "Unto this
end"—what does it signify? What but that God has
ever been true to the name under which He first
revealed Himself: "The Lord God, merciful and
gracious" (
Some have applied the words of this verse to the
sinners of the days of Noah, connecting them closely
with iii. 19; and truly, though they be but one
example out of a world of mercies, they are very
notable. They were doomed; they were dead while
they lived: "Everything that is in the earth shall
die" (
Few passages have more powerful lessons than this for every age. The world is full of suffering in the flesh. Who has not known it in many kinds? But it is in consequence, to those who will hear, very full of Gospel sermons. They cry aloud, Sin no more; the time past may suffice to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. Suffering does not mean that God is not full of love; rather it is a token that, in His great love, He is training us, opening our eyes to our wrong-doings that we may cast them off, and giving us a true standard to judge between the desire of the Gentiles and the will of God. And though men may look on us as sore afflicted, our Father, when the rest of our time in the flesh shall be ended, will give us the true life with Him in the spirit.
"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer: above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covereth a multitude of sins: using hospitality one to another without murmuring: according as each hath received a gift, ministering it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God; if any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God; if any man ministereth, ministering as of the strength which God supplieth: that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen."—1 Peter iv. 7-11.
We may allow that those who had been present at
the Ascension, and had heard the words of the angels
declaring that "this same Jesus should so come as
they had seen Him go into heaven" (
Be ye therefore of sound mind. Exactly the counsel
which should follow the previous lesson. It was
misinterpreted at first, as it has been since. We know
how unwisely the Thessalonians behaved when they
had been told by St. Paul, "The day of the Lord so
cometh as a thief in the night" (
How soundness of mind may serve the Church of
Christ is seen in the settlement of that murmuring
which arose (
And be sober unto prayer. The Apostle selects one
example wherein the sound mind ought to be sought
after, and he has chosen it so as to be of general
application. The wisdom to which he is exhorting
is needed for all men, both those who teach and those
who hear, those who serve tables and those who are
served thereby. Many members of the Christian body,
Above all things being fervent in your love among
yourselves. Soundness of mind and sobriety should
dominate every part of the believer's life; but there
are other virtues of pre-eminent excellence, unto
which, though they be far above him, he is encouraged
to aspire. Of these St. Peter, like St. Paul (
In the present verse, however, the Apostle exhorts
that this Divine quality is to be exercised by the converts
among themselves, and exercised with much
earnestness and diligence. It is to be the grace which
pervades all their lives, and extends itself to every
condition thereof. But we understand why St. Peter
has used this word for love as soon as we come to
the clause which follows: For love covereth a multitude
of sins. To cover sin is Godlike. It has been often
asked, Whose sins are covered by this love, those of
him who loves, or of him who is loved? The question
can have but one answer. There is nothing in the
New Testament to warrant such a doctrine as that
love towards one's fellow-men will hide, atone for, or
cancel any man's sins. When our Lord says of the
woman who was a sinner, "Her sins, which are many,
are forgiven; for she loved much" (
Using hospitality one to another without murmuring.
We need only reflect on the narrative of the Acts of
the Apostles to realise how large a part hospitality
must have played in the early Church as soon as the
preachers extended their labours beyond Jerusalem.
The house of Simon the tanner, where Peter was entertained
many days (ix. 43); the friends who at
Antioch received Paul and Barnabas and kept them
for a whole year (xi. 26); the petition of Lydia, "Come
into my house, and abide there" (xvi. 15); and Jason's
reception of Paul and Silas at Thessalonica (xvii. 7),
are but illustrations of what must have been the
general custom. Nor would such welcome be needed
for the Apostles alone. The Churches must have been
very familiar with cases of brethren driven from their
own country by persecution, or severed from their
own kinsfolk by the adoption of the new faith. To
such the kind offices of the Christian congregations
must have been constantly extended, so that hospitality
was consecrated into a blessed and righteous duty.
To be "given to hospitality" (
The intimate fellowship that would grow out of such
exercise of kind offices must have been a power to
According as each hath received a gift, ministering
it among yourselves, as good stewards of the manifold
grace of God. The close connexion between gifts and
grace is better marked in the Greek than it can be in
the English. The χαρίσματα are bestowed upon us
by the χάρις of God. But every word in the sentence
is full of force. Each hath received a gift. None can
plead his lack of faculty; none can claim exemption
from the duty of ministering; none is so poor but he has
something that he can lay out for the brethren. All
have time; all have kind words: the least can give, what
is the best of gifts, a good example. But what we have
is not our own; it is received: and humility would teach
us to believe that God has bestowed on us the powers
which we are best fitted, by place and opportunities, to
use in His service. None can say of any gift, "It is
all my own; I may do with it as I please." God
has set the world about us full of His exchangers.
The poor, the feeble, the doubting, the fearful—these
are God's bankers, with whom we may put out our
gifts to usury. And Himself is the security for all that
we deposit thus: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of
the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me."
Hence we live under the responsibility of stewardship.
That he may give more precision to his counsel, the
Apostle proceeds to speak of gifts under two heads into
which they are naturally divided. First come those
which St. Paul (
And next he turns to those gifts which are to be exercised
in deeds, and not in words: If any man ministereth,
ministering as of the strength which God supplieth.
Under "ministry" St. Paul classes (
That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus
Christ, whose is the glory and the dominion for ever and
ever. Amen. This is to be the thought which animates
all who minister: that each man's service may be so
rendered to his brethren that it will work for the glory
of God. And Christ has led the way. He testifies
in His final prayer, "I glorified Thee on the earth,
having accomplished the work which Thou hast given
Me to do" (
"Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you: but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy. If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you."—1 Peter iv. 12-14.
He does not enter upon reasons for his admonition, or he might have selected a goodly list of Old Testament saints who for their faith were called to suffer. For the Jewish brethren, Joseph and David, Elijah and Micaiah, David and his companions in exile, Job and Nehemiah, would have been forcible examples of suffering for righteousness. The Apostle, however selects only the loftiest instance. Christ, the Master whom they were pledged to serve, had suffered, and had said, besides, that all who would follow Him must take up the cross. Need they wonder, then, if in their case they found the Lord's teaching coming true?
But, in describing the purpose of their trials, the
Apostle introduces some words which place their
affliction in a distinct light: Which cometh upon you to
prove you—literally, for your proving (πρὸς πειρασμὸν
ὑμὶν). And the word is that which is constantly used
of temptation, whether sent of God or coming in some
other way. When viewed as a process of proving,
the believers would be able to find some contentment
under their persecutions. God was putting them to
the test. He would know if they are in earnest in His
service, and so they are cast into the furnace, God's
wonted discipline. The prophet Zechariah tells both
of the process, and the God-intended result: "I will
refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as
gold is tried; they shall call on My name, and I will
hear them: I will say, It is My people; and they shall
say, The Lord is my God" (
Such thoughts would yield comfort to those for whom St. Peter immediately wrote. They were suffering for Christ's sake; their faith in Him was being tested. But the Apostle's words are left for the edification of all generations of believers. Throughout all time and everywhere there has been abundance of grief and pain. How may sufferers to-day participate in the apostolic consolation? How may they learn to think it not strange that they are afflicted?
The Apostle's words supply the answer to such questions. And they are no light or infrequent questionings both for ourselves and others. Men are prone to lament over temporal losses or bodily sufferings, their own or others', in tones which convey the idea that such trials will in the end be compensated and made efficacious for the future blessing of the sufferer. The New Testament has no such doctrine. "The trial which cometh upon you to prove you," is St. Peter's expression. There is much suffering in the world which is in no sense a participation of the sufferings of Christ, in no sense a God-sent trial for proving the faith of the sufferer.
Here, if honestly questioned, the individual conscience
will give the true answer; and if that inward witness
condemn the life for no excesses, of which suffering
is the appointed fruit, if the bodily pains be not the
outcome of a life lived to the flesh, nor the sorrow and
poverty the result of follies and extravagance aforetime,
then, with the anguish and distress which God hath
sent (for we may then count them as of His sending),
the Spirit will have bestowed light that we may discern
But dare we then pray, as Christ has taught us, "Lead
us not into temptation"? Yes, if we ponder rightly
on the purport of our petition. Christ does not bid
us pray to God not to try us; He Himself made no
such prayer for His disciples; He was Himself submitted
to such trial: "It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him; He hath put Him to grief" (
And when desire has once gained the mastery, the next yielding is sooner made; the forbidden path becomes the constant walk; the moral principle—the Godlike in the conscience—is neglected; men grow weaker, are led away of their own lusts and enticed.
On the other hand, if the unlawful desire be resisted from the first, each succeeding conflict will offer less hardship, each new victory be more easily gained, and the virtuous act will become a holy habit; the man will walk with God. For this end God uses the evil, of which Satan is the father, to be a discipline, and turns the snares of the enemy into a means of strength for those whom he would captivate. Knowing all this, Christ has left us His prayer. In it He would teach us to ask that God should protect us in such wise that the desire to sin which dwells within us may not be roused to activity by opportunities of indulgence, or if we are thrown where such opportunities exist, the desire may be killed in our hearts. Thus our peril will be lessened, and we shall be helped to walk in the right way, through His grace. Our strong passions will grow weaker, and our weak virtues stronger, day by day.
And such a petition should check all overweening
confidence in our own power to withstand temptation,
all overreadiness to put ourselves in the way of danger
And in respect of courting trial, even when the
suffering to be encountered would be allowed by all
men to be suffering for righteousness' sake, the New
Testament gives us many lessons that we should not
offer ourselves to unnecessary danger. Our Lord
Himself (
If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are
ye. It was a joy to the Apostles (
In our land suffering such as theirs is no more laid upon us, but for all that the reproach of Christ has not ceased. Our days are specially marked by a desire for demonstration on every subject, and it comes to pass thereby that those who are willing in spiritual things to walk by faith rank in the estimation of many as the less enlightened portion of the world, and are pictured as such in much of our modern literature. All that tells of miracle in the life of Jesus is by many cast altogether aside, as alien to the reign of law under which the world exists; and the Gospel narratives of the virgin-birth, the wonderful works, the Resurrection, and the Ascension are treated as the invention of the fervid imaginations of the first followers of Jesus; while to cling to them as verities, and to their importance and significance in the work of the world's salvation, stamps men as laggards in the march of modern speculation. To accept the New Testament story as the fulfilment of predictions in the Old is reckoned by many for ungrounded superstition; and among the unbelieving there are keen eyes still which gladly mark the slips and stumblings of professing Christians, and throw the obloquy of individuals broadcast upon the whole body.
To hold fast faith at such a time, to accept the
Gospels as true and their teaching as the words of
eternal life, to see in Christ the Redeemer appointed
from eternity by the foreknowledge of God, and to
believe that in Him His people find remission of sins,
to see and acknowledge above the reign of law the
power of the almighty Lawgiver—these things are still
beset with trials for those who will live in earnest
according to such faith; and if we receive less of the
Because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you. In the former clause the Apostle, speaking of the joy of believers, exhorted the converts to a present rejoicing, even in the midst of sufferings, because these were borne for Christ's sake, that so, when He shall appear in whose name they have suffered, their rejoicing may be still more abundant. In like manner he seems here to regard their blessedness in a double aspect. The Spirit of glory rests upon them. A power is imparted to them whereby they accept their pains gladly, and therein glorify God, and the same Spirit fills them with a sense of future glory. Like Stephen before his persecutors, they become filled with the Holy Ghost, their spirits are lifted heavenwards, and even now they behold the glory of God, and Jesus sitting on the right hand of God. Thus suffering is robbed of its sting, and Christ's reproach becomes a present blessing.
St. Paul combines the same thoughts in his appeal
to the Roman Christians. "Let us rejoice," he urges,
"in the hope of the glory of God" (
The Authorised Version has here retained a clause which appears to have been at first but an explanatory note, written in the margin of some copy, and then to have been incorporated with the text: "On their part He is evil-spoken of, but on your part He is glorified." We cannot regret the preservation of such a note. It dates back to very early times. The student who made it could write in the language of the New Testament and in its spirit also. It gives us the sense which was then felt to have most prominence and to be the most important. The way of Christ was evil-spoken of, and it could be no strange thing in those days for His followers to be put to fiery trial. Yet the writer feels that the blessedness of the believer is most secured who, regardless of blasphemers around him, strives with all his powers that in his body, whether by life or by death, Christ shall be magnified.
