Verses 1-21
Chapter 1
1:1 Symeon Peter, a
servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, writes this letter to those to whom
there has been allotted a faith equal in honour and privilege with our
own, through the impartial justice of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The letter opens with a very subtle and beautiful allusion for
those who have eyes to see it and knowledge enough of the New Testament
to grasp it. Peter writes to "those to whom there has been allotted a
faith equal in honour and privilege with our own" and he calls himself
Symeon Peter. Who were these people? There can really be only one answer
to that. They must once have been Gentiles in contradistinction to the
Jews who were uniquely the chosen people of God. Those who had once been
no people are now the chosen people of God (1 Peter 2:10); those who were once aliens and strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and who were once far off, have been brought nigh (Ephesians 2:11-13).
Peter puts this very vividly, using a word which would at once
strike an answering chord in the minds of those who heard it. Their
faith is equal in honour and privilege. The Greek is isotimos (Greek #2472); isos (Greek #2470) means "equal" and time (Greek #5092)
means "honour." This word was particularly used in connection with
foreigners who were given equal citizenship in a city with the natives.
Josephus, for instance, says that in Antioch the Jews were made isotimoi
(Greek #2472),
equal in honour and privilege, with the Macedonians and the Greeks who
lived there. So Peter addresses his letter to those who had once been
despised Gentiles but who had been given equal rights of citizenship
with the Jews and even with the apostles themselves in the kingdom of
God.
Two things have to be noted about this great privilege which had
been extended to the Gentiles. (a) It had been allotted to them. That
is to say, they had not earned it; it had fallen to them through no
merit of their own, as some prize falls to a man by lot. In other words,
their new citizenship was all of grace. (b) It came to them through the
impartial justice of their God and Saviour Jesus Christ. It came to
them because with God there is no "most favoured nation clause"; his
grace and favour go out impartially to every nation upon earth.
What has this to do with the name Symeon, by which Peter is here
called? In the New Testament, he is most often called Peter; he is
fairly often called Simon, which was, indeed, his original name before
Jesus gave him the name of Cephas or Peter (John 1:41-42); but only once in the rest of the New Testament is he called Simeon. It is in the story of that Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:1-41
which decided that the door of the Church should be opened wide to the
Gentiles. There James says, "Symeon has related how God first visited
the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name" (Acts 15:14).
In this letter which begins with greetings to the Gentiles who have
been granted by the grace of God privileges of equal citizenship in the
kingdom with the Jews and with the apostles Peter is called by the name
of Symeon; and the only other time he is called by that name is when he
is the principal instrument whereby that privilege is granted.
Symeon has in it the memory that Peter is the man who opened
doors. He opened the doors to Cornelius, the Gentile centurion (Acts 10:1-48 ); his great authority was thrown on the side of the open door at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-41 ).
Peter calls himself the servant of Jesus Christ. The word is doulos (Greek #1401)
which really means slave. Strange as it may seem, here is a title,
apparently one of humiliation, which the greatest of men took as a title
of greatest honour. Moses the great leader and lawgiver was the doulos (Greek #1401) of God (Deuteronomy 34:5; Psalms 105:26; Malachi 4:4). Joshua the great commander was the doulos (Greek #1401) of God (Joshua 24:29). David the greatest of the kings was the doulos (Greek #1401) of God (2 Samuel 3:18; Psalms 78:70). In the New Testament Paul is the doulos (Greek #1401) of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:1), a title which James (James 1:1), and Jude (Jd 1 ) both proudly claim. In the Old Testament the prophets are the douloi (Greek #1401) of God (Amos 3:7; Isaiah 20:3). And in the New Testament the Christian man frequently is Christ's doulos (Greek #1401) (Acts 2:18; 1 Corinthians 7:22; Ephesians 6:6; Colossians 4:12; 2 Timothy 2:24). There is deep meaning here.
(i) To call the Christian the doulos (Greek #1401)
of God means that he is inalienably possessed by God. In the ancient
world a master possessed his slaves in the same sense as he possessed
his tools. A servant can change his master; but a slave cannot. The
Christian inalienably belongs to God.
(ii) To call the Christian the doulos (Greek #1401)
of God means that he is unqualifiedly at the disposal of God. In the
ancient world the master could do what he liked with his slave; he had
even the power of life and death over him. The Christian has no rights
of his own, for all his rights are surrendered to God.
(iii) To call the Christian the doulos (Greek #1401)
of God means that he owes an unquestioning obedience to God. A master's
command was a slave's only law in ancient times. In any situation the
Christian has but one question to ask: "Lord, what will you have me do?"
The command of God is his only law.
