2 Peter 1

Notes

Ver. 1, 2. Simon Peter—divinely called to be a ministering servant, and honoured to be an inspired messenger of Jesus Christ, in founding and forming the gospel church—to those Jews scattered in and about Lesser Asia, who, in the lovingly gracious dispensations of God, have been made partakers of a saving faith, of the same excellent nature and kind, as to its causes, acts, objects, fruits, and benefits, which we apostles and other believers have received; not through our goodness, but through faith and through the merit of that everlasting sacrifice which was brought in by the obedience and sufferings of Jesus Christ our divine Saviour—wishes all the blessings of grace and peace may abound, in their richest variety and fulness, to all and each of you, through your believing, experimental, and increasing acquaintance with our common Lord and Redeemer, and with God as our reconciled Father in him; 3. According as, in his almighty power and free favour, he has already bestowed upon us all those blessings which are requisite for maintaining and improving our spiritual life, till it be perfected in eternal life; and for every exercise of grace, in acts of piety towards God, till it be completed in glory; through the efficacious knowledge and faithful acknowledgment of him, and of the Father in him, —who has by the gospel, and through a living faith in Jesus Christ, tenderly called us to an inheritance of eternal glory, and to a courageous profession of our faith and hope of it; 4. By which divine Persons, and the glorious operations of their power through the gospel, are lovingly, freely, and graciously given to us the most inconceivably great, rich, valuable, honourable, and everlasting promises of the new covenant, fully furnished with all the transcendent blessings of grace and glory, that, by the application and fulfilment of these promises in all their variety, riches, and extent, ye might have fellowship with God, and have implanted in you a new nature, derived from him, conformed to him, and tending to and delighting in him,—ye having, as an introduction to and as a part and evidence of it, renounced and with vigour and abhorrence fled from the corrupt principles and practices which spread and prevail among unregenerate men, through the power of their depraved inclinations and inordinate affections to carnal things. 5-7. In consideration therefore of what ye have already received, ye ought, with the utmost care and diligence, to increase more and more in every grace and duty in their due order; particularly in active faith,—Christian courage in your holy profession and practice,—spiritual knowledge, wisdom, and prudence;—the due regulation and government of your passions and appetites, and weanedness of heart from the alluring objects of sense;—patience under tribulations, in a calm resignation to the will of your heavenly Father;—holy reverence of God, and conscientious attention to every ordinance of his worship, from a principle of love to him, in obedience to his command, and for his glory;—an affectionate love, tenderness, sympathy, and compassion, with all proper expressions thereof towards your fellow-Christians as brethren in Christ;—and a universal benevolence to all mankind, as partakers of the same human nature with yourselves, endeavouring to promote their temporal and spiritual welfare, whether they be friends or enemies: 8. For if these excellent graces be found in you, and be lively and enlarged in their exercise, they will render you thriving, active, and useful Christians; vigorous, diligent, and abounding in every good word and work relating to God, yourselves, and others, answerably to your fiducial knowledge and acknowledgment of Christ as our only Lord and Saviour. 9. Whereas those professors, who are destitute of the forementioned graces, or have no sensible experience of the exercise of them, are, amidst all their pretences to knowledge, in spiritual darkness; their eyes being shut against the light, or having only a glimmering, confused, and short sight, which cannot penetrate into the beauty and glory of Christ, his truths and ways;—and they have practically renounced their baptismal blessings and obligations, and remain unconcerned about the pardon and destruction of their natural corruptions and early wickedness. 10. Since the difference between real and nominal Christians is so great, and since so many take up with a profession, without the experience of true grace, do you, my beloved brethren, exert yourselves to the utmost in the use of all the appointed means of grace, to make sure your blessed calling to Christ, and renovation of your nature, that you may have a good hope, through faith in the sacrifice of Christ, of entering into everlasting life; for if it be manifested by the habitual exercises of the above-mentioned graces, whatever trials, failings, and infirmities may attend you, ye shall never finally apostatize from Christ, or fall into everlasting ruin; 11. But instead thereof, shall have an abundant measure of hope and joy in your way to the full enjoyment of God; and at last have, in death, a triumphant entrance into all the sublime dignity, affluence, and delights of that eternal kingdom of glory, which Christ has secured and taken possession of for the world, and which he invites all through faith to enter. 12-15. As these things are of so much importance, and yet so much opposed, I cannot but remind you of them, and urge them upon your consciences,—that, as ye have already known and firmly believed them, ye may be more and more affected with them and practise them: nay, while I continue living in this mortal body, and sojourning in this world, I must, in justice to these truths, and to your souls, repeatedly remind you of them, and earnestly urge you to practise them, lest, through the treachery of your memories or hearts, ye should forget and neglect them.—And I am the more solicitous to do this now, as I know that I must quickly leave this mortal state, and seal my testimony with my blood and death, as our dear Lord and Saviour long ago intimated to me.—And I am deeply concerned to leave behind me this, as well as my former epistle, in order to establish you in these truths, and stir you up to the practice of them, after I shall, by death, have departed from this state of sin, sorrow, and mortality, into a perfectly holy and blessed state of everlasting life with Christ. 16. For in making known to you the divine authority, power, and glory in which our Lord Jesus will come to judge the world at the last day, we have not craftily framed, nor artfully related to you, sophistical and idle stories, like many of the Jewish rabbins, or like the heathen romancers,—but that of which we had an emblem and earnest presented to our eyes and ears on the mount of transfiguration. 17, 18. Where we distinctly heard God the Father, who is infinitely glorious in himself, and dwells in the inaccessible light and glory of heavenly mansions, expressly attest our Redeemer as his dearly beloved and eternal Son; in whose person, offices, undertakings, and performances, he was exceedingly delighted; as he also is with all those who are united to him by faith, and clothed with his righteousness. 19. But beside this emblematical and presumptive proof of Christ's future appearance in divine power and majesty to judge the world, we have many more plain declarations of it in the Scripture, to which ye ought carefully to attend, as to a light to guide and direct you amidst the remaining darkness of Judaism, heathenism, and carnal ignorance of heart,—till at last the glorious appearance of Christ himself dissipate all obscurity or doubt about what was intimated by the vision on the mount, and is thus further confirmed by the predictions of Scripture. 20, 21. Meanwhile, ye may confidently depend on the prophetic attestation of Christ's glorious appearance,—being, first of all, fully satisfied that no prophecy of Scripture is the product of human invention, the ancient prophets themselves often not thoroughly understanding the meaning of their predictions;—for none of these ancient prophecies were either delivered or written according to the contrivance, will, and pleasure of the prophets themselves;—but those holy men, whom God set apart and sanctified for his service, spake and wrote only those things which were suggested to them by the Holy Ghost, whose immediate influence excited them to utter the ideas which he had raised in their minds, and to express them in words which exactly convey the true sense of them.

