2 Peter 3:1-7

THE UNFULFILLED PROMISE OF THE COMING

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

THE apostle now deals with those who made the delay of the Lord’s coming, and the disappointment consequently felt by many Christians, an occasion for mockery. The sense in which the Early Church expected an early personal return of the Saviour, and based their expectation on the words of our Lord, and the teachings of St. Paul and St. Peter, needs to be carefully considered. Probably both the apostles and the Christian people gave a materialistic setting to what was intended to be spiritually realised. It has recently been confidently argued that our Lord’s supposed eschatological teachings should be limited to the destruction of the Jewish religious system in the Roman overthrow of Jerusalem, save when those teachings must have a spiritual application.

2 Peter 3:1. Second epistle.—Assuming not only a first, but that first sent but a little while before. “This epistle, already a second one.” Pure.—That is, separated, so unsullied, sincere (Philippians 1:10). “Its primary application is to that which will bear the full test of being examined by sunlight, and so it carries with it the idea of transparent sincerity.

2 Peter 3:2. Of the apostles.—“Through your apostles.”

2 Peter 3:3. Scoffers.—“Scoffers shall come in their scoffing.” Own lusts.—“The habit of self-indulgence is at all times the parent of the cynical and scoffing sneer.” Scoffers revelling in scoffing, a cumulative expression to denote shameless scoffers.

2 Peter 3:4 Fathers.—Here probably the first believers in Christ, who are represented as having proved the hope of Christ’s coming to be an illusion, as they died before it was realised.

2 Peter 3:5. Willingly.—Wilfully forget, because it does not suit their purpose to remember. Ignore. Standing, etc.—More precisely, “formed out of water, and by means of water”; implying possibility of the Flood. See the account of Creation in Genesis 1,

2. Plumptre says, “The apostle speaks naturally from the standpoint of the physical science of his time and country, and we need not care to reconcile either his words, or those of Genesis 1, with the conclusions of modern meteorological science.”

2 Peter 3:6. Whereby.—By the two outlets of water. Genesis 7:11. World.—This term distinctly assumes the universality of the Deluge. Perished.—A term strictly applicable only to living creatures.

2 Peter 3:7. Reserved unto fire.—This is part of the teaching of the book of Enoch. Scriptural allusions are thought to be found in Daniel 7:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:8, “stored up for fire.” “By analogy with 2 Peter 3:5 we understand that the fire for which the present heavens and earth are reserved, exists now as a constituent in their original constitution, but prepared and designed as the agent of their dissolution. Science corroborates this.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Peter 3:1

Doubts Concerning Christ’s Coming.—It is important to notice that the apostolic letters assume previous apostolic teachings. In the progress of the years the apostles found various intellectual and moral evils were seriously affecting the religious thought and life of the disciples. Their epistles are mainly designed to be corrections of these evils, and special effort is made to recover the neglected features of apostolic teaching which ought to have made such errors and evils impossible. So St. Peter here speaks of “stirring up their pure” (sincere and reverent) “minds by way of remembrance.” A certain measure of authority was, from the first, felt to attach to apostolic utterances, because they were persons who had immediate and direct experiences, instructions, and revelations concerning the matters of which they spoke and wrote. We can fully recognise this reasonable authority without presenting in any exaggerated way their absolute freedom from error. It is manifested by the facts of history that they did not adequately apprehend the spiritual character of Christ’s coming, or the period that must elapse before He would come in any sensible manifestation.