(iv) To call the Christian the doulos (Greek #1401)
of God means that he must be constantly in the service of God. In the
ancient world the slave had literally no time of his own, no holidays,
no leisure. All his time belonged to his master. The Christian cannot,
either deliberately or unconsciously, compartmentalize life into the
time and activities which belong to God, and the time and activities in
which he does what he likes. The Christian is necessarily the man every
moment of whose time is spent in the service of God.
We note one further point. Peter speaks of the impartial justice
of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ. The King James Version translates,
"the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ," as if this
referred to two persons, God and Jesus; but, as Moffatt and the Revised
Standard Version both show, in the Greek there is only one person
involved and the phrase is correctly rendered our God and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Its great interest is that it does what the New Testament very,
very seldom does. It calls Jesus God. The only real parallel to this is
the adoring cry of Thomas: "My Lord and my God." (John 20:28).
This is not a matter to argue about; it is not even a matter of
theology; for Peter and Thomas to call Jesus God was not a matter of
theology but an outrush of adoration. It was simply that they felt human
terms could not contain this person they knew as Lord.
1:2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you by the knowledge of God, and of Jesus, our Lord.
Peter puts this in an unusual way. Grace and peace are to come
from knowledge, the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Is
he turning Christian experience into something dependent on knowledge?
Or is there some other meaning here? First, let us look at the word
which he uses for knowledge (epignosis, Greek #1922). It can be interpreted in two directions.
(a) It can mean increasing knowledge. Gnosis (Greek #1108), the normal Greek word for knowledge, is here preceded by the preposition epi (Greek #1909) which means towards, in the direction of. Epignosis (Greek #1922)
then could be interpreted as knowledge which is always moving further
in the direction of that which it seeks to know. Grace and peace are
multiplied to the Christian as he comes to know Jesus Christ better and
better. As it has been put: "The more Christians realize the meaning of
Jesus Christ, the more they realize the meaning of grace and the
experience of peace."
(b) Epignosis (Greek #1922)
has a second meaning. Often in Greek it means full knowledge. Plutarch,
for instance, uses it of the scientific knowledge of music as opposed
to the knowledge of the mere amateur. So it may be that the implication
here is that knowledge of Jesus Christ is what we might call "the
master-science of life." The other sciences may bring new skill, new
knowledge, new abilities, but the master-science, the knowledge of Jesus
Christ, alone brings the grace men need and the peace for which their
hearts crave.
There is still more. Peter has a way of using words which were
commonly on the lips of the pagans of his day and charging them with a
new meaning. Knowledge was a much used word in pagan religious thought
in the days when this letter was written. To take but one example, the
Greeks defined sophia (Greek #4678), wisdom, as knowledge of things both human and divine. The Greek seekers after God sought that knowledge in two main ways.
(a) They sought it by philosophic speculation. They sought to
reach God by the sheer power of human thought. There are obvious
troubles there. For one thing, God is infinite; the mind of man is
finite; and the finite can never grasp the infinite. Long ago Zophar had
asked: "Can you (by searching) find out the deep things of God?" (Job 11:7).
If God is ever to be known, he must be known, not because man's mind
discovers him but because he chooses to reveal himself. For another
thing, if religion is based on philosophic speculation, at its highest
it can be the preserve of only the few, for it is not given to every man
to be a philosopher. Whatever Peter meant by knowledge, he did not mean
that.
(b) They sought it by mystical experience of the divine, until
they could say, "I am thou, and thou art I." This was the way of the
Mystery Religions. They were all passion plays; the dramatically acted
story of some God who suffered and died and rose again. The initiate was
carefully prepared by instruction in the inner meaning of the story, by
long fasting and continence, and by the deliberate building up of
psychological tension. The play was then played out with a magnificent
liturgy, sensuous music, carefully calculated lighting and the burning
of incense. The aim was that, as the initiate watched, he should so
enter into this experience that he became actually one with the
suffering, dying, rising, and eternally triumphant God. Again there are
troubles here. For one thing, not every one is capable of mystical
experience. For another thing, any such experience is necessarily
transient; it may leave an effect, but it cannot be a continual
experience. Mystical experience is the privilege of the few.
(c) If this knowledge of Jesus Christ does not come by
philosophic speculation or by mystical experience, what is it and how
does it come? In the New Testament knowledge is characteristically
personal knowledge. Paul does not say, "I know what I have believed"; he
says, "I know whom I have believed" (2 Timothy 1:12).
Christian knowledge of Christ is personal acquaintance with him; it is
knowing him as a person and entering day by day into a more intimate
relationship with him.
When Peter speaks of grace and peace coming through the
knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, he is not intellectualizing
religion; he is saying that Christianity means an ever-deepening
personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
1:3-7 Since his divine
power has bestowed upon us all things that are necessary for true life
and true religion, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own
glory and excellence, and since through these gifts there have been
bestowed upon us precious and very great promises, that through them we
might escape the world's corruption caused by lust and become sharers in
the divine nature--since still this is so, bend all your energy to the
task of equipping your faith with courage, your courage with knowledge,
your knowledge with self-control, your self-control with steadfastness,
your steadfastness with piety, your piety with brotherly affection, your
brotherly affection with Christian love.