"For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men's matters: but if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name. For the time is come for judgement to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator."—1 Peter iv. 15-19.
For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief,
or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men's matters.
He appears to divide these offences into two classes,
made distinct by the recurrence of ὡς, "as." The first
three concern crimes of which the laws of any land
would naturally take cognisance. "Evil-doer" was the
St. Peter has ranged these offences in a descending
order, placing the least culpable last; and their compass
embraces all that rightly might come under the ban of
the law or incur the just odium of society. To suffer
for such things would disgrace the Christian name;
but there is no shame in suffering as a Christian, but
rather a reason for giving glory to God. That the name
was bestowed as a reproach seems probable from
But if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be
ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name. That is,
let him be thankful and show his thankfulness that he
has been called to bear the name of Christ and to suffer
for it. The Authorised Version, adopting a different
reading, has "on this behalf." But the sense is nothing
different. He is to rejoice that this lot has befallen
him, for it is of God's great mercy that we are purified
here by trial; he who has not been tried has not
entered on the way of salvation. "Let me fall into the
hand of the Lord," was the petition of David; and they
are more blessed who feel that hand in their correction
than those who are cut away from it. It is a terrible
lot to think of, if we be abandoned by Him to worldly
prosperity. St. Paul congratulates the Philippians
"because to them it had been granted, in the behalf
of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer
on His behalf" (
For the time is come for judgement to begin at the house
of God. The time is come. Why does the Apostle
In St. Peter's words we have an echo of prophecy.
When the hand of the Lord carried Ezekiel in vision
back from Babylon to Jerusalem, he heard the voice of
God commanding the destroyers, "Begin at My sanctuary"
(
And if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them
that obey not the gospel of God? The Apostle joins
himself with those of the house of God who will feel
the pressure of temporal judgement. He is not forgetful
of the Lord's saying, "Simon, behold Satan
asked to have you that he might sift you as wheat, but
I made supplication for thee that thy faith fail not" (
And if the righteous scarcely is saved, where shall the
ungodly and sinner appear? The righteous is he who
follows after righteousness, but who feels that, in the
midst of his efforts of faith, he needs to cry, "Lord, I
believe; help Thou mine unbelief." It is of God's mercy
that He accepts the aim and purpose of our lives, and
counts not by their results. All men are beset with
temptation; in many things we all offend. Works of
righteousness bear the taint; they come many a time
from wrong motives. The best of us need both the
Father's chastisement, and, like Peter, the Saviour's
prayers, and the Holy Spirit's guidance. This is what
the Apostle means by "scarcely saved." By Divine help
Christ's servants are brought nearer and nearer to the
ideal, "Be ye holy." But though they live not in sin,
sin lives in them; and the warfare with evil is not ended
till the burden of the flesh is laid aside. And as there
are degrees in the progress of the righteous up the hill
of faith, so are there in the falling away of the wicked;
and St. Peter in his language appears to have had this
in mind, for of the ungodly and sinner he uses a verb
in the singular (φανεῖται). Where shall he appear?
The man begins as the ungodly, a negative character:
he thinks not of God; has no reverence for His law;
puts Him away from all his thoughts. But in this
For the judgement which for the righteous begins at God's house, and is wrought out in the trials of this life, awaits the disobedient when life is ended. The Apostle leaves his solemn question unanswered; but at that day there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, only a fearful expectation of judgement. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God then. Hence the greater blessedness of those who are taken into God's hand of judgement now. And thus the Apostle comforts the sufferers.
Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the
will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a
faithful Creator. Again St. Peter goes back in thought
to the words of Christ, "Father, into Thy hands I commend
My spirit" (
The Apostle links a holy life most closely with this trust in God. In well-doing commit your souls unto Him. No otherwise can His guardianship and aid be hoped for. But the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, and with Him to know is to watch over and help. Nor should men sorrow when they suffer according to God's will. Rather it is cause for gladness. For conscience must tell them that they need to be purged from much earthly dross which clings about them. So the fire of trial may be counted among blessings.
And with two words of exceeding comfort St. Peter
strengthens the believers in their trust. God is faithful;
His compassions fail not: they are new every morning.
In moments of despair the sorrowing Christian may
feel tempted to cry out, with the Psalmist, "Hath God
forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger shut up His
tender mercies?" (
And this faithful God is our Creator. In the council
of the Godhead it was said in the beginning, "Let us
make man in our image." And God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, which made of him a living
soul. From God's hand he came forth very good, but
sin entered, and the Divine image has been blurred
and defaced. Yet in mercy the same heavenly conclave
planned the scheme for man's restoration to his first
estate. The love which spake to Zion of old speaks
through Christ to all mankind. "Can a woman forget
her sucking child? Yea, she may forget; yet will I not
forget thee" (
"The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according unto God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away."—1 Peter v. 1-4.
It is clear from this passage that in St. Peter's time
they were identical with those who were afterwards
named bishops. For the word which follows presently
in the text and is rendered "exercising the oversight"
is literally "doing the work of bishop, or overseer."
And in the passage already alluded to (
The humility, which he is soon about to commend
to the whole body, the Apostle manifests by placing
He opens his solemn charge with words which are
the echo of Christ's own: "Feed My sheep"; "Feed
My lambs." Every word pictures the responsibility of
those to whom the trust is committed. These brethren
are God's flock. Psalmists and prophets had been
guided of old to use the figure; they speak of God's
people as "the sheep of His pasture." But our Lord
consecrated it still more when He called Himself "the
good Shepherd, that giveth His life for the sheep."
The word tells much of the character of those to whom
it is applied. How prone they are to wander and
stray, how helpless, how ill furnished with means of
defence against perils. It tells, too, that they are easy
to be led. But that is not all a blessing, for though
But they are God's flock. This adds to the dignity of the elder's office, but adds also to the gravity of the trust, a trust to be entered on with fear and trembling. For the flock is precious to Christ, and should be precious to His shepherds. To let them perish for want of tending is treachery to the Master who has sent men to His work. And how much that tending means. To feed them is not all, though that is much. To provide such nurture as will help their growth in grace. There is a food store in God's word, but not every lesson there suits every several need. There must be thoughtful choice of lessons. The elders of old were, and God's shepherds now are, called to give much care how they minister, lest by their oversight or neglect—
"The hungry sheep look up, but are not fed."
But tending speaks of watchfulness. The shepherd must yield his account when the chief Shepherd shall appear. Those who are watchmen over God's flock must have an eye to quarters whence dangers may come, must mark the signs of them and be ready with safeguards. And the sheep themselves must be strengthened to endure and conquer when they are assailed; they cannot be kept out of harm's way always. Christ did not pray for His own little flock of disciples that they should be taken out of the world, only kept from the evil. Then all that betokens good must be cherished among them. For even tiny germs of goodness the Spirit will sanctify, and help the watchful elder, by his tending, to rear till they flourish and abound.
To his general precept St. Peter adds three defining
And every subsequent age of the Church has endorsed
the wisdom of St. Paul's caution, "Lay hands
hastily on no man." Fervid zeal may grow cool, and
inaptitude for the work become apparent. Nor are
those in whom it is found always solely responsible
In some texts the last three words are not represented, nor are they found in our Authorised Version. But they have abundant authority, and so fully declare the spirit in which all pastoral work should be done that they might well be repeated emphatically with each of these three clauses. To labour according to God, "as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye," is so needful that the words may be commended to the elders as a constant motto. And not only as in His sight should the work be done, but with an endeavour after the standard which is set before us in Christ. We are to stoop as He stooped that we may raise those who cannot raise themselves; to be compassionate to the penitent, breaking no bruised reed, quenching no spark in the smoking flax. The pastor's words should be St. Paul's, "We are your servants for Jesus's sake," his action that of the shepherd in the parable: "When he findeth it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing." Such joy comes only to willing workers.
Nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind. We do
not usually think of the Church in the apostolic age as
offering any temptation to the covetous. The disciples
were poor men, and there is little trace of riches in the
opening chapters of the Acts. St. Paul, too, constantly
declined to be a burden to the flock, as though he felt
it right to spare the brethren. The lessons of the New
Testament on this subject are very plain. When our
Neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but
making yourselves ensamples to the flock. This, too, is a
special peril at all times for those who are called to
preside in spiritual offices. The interests committed to
their trust are so surpassingly momentous that they
must often speak with authority, and the Church's
history furnishes examples of men who would make
themselves lords where Christ alone should be Lord.
Against this temptation He has supplied the safeguard
for all who will use it. "My sheep," He says, "hear
My voice." And the faithful tenders of His flock must
ever ask themselves in their service, Is this the voice
of Christ? The question will be in their hearts as
they give counsel to those who need and seek it,
What would Christ have said to this man or to that?
While he warns the elders against the assumption of
lordship over their charges, the Apostle adds a precept
which, if it be followed, will abate all tendency to seek
such lordship. For it brings to the mind of those set
over the flock that they too are but sheep, like the rest,
and are appointed not to dominate, but to help their
brethren. Making yourselves ensamples to the flock.
Christ's rule for the good shepherd is, "He goeth
before them, and the sheep follow him" (
"Truth from his lips prevails with double sway."
The Apostles knew well the weight and influence
of holy examples. Hence St. Paul appeals continually
to the lives of himself and his fellow-workers. We
labour, he says, "to make ourselves an ensample unto
you that ye should imitate us" (
Such are the lives of shepherds who remember that they are even as their flocks: frail and full of evil tendencies, and needing to come continually, in humble supplication, to the source of strength and light, and to be ever watchful over their own lives. These men seek no lordship; there comes to them a nobler power, and the allegiance they win is self-tendered.
And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye
shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.
For their consolation the Apostle sets before the elders
their Judge in His self-chosen character. He is the
chief Shepherd. Judge He must also be when He is
manifested; but while He must pass sentence on their
work, He will understand and weigh the many
hindrances, both within and without, against which they
have had to fight. Of human weakness, error, sin,
such as besets us, He had no share; but He knows
whereof we are made, and will not ask from any of us
a service beyond our powers. Nay, His Spirit chooses
for us, would we but mark it, the work in which we
can serve Him most fitly. And He has borne the
contradiction of sinners against Himself. In judging
Therefore His feeble but faithful servants may with
humble minds welcome His appearing. He comes as
Judge. Ye shall receive. It is a word descriptive of
the Divine award at the last. Here it marks the
bestowal of a reward, but elsewhere (
"Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth for you."—1 Peter v. 5-7.
Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. He teaches that as there is a duty of the elders to the younger, so there is a reciprocal duty which, in like manner and with the same thoroughness, must be discharged by the younger to the elders. In those early days the congregation could fitly be spoken of as "the younger." Naturally the teachers would be chosen from those who had been the first converts. The rest of the body would consist not only of those younger in years, but younger in the acceptance of the faith, younger in the knowledge of the doctrines of Christ, younger in Christian experience. And if the Churches were to be a power among their heathen surroundings, it must be by their unity in spirit and faith; and this could only be secured by a loyal and ready following of those who were chosen to instruct them.
But lest there may be any undue straining of the
claim to submission, there follows immediately a precept
to make it general: Yea, all of you gird yourselves with
humility, to serve one another. Thus will be realised the
true idea of the Christian body, where each member
should help all, and be helped of all, the rest, eye and
hand, head and feet, each having their office, and each
ministering therein as parts of the one body. This
idea of general humility was altogether unknown to the
world before Christ's coming. The word, therefore, is
one coined for Christian use: lowliness of mind, a
frame wherein each deems others better than himself.
And with it the Apostle has coupled another word for
"gird yourselves," which is well fitted to be so placed.
