2 Peter 3

Notes

Ver. 1, 2. In this, as well as my former epistle, I chiefly aim at awakening and warning you who are still sincere in the faith to be on your guard against false teachers and their destructive schemes and attempts to overthrow your faith and hope, holiness and comfort, and to excite you seriously to remember and reflect on the predictions and doctrines which have been delivered to you by the prophets and more lately by us apostles, whom Christ, the Saviour and King of his church, appointed for that effect, particularly what relates to his second coming to judgment, that ye may be fortified against the pernicious influence of secret and open seducers; 3, 4. Especially as ye have been fully warned, that, in this last stage of God's dispensations towards his church, there would arise profane despisers and deriders of the most important points of revelation—abandoning themselves to their own carnal devices and corrupt inclinations, and pretending, in a taunting manner, that the continuance of the world, in the same form as when those ancient predictions were given out, effectually proves that no such thing as a general resurrection or final judgment need be expected: 5-7. For they wilfully shut their eyes against the Scripture account of the alterations which the power of God has already made in the creation of this world, in the drowning of the old world by means of those waters which he had created in connection with the earth; and that the aerial heavens and this earth, as subsisting in their present forms, are, by the same almighty influence of God's will, upheld, and, as it were, treasured up, to be, at the end of the world, dissolved, not by water as formerly, but by a dreadful fire, to the torment and terror of all the wicked who have ever lived. 8. To fortify your minds against their cavils, drawn from the apparent delay of Christ's second coming, consider this, that one day and a thousand years are equally before God as any individual point of time, and that, in his reckoning, the longest space is infinitely less than a single day in ours. 9. Nor is the seeming delay of the promised coming of Christ to judgment any evidence of God's dilatoriness, or that it shall never happen; but it is intended as an exercise of his long-suffering towards us, who are faithful to his blessed Son—that all of us, in our several generations, may be delivered from eternal destruction, and brought to a true and evangelical peace when we turn from our iniquities. 10. But how long soever God may delay this great day of the last judgment, in which Christ shall appear in all his glory, it will certainly come, in its appointed season, in a most sudden, unexpected, and, to the wicked, in a most terribly ruinous manner. And on it the whole frame of this lower world shall be amazingly altered, and purged from all the effects of sin and the curse; and the earth, that so much beloved portion of carnal men, shall be utterly burned to ashes. 11-14. Since, then, we have sufficient reason to look for this great alteration of nature, and for the formation of new heavens and a new earth out of the ashes of the former, into which nothing but what is righteous and holy can enter, it becomes us, with the utmost watchfulness, care, and circumspection, to study the most perfect holiness and righteousness in heart and life, expecting, looking, longing, and preparing for that great event, and labouring that we may then be found united to and accepted in his person, washed in his blood, and sanctified and comforted by his Spirit.—15, 16. And to encourage you to this study of the most perfect holiness, fix it in your minds, that the great patience and forbearance of our Lord towards a sinful world is intended to promote your salvation and that of all other persons—even as Paul, that divinely inspired apostle, has hinted in his epistle to you; as he has also, in his other epistles, warned both Jews and Gentiles of this second coming of Christ, and its momentous consequences, and that believers should patiently wait for it—among which things there are some doctrines so sublime and spiritual in their nature, that weak and prejudiced persons cannot easily apprehend or receive them; and which, through their ignorance, pride, and other inward corruptions, they who are never taught of God, or are sceptical and unsettled in their principles, rack and torture to a wrong meaning, perverting the sense and use of them, as they do many other passages of the Old and New Testaments, to their own everlasting and aggravated destruction. 17. Since, then, you, my dear Christian brethren, are forewarned of these things, and assuredly know and believe that Christ will certainly come to judgment, and surely punish all the ungodly, take the most earnest heed lest any of you should, along with other apostates, be drawn aside from him and his ways of truth and holiness by the false notions, deceitful insinuations, and vile practices of impious, immoral, lawless men, and fall from that stability in the doctrines, purity, and profession of the gospel in which ye have hitherto persisted. 18. But to prevent all declensions and revolts, let it be your earnest prayer and endeavour, in the use of all proper means, to obtain a growing persuasion and sense of God's free favour, to wax stronger and stronger in the habits of grace, and more and more to abound in the exercise thereof; and in a clear, fiducial, practical, and experimental acquaintance with the person, offices, relations, doctrines, promises, and commandments of our divine Lord and all-sufficient Saviour Jesus Christ, and with your own personal interest in him.