In 2 Peter 1:3-4 there is a tremendous and comprehensive picture of Jesus Christ.
(i) He is the Christ of power. In him there is the divine power
which cannot be ultimately defeated or frustrated. In this world one of
the tragedies of life is that love is so often frustrated because it
cannot give what it wants to give, cannot do what it wants to do and
must so often stand helpless while the loved one meets disaster. But
always Christ's love is backed by his power and is, therefore, a
victorious love.
(ii) He is the Christ of generosity. He bestows on us all things
necessary for true life and true religion. The word Peter uses for
religion is eusebeia (Greek #2150),
the characteristic meaning of which is practical religion. Peter is
saying that Jesus Christ tells us what life is and then enables us to
live it as it ought to be lived. He gives us a religion which is not
withdrawal from life but triumphant involvement in it.
(iii) He is the Christ of the precious and great promises. That
does not so much mean that he brings us the great and precious promises
as that in him these promises come true. Paul put the same thing in a
different way when he said that all the promises of God are Yes and Amen
in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).
That is to say Christ says, "Yes. So let it be," to these promises; he
confirms and guarantees them. It has been put this way--once we know
Jesus Christ, every time we meet a promise in Scripture which begins
with the word "Whosoever," we can immediately say to ourselves, "That
means me."
(iv) He is the Christ by whom we escape the world's corruption.
Peter had to meet the antinomians, the people who used the grace of God
as an excuse for sin. They declared that grace was wide enough to cover
every sin; therefore, sin does not matter any more, the grace of Christ
will win forgiveness for it. For any man to speak like that is simply to
show that he wants to sin. But Jesus Christ is the person who can help
us overcome the fascination of the world's lust and cleanse us by his
presence and his power. So long as we live in this world sin will never
completely lose its fascination for us; but in the presence of Christ we
have our defence against that fascination.
(v) He is the Christ who makes us sharers in the divine nature.
Here again Peter is using an expression which the pagan thinkers well
knew. They spoke much about sharing in the divine nature. But there was
this difference--they believed that man had a share in the divine nature
by virtue of being man. All men had to do was to live in accordance
with the divine nature already in them. The trouble about that is that
life flatly contradicts it. On every side we see bitterness, hatred,
lust, crime; on every side we see moral failure, helplessness and
frustration. Christianity says that men are capable of becoming sharers
in the divine nature. It realistically faces man's actuality but at the
same time sets no limit to his potentiality. "I am come," said Jesus,
"that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
As one of the great early fathers said, "He became what we are to make
us what he is." Man has it in him to share the nature of God--but only
in Jesus Christ can that potentiality be realized.
Peter says that we must bend all our energies to equip ourselves with
a series of great qualities. The word he uses for to equip is
epichoregein (Greek #2023) which he uses again in 2 Peter 1:11 when he speaks of us being richly gifted with the right of entry into the eternal kingdom.
This is one of the many Greek words which have a pictorial background. The verb epichoregein (Greek #2023) comes from the noun choregos (Greek #5524),
which literally means "the leader of a chorus." Perhaps the greatest
gift that Greece, and especially Athens, gave to the world was the great
works of men like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, which are still
among its most cherished possessions. All these plays needed large
choruses and were, therefore, very expensive to produce. In the great
days of Athens there were public-spirited citizens who voluntarily took
on the duty, at their own expense, of collecting, maintaining, training
and equipping such choruses. It was at the great religious festivals
that these plays were produced. For instance, at the city Dionysia there
were produced three tragedies, five comedies and five dithyrambs. Men
had to be round to provide the choruses for them all, a duty which could
cost as much as 3,000 drachmae. The men who undertook these duties out
of their own pocket and out of love for their city were called choregoi,
and choregein (Greek #5524)
was the verb used for undertaking such a duty. The word has a certain
lavishness in it. It never means to equip in any cheese-paring and
miserly way; it means lavishly to pour out everything that is necessary
for a noble performance. Epichoregein (Greek #2023)
went out into a larger world and it grew to mean not only to equip a
chorus but to be responsible for any kind of equipment. It can mean to
equip an army with all necessary provisions; it can mean to equip the
soul with all the necessary virtues for life. But always at the back of
it there is this idea of a lavish generosity in the equipment.
So Peter urges his people to equip their lives with every
virtue; and that equipment must not be simply a necessary minimum, but
lavish and generous. The very word is an incitement to be content with
nothing less than the loveliest and the most splendid life.