It is found nowhere else, and is full of that graphic
character of which he is so fond. The noun from
which it is derived signifies "an outer garment," mainly
used by household servants and slaves, to cover their
And one cannot in studying this striking word of the
Apostle but be carried in thought to that scene described
by St. John where Jesus "took a towel and girded
Himself" (
How this exhortation to humility in dealing with
one another is connected with the verse (
St. Peter in his quotation has followed the Septuagint.
In the Hebrew the first half of the verse is, "He
scorneth the scorners." And this is the manner of
God's dealing. He pays men with their own coin.
Jacob's deceit was punished in kind by the frequent
deceptions of his children, so that at last he could hardly
credit their report that Joseph is still alive. David was
scourged for his offences exactly according to his own
sin. But the word which the Apostle has drawn from
the Septuagint is also of solemn import. It declares a
state of war between God and man. God resisteth the
proud; literally, He setteth Himself in array against
them. And their overthrow is sure. They that
strive with the Lord shall be broken to pieces. The
Psalmist rejoices over the contrary lot: "The Lord is
on my side; I will not fear. What can man do unto
me?" (
And as though He would mark humility as the chief grace to prepare men for His kingdom, the Lord's first words in His sermon on the mount are a blessing on the lowly-minded: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"—not shall be, but is theirs even now. God's favour to the humble is a present gift. How the sense of this swells the thanksgivings of Hannah and the Virgin Mary! And to teach the lesson to His disciples, when they were far from humility and were anxious only to know which of them should be above the rest in what they still dreamt of as an earthly kingdom, He took a little child and set him before them, as the pattern to which His true followers must conform. This childlike virtue gives admission to the kingdom of heaven; its possessors have the kingdom of God within them.
And St. Peter feeds the flock as he himself was fed.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of
God, that He may exalt you in due time. The Apostle
may be referring in these words to the trials which
were upon the converts when he wrote to them. These
he would have them look upon as God's discipline, as
a cause for joy rather than sorrow. Christian humility
will not rebel against fatherly, merciful correction. How
the good man bows before the hand of God we see in
Moses when God refused to let him go over into
Canaan: "I besought the Lord, saying, O Lord God,
Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness
and Thy strong hand.... Let me go over, I pray Thee,
and see the good land that is beyond Jordan. But the
Lord was wroth with me for your sakes, and hearkened
But as the Apostle has just been speaking of the duty owed to the elders as teachers, it is perhaps better to apply the words of the exhortation in that sense. Those who were set over the Churches were so set in the Lord. For the time they represented His hand, the hand of care and guidance to those who were submissive. In honouring them, the younger were honouring God. Thus the lesson would be, Bend your hearts to the instruction which He imparts through their words; yield your will to His will, and order your life to be in harmony with His providence; live thus that He may exalt you. For the hand which may seem heavy now will be mighty to raise you in due time. And that time He knows. It is His time, not yours. If it tarry, wait for it. It will surely come; it will not tarry, when the Divine discipline has done its work.
Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He careth
for you. When men do this the due time has come.
Till this stage is reached there can be no true humility.
But how slow men are in reaching it! We are willing
to bring to God a little here and there of our sorrow
and our feebleness, but would fain still carry a part
of the load ourselves. Human pride it is which cannot
stoop to owe everything to God; want of faith, too,
both in the Divine power and the Divine love, though
But neither the young hero by his example, nor the
Apostle in his exhortation, teaches a spirit of careless
indifference and neglect of means. David chose him
five smooth stones out of the brook. These he could
use. With these God had delivered him aforetime.
And in every condition men are bound to use the best
means they know to ensure success, and the Christian
will pour out his prayers for guidance and foresight in
temporal concerns. That done, the counsel of Christ,
on which St. Peter's exhortation is grounded, is, "Be
not overanxious; your heavenly Father knoweth
your needs." And he who has grown humble under
the mighty hand of God in trials has learnt that the
same hand is mighty to save: "He careth for you."
When this perfect trust is placed in God, the load is
lifted. It is, as the Psalmist says literally, rolled upon
the Lord (
How salutary this teaching for both the elders and the congregations among these Christians of the dispersion, and how full the promise of help and blessing. The teachers had been placed in the midst of difficulties and charged with a mighty responsibility; but robed in the garment of humility, casting aside all self-trust, coming only in the name of the Lord, the burden would be raised by the almighty arms and made convenient to their powers. And to the younger the same lowly spirit, loving thoughts toward those who cared for their souls, would be fruitful in blessing. For the same God who resisteth the proud showers His grace upon the humble. It falls on them as the dew of Hermon, which cometh down upon the mountains of Zion. Unto them Christ has proclaimed His foremost blessing; has promised, and is giving, the kingdom of heaven to humble souls, and will give them life for evermore.
"Be sober, be watchful: your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren who are in the world. And the God of all grace, who called you unto His eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little while, shall Himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you. To Him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
"By Silvanus, our faithful brother, as I account him, I have written unto you briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God: stand ye fast therein. She that is in Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark my son. Salute one another with a kiss of love.
"Peace be unto you all that are in Christ."—1 Peter v. 8-14.
Here to the converts, exposed to the assaults of these
temptations, he enjoins the same well-ordered frame
of mind which before (i. 13) he commended to them
as they looked forward to the hope in store for them,
and also (iv. 7) in their prayers, that their petitions
might be such as suited with the approaching end
of all things. Be sober, he says again, and combines
therewith an exhortation which without sobriety is
impossible: Be watchful. If the mind be unbalanced,
there can be no keeping of a true guard against such
dangers as were around these struggling believers.
And it is impossible not to connect such an exhortation
from his lips with those words of Christ, which one
Evangelist says were expressly addressed to St. Peter,
"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation"
(
Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh
about, seeking whom he may devour. In the days of
Job, when God asked of Satan, "Whence comest thou?"
his answer was, "From going to and fro in the earth
and from walking up and down in it" (
Whom withstand steadfast in your faith, knowing that
the same sufferings are accomplished in your brethren
who are in the world. The steadfast faith must be the
firm foundation of God; and the same thoughts, which
St. Paul commends as a correction of those who
have erred concerning the truth, are those most fit to
be urged upon St. Peter's converts to render them
steadfast. "The Lord knoweth them that are His"
(
And to such steadfastness the brethren are to be
moved by the knowledge that others are in the same
affliction. How shall such knowledge minister support?
The mere knowledge that others bear a like
burden does not strengthen our own shoulders; to
hear of others' pains will not relieve our own. Not
so. But just as it is a power in warfare when men
see their leader before them, facing the same perils,
hear his voice cheering them by his courage, inspiring
them with his hope; just as it is a support to brave
men to find brave brethren at their side in the conflict,
animated by the same spirit, marching forward to the same
victory, so is it in the Christian struggle. All Christians
are to be steadfast, the elders like the leaders of
And that he may give the more emphasis to this idea of unity, in which, though the suffering is common to all, yet the hope is also common, and the victory is promised to all, the Apostle does not speak of the converts as a multitude of brethren, but uses a noun in the singular number, naming them (as the margin of the Revised Version indicates) "a brotherhood" (ἀδελφότης). And when they regarded themselves as "a brotherhood in the world," the thought would have its comforting as well as its painful aspect. The world, as Scripture speaks of it, is void of faith. Hence the believer, while he lives in it, is amid jarring surroundings, and is sure to suffer. "In the world ye shall have tribulation." But it is not to last for ever, nor for long. "The world passeth away, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." And though the brotherhood in the world must suffer, yet there is that other brotherhood beyond; and there the suffering will not be remembered for the glory that shall be revealed in us.
And the God of all grace, who called you unto His
eternal glory in Christ, after that ye have suffered a little
while, shall Himself perfect, stablish, strengthen you.
Being now about to sum up the great work of Christian
advancement, in which from first to last the power is
bestowed by God, St. Peter finds no title more fitting
to express the Divine love than "the God of all grace."
In many ancient texts a fourth verb is given, which
the Authorised Version renders "settle." It signifies
"to set on a firm foundation," and it is of the figurative
character which marks St. Peter's language, and, beside
this, is not uncommon in the New Testament (
To Him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen. A fitting doxology to follow the Apostle's enumeration of the riches of Divine grace. He who feels that every gift he has is from above will with ready thankfulness welcome God's rule, and seek to submit himself thereto, making it the law of his life here, as he hopes it will be hereafter.
By Silvanus, our faithful brother, as I account him, I
have written unto you briefly. Silvanus was that Silas
who accompanied St. Paul in his second missionary
journey through the districts of Phrygia and Galatia
(
Exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God: stand ye fast therein. The grace in its several stages has just been summarised: the calling, the perfecting, stablishing, strengthening; and the whole letter is occupied in showing that at every advance God puts His servants to the test. But the Apostle knows that agents of the adversary are busily scattering the tares of doubt and disbelief where God had sown His good seed. The wrestling is not against flesh and blood alone, but against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual host of wickedness. Hence the form of his exhortation: Stand fast.
She that is in Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth
you; and so doth Mark my son. Salute one another with
a kiss of love. It is most natural to refer these words
to a Church, and not to any individual. Some have
interpreted them as an allusion to St. Peter's wife,
whom, as we know from St. Paul ( Apol. i. 65.
Peace be unto you all that are in Christ. This is the
bond which unites believers into one fellowship. To
be in Christ is to be of the brotherhood which has
been so significantly marked just before for its unity.
And in these last clauses we have examples of the
force of the tie. Individuals are brought by it into
close communion, as Peter himself with Silas and with
Mark, whom he speaks of in terms of family love. To
the Churches Silas is commended as a brother in the
faith, which faith establishes a bond of strength between
the distant Churches which have been called into it
"Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained a like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His Divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and virtue; whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust."—2 Peter i. 1-4.
St. Peter does not, as in his former letter, name the
Churches to which he is writing; but afterwards
(iii. 1) he states that this is his second letter to them.
We may therefore conclude that the same persons are
addressed as before. Here he speaks of them as them
that have obtained a like precious faith with us in the
righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Some have thought that here the Apostle's words are
specially addressed to those among the converts who
had been won from heathendom, and now were made partakers
of the same faith with himself and others who, like
him, had been born Jews, and so heirs in part to God's
precious promises. But, as he has just made mention
of his apostolic office, it seems easier to refer "us"
to the Apostles. If this be the sense, then—though in
the allusion to his office and authority they must have
recognised the points wherein his communing with
Christ had made him to differ from them—these words
set forward that aspect of the Christian life wherein
all the faithful are equal. The graces, gifts, and
To this righteousness each "stranger and sojourner"
in the world is striving to attain by faith, and by each
exercise thereof he is raised nearer to his lofty aim.
His faith, like the patriarch's of old, is counted unto
him for righteousness. The fruit of each man's faith
will be ἰσότιμος—"alike precious"—when the journey
is ended. For it will be salvation in the presence of the
perfect righteousness. As in the Saviour's parable the
welcome was the same to him who had rightly used his
two talents as to him who had done the like with five,
so each faithful servant of Christ, working righteousness
according to his power here, shall be called up into the
joy of his Lord. For the joys of heaven all will not
have the same capacity; but for each, according to his
power to receive it, there will be fulness of joy. Nor
should the word "obtained" pass unnoticed. It is
the word used of Judas (
Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord. The first words are the
same with the Apostle's prayer in the opening of the
Seeing that His Divine power hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. The work, though great, becomes not impossible; the dangers and difficulties, though abundant, are not insurmountable. For it is not on us that the victory depends. God hath begotten us again unto a lively hope through Christ's resurrection; and Christ has promised to be with His servants all the days, even unto the end of the world. There is a free gift of Divine power for all our needs, everything to foster the spiritual life and to guide into the way of holiness. Wisdom will be given that we may understand God's will and choose aright, strength to persevere in the midst of trial, boldness to make confession of the Lord before men, and watchfulness lest we, as did the teachers of error, wax overconfident. All things are granted; all things may be ours.