I. Christ’s coming as apostles taught it.—Their standpoint is indicated by the question which they asked of their Lord just before His ascension: “Wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” Christ, in reply, only told them that He could give no account of the precise time, but left them to understand that the kingdom would be restored; and they had an immediate and pressing duty to perform, and keep on performing, until the time for setting up the kingdom came. With this in their minds they put their own meanings into the message of the angels who appeared when their Lord had passed out of sight: “This Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven.” On this basis an apostolic doctrine of Christ’s coming grew. At first they expected Him to appear when the cloven tongues appeared. Then they shifted their expectations to an immediate future, and, when they began to suffer persecutions, comforted themselves with the assurance that He was coming to vindicate them, and to judge their persecutors. Time passed on, and He did not come just as they anticipated; and some of their number died, unvindicated and unavenged, and deprived of whatever privileges were to attend the coming. But still they persisted that the “day of the Lord is at hand.” It does not appear that the spiritual sense in which believers have always felt that Jesus has fulfilled His promise was ever apprehended by the apostles. They had the promise and the hope, but they could only realise it when placed before them in a carnal and earthly setting. And that setting put it in limitations which started criticism and encouraged unbelief.

II. On what grounds could doubts of Christ’s coming again be cherished?—There do not appear to have been any special forms of doubt in those days. The objections urged are precisely those which have been heard in every Christian age, and are heard to-day. They may go under two heads, and be put in relation to the two conditions of human thinking—time and space; but they always assume, what we are by no means prepared to admit, that the coming is altogether and only sensible, material, and earthly. It is said

(1) He is always coming now, but the now never comes. It is said

(2) If He came in a material form He must put Himself in space-limitations, and could not possibly be the help and blessing that He is as an unlocalised, everywhere present, spiritual Saviour.

III. What facts of Divine dealing make all such doubts unreasonable?—The scoffers put their scoffing in this form: “You have told us of a coming affliction such as there has not been from the beginning of the creation, and lo! we find the world still goes on as of old, and no great catastrophe happens.” St. Peter’s answer is that men spoke in just the same way concerning certain other great historical catastrophes and calamities. There is always human confusion when time-measures are applied to the Divine Being and His dealings with men. The threatened catastrophes always have come, and what men called “delay” had a Divine mission of warning and opportunity. Divine time-delay is never a basis on which doubts can reasonably rest. The only doubts in relation to the coming of the Lord permissible to Christians are those which lead them to question whether as yet they have quite sounded the fulness and depth of their Lord’s meaning, when He promised to “come again.” We ought to be advancing in spiritual power and insight, and so better able to read our Lord’s spiritual meanings. And he who can enter fully into the blissful reality of our Lord’s spiritual presence is relieved of all undue anxiety concerning a possible bodily manifestation. “That is not first which is spiritual; but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual.” Judgment of mankind is spiritual work. The reward of the righteous is spiritual reward. Christ is king of souls, and, here or yonder, then or now, He is the spiritual Christ who comes in spiritual ways. Still, for so many the spiritual truth has yet to keep its material shapings and dress, and they can only realise His coming at all when they can picture to themselves a majestic, sensible manifestation, wrapped about with clouds.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

2 Peter 3:4. Christ’s Coming.—Notice—

I. How St. Peter answers five questions relating to the last day.—

1. Whether we are yet to wait confidently for the last day.
2. When, and at what time, it will come.
3. Why Jesus has not come for so long a time.
4. How, and in what manner, the last day will come.
5. What Christ will perform on that day.

II. How thoroughly he instructs us as to the manner of our preparing for it.—

1. In holy conversation and godliness.
2. To wait patiently for, and hasten to it.
3. To give all diligence, that we may be found blameless by Christ.—V. Herberger.

2 Peter 3:4. Death as Sleep.—In the use of the verb to “fall asleep” for dying we are reminded of our Lord’s words, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth” (John 11:11); of St. Paul’s, “many sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:30). So in Greek sculpture Death and Sleep appear as twin genii, and in Greek and Roman epitaphs nothing is more common than the record that the deceased “sleeps” below. Too often there is the addition, as of those who are without hope, “sleeps an eternal sleep.” In Christian language the idea of sleep is perpetuated in the term “cemetery” (κοιμητήριον= sleeping place), as applied to the burial-place of the dead, but it is blended with that of an “awakening out of sleep” at the last day, and even with the thought, at first seemingly incompatible with it, that the soul is quickened into higher energies of life on its entrance into the unseen world.—Dean Plumptre.