But there is something else at the back of this. In 2 Peter 1:5-6
Peter goes on that we must, as the Revised Standard Version has it, add
virtue to virtue, until the whole culminates in Christian love. Behind
this is a Stoic idea. The Stoics insisted that in life there must
continuously be what they called prokope (Greek #4297),
moral progress. Prokope can be used for the advance of an army towards
its objective. In the Christian life there must be steady moral advance.
Moffatt quotes a saying that, "the Christian life must not be an
initial spasm followed by a chronic inertia." It is very apt to be just
that; a moment of enthusiasm, when the wonder of Christianity is
realized, and then a failure to work out the Christian life in
continuous progress.
That brings us to still another basic idea here. Peter bids his
people bend every energy to do this. That is to say, in the Christian
life the supreme effort of man must cooperate with the grace of God. As
Paul has it: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for
God is at work in you, both to will and to work his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13).
It is true that everything is of faith; but a faith which does not
issue in life is not faith at all, as Paul would heartily have agreed.
Faith is not only commitment to the promises of Christ; it is also
commitment to his demands.
Bigg well points out that Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics,
says that there are three theories of the source of happiness. (i) It is
something which can come by training, by learning and by the formation
of right habits. (ii) It is a matter of divine allotment, the gift or
God. (iii) It is all a matter of chance.
The truth is that, as the Christian sees it, happiness depends
both on God's gift and on our effort. We do not earn salvation but at
the same time we have to bend every energy towards the Christian
objective of a lovely life. Bengel, in commenting on this passage, asks
us to compare the Parable of the Ten Virgins, five of whom were wise and
five of whom were foolish. He writes: "The flame is that which is
imparted to us by God and from God without our own labour; but the oil
is that which a man must pour into life by his own study and his own
faithful effort, so that the flame may be fed and increased."
Faith does not exempt a man from works; the generosity of God
does not absolve a man from effort. Life is at its noblest and its best
when our effort cooperates with God's grace to produce the necessary
loveliness.
Let us then look at the list of virtues which have to be added one to
another. it is worth noting that in the ancient world such lists were
common. It was a world in which books were not nearly so cheap and so
readily available as they are today. Instruction, therefore, had for the
most part to be carried in the pupil's head; and easily memorized lists
were one of the commonest ways of inculcating instruction. One
ingenious way of teaching the child the names of the virtues was by
means of a game played with counters which could be won or lost, each of
which bore the name of one of the virtues. Lists of virtues were common
in the early Christian writings. Paul gives us the fruit of the
Spirit--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
In the Pastoral Epistles the man of God is bidden to follow after
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11).
In The Shepherd of Hermas (Visions 3.8.1-7), faith, self-control,
simplicity, innocence and reverence, understanding and love are
daughters one of another. In the Epistle of Barnabas (2) fear and
endurance are the helpers of faith; patience and self-control are our
allies; and when these are present a man can develop and possess wisdom,
prudence, understanding and knowledge. Let us look one by one at the
stages in the list which this letter gives us.
(i) It begins with faith (pistis, Greek #4102);
everything goes back to that. For Peter faith is the conviction that
what Jesus Christ says is true and that we can commit ourselves to his
promises and launch ourselves on his demands. It is the unquestioning
certainty that the way to happiness and peace and strength on earth and
in heaven is to accept him at his word.
(ii) To faith must be added what the Revised Standard Version calls virtue and we have called courage. The word is arete (Greek #703);
it is very rare in the New Testament but it is the supreme Greek word
for virtue in every sense of the term. It means excellence. It has two
special directions in which its meaning moves. (a) Arete (Greek #703)
is what we might call operative, or efficient excellence. To take two
examples of its usage from widely differing spheres--it can be used of
land which is fertile; and it can be used of the mighty deeds of the
gods. Arete (Greek #703)
is that virtue which makes a man a good citizen and friend; it is that
virtue which makes him an expert in the technique of living well. (b)
Arete (Greek #703) often means courage. Plutarch says that God is a hope of arete (Greek #703),
not an excuse for cowardice. In 2 Maccabees we read of how Eleazar died
rather than be false to the laws of God and his fathers; and the story
ends by saying that he left his death for an example of noble courage
(arete, Greek #703) and a memorial of virtue, not only to young men, but also to all the nation (2 Maccabees 6:31).
In this passage it is not necessary to choose between these two
meanings; they are both there. Faith must issue, not in the retirement
of the cloister and the cell, but in a life effective in the service of
God and man; and it must issue in the courage always to show whose it is
and whom it serves.
(iii) To courage must be added knowledge. The word is gnosis (Greek #1108). In ethical Greek language there are two words which have a similar meaning with a very significant difference. Sophia (Greek #4678)
is wisdom, in the sense of "knowledge of things both human and divine,
and of their causes." It is knowledge of first causes and of deep and
ultimate things. Gnosis (Greek #1108) is practical knowledge; it is the ability to apply to particular situations the ultimate knowledge which sophia (Greek #4678) gives. Gnosis (Greek #1108)
is that knowledge which enables a man to decide rightly and to act
honourably and efficiently in the day to day circumstances of life. So,
then, to faith must be added courage and effectiveness; to courage and
effectiveness must be added the practical wisdom to deal with life.