Through the knowledge of Him that called us by His
own glory and virtue. Here the same full knowledge
(ἐπίγνωσις) of which the Apostle has just been speaking
is to become the channel of all our blessings: to know
God, who has made Himself to be known through
Christ Jesus. God's glory and virtue—that is, His
Divine power—have been manifested in Him. The
disciples beheld them in Christ's miracles. "This
beginning of His signs did Jesus, ... and manifested
His glory; and His disciples believed on Him" (
Whereby He hath granted unto us His precious and
exceeding great promises. In Christ God has offered
men all the blessings of the new covenant: repentance;
faith; justification; eternal life. He, with the Son and
the Spirit, comes unto the faithful and makes His abode
with them. Thus they are made members of Christ's
mystical body. He dwells in their hearts by faith;
He gives them power to become sons of God: they are
adopted of God, who sent His only-begotten Son into
the world that they might live through Him. These
are the precious promises granted, but not forced upon
men, set forth in all their greatness in the life and love
of Jesus; and men are invited to choose them. And
the choice is made by patiently doing the will of God
so far as it is revealed to each man; after that we shall
receive the promises (
That through these ye may become partakers of the
Divine nature. This is the Divine scheme for man's
restoration; this is the change of which St. Paul
speaks to the Corinthians (
Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world
by lust. This is the victory that overcometh the world,
but it is a conquest which men cannot win unaided,
nay, where the truest bravery, the surest hope, is in
speedy flight. Like Lot from Sodom must the Christian
hasten away from the lusts of the world, casting no
look behind him, nor tarrying to dally with them for
a moment. For the flesh is weak, and the prince of
this world is mighty in his evil domain, and, that he may
lead men astray, will ofttimes transform himself into
an angel of light; and within the soul of man he has
his confederate powers, the cravings of this human
nature, which thinks the baits of the enemy are pleasant
to the eyes, and it may be they look fit to make one
wise. And so in the eyes of the tempted ones, as in
the eyes of the senseless bird of the Proverbs, the net
seems spread in vain; in their own fancy they seem
able to go on without being entangled, and Satan encourages
the delusion. After that the stages are easy,
but they are all downhill. Men first walk after their
own lusts; then they are led by them, then obey them,
and at last become their slaves. This is the corruption,
the ruin, from which the Christian is aided to flee through
"Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge temperance; and in your temperance patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness love of the brethren; and in your love of the brethren love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble: for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."—2 Peter i. 5-11.
St. Peter begins his scale of graces thus: In your
faith supply virtue. Here virtue means the best
development of such power as a man possesses. It
may be little or great, but in its kind it is to be made
excellent. And here it is that the Christian workers
in every sphere must surpass others. They work from
And in your knowledge temperance. There is a
knowledge which puffeth up, giving not humility, which
is the fruit of true knowledge, but self-conceit. Of the
evil effects thereof the Apostle knew much. Out of it
grew extravagance in thought, and word, and action;
and its mischief was threatening the infant Churches.
Against it the temperance which he commends is to
be the safeguard, and it is a virtue which can be
manifested in all things. He who possesses it has
conquered himself, and has won his way thus to
stability of mind and consistency of conduct. "His
heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord," and so he can go
And in your patience godliness. The mystery of
godliness—that is, Godlikeness—was made known by
the Incarnation. The Son of God became man, that
men might through Him be made sons of God. And
godliness in the present world is Christ made manifest
in the lives of His servants. Toward this imitation of
Christ the believer will aspire through his patience.
He takes up the cross and bears it after his Master,
and thus begins his discipleship, of which the communion
with Christ waxes more intimate day by day.
Such was the godliness of St. Paul. It was because
he had followed the Lord in all that He would have
him to do that the Apostle was bold to exhort the
Corinthians, "Be ye imitators of me;" but he adds at
once, "as I am of Christ" (
The knowledge of Christ is a lesson in which we
Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make
your calling and election sure. "Wherefore, brethren"—because
such terrible blindness as this has fallen upon
some, who left their first grace unimproved and allowed
even the memory of it to fade away—do you give the
more diligence in your religious life. The true way to
banish evil is to multiply good, leaving neither room
nor time for bad things to spread themselves. When
the peril of such things is round about you, it is no
time for relaxed effort. Your enemy never relaxes
his. He is always active, seeking whom he may
devour, and employs not the day only, but the night,
when men sleep, to sow his tares. Let him find you
ever watchful, ever diligent to hold fast and make
abundant the gifts which God has already bestowed
upon you. In the foreknowledge of the Father, you are
elect from the foundation of the world; and your call is
attested by the injunction laid upon you, "Ye shall be
holy, for I am holy." Your inheritance is in store
where nothing can assail it. God only asks that you
should manifest a wish, a longing, for His blessings; and
For if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble. The way will be hard, and may be long, the obstacles in your path many and rugged, heaped up by the prince of this world to bar you from advancing and make you faint-hearted; but down into the midst of the danger there shall shine from the Father of lights a ray which shall illumine the darkness and make clear for you the steps in which you ought to tread, and the rod and staff of God's might will support and comfort you.
For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance
into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. In his first words in this passage the Apostle
exhorted the believers to supply something, as it were,
of their own towards their spiritual advancement; but
when the demand was fully understood, behold God
had made ready the means for doing everything which
was asked for! Within the precious faith which He
bestowed was enfolded the potentiality of every other
grace. There they lay, as seeds in a seed-plot. All
"Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the truth which is with you. And I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me. Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to call these things to remembrance. For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses 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 well pleased: and this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven, when we were with Him in the holy mount."—2 Peter i. 12-18.
Though ye know them, and are established in the truth
which is with you. Knowledge of things that pertain
unto godliness is barren unless it be wrought out in the
life. Yet knowledge and practice do not always go
hand in hand. This was one of the lessons taught by
Jesus as He washed the disciples' feet: "If ye know
these things, blessed are ye if ye do them" (
Perhaps, too, he thought, as he spake of the truth present with them, that he was of necessity absent and would soon be removed altogether, and the only way by which he could serve them was by his epistle. He could never forget that among those to whom he was writing were the Galatians, over whose falling back from the truth St. Paul had so greatly lamented: who had run well, but had fainted ere the course was over; who had received some truth to be present with them, even the faith of the crucified Jesus, but had been beguiled into letting it slip. Thought of these things shapes his words as he writes, "I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance." He rejoices that they are "established," but yet sends them an admonition. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
And I think it right. The word marks the solemn
estimate which the Apostle takes of his duty. It is a
just and righteous work. Danger is abroad, and he
has been made one of Christ's shepherds. Many
motives prompt him to write his words of counsel and
warning. First, his love for them as his brethren, some
of them, perhaps, his children in Christ. Like St. Paul,
he has them in his heart. Then, he will fulfil to the
utmost the charge which the Lord gave him. He is
conscious, too, that opportunities for the fulfilment of
his trust will soon come to an end. As long as I am
in this tabernacle, he says. It is but a frail home, the
Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh
swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me.
Such a motive makes the appeal most touching. He
will soon be removed. To this he looks forward without
alarm. His concern is for them, not for himself.
He regards his death as the stripping off of a dress:
when its use is past it is parted with without regret.
To him, as to his brother Apostle, to die would be
gain. But he must have had constantly in mind the
Master's prophecy, "When thou art old, thou shalt
stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird thee
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not" (
Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be
able after my decease to call these things to remembrance.
Jesus is related (
His letters are the only means whereby he can
speak after he has been taken from them. Hence his
For we did not follow cunningly devised fables. Here the Apostle speaks in the plural number, and it may well be that he means to include St. Paul with himself and James and John. For the evidence which converted that Apostle, though not the same as that vouchsafed to St. Peter, was of the same kind. The Lord had appeared unto him in the way, had made His glory seen and felt, and fixed for ever in the Apostle's heart the reality of His power and presence. His cry, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" came from a heart conquered and convinced. He too followed no cunningly devised fable.
By the word (σεσοφισμένοι) which is rendered
"cunningly devised" we are reminded of the (σοφία)
wisdom which St. Paul so earnestly disclaims in his
first letter to the Corinthians. "I came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom," he says; "my
preaching was not in persuasive words of wisdom, that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but
in the power of God." The wisdmom which he speaks
is not of this world, but God's wisdom in a mystery
( Ep. ad Magn. 8.
When we made known unto you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the contrast to that
mythic and allegorical teaching to which he has just
alluded. From it men could derive neither help in the
present, nor hope for the future. It generated superstition,
and its followers believed a lie. Often it denied
the continuity of revelation, and cast aside all the
records thereof. Like theosophic dreams in every age,
it was always unprofitable, nearly always pernicious.
On the other hand, the teaching of Christ's Apostles
proclaimed a power which could save men from their
sins, and imparted a hope that stretched out beyond
the present, looking for the time when the Lord would
reappear. All power is given unto Christ. He is made
But we were eye-witnesses of His majesty. He has
already (
For He received from God the Father honour and
glory. For the bright cloud which overshadowed them
on the mountain-top was the visible token of the
presence of God, as of old the cloud of glory had been,
where God dwelt above the cherubim; while the
honour and glory of Jesus were manifested when He
was proclaimed to be the very Son of God. When
there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory,
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
To express the magnificence of the glory which he
beheld, the Apostle uses a word not found elsewhere
in the New Testament. The Septuagint has it to
describe the splendour of Jeshurun's God, who rideth
in His excellency on the skies (
The words spoken by the heavenly voice vary here
from the records of each of the three Gospels. In
one case the variation is slight, but there is no
precise agreement. Had the Epistle been the work
of some forger of a later age than St. Peter's, we may
rest assured that there would have been complete
accord with one Evangelist or the other. There is
a like diversity in the records of the words of the
inscription above Christ's cross. Substantial truth,
And this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven,
when we were with Him in the holy mount. We learn
here why the Apostles were taken with Jesus to witness
His transfiguration. Just before that event we find
(
"And we have the word of prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost."—2 Peter i. 19-21.
Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed. The idea
of a volume of New Testament Scriptures had not
entered St. Peter's mind. He knows that St. Paul's
letters (iii. 15, 16) are read by some, who do not all
profit by the privilege; and his own letters he intends
to be an abiding admonition to the Churches. The
need, too, of a record of Christ's life and works, a
gospel, must have begun to be felt. But yet he points
the converts to the ancient records of Israel as a guide
to direct their lives. They had heard the Gospel story
from the lips of himself and others. Thus they had the
key to unlock what hitherto had seemed hard to understand,
and could study their prophetic volume with
a new and perfect light. This he means by "ye do
well." Ye go to the true source of guidance, drink
of the fountain of true wisdom, and gain strength and
refreshment when it is much needed. Duly to take
As unto a lamp shining in a dark place. Spite of
all the light we can compass, the world will always be
in one sense a dark place. It is a world of beauty, full
of the tokens of God's handiwork, the indications of
His love. But evil has also made an entrance; and
the trail of the serpent is evident in the sorrow, the
disease, the wickedness, that abound on every side.
And problems continually present themselves which
even to the saints are hard to be solved. Many a
psalm records the conflict which has to be passed
through ere God's ways can be reconciled to men.
We must go into His house, draw near to Him, feel
to the full His Fatherhood, ere our hearts can be contented.
Nay, the disquiet breaks out again and again.
So God, in His mercy, has provided His lamp for those
who will use it; and to those who take heed it furnishes
ever new light. The history, the prophecy, the devotion,
the allegory, of the holy volume are all full of illustrations
of the firm purpose of redemption, of the eternal,
unchanging love of Jehovah, thwarted only by the
perverseness of those whom He is longing to save
from their sins. And to call God's revelation in His
word a lamp is a striking and instructive figure. It
And the truth is the same if we apply the lesson to nations and Churches as it is for individuals. The records were given to a nation chosen to keep the knowledge of God alive in the world. The word spoken did not profit, as it was meant to do, because it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it. And there is the same faith needed still. The light of a lamp in a dark place shines but a little way; but by the rays of the Divine lamp men are to walk, in faith that the steps beyond will become clear in their turn. And thus alone will the problems of life be really solved, the religious contentions, the social difficulties, the trials of family life, the individual doubts and fears: all are elements of darkness; all need to be illumined by the lamp which God has provided. Oh that men would burnish it by diligent heed, and keep its radiance at the full by constant seeking thereunto!