Ver. 5. For this they willingly are ignorant of. Rather, 'For it is hid from the notice of those who so wish;' to wit, who wish that the promise of the Lord's coming should never be verified. C.

Ver. 10. The contrast between the water and fire distinctly shows that the apostle is speaking of a literal elementary destruction; for to contrast a literal with a figurative event, without any note of difference, were to take away the key of all interpretation. C.

Reflections.—The very best of Christian professors have need to be repeatedly stirred up to their duties, to be reminded of all the doctrines and commandments of Jesus Christ, and cautioned against the errors and evil practices of wicked and designing men. And the purer men's minds are, it is the more wicked to corrupt them.—How precisely the Scripture foretells the conduct of its adversaries, our own deists not excepted, and thereby renders their wicked opposition a proof of its own divine inspiration! But notwithstanding all the scoffs of his adversaries, with amazing patience does God delay the seasons of his wrath, particularly the last judgment, that sinners may have full space to repent and embrace his salvation. And delay of years is quite insignificant when compared with his absolute eternity.—In the most tremendous manner will Jesus come at last.—The heavens shall perish before him; the elements melt away; and the earth, with all that is therein, be burned up! How terrible for carnal men to have that world which they had chosen for their portion universally kindled into flames, to give them a final adieu, and fearful introduction into hell! But blessed is the change which shall then be made in the purification of our lower world, and in forming out of its ashes new heavens and a new earth, for the everlasting happiness of ransomed men. In the faith and contemplation of these great events, how circumspect, holy, and religious ought we to be! Fully should we be weaned from the world; be steadfast in our profession and practice; fervent in prayer for necessary supplies; and earnest to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ our Lord.

Concluding Remarks on the First and Second Epistles of Peter.

The principal object of Peter's first epistle was to shield the hearts of Christian converts against the arrows of persecution;—and that of the second, to shut their ears against the delusions of heresy. It is important, therefore, to observe how the apostle deals, first, with persecutors; and secondly, with false teachers. In the case of persecution he finds the believers rejoicing 'that they are counted worthy to suffer,' 1 Pe. 1. 6. (1) He then teaches them submission to authorities, so as to put evil speakers to silence, 1 Pe. 2. 15. (2) To stand by conscience, and suffer without threatening or reviling, 1 Pe. 2. 19, 23; 3. 9. (3) Not to be afraid while the Lord is their trust, 1 Pe. 3. 14. (4) To take Christ, in his sufferings, as their example and support, 1 Pe. 3. 18; 4. 1, 12-14. In all this, the chief practical duties he inculcates and enforces are submission and patience. But, in the case of 'false teachers' and their 'destructive heresies' introduced in his second epistle, does he enjoin silence or submission? No;—he teaches to 'give place by subjection, no, not for an hour;' but in the same decisive tone in which our Lord denounced his woes against the Scribes and Pharisees, does he denounce 'their pernicious ways' (2 Pe. 2. 2); pronounce them 'spots and blemishes' on the fair garment of Christianity; and declare that 'their judgment lingereth not, their condemnation slumbereth not.' And although this language of our Lord and his apostle will by no means authorize any one to adopt the language of passion, or self-will, or reviling against the adversaries of the truth, yet it equally forbids him who is 'thoroughly persuaded in his own mind' to adopt the language of indifference, or of spurious charity, either towards false teachers themselves, or their destructive doctrines. C.