(iv) To this practical knowledge must be added self-control, or self-mastery. The word is egkrateia (Greek #1466),
and it means literally the ability, to take a grip of oneself. This is a
virtue of which the great Greeks spoke and wrote and thought much. In
regard to a man and his passions Aristotle distinguishes four states in
life. There is sophrosune (Greek #4997),
in which passion has been entirely subjugated to reason; we might call
it perfect temperance. There is akolasia, which is the precise opposite;
it is the state in which reason is entirely subjugated to passion--we
might call it unbridled lust. In between these two states there is
akrasia (Greek #192), in which reason fights but passion prevails; we might call it incontinence. There is egkrateia (Greek #1466), in which reason fights against passion and prevails; we call it self-control, or self-mastery.
Egkrateia (Greek #1466)
is one of the great Christian virtues; and the place it holds is an
example of the realism of the Christian ethic. That ethic does not
contemplate a situation in which a man is emasculated of all passion; it
envisages a situation in which his passions remain, but are under
perfect control and so become his servants, not his tyrants.
(v) To this self-control must be added steadfastness. The word is hupomone (Greek #5281). Chrysostom called hupomone (Greek #5281)
"The Queen of the Virtues." In the King James Version it is usually
translated patience; but patience is too passive a word. Hupomone (Greek #5281),
has always a background or courage. Cicero defines patientia, its Latin
equivalent, as: "The voluntary and daily suffering of hard and
difficult things, for the sake of honour and usefulness." Didymus of
Alexandria writes on the temper of Job: "It is not that the righteous
man must be without feeling, although he must patiently bear the things
which afflict him; but it is true virtue when a man deeply feels the
things he toils against, but nevertheless despises sorrows for the sake
of God." Hupomone (Greek #5281)
does not simply accept and endure; there is always a forward look in
it. It is said of Jesus, by the writer to the Hebrews, that for the joy
that was set before him, he endured the Cross, despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2). That is hupomone (Greek #5281),
Christian steadfastness. It is the courageous acceptance of everything
that life can do to us and the transmuting of even the worst event into
another step on the upward way.
(vi) To this steadfastness must be added piety. The word is eusebeia (Greek #2150)
and is quite untranslatable. Even piety is inadequate, carrying as it
does a suggestion sometimes of something not altogether attractive. The
great characteristic of eusebeia (Greek #2150) is that it looks in two directions. The man who has eusebeia (Greek #2150)
always correctly worships God and gives him his due; but he always
correctly serves his fellow-men and gives them their due. The man who is
eusebes (Greek #2152) (the corresponding adjective) is in a right relationship both with God and his fellow-men. Eusebeia (Greek #2150) is piety but in its most practical aspect.
We may best see the meaning of this word by looking at the man
whom the Greeks held to be its finest example. That man was Socrates
whom Xenophon describes as follows: "He was so pious and devoutly
religious that he would take no step apart from the will of heaven; so
just and upright that he never did even a trifling injury to any living
soul; so self-controlled, so temperate, that he never at any time chose
the sweeter instead of the better; so sensible, so wise, and so prudent
that in distinguishing the better from the worse he never erred"
(Xenophon: Memorabilia 1.5.8--11).
In Latin the word is pietas; and Warde Fowler describes the
Roman idea of the man who possesses that quality: "He is superior to the
enticements of individual passion and of selfish ease; (pietas is) a
sense of duty which never left a man, of duty first to the gods, then to
father and to family, to son and to daughter, to his people and to his
nation."
Eusebeia (Greek #2150)
is the nearest Greek word for religion; and, when we begin to define
it, we see the intensely practical character of the Christian religion.
When a man becomes a Christian, he acknowledges a double duty, to God
and to his fellow-men.
(vii) To this piety must be added brotherly affection. The word is philadelphia (Greek #5360),
which literally means love of the brethren. The point is this--there is
a kind of religious devotion which separates a man from his fellow-men.
The claims of his fellow-men become an intrusion on his prayers, his
study of God's word and his meditation. The ordinary demands of human
relationships become a nuisance. Epictetus, the great Stoic philosopher,
never married. Half-jestingly he said that he was doing far more for
the world by being an unfettered philosopher than if he had produced
"two or three dirty-nosed children." "How can he who has to teach
mankind run to get something in which to heat the water to give the baby
his bath?" What Peter is saying is that there is something wrong with
the religion which finds the claims of personal relationships a
nuisance.