Ver. 5. Virtue. Ἀρετὴ, when spoken of man, signifies 'virtue,' in the sense of diligence, laboriousness, energy, fortitude. C.

Ver. 8. The knowledge of Christ is well explained by Alford:—'The knowledge of him is the imitation of him; for as it is true that hereafter seeing him as he is will insure our being perfectly like him, so it is true that here the only way in any degree increasingly to see him as he is, is to become increasingly like him. He only can declare Christ who reflects Christ.' P.

Ver. 10. Give diligence, &c. As, for example by self-examination on love to Jesus, according to that scripture, Jn. 14. 23, 'If a man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.' C.

Ver. 18. 'And this voice which came from heaven we (the three apostles, as witnesses) heard; and we have the prophetic word (concerning our Lord) thereby more (manifestly) confirmed.' C.

Ver. 20. 'No prophecy of Scripture (thus manifested to be real and confirmed) comes from any man's own discovery or private (unauthorized) exposition.' C.

Ver. 21. This verse gives the reason for the statement made in the preceding, that prophecy is not the offspring of human intellect—the prophets themselves not always knowing the full meaning of utterances. They spake by the inspiration and at the will of the Holy Spirit. The verse ought to be translated as follows:—'For prophecy was never sent after (in accordance with) the will of man; but men spake from God (commissioned by him), impelled by the Holy Spirit.' P.

Reflections.—It is a high honour to be instrumental in the conversion and sanctification of God's people. What precious faith, and multiplied grace and peace, come to them through Jesus' righteousness and the powerful operations of his Spirit! Tenderly he calls all people to a most glorious inheritance in heaven, and to a holy profession and practice in the way to it. Rich is that fulness of salvation which is given to them in the gospel promises: and great the deliverance from sin, and transformation into the likeness of God, thereby effected. Spiritual sloth indulged is as inconsistent with the gospel as the belief of man's merit of eternal happiness. Grace must be added unto grace, and we must grow in each. Nothing less will prove our devotion, manifest our title to heaven, or make us meet for it. So apt are professors to mistake or apostatize from the truth, that these things cannot be too often considered and inculcated; and the apprehended approaches of death ought to render both ministers and people the more active in their proper work. The truths of the gospel are too important to be dallied with, too certain to be discredited. And the more experience we have had of divine things ourselves, the more are we qualified to teach and recommend them to others. But it is on no human testimony, but on the infallible oracles of God, that our faith must be founded or practice regulated.