Until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your
hearts. The day has begun to dawn for those who
will lift up their heads to its breaking. The day-star
from on high hath visited the earth in the person of
Christ, but the full day will not be till He returns again.
Yet His coming into the world was meant to lighten
every man, and to win all men to walk in His light.
"I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me," is
His own promise. And in that decease of which He
spake with Moses and Elijah He has been lifted up.
But He has left it to them that love Him to lift Him
up constantly before the eyes of men, to exalt Him by
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of
private interpretation. The Greek words need to be
taken account of before we can gather the true meaning
of this clause. That which is translated "is" is much
more frequently rendered "comes to pass," and bears
the sense of "arises," "has its origin." "Interpretation"
is the translation of a word which occurs here
only in the New Testament, and implies the "loosing"
of what is complicated, the "clearing" of what is
obscure. The lesson which the Apostle would give
relates to the right appreciation of the Old Testament
Although the Apostle uses in this Epistle the word "Scriptures" (iii. 16) for the writings of New Testament teachers, it is not likely that he in mind included them among the prophetic Scriptures of which he here speaks. We, knowing the flood of light which the Gospels and Epistles pour upon the Old Testament, can now apply his words to them, fully perceiving that they are a true continuation of the Divine enlightenment, another spring from the same heavenly fountain.
Those who would explain "interpretation" as the judgement which men now exercise in the study and application of the words of Scripture forget the force of the verb (γίνεται) "comes to pass," and that the Apostle is exalting the source and origin of the words of prophecy, that he may the more enforce his lesson, "Ye do well to take heed to them."
For no prophecy ever came by the will of man. Prophecy
makes known what never could have entered
into the mind or understanding of men, nor were the
prophetic words that have come down to us written
because men wished to publish views and imaginations
of their own. Man is not the source of prophecy.
That lay above and beyond the human penmen. Nay,
men could not, had they so willed, have spoken of the
things there written for the enlightenment of the ages.
These are deep things, belonging to the foreknowledge
of God alone, by whom His Son was foreknown as the
Lamb without spot before the foundation of the world.
Of this the book of prophecy tells from first to last:
of the seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head;
of the family from which a seed should come in whom
all the earth should be blessed; of the rod to spring
from the stem of Jesse; of the king who was to rule in
righteousness; of the time when the kingdom of the
Lord's house should be established on the top of the
mountains, and all nations should flow into it; of the day
when all men should know the Lord from the least to
the greatest, when the earth should be full of the knowledge
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Such
tidings came not into the thoughts of men except as
they were put there from the Lord; and they tell of
things yet to come that are beyond the grasp of men
unless they be spiritually-minded and enlightened.
But men spake from God, being moved by the Holy
Ghost. The Authorised Version translates a text
which had, "Holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." And this repetition of an
adjective is after St. Peter's manner, though the oldest
manuscripts do not support it here. Compare the thrice-repeated
"righteous" in the notice of Lot in the next
chapter (ii. 7, 8). And the Authorised Version describes
most truly the agents whom God chooses. He
will have none but holy men to be the heralds of His
truth. A Caiaphas may be constrained to utter His
counsels, but as His prophets God takes the holy
among men. These can grasp more of His teaching,
and we receive more than we should through other
channels. By their zeal for holiness they are brought
nearer unto God, and made more receptive of the
teaching of the Spirit, who Himself is holy. But "men
spake from God" conveys a true idea of prophecy.
Even one who was not holy could feel that the power
given to him was not his own, nor could he speak after
his own will. "What the Lord saith unto me, that must
I speak," was the confession of Balaam, though his
greed for gain prompted him to the opposite. And
there are many expressions in the Old Testament
which bear witness to the effective operation of God's
power, as when we read of the Spirit of the Lord
coming mightily upon those whom He had chosen to
do His bidding. And the same lesson is to be found
in St. Peter's words here. "Being moved" is literally
Such is St. Peter's lesson on the nature and office of prophecy. It is an illumination to which men could not have attained by any wisdom of their own, nay could not have framed the wish to attain unto it. For it lay hid among God's mysteries. It is imparted from the holy God to holy men, as His mediators to the less spiritual in the world; it has received abundant confirmation through the incarnation of the Son of God, but yet it has many a lesson for mankind to ponder and seek to comprehend. It is their wisdom who follow its guidance and bear it with them as a lamp amid the dispensations of Providence, which still are not all clear, and amid the darkness which will often surround them while they live here. That men may be prompted to its use, God is a God that hideth Himself, yet through it He will lead those who follow its light along the road to immortality.
"But there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their lascivious doings; by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of. And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not. For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgement; and spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the lascivious life of the wicked (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds): the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgement."—2 Peter ii. 1-9.
But there arose false prophets also among the people,
as among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall
privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the
Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift
destruction. It is as though the Apostle would say, Be
not unduly dismayed. The lamp of Old Testament
prophecy shows that yours is a lot which has befallen
others. As Israel of old was God's people, so the
Church of Christ is now. And among them again and
again false prophets arose, not only those of Baal and
Asherah, not only those who served the calves at Dan
and Bethel, but those who called themselves by Jehovah's
It is the most perilous aspect of error when it parades
itself as the truest truth. Hence the name by which
St. Peter calls this dangerous teaching: "destructive
heresies." They beguile unstable souls to their ruin.
Their exponents choose the name of Christ to call themselves
by, but cast aside the doctrine of the Cross both
in its discipline for their lives, and as the altar of human
redemption. And the men to whom St. Peter alludes
were either among the teachers, or put themselves
forward to teach; and there was a danger lest their
authority should be recognised. They accepted Christ,
but not as He loves to be accepted. He has called
Himself Lord and Master, and has paid the price which
makes Him so; but by their interpretations both of
His nature and His office these men in very deed
renounced and deserted His service, ignored their
relation as His bondservants, and in this way denied
the Master that bought them. Soon they chose other
masters and became the slaves of the world and the
flesh. Thus they entered on the path that leads to
And many shall follow their lascivious doings; by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of. St. Jude, who had seen the results of such teaching, says these men turned the very grace of God into lasciviousness; they perverted the teachings of the Gospel concerning the freedom which is in Christ, and their phraseology they made to have a Pauline ring about it. Did he not teach how Christ had made men free? Had they not heard from him that men should cast off trust in the bondage of the Law? In this wise they taught a doctrine of lawless self-indulgence, which they extolled as the token of entire emancipation and of a loftier nature on which the taint of sins could leave no defilement. In the blindness of their hearts, self-chosen blindness, of which they boasted as knowledge, they gave themselves over to the flesh, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
St. Peter knows that baits of this sort appeal to the
natural man; that there is within the citadel of the
heart a traitorous weakness which is ready to betray it
to the enemy. So, with prophetic foresight, he laments,
Many shall follow after them. And such sinners do
not sin unto themselves: their falling away brings
calamity on the whole Church of Christ. It did so
then; it does so still. The faithful cannot escape from
the obloquy which is due to the faithless; and the
And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make
merchandise of you. St. Paul in writing to Timothy
gives a comment which throws much light on these
words. He tells of men who consent not to sound
words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, thus
denying the Master that bought them. He speaks of
them as bereft of the truth, supposing that godliness
is a way of gain; and he adds, "They that desire to
be rich fall into a temptation and a snare, and many
foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction
and perdition. For the love of money is a root of
all kinds of evil, which some reaching after have been
led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves
through with many sorrows" (
Whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and
their destruction slumbereth not. In thought the
Apostle reads the book of prophecy. It is as if he
said, "It is written in the prophetic word." And
when the overthrow of the sinners comes to pass,
those who behold it may say, "Thus is the prophecy
fulfilled." The doom of such sinners is sure. They
may seem to live their lives with impunity for a while,
as though God's eternal law were inoperative; but
the issue is certain. None such escape. God's mills
grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. And
the lot of such men is destruction. Of illustrations
the Apostle chooses three, applying each to a different
vice of these teachers of error. These men were
proud; so were the angels that sinned, but their pride
was only a prelude to their fall. These men were
disobedient; so were the antediluvian sinners, and
would neither hearken nor turn, and so the Flood came
and swept them all away. These men were sensual;
For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but
cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of
darkness, to be reserved unto judgement. To each of the
three instances which St. Peter adduces the reader
is left to supply the unmistakable conclusion, "Neither
will He spare the sinners of to-day." The sentences
are all the more solemn from their incompleteness.
Some have thought that the reference in this verse is
to the narrative found in
And spared not the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. Here the Apostle points to a consolation for the converts amid their trials. The ungodly do not escape, be their multitude ever so great. A world full of sinners is involved in one common overthrow. Nor are the righteous forgotten, though their number be but few. The lamp of prophecy sheds much light here. Amid all God's dispensations toward Israel, His faithful ones were the remnant only; but these were saved by the grace of the Lord, they were brought out from the destruction, and not forsaken, and had a promise that they should take root downward and bear fruit upward. The words in which St. Peter describes the chief person of the few saved in the Deluge appear intended to point out that feature in Noah's history which most resembled the lot of the Asian Churches. They were now, as he was of old, God's heralds in the midst of a naughty world; and to bring to their minds the thought of his long-sustained opposition and mockery could hardly fail to nerve them to stand fast. What lot could be more desperate than the Patriarch's? For a hundred and twenty years by action and by word he published his message, and it fell on deaf ears; yet God was guarding him (ἐφύλαξεν) through it all, and words could not express more complete safety than when the early record tells us, ere the Flood came, "The Lord shut him in."
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into
ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made
them an example unto those that should live ungodly.
And delivered righteous Lot, sore distressed by the
lascivious life of the wicked (for that righteous man
dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his
righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds).
The thrice-named righteousness of Lot is perhaps thus
set down because of the struggle which it must have
been to maintain the fear of Abraham's God among
such sinful surroundings. Lot was in the land of the
enemy, and his deliverance is pictured as a very rescue:
he was saved, yet so as by fire. He had gone down
into the plain with thoughts of a life of abundance,
and it may be of ease, a contrast to the wandering life
which he had hitherto shared with Abraham. Instead
of this he found anguish and distress of mind, which
no amount of temporal prosperity could alleviate; and
to this would be added self-reproach. It was of his
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of
temptation. Already he has given the lesson (i. 6) that
true godliness must have its root in patience. It is a
perfect trust, which rests securely on the Father's love,
and willingly waits His time. The hearts of the faithful
ones must have found solace in the thought which he
here joins to his former teaching. The trials they
endure are grievous, but "The Lord knows" is an
unfailing support. The floods of ungodliness make
His servants many a time afraid; but when they feel
that there, as amid the raging ocean, the Lord ruleth,
they are not overwhelmed. They are protected by
Omnipotence; and the tiny grains of sand, which check
the fierce tide, are an emblem of how out of weakness
He can ordain strength. Hence there comes a knowledge
to the struggling saint which makes him full of
courage, whatever trials threaten. The world has its
wrathful Nebuchadnezzars, whose threats at times are
And to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the day of judgement. The unrighteous—yes, over them too God keeps ward. They cannot hide themselves from Him, and through their conscience He makes life a continuous chastisement. They may seem to men to walk on heedlessly, but they have hidden tortures of which their fellows can take no count. Even the offender against human laws, who dreads that his sin will be found out, carries in his bosom a constant scourge. Fear hath torment (κόλασιν ἔχει), and this it is of which the Apostle speaks. And if the dread of man's judgement can work terror, how much sorer must their alarm be who have the fiery indignation of the wrath of God in their thoughts and stinging their soul. Such men are kept all their life long under punishment. Yet in this constant anguish we trace God's mercy: He sends it that men may turn in time. His blows on the sinful heart are meant to be remedial; and those who disregard His chastisements to the last will go away, self-condemned, self-destroyed, despisers of Divine love, to a doom prepared, not for them, but for the devil and his angels.
"But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities: whereas angels, though greater in might and power, bring not a railing judgement against them before the Lord. But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroying surely be destroyed, suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing; men that count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and blemishes, revelling in their lovefeasts while they feast with you; having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; enticing unsteadfast souls; having a heart exercised in covetousness; children of cursing; forsaking the right way, they went astray having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wrong-doing; but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a dumb ass spake with man's voice and stayed the madness of the prophet."—2 Peter ii. 10-16.