(viii) The ladder of Christian virtue must end in Christian
love. Not even affection for the brethren is enough; the Christian must
end with a love which is as wide as that love of God which causes his
sun to rise on the just and on the unjust, and sends his rain on the
evil and the good. The Christian must show to all men the love which God
has shown to him.
1:8-11 For, if these
things exist and increase within you, they will make you not ineffective
and not unfruitful in your progress towards the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ. For whoever does not possess these things is blind,
short-sighted, and has lapsed into forgetfulness that the sins of his
old way of life have been cleansed away, So, brothers, be the more eager
to confirm your calling and your choice. For, if you do practise these
virtues, you will never slip, for you will be richly gifted with the
right of entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter strongly urges his people to keep climbing up this ladder
of virtues which he has set before them. The more we know of any
subject the more we are fit to know. It is always true that "to him that
hath it shall be given." Progress is the way to more progress. Moffatt
says of ourselves and Jesus Christ: "We learn him as we live with him
and for him." As the hymn has it:
May every heart confess thy name,
And ever thee adore,
And, seeking thee, itself inflame
To seek thee more and more.
To keep climbing up the ladder of the virtues is to come ever
nearer to knowing Jesus Christ; and the further we climb, the further we
are able to climb.
On the other hand, if we refuse to make the effort of the upward
climb, certain things happen. (a) We grow blind; we are left without
the guiding light that the knowledge of Jesus Christ brings. As Peter
sees it, to walk without Christ is to walk in the dark and not to be
able to see the way. (b) We grow what Peter calls muopazon (Greek #3467).
This word can have either of two meanings. It can mean short-sighted.
It is easy to become short-sighted in life, to see things only as they
appear at the moment and to be unable to take the long view of things,
to have our eyes so fixed upon earth that we never think of the things
beyond. It can also mean blinking, shutting the eyes. Again, it is easy
in life to shut our eyes to what we do not wish to see, and to walk, as
it were, in blinkers. To walk without Christ is to be in danger of
taking the short-sighted or the blinkered view of life.
Further, to fail to climb the ladder of virtue is to forget that
the sins of the old way of life have been cleansed away. Peter is
thinking of baptism. At that time baptism was adult baptism; it was a
deliberate act of decision to leave the old way and to enter upon the
new. The man who, after baptism, does not begin upon the upward climb
has forgotten, or never realized, the meaning of the experience through
which he has passed. For many of us the parallel to baptism in this
sense is entry into the membership of the Christian Church. To make our
commitment and then to remain exactly the same, is to fail to understand
what church membership means, for our entry into it should be the
beginning of a climb upon the upward way.
In view of all this, Peter urges his people to make every effort
to confirm their calling by God. Here is a most significant demand. In
one way all is of God; it is God's call which gives us entry into the
fellowship of his people; without his grace and his mercy we could do
nothing and could expect nothing. But that does not absolve us from
every possible effort.
Let us take an analogy, which, although not perfect, may help us
to understand. Suppose a man who is wealthy and kind picks out a poor
lad, who would never otherwise have had the chance, and offers him the
privilege of a university education. The benefactor is giving the lad
something which he could never have achieved for himself; but the lad
cannot make use of that privilege unless he is prepared to work, and the
harder he works the more he will enter into the privilege offered to
him. The gracious free offer and the personal hard work have to combine
before the privilege becomes fully effective.
It is so with us and God. God has called us in his free mercy
and his unmerited grace; but at the same time we have to bend every
effort to toil upwards and onwards on the way.
If we follow this upward way, Peter says, we shall in the end be
richly gifted with the right of entry into his eternal kingdom; and we
shall not slip upon the way. By this Peter does not mean that we will
never sin. The picture in his mind is of a march and he means that we
will never fall out upon the march and be left behind. If we set out
upon this upward and onward way, the effort will be great but God's help
will also be great; and in spite of all the toil, he will enable us to
keep going until we reach our journey's end.
1:12-15 It is for this
reason that I intend constantly to remind you of these things, although
you already know them, and although you are already firmly established
in the truth which you possess. I think it is right, so long as I am in
this tent, to rouse you by reminding you, for I know that the time to
put off my tent is coming soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has told
me. Yes, and I will make it my endeavour to see to it that after my
departure you will constantly remember these things.
Here speaks the pastor's care. In this passage Peter shows us
two things about preaching and teaching. First, preaching is very often
reminding a man of what he already knows. It is the bringing back to his
memory that truth which he has forgotten, or at which he refuses to
look, or whose meaning he has not fully appreciated. Second, Peter is
going to go on to uncompromising rebuke and warning, but he begins with
something very like a compliment. He says that his people already
possess the truth and are firmly established in it. Always a preacher, a
teacher or a parent will achieve more by encouragement than by
scolding. We do more to reform people and to keep them safe by, as it
were, putting them on their honour than by flaying them with invective.
Peter was wise enough to know that the first essential to make men
listen is to show that we believe in them.
Peter looks forward to his early death. He talks of his body as his tent, as Paul does (2 Corinthians 5:4).
This was a favourite picture with the early Christian writers. The
Epistle to Diognetus says, "The immortal soul dwells in a mortal tent."
The picture comes from the journeyings of the patriarchs in the Old
Testament. They had no abiding residence but lived in tents because they
were on the way to the Promised Land. The Christian knows well that his
life in this world is not a permanent residence but a journey towards
the world beyond. We get the same idea in 2 Peter 1:15.
There Peter speaks of his approaching death as his exodos, his
departure. Exodos is, of course, the word which is used for the
departure of the children of Israel from Egypt, and their setting out to
the Promised Land. Peter sees death, not as the end but as the going
out into the Promised Land of God.
Peter says that Jesus Christ has told him that for him the end
will soon be coming. This may be a reference to the prophecy in John 21:18-19,
when Jesus foretells that there will come a day when Peter also will be
stretched out upon a cross. That time is about to come.
Peter says that he will take steps to see that what he has got
to say to them will be held before their memory even when he is gone
from this earth. That may well be a reference to the Gospel according to
St. Mark. The consistent tradition is that it is the preaching material
of Peter. lrenaeus says that, after the death of Peter and Paul, Mark,
who had been his disciple and interpreter, handed on in writing the
things which it had been Peter's custom to preach. Papias, who lived
towards the end of the second century and collected many traditions
about the early days of the Church, hands down the same tradition about
Mark's gospel: "Mark, who was Peter's interpreter, wrote down
accurately, though not in order, all that he recollected of what Christ
had said or done. For he was not a bearer of the Lord, or a follower of
his; he followed Peter, as I have said, at a later date and Peter
adapted his instruction to practical needs, without any attempt to give
the Lord's words systematically. So that Mark was not wrong in writing
down some things in this way from memory, for his one concern was
neither to omit nor to falsify anything that he had heard." It may well
be that the reference here means that Peter's teaching was made still
available to his people in Mark's Gospel after his death.
In any event, the pastor's aim was to bring to his people God's
truth while he was still alive and to take steps to keep it in their
memories after he was dead. He wrote, not to preserve his own name, but
the name of Jesus Christ.
1:16-18 For it was not
cleverly invented fables that we followed when we made known to you the
power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; it was because we were
made eye-witnesses of his majesty. This happened to us on that occasion
when he received honour and glory from God the Father, when this voice
was borne to him by the majestic glory--"This is my Son, the Beloved, in
whom I am well pleased." It was this voice that we heard, borne from
heaven, when we were with him in the sacred mountain.
Peter comes to the message which it was his great aim to bring
to his people, concerning "the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ." As we shall see quite clearly as we go on, the great aim of
this letter is to recall men to certainty in regard to the Second Coming
of Jesus Christ. The heretics whom Peter is attacking no longer
believed in it; it was so long delayed that people had begun to think it
would never happen at all.
Such, then, was Peter's message. Having stated it, he goes on to
speak of his right to state it; and does something which is, at least
at first sight, surprising. His right to speak is that he was with,
Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and that there he saw the glory
and the honour which were given to him and heard the voice of God speak
to him. That is to say, Peter uses the transfiguration story, not as a
foretaste of the Resurrection of Jesus, as it is commonly regarded, but
as a foretaste of the triumphant glory of the Second Coming. The
transfiguration story is told in Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36. Was Peter right in seeing in it a foretaste of the Second Coming rather than a prefiguring of the Resurrection?
There is one particularly significant thing about the
transfiguration story. In all three gospels, it immediately follows the
prophecy of Jesus which said that there were some standing there who
would not pass from the world until they had seen the Son of Man coming
in his kingdom (Matt 16:29; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27). That would certainly seem to indicate that the transfiguration and the Second Coming were in some way linked together.
Whatever we may say, this much is certain, that Peter's great
aim in this letter is to recall his people to a living belief in tile
Second Coming of Christ and he bases his right to do so on what he saw
on the Mount of Transfiguration.
In 2 Peter 1:16
there is a very interesting word. Peter says, "We were made
eye-witnesses of his majesty." The word he uses for eye-witness is
epoptes (Greek #2030).
In the Greek usage of Peter's day this was a technical word. We have
already spoken about the Mystery Religions. They were all of the nature
of passion plays, in which the story of a god who lived, suffered, died,
and rose again was played out. It was only after a long course of
instruction and preparation that the worshipper was finally allowed to
be present at the passion play, and to be offered the experience of
becoming one with the dying and rising God. When he reached this stage,
he was an initiate and the technical word to describe him was epoptes (Greek #2030);
he was a privileged eye-witness of the experiences of God. So Peter
says that the Christian is an eye-witness of the sufferings of Christ.