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise dominion. These chiefly—that is, above other sinners—does God keep under punishment. It cannot be otherwise, for on them His chastisements have little effect. They have entered on a road from which return is rare, neither do they take hold on the paths of life; their whole bent is for that which defileth, not only defiling them, but spreading defilement on every side. They are renegades, too, from the service of Christ; and having cast off their allegiance to Him, they make their lust their law. The verse describes the same character in two aspects: those who walk after the flesh follow no prompting but appetite, have no lord but self.
Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities.
The Apostle passes on to describe another and more
terrible manifestation of the lawlessness of these false
teachers. They have so sunk themselves in the grossness
of material self-indulgence that they revile and
set at nought the spiritual world and the powers that
exist therein. In the term "dignities" the Apostle's
thoughts are of the angels, against whom these sinners
scruple not to utter their blasphemies. The good
angels, the messengers from heaven to earth, the
ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who
shall be heirs of salvation, they are bold to deny;
while concerning the evil angels, to whose temptations
they have surrendered themselves, they scoff, representing
their lives as free and self-chosen, and at their
own disposal. The two terms "daring," "self-willed,"
Whereas angels, though greater in might and power,
bring not a railing judgement against them before the
Lord. The explanation of this passage is not without
difficulty, because of the indefiniteness of the words
"against them." To whom is reference here made?
It can hardly be questioned that by δόξαι, "dignities,"
literally "glories," in the previous verse the Apostle
meant angels, the dignities of the spirit-world, in
contradistinction to κυριότης, "dominion," in which he
before referred to those earthly authorities whom these
false teachers set at nought. The verbs used in the
two clauses support this view. The dominion they
venture to despise, at the dignities they rail, whereas
they ought to be afraid of them. Now even to the
fallen angels there attaches a dignity by reason of their
first estate. In the New Testament the chief of them
is called by Christ Himself the "prince of this world"
(
There may have been in St. Peter's thought that
solemn scene depicted in
This exposition does not remove all difficulty. For as the angels in the verse appear to be spoken of as superior in might and power to these corrupt teachers, it seems natural at first sight to refer to them the indefinite expression, and to explain that the angels, though they be so exalted, bring no railing judgement before God against these teachers and their evil doings. But from what Scripture tells us of the angels, it is not easy to understand how or why they should bring such a judgement. Nowhere is such an office assigned to, or exercised by, these spiritual beings, nor are we anywhere told that the observance of the deeds of the wicked is in their province. They rejoice over one sinner that repenteth; they stand in God's presence as the representatives of spotless innocence; they are sent forth by God as His messengers of judgement and of love; but we never find them as accusers of the wicked. That office Satan has taken for his own.
But the words which the Apostle uses seem hardly
to make it necessary that the comparison should be
between angels and these teachers of destruction. In
the passage of Zechariah which we judge to have
been in St. Peter's mind when he wrote, the angel
is that mightiest spirit among the angelic host who
is identified in the language of the prophet with
Jehovah Himself; and the angel in St. Jude's illustration
is the archangel Michael. Conceiving that by
"angels" St. Peter intends these chief members of the
celestial powers, the sentence may be taken to mean
that the most glorious beings among the angelic throng,
those who are greater in might and power than the
"dignities" of whom he has spoken, bring no railing
judgement even against the fallen angels, whereas these
men presume to blaspheme beings of an order far
above themselves. Such a conception of subordination
in the spirit-world as is here suggested is not foreign
to New Testament thought. St. Paul speaks of the
angels in heaven as representing "principality, power,
might, and dominion" (
But these, as creatures without reason, born mere
"I of brute human, ye of human gods,"
was his tempting speech. These men had given
themselves up for a less noble bribe. The bait of
sensual indulgence was offered, and their acceptance of
it had brought them down to the level of creatures
without reason. Their conduct and their lessons
merited such a comparison, and showed how their
nobler part had been warped by excess. To blaspheme
against the powers of the spirit-world is conduct
which can only be paralleled by that of the senseless
animals, which, with utter ignorance of consequences,
will rush upon objects whose strength they know not,
and perish in their blind onslaught. But the beasts
were born to be taken and destroyed; no higher fate
was in their power. Men were meant for a nobler
end, and it is only when the rein is given to appetite
that they become from human brutish in their knowledge,
more brutish than to know. Thus in their
ignorance they rail at all loftier thought, and of their
Suffering wrong as the hire of wrong-doing. The Authorised Version translates a somewhat different text (κομιούμενοι), "and shall receive the reward of wrong-doing." This is the easier sentence, and connects itself well with what precedes; but it has not the strongest support. By the text which the Revised Version has adopted (ἀδικούμενοι) the Apostle does not mean that these sinners meet a punishment which they have not deserved, and in that sense suffer wrong; but that they are themselves brought under the penalties of the wrong into which they are leading others. As the Psalmist says, their wickedness comes down on their own pate, and in the net which they hid privily is their own foot taken. They differ from Balaam, whose example St. Peter is soon about to instance. These men secure the reward they seek, larger resources to squander on their lust; yet this, their success, as they would call it, proves their overthrow.
Men that count it pleasure to revel in the daytime.
They that are drunken are drunken in the night, and
the same holds ordinarily of other excesses. They
come not to the light because their deeds are evil.
Spots and blemishes. St. Peter must have had in his
thought the epithets which he applied to Christ: "a
lamb without blemish and without spot" (
Revelling in their lovefeasts while they feast with you.
Here also the Revised Version accepts a text different
from that rendered by the Authorised, which for the
first clause has "sporting themselves with their own
deceivings" (ἀπάταις). This refers to "the feigned
words" with which they have been pictured as making
a gain of the unstable souls whom they lead astray.
They find a sport in their delusion, a pleasure, which
is devilish, in the evil they are working. The other
reading, ἀγάπαις, which is also found in
Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease
from sin. These preachers of freedom from the
restraints of the Law must make their evil liberty
known, and so they shamelessly parade it even in
the meetings of the brethren. They cast about them
their licentious glances, and their lustful gaze is unchecked.
Nay, they have so given it rein that now
it is beyond their control. Their eyes cannot cease
from sin. The original speaks of "eyes full of an
adulteress." By this unusual expression the Apostle
Enticing unstedfast souls; having a heart exercised in
covetousness; children of cursing. A very pestilence
must such men have been to the Churches. For there
are always many to be found who are not established
in the truth, though it be present with them, men
whom the bait of a promised freedom, with its assumption
of superiority, will always catch. There is in it
a witchery worse even than that which, in another
direction, had once before led the Galatians astray.
Satan himself offers the temptation, and finds allies
within men's hearts to help his cause. It is only by
those stedfast in the faith that he can be withstood
(
Forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wrong-doing. It is an aggravation of wrong-doing when those who know the good willingly choose the evil. Of such men there is little hope. To wander is their choice; and as wrong paths are many, and the right but one, they become wanderers to the end. That the closing of their eyes was in these teachers a self-chosen course we see from the example which St. Peter has chosen to illustrate their character. Balaam, however he gained his knowledge and however unworthy he was to possess it, certainly knew much of Jehovah, and had been used to keep alive the knowledge of God among the heathen round about him; but his heart was not whole with God. To be known as the prophet of the Lord was a reputation which he prized, but mainly, as it seems, for the credit it gave him among his fellows. When the chance came, he would fain endeavour to serve two masters. It has been for ever true, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon"; but Balaam resolved to try. He thought by importunity to prevail with God for so much liberty of speech as would gain Balak's silver and gold. When his intention was thwarted, and his mouth was filled with blessings instead of curses, he still hankered after Balak's honours and money, and wrought for Israel by his counsel the curse which his lips were hindered from uttering.
And these teachers of licence in the name of freedom
moved among the Christian Churches as though they
were true brethren. They used Christian phrases in
But he was rebuked for his own transgression: a
dumb ass spake with man's voice and stayed the madness
of the prophet. The word which St. Peter here uses
for "rebuke", and which is found nowhere else in the
New Testament, implies a rebuke administered by
argument, a refutation such as reasonable persons will
yield to. The dumb ass (St. Peter's word is literally
beast of burden) appealed to her conduct all her life
through. Was I ever wont to do this unto thee?
Should I do so now without good reason? The reason
was made plain at the sight of the angel. That
presence made the rider bow his head and fall on his
face. But what excuse was there for his lawlessness?
For that is the sense which the Apostle puts on
Balaam's transgression. And the word which he adds
makes the rebuke more strong. It was his own transgression.
The swerving of the dumb beast was not
of herself. She would have held to the right way had
it been possible, but her master's lawlessness was
very madness; and he was the prophet, she the
speechless brute. It has been said, Quem Deus vult
perdere prius dementat. But the proverb is not true.
The destruction is not of God's will; the madness
comes of a self-chosen course of rebellion. Ever God's
voice is, as it was of old, "It is thy destruction, O
Israel, that thou art against Me, against thy help"
"These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved. For, uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by lasciviousness, those who are just escaping from them that live in error; promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first. For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered unto them. It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire."—2 Peter ii. 17-22.
For whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved.
Yes, for these also God has a destiny in store. It is
reserved, as is the incorruptible inheritance (
For, uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice
in the lusts of the flesh, by lasciviousness, those who are
just escaping from them that live in error. St. Peter's
words are here very aptly chosen to contrast the boastful
pretensions of these corrupters with the hollowness
and delusion of all they promise. St. Jude (16) tells
of the great swelling words, but does not add that
further touch which proclaims their emptiness; St. Paul
(
True Christian freedom, the freedom of St. Paul, calls
for constant watchfulness, earnest anxiety at every step,
for life is full of treacherous roads. But forethought
and carefulness are lacking for the most part in those
Such men are unspeakably dangerous to those who
have made but little progress in spiritual life. It is only
those who, like Nehemiah of old, have become firm of
purpose through prayer to the God of heaven, and know
the dangers that everywhere beset them, that can withstand
such temptation. As he laboured amid the ruins
of Jerusalem, which he was so zealous to restore, there
came to him the invitation of the Samaritans, "Come,
let us meet together; ... let us take counsel together"
(
Promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage. Here we have two views of the same persons. First their own picture. They proclaim their superiority in lofty terms. Satan and his servants have always been liberal with promises. "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," "All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me," are sample speeches of the arch-tempter. And these men follow their master; but, says the Apostle, they are themselves in the grossest slavery. He personifies Destruction as a power who holds them in her chains. And the idea sets sin before us in a terrible light. It begins in the single act, over which men fancy they have entire control; but the acts become a habit, and this, like a mighty, living power within men, but beyond their sway, overmasters their whole being, and drives them at its will. In the case of these men, no faculty was free; their very eyes could not cease from sin.
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the
world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome,
the last state is become worse with them than the
first. Corruptio optimi pessima is a well-known and
very true dictum, and the Apostle sets these false
These Asian backsliders had tasted the good grace of
God. The Apostle speaks of their knowledge of Christ
as that true comprehension of His love and mercy
which draws men away from the world and its allurements.
They had escaped and found a camp of refuge.
But to take service under Christ means to bear the
cross, and to bear it patiently. Jesus puts His servants
to the proof, and not all who have set their hands
to the plough continue stedfast in their work till the
harvest comes. They halt in the process of that growth
of grace which St. Peter describes in the first chapter of
this letter. In their temperance they should provide
patience, endurance in well-doing. Many, however, persevere
but for a little time; and the world seizes the
opportunity of their doubt and hesitation, comes forward
with its allurements, and captures the weak in faith.
And such were these men, and their capture was fatal.