With the eye of faith he sees the Cross; in the experience of faith he
dies with Christ to sin and rises to righteousness. His faith has made
him one with Jesus Christ in his death and in his risen life and power.
1:19-21 So this mikes
the word of the prophets still more certain for us; and you will do well
to pay attention to it, as it shines like a lamp in a dingy place,
until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises within your hearts. For
you must first and foremost realize that no prophecy in Scripture
permits of private interpretation; for no prophecy was ever borne to us
by the will of man, but men spoke from God, when they were carried away
by the Holy Spirit.
This is a particularly difficult passage, because in both
halves of it the Greek can mean quite different things. We look at these
different possibilities and in each case we take the less probable
first.
(i) The first sentence can well mean: "In prophecy we have an
even surer guarantee, that is, of the Second Coming." If Peter did say
this, he means that the words of the prophets are an even surer
guarantee of the reality of the Second Coming than his own experience on
the Mount of Transfiguration.
However unlikely it may seem, it is by no means impossible that
he did say just that. When he was writing there was a tremendous
interest in the words of prophecy whose fulfilment in Christianity was
seen to prove its truth. We get case after case of people converted in
the days of the early church by reading the Old Testament books and
seeing their prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. It would be quite in line
with that to declare that the strongest argument for the Second Coming
is that the prophets foretold it.
(ii) But we think that the second possibility is to be
preferred: "What we saw on the Mount of Transfiguration makes it even
more certain that what is foretold in the prophets about the Second
Coming must be true."
However we take it, the meaning is that the glory of Jesus on
the mountain top and the visions of the prophets combine to make it
certain that the Second Coming is a living reality which all men must
expect and for which all men must prepare.
There is also a double possibility about the second part of this
passage. "No prophecy of the Scripture," as the Revised Standard
Version has it, "is a matter of one's own interpretation."
(i) Many of the early scholars took this to mean: "When any of
the prophets interpreted any situation in history or told how history
was going to unfold itself, they were not expressing a private opinion
of their own; they were passing on a revelation which God had given
them." This is a perfectly possible meaning. In the Old Testament the
mark of a false prophet was that he was speaking of himself, as it were,
privately, and not saying what God had told him to say. Jeremiah
condemns the false prophets: "They speak visions of their own minds, not
from the mouth of the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:16). Ezekiel says, "Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing" (Ezekiel 13:3).
Hippolytus describes the way in which the words of the true prophets
came: "They did not speak of their own power, nor did they proclaim what
they themselves wished, but first they were given right wisdom by the
word, and were then instructed by visions."
On this view the passage means that, when the prophets spoke, it
was no private opinion they were giving; it was a revelation from God
and, therefore, their words must be carefully heeded.
(ii) The second way to take this passage is as referring to our
interpretation of the prophets. A situation was confronting Peter in
which the heretics and the evil men were interpreting the prophets to
suit themselves. On this view, which we support, Peter is saying: "No
man can go to Scripture and interpret it as it suits himself."
This is of first-rate practical importance. Peter is saying that
no man has the right to interpret Scripture, to use his own word,
privately. How then must it be interpreted? To answer that question we
must ask another. How did the prophets receive their message? They
received it from the Spirit. It was sometimes even said that the Spirit
of God used the prophets as a writer uses a pen or as a musician uses a
musical instrument. In any event the Spirit gave the prophet his
message. The obvious conclusion is that it is only through the help of
that same Spirit that the prophetic message can be understood. As Paul
had already said, spiritual things are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14-15).
As the Jews viewed the Holy Spirit, he has two functions--he brings
God's truth to men and he enables men to understand that truth when it
is brought. So, then, Scripture is not to be interpreted by private
cleverness or private prejudice; it is to be interpreted by the help of
the Holy Spirit by whom it was first given.
Practically that means two things.
(a) Throughout all the ages the Spirit has been working in
devoted scholars who under the guidance of God have opened the
Scriptures to men. If, then, we wish to interpret Scripture, we must
never arrogantly insist that our own interpretation must be correct; we
must humbly go to the works of the scholars to learn what they have to
teach us because of what the Spirit taught them.
(b) There is more than that. The one place in which the Spirit
specially resides and is specially operative is the Church; and,
therefore, Scripture must be interpreted in the light of the teaching,
the belief and the tradition of the Church. God is our Father in the
faith, but the Church is our mother in the faith. If a man finds that
his interpretation of Scripture is at variance with the teaching of the
Church, he must humbly examine himself and ask whether his guide has not
been his own private wishes rather than the Holy Spirit.
It is Peter's insistence that Scripture does not consist of any
man's private opinions but is the revelation of God to men through his
Spirit; and that, therefore, its interpretation must not depend on any
man's private opinions but must ever be guided by that same Spirit who
is still specially operative within the Church.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)