They were now in the toils of a net from which there
was little chance of escape; they were overcome and
made very slaves. In their first efforts to walk with Christ
St. Peter has in mind the parable of his Master
(
For it were better for them not to have known the way of
righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from
the holy commandment delivered unto them. These
words of the Apostle point out the fear and care which
should possess the hearts of those whom God blesses
with large opportunities: fear lest they receive them
amiss and fail to value them; care lest they pervert
them to a wrong use. Our Lord's own words form the
mightiest homily thereon when He spake to those cities
of Galilee upon whom a great light was shining as He
dwelt in their midst, but He could not do His mighty
works there because of their unbelief. "He came unto
His own, and His own received Him not." Hence the
solemn denunciations of woe upon them: "It shall be
more tolerable in the judgement for Tyre and Sidon, for
Sodom and Gomorrah, than for them"; "The queen
Christ went away unto the Father, but He left the Apostles their commission to teach the way of righteousness as He had taught it. "Teach them," He says, "to observe all things whatsoever I have told you; and lo, I am with you always." By the ministrations of St. Paul and his fellow-labourers the feet of these Asian converts had been set in the right way. They had made a profession of faith in Christ's sacrifice, and thus had been reckoned among the righteous, among those called to be saints. But the journey unto righteousness is made by daily steps in keeping God's law; and if these be not taken, the road may lie open, the traveller may see it, but he comes no nearer to the goal. Nay, in this road there is no standing still. They who fail to press forward inevitably slide back. It was here that these false teachers had failed. The command of God checked their evil appetites and greed; and so they set it at defiance and turned aside, and taught their deluded followers that God's freedom in its highest sense meant a licence to sin.
Here one of the Apostle's words is very significant.
He says, not holy commandments, but holy commandment,
telling us thus that the Divine law is all comprehended
in the right ordering of the heart. In
principle all God's laws are one. If that inward source
of all our right and wrong be kept pure, from it are
the issues of life; and every action flowing from it will
then have a righteous aim. Thus men lead holy lives;
thus they keep God's commandments in every relation.
It has happened unto them according to the true proverb,
The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that
had washed to wallowing in the mire. To describe in
all its horror the abysmal depth to which these false
teachers have sunk, the Apostle makes use of two
proverbs, one of which he adapts from the Old Testament
(
Solomon spake his proverb of the fool who goes back to his folly; but of how much grosser lapse is he guilty who, having known the mercy of Christ, having tasted the Father's grace, having been illumined by the Holy Spirit, turns again to the world and its pollutions, goes back into the far country, far away from God, and chooses again for his food the husks that the swine did eat!
"This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by putting you in remembrance; that ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles; knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."—2 Peter iii. 1-4.
This is now, beloved, the second epistle that I write unto
you. Judging from the adverb which he uses (ἤδη,
now, already), we should conclude that no long time had
elapsed between the Apostle's first letter and the second.
And by calling this the second, he shows that it is
intended for the same congregations as the former,
though he has not named them in the salutation with
which the letter opens. Aforetime they had been tried
by inward questionings, and he sent them his exhortation
and testimony that, spite of all their trials, this
was the true grace of God which they had received,
and therein they should stand fast (
And in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by
putting you in remembrance. Mark how trustfully he
appeals to the sincerity of the minds of the brethren,
just as before (i. 12) he said they knew the things of
which he was putting them in remembrance, and were
established in the truth which they had received. And
what he means by the "mind" we may see from
That ye should remember the words which were spoken
before by the holy prophets. On few themes do the
prophets dwell more earnestly than on those visitations
of Jehovah which they publish as the coming of the
day of the Lord. With Joel (ii. 11, 32) it is to be a
time great and terrible, the prospect of which is to
move men to repentance, for whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be delivered. And Israel
were taught in many ways that this great day was
constantly at hand. They were pointed to it by Isaiah
(xiii. 6) when the overthrow of Babylon was foretold.
For that nation the day of the Lord was coming as
destruction from the Almighty. Jeremiah (xlvi. 10)
and Ezekiel (xxx. 3) preach the same lesson, with the
ruin of Egypt for their text. It is a day of vengeance,
when the Lord God of hosts will avenge Him of His
adversaries, a day of clouds, in which a sword shall
come upon Egypt, and her foundations shall be broken
Not without solemn purpose were all these words
written aforetime, and the Christian preachers who
felt that God was faithful were sure that such a day
would come upon all the earth. How it would be
manifested was for God, and not for them. Some of
those who lived when St. Peter wrote beheld part of
its accomplishment in the overthrow of the Holy City.
But they felt—and their lesson is one for all time—that
it is presumptuous in men to compute God's days, and
that it is rebellious blindness not to acknowledge the
coming of His day continually in the great crises of
history. How many a time since St. Peter spoke
has the Lord proclaimed by partial judgements the
certainty of that which shall come at the last. The
day of the Lord is attested when empires fall, when
hordes of barbarians break in upon the civilised world
that has grown careless of God, when convulsions
rage like those which preceded the Reformation and
which shook Europe at the French Revolution, and we
And the commandment of the Lord and Saviour
through your apostles. In connexion with the subject
on which he is writing, the commandment of Jesus to
which St. Peter alludes can hardly be other than that
which occurs in the address of our Lord to His disciples
after His last visit to the Temple: "Watch therefore,
for ye know not on what day your Lord cometh; ...
therefore be ready, for in an hour that ye think not the
Son of man cometh" (
The words "your apostles" also appear to be used
with design. They contain a direct acknowledgment
of the mission of St. Paul as an apostle. By him
more than by any other had these regions been
brought to the knowledge of Christ, and we may rest
confident that the gospel which he preached elsewhere
he preached to them also. The lesson of watchfulness
is oft repeated in his letters. To the Corinthians he
Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall
come with mockery. St. Peter says the mockers will
come; Polycarp Ad Phil. vii.
Walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is
the promise of His coming? They would be a law
unto themselves, and so they followed an evil law. As
sinners before them had said, "Our lips are our own"
(
For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
Here the mockers pass from the promise of Christ's
return, and fall back upon the more distant records as
supplying a stronger argument. "The fathers" of
whom they speak cannot be the Christian preachers.
Not many of them could as yet have fallen asleep in
death. But the ancient prophets of the Jewish Scriptures
had long ago passed away, and against them the
scorners direct their shafts. "Centuries ago," they urge,
"the prophetic record was closed; and its final utterance
Those who in faith clung to Christ could not fail,
as they heard these scorners, to think of the Master's
question, "When the Son of man cometh, shall He
find faith in the earth?" (
"For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men."—2 Peter iii. 5-7.
That there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God. They close their ears as well as their eyes. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." As the study of nature progresses men are learning to comprehend more of the vastness of that phrase "in the beginning," and in the light of science to read a larger meaning into St. Peter's words, "There were heavens from of old." But even in that generation to which the Apostle soon alludes the unchanging character of the skies spake of duration and permanence. The antediluvian world had run a long course; from Adam to Noah men had beheld the sun rise and set daily in the skies, just as it rose on the morning of the Deluge. And the mockers then living could say, and doubtless did say, to the preacher in their midst, "These things have always been as they are, and will be so for evermore." The later scorners had their prototypes of old, who pointed to the existence of an eternal law, and wilfully forgot that law implies a lawgiver, and that He who made must have the power to unmake.
St. Peter takes their text, but reads from it a very
different lesson. There were heavens from of old, yea,
long before there was an earth fit for man to dwell in.
This world in that old time was formless and void, and
the waters covered its face like a garment. The word
of the Lord went forth, and the waters were gathered
together as a heap, and the depth was laid up in God's
storehouses. Then the dry land appeared; then there
was an earth. The streams took their appointed place
down the mountain-sides and in the valleys, and rivers
began to roll onward to the sea; the waters of ocean
learnt their bounds, neither turned again to cover the
By which means the world that then was, being overflowed
with water, perished. Every word in the Apostle's
sentence is meant to tell. God employed as means of
overthrow the very powers which at first He ordained
for blessing. His word makes things what they are.
The reign of law endures until He, who is before all
law and the source of all law, gives another direction
to those forces which His law has always been controlling.
But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the
same word have been stored up for fire. The Apostle
now turns away from what the Old Testament Scriptures
relate as history of the past to what the same
records teach us concerning the future; and he deals
partly with promise, partly with prophecy. The earth
will not be destroyed again by a deluge. God hath
made His covenant: "I will establish My covenant
with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by
the waters of a flood, neither shall there any more be
a flood to destroy the earth" (
With such light from the lamp of prophecy, the
Apostle in his exegesis proclaims the nature of the final
judgement. Like other New Testament writers, he has
attained, since the day of Pentecost, a deeper insight
In such wise did the Apostles read the utterances of prophecy; and thus did they apply them as lessons for their own and all future times. They felt that not unto themselves, but unto us, did the prophets minister. And St. Peter does but put their message into his own words when in his bold figure he says that the heavens that now are and the earth are stored up for fire.
The Revised Version on its margin renders the last
words "stored with fire." And when we reflect on the
storing of the waters at the Creation, afterwards to be
let forth to destroy the world which hitherto they had
made fruitful and lovely, the parallelism is very suggestive.
God has stored the earth within with fire, which
Being reserved against the day of judgement and destruction
of ungodly men. When God no longer waits
for sinners to repent, then will come the judgement and
destruction of the ungodly. At that day the heavens
that now are and the earth shall be exchanged or
transformed. God will prepare a new heaven and a
new earth wherein the righteous may find a congenial
home with their Lord. Here they can never be other
than pilgrims and sojourners, seeking to be clothed
upon with their house which is from heaven. What
the destruction of the ungodly shall be we can only
judge and speak of in the terms of Scripture. The
language of St. Paul to the Thessalonians seems to
teach us that the very advent of the Judge shall bring
their penalty: "They shall suffer punishment, even
eternal destruction" (the word is not the same which
St. Peter uses) "from the face of the Lord and from
the glory of His might" (
"But forget not this one thing, beloved, 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 count slackness; but is long-suffering to youward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."—2 Peter iii. 8, 9.
But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is
with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day. Here the Apostle quotes some words from
that psalm (xc.) which is entitled "A Prayer of Moses,
the Man of God." In it the Psalmist is contrasting
God's eternity with the frailty of man and the shortness
of human life. "A thousand years in Thy sight are
but as yesterday when it is past." But St. Peter not
only adopts, but adapts, the words for his own purpose.
Men must take note of time, for they feel its lapse
and its loss. They are ever conscious that a period
is coming after which what is undone must continue
undone. Again, the length of time is known to them
by the recurrence of the various acts of life, and by
the weariness which comes of continued labour, and
by the grief of protracted waiting. These things force
them to speak of short and long, but with God it is
not so. For Him all time is one. He knows nothing
of toil. Whatsoever He pleaseth, that doeth He in
heaven and in earth, in the sea and in all deep places
(
This is the one thing which the Apostle offers to the Christian brethren for their support and consolation against the scoffers. And the knowledge is mighty for those who grasp it. It helps them to cast themselves securely upon the almighty arms, convinced that God's working is not to be estimated according to man's days and years, but is certain in its effect. One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but death, they learn, does not take men out of the knowledge or the hand of God, be it for mercy they are reserved, or for judgement. God does not defer His action because He lacks power to perform, neither does He tarry because He is unmindful of His servants or insensible to what they endure.
Such thoughts can minister to the faithful abundant consolation, and this was the desire of the Apostle. But they raise for all time large questions which can find no answer here, questions concerning the lot of those who pass from this brief day of life into the eternal world and have not known God's will, that they might do it; questions concerning a discipline which may yet be reserved for some who have not bent themselves to it here, perhaps from want of light; questions of how far hope may extend itself beyond the veil which divides this world from the next. Such questions rise within many earnest souls, often rather for the sake of others than themselves; but God has vouchsafed us no answer, lest men should wax presumptuous.
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some
count slackness. Many things conspire to make the
doings of men to tarry. At one time pledges are
Here is a medicine for fainting souls, of whom there
must have been many among these Asian Christians.
And it is a solace furnished, too, by the teachings of
prophecy. "The vision," says one, "is yet for an
appointed time" (
The order of the words in the original (ὁ κύριος τῆς ἐπαγγελίας) and the unwonted construction of the verb, of which no other example is forthcoming, have suggested to some to render thus: "The Lord of the promise is not slack." Even so the words give a powerful sense. God, who makes the promise to men, is supreme over all on which its faithfulness depends, supreme both as Maker and Fulfiller of His word. He sees and controls the end from the beginning. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.
But is long-suffering to youward. The Authorised
Version heads "to usward". And some have thought
it more in accord with the Apostle's manner and
humility to include himself with the brethren. The
other reading is better supported, and none will doubt
on that account St. Peter's sense of God's long-suffering
towards himself. The term which he here employs
to describe the Divine character implies the holding
back of wrath. God might justly punish, but He stays
His blow. Men have sinned, and still sin; but His love
prevails above His anger. The word is formed by the
LXX. translators to render one expression in that
passage (
Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. We are wont to connect statements
like this with the gracious messages of the New Testament.
Yet some saints of earlier time felt all that
St. Peter here teaches. The writer of Ecclesiasticus
has some striking words. He is connecting God's mercy
with the shortness of man's life, and his language anticipates
in the main this teaching of the Apostle: "The
number of a man's days at the most are a hundred years.
As a drop of water unto the sea, so are a thousand
years to the days of eternity. Therefore is God patient
with them, and poureth forth His mercy upon them.
The mercy of man is toward his neighbour, but the
mercy of God is upon all flesh; He reproveth, and
nurtureth, and teacheth, and bringeth again as a shepherd
his flock" (
The word "wishing" (βουλόμενος) implies deliberate
consent. This God does not give to the death of any
sinner. If any perish, it is not because God so desired
or designed. But some will ask, "Why, then, should
any perish?" St. Peter in this sentence, full of grace,
supplies the answer. They continue in sin, and repent
not. Even offers of mercy are of no avail. But why
does not the Almighty Father drive them to repentance
by His judgements? Because He has made His children
free, and asks from them a willing service. They are
to come to repentance. The invitation is full and free.
Christ says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour." Nay,
And Christ, too, when He speaks of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, has the same lesson. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all conspire to further the work of man's salvation. "All things," said our Lord, "whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine. Therefore said I, He shall take of Mine, and shall show" (R.V. declare) "it unto you." But the eye to see what He shows, the ear to hear His declarations—these He asks from men. He willeth that they should come to repentance, and through that gate should come to Him.
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? But, according to His promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."—2 Peter iii. 10-13.
St. Peter passes on to tell of the terrors which shall
attend on that day. Here also he has in mind the
words of his Master, who, after a prophecy of the
destruction of Jerusalem, spake of that greater coming
of the Son of man of which the overthrow of the Holy
City was to be but a partial type: "There shall be signs
in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress
of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea
and the billows, men fainting for fear and for expectation
of the things that are coming on the world, for the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (
When thus considered his description contains many
striking details. "The heavens will pass away."
Christ Himself had so spoken, not of heaven only,
but of the earth also. His word was the same which
Peter employs, but He used it in the same sentence
thus: "My word will not pass away" (
To describe the dread process he has a striking word, which, like so many of the Apostle's expressions, is used nowhere else in the New Testament: "With a great noise" (ῥοιζηδόν). It is applied to many sounds of terror: to the hurtling of weapons as they fly through the air; to the sound of a lash as it is brought down for the blow; to the rushing of waters; to the hissing of serpents. He has chosen it as if by it he would unite many horrors in one.
Then the thought of nature's dissolution. All that
Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved,
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living
and godliness? The Apostle says more than "are to
be dissolved." His word signifies "are being dissolved."
The event is so sure, and the interests
involved so weighty, that he speaks of it as present,
that thus he may more forcibly urge his lesson of
preparation. "What manner of persons ought ye to
be?" Christ had supplied the answer, and so St. Peter
gives none: "Let your loins be girded about, and your
lamps burning, and ye yourselves like unto men looking
for their lord" (
Looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day
of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall
be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
The question of the mockers, "Where is the promise
of His coming?" will not disturb those whose lives are
thus made ready. That coming fills their every thought,
moulds every desire, controls and chastens every action.
For not only do they look for it: they long for it, and
earnestly desire it. For to be with Christ is far better.
But the translation "earnestly desiring" by no means
exhausts the significance and solemnity of St. Peter's
word. The Authorised Version rendered it "hasting
unto the coming of the day of God"; but the word
"unto" is not in the Greek, though the verb means
"hastening." The word is found in the LXX. of
Thus were they sent to be heralds of and labourers
But, according to His promise, we look for new
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
All creation was marred at the Fall. It groaneth and
travaileth until now in pain along with the sons of
men. It was made subject unto vanity, but that was
by reason of God, who made it thus subject in hope
that it shall be delivered, along with man, from the
bondage of corruption. And that victory was promised
from the first. The seed of the woman shall not
always be the spoil of the serpent. The world was in
many ways kept alive to this thought. A race was
promised from whom all nations should be blessed.
God established a kingdom to represent His rule in the
world, and at length Isaiah was inspired to tell of new
heavens and a new earth (
Hence St. Peter says, "According to His promise we look forward." And by using the same he identifies the new heavens and the new earth with the coming of the day of God. The believer heeds no more the mockers who ask, "Where is the promise of His coming?" He can look and lift up his head, assured that his redemption draweth nigh. For his expectation has been fostered through a life of holy conversation and godliness, and the assurance of the day of God is firm, for the kingdom of God is set up within him.
And the consolation of the promise consists largely in the thought that in the new creation righteousness will dwell, will make its home. First, there will be Christ the righteous, who is also our righteousness; and all the hindrances and stumbling-blocks of this life will be removed. Here the sojourners and pilgrims abide for the time amid many foes and countless perils; then they will be delivered even from their own frailties. As their home is new-created, so they shall become new creatures. So their thought, their prayer, their struggle, is ever, Sursum corda; and day by day they are bound less to earth and realise more of heaven.
"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in His sight. And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and for ever. Amen."—2 Peter iii. 14-18.
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in His sight. The whole passage runs over with Christian affection; a very working out it is in a believer's life of Christ's teaching, "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another." Love to the brethren, love to his fellow-apostle, breathes in every line of these final sentences. Beloved are the Churches, beloved his fellow-labourer. And he is never weary of repeating that word "looking for," which marks the true attitude of the Christian pilgrim: Seeing that ye look for the coming of the day of God. Before he had said, We look for it; now he brings the lesson nearer home to every one of them: Ye are looking for these things. Be ye therefore ready. Give diligence that ye may be found in peace by Christ when He appears.
Peace is the bond which clasps together the brotherhood
of Christ. But things which need a bond are
prone to break asunder, and St. Paul marks the care
which is needed in this matter by using the same word
(σπουδάζοντες) which St. Peter employs here. And his
list of the virtues which make for peace shows how
much anxiety is needed: "With all lowliness and
meekness, with long-suffering forbearing one another in
love, giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace" (
They who are looking for Christ will strive to become
like Him. Christ came down from heaven and assumed
humanity that His brethren might take courage for
this lofty aim. The Apostle (
And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is
salvation. The mockers had made the delay of God's
day the subject of their scoffing. "It tarries," said they,
"because it is never coming." Their speech was, in
fact, a challenge: "If it is to come, let it come now."
The Christian is of another mind. His heart is full
of thankfulness for the mercy which allows time for that
diligence which his preparation demands. St. Paul
expresses this feeling concerning God's dealings with
himself: "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in
me as chief might Jesus Christ show forth all His
long-suffering, for an example of them which should
hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life" (
For the believer thinks not only of his own salvation and his own opportunities. The Christian's faith is not selfish. He beholds how large a part of the world is not yet subject unto Christ, and owns in the delay of the day of the Lord a wealth of abundant grace, offering salvation still to all who will accept it.
Even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to
the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you. Some, who
have restricted the allusion of St. Peter here to the
"long-suffering" of God, have thought that the Epistle
to the Romans is intended. That letter is the only one
in which St. Paul speaks generally on this subject.
In ii. 4 he asks, "Despisest thou the riches of God's
goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not
knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?" and, again, asks another question:
"What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make
His power known, endured with much long-suffering
vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction, and that He
might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels
of mercy?" (ix. 22). Others, considering the great
subject of the day of God to be specially present to
St. Peter's mind, have found parallels in the two
epistles to the Thessalonians. It has also been
pointed out that Silvanus was with St. Paul when
these letters were written, and that through him
(
But his reference to St. Paul has much interest for
other reasons. Among these brethren there would be
current many memories of the great Apostle to whose
labour the formation of these Churches was chiefly due.
His name would for them add weight to St. Peter's
admonitions. The mention of the wisdom Divinely
given to him would remind the Galatians at least how
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things. From this it appears that it is the whole drift of St. Peter's letter, its warnings as well as its counsels, which is in harmony with the words of St. Paul. But we need not assume that St. Peter's readers were acquainted with all the fellow-Apostle's writings. He is telling them what his own experience has proved.
Wherein are some things hard to be understood, which
the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the
other Scriptures, unto their own destruction. This passage
is noteworthy as the only place in the New Testament
in which the writings of the Apostles are regarded as
ranking with the Scriptures of the old covenant.
Everywhere else "Scripture" means the Old Testament.
Yet, as the Apostles were passing away, it
must have begun to be felt that a time was coming
when great authority would attach to their words, as
of persons who had seen the Lord. St. Peter has just
spoken of the wisdom which was given to St. Paul.
That wisdom came from the same source as the
illumination of the prophets; and it is not unnatural,
after such an allusion, that his writings should be
classed with those of old time. Both were subjected
That many things in the writings of St. Paul are difficult to comprehend is beyond question. He more than any of the New Testament writers works out the principles of Christ's teaching in their consequences. He deals most fully with the great questions which circle round the doctrine of redemption; with election and justification; with the casting off of God's ancient people and the certainty of their restoration; with the objects of faith, the things hoped for, but as yet unseen; with the resurrection of the body and the changes which shall pass upon it; and with the nature of the life to come. He of all men realised to the full the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of the love of God, and spake in his letters of much which passeth knowledge.
But in St. Peter's word (δυσνόητα) "hard to be
understood" there appears to be the thought that men's
difficulties arise in part because they look on these
subjects as studies for the intellect (νοῦς) alone, and
fail for this reason to attain to the best knowledge
which is given to man. It is of God's order that for
the lessons which come from Him He also imparts the
power of true discernment. Those who approach the
study of Christian truth as a cold intellectual exercise,
The "wresting" of which St. Peter here speaks may come either of the misuse of single terms, just as the apostles of licence put a wrong sense, for their own ends, on St. Paul's "liberty," or it may be the effect of severing a lesson from its occasion and its context. Such perversion also happened to St. Paul's doctrine. To those who, like the Galatians, had been drawn back to an undue estimate of the legal ordinances of Judaism, the Apostle, as a corrective, had exalted faith far above outward observances; and there soon arose those who under his language sheltered themselves in a dissolute Antinomianism. The same befell in later days when Agricola and the Solifidians perverted Luther's teaching of justification by faith. And when such misleading guides find hearers who are "ignorant and unstedfast," the false lessons, which always have the frailties of humanity to back them, gain many adherents. To the thoughtless such teaching is seductive, and is unsuspected because it puts on a semblance of affinity with truth. Hence grow those ruptures of the Christian body, those heresies which lead to destruction (ii. 1).
Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand,
beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked,
ye fall from your own stedfastness. In the first chapter
the Apostle has already (ver. 12) addressed the converts
as those who knew the things of which he wrote and
needed only to be put in mind, who were established
in the truth, and not to be classed with the ignorant and
unstedfast. Yet for all there is need of watchfulness.
The lies which are abroad clothe themselves in the garb
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. As if to attest his own stedfastness;
he ends as he had begun. "Grace unto you and
peace be multiplied," was the opening greeting of his first
letter, to which in his second he adds, "through the
knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." But there
is great significance in the way in which St. Peter's
words hang together in this verse. The structure of
the sentence shows that he intends to say not only
that grace is the gift of Jesus Christ, but that from Him
To Him be the glory both now and for ever. Amen. This is the end of the Apostles labour: that Christ may be glorified in His servants; that they may know Him here as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, hereafter as the High-priest of His people, but deigning to become the First-born among many brethren. For those who find Him here and there also eternity will be too short to show forth all His praise.
v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374