2 Peter 1:9

2 Peter 1:9. For he who lacketh these things. This is one of two instances in which the A. V. strangely mistranslates the Greek causal particle ‘for' as ‘but.' The other is 1 Peter 4:15. In Romans 5:7 it erroneously renders the same causal particle by ‘yet.' In the present case it has followed Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Cranmer, who all have ‘but,' rather than the Genevan and Rhemish, which give ‘for.' It thus entirely misconceives Peter's meaning. He is not simply setting one thing over against another, but is adducing a second reason for the course which he recommends. The reasoning may be understood in more than one way. It may be taken broadly thus these graces are to be cultivated; for, if we have them not, we become blind, and ‘sink back into a want of power to perceive even the elementary truths of the kingdom of God' (Plumptre). Or it may be put thus, in immediate relation to the nearest idea, these graces are to be cultivated; for, wanting them, we want the capacity for this perfect ‘knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.' A different expression also is given now to the idea of possession. Instead of saying, as before, ‘he for whom these things do not subsist,' another phrase is used which runs literally, ‘he to whom these things are not present.' Thus the idea of a possession habitual, and settled enough to warrant its being spoken of as belonging to the person's past as well as his present, gives place to that of a possession which, however it may have been with his past, at least cannot be affirmed of his present. Wherever this is the case with the man as he now is, there that state has entered which is next described. is blind, being near-sighted. As the A. V. renders this clause ‘is blind, and cannot see afar off,' the latter epithet may seem at first only to repeat, in a weaker and almost contradictory form, what is already expressed by the former. Hence it has been attempted in various ways to make a sharp distinction between the two terms. The latter (which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament) has been rendered, e.g., ‘groping' (so substantially the Vulgate, Tyndale, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, etc.) a sense, however, which cannot be made good. It has also been rendered ‘shutting his eyes' (Stephens, Dietlein, etc.); and the idea has thus been supposed to be this ‘he is blind, and that by his own fault, wilfully shutting his eyes.' The word, however, seems to describe not one who voluntarily shuts his eyes (although the R. V. gives ‘closing his eyes' in the margin), but one who blinks, or contracts the eyelid in order to see, one who is short-sighted or dim-sighted. Thus the second epithet defines the first. He is ‘blind,' not seeing when he thinks he sees, not seeing certain things as he ought to see them. And he is this not in the sense of being ‘blind' to all things, but in the sense of being ‘nearsighted,' seeing things in false magnitudes, having an eye for things present and at hand, but none for the distant realities of the eternal world. The rendering of the A. V., therefore (which follows the Genevan), expresses the correct idea; which the K. V. (in its text) gives more clearly as ‘seeing only what is near.' With what is said here of blindness compare such passages as John 9:41; Romans 2:19; 1 Corinthians 8:2; Revelation 3:17; and especially 1 John 2:9-11.

having forgotten the purification of his sins of old. The sins referred to are the sins of the man's own former heathen life, and the purification is that which covered the whole sin of his past once for all when he first received God's grace in Christ. The idea of a purification occupies a prominent place in the Epistle to the Hebrews (cf. Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 9:22-23; Hebrews 10:2). There not only sins are said to be ‘purified,' but also the conscience, the heart, the heavenly things, the copies of the heavenly things, the flesh. The purification is effected by the blood of Christ, and its result is not mere moral purity, but the removal of guilt, or of the sense and conscience of sin. So here the ‘sins of old' are said to have been purified in the sense of having had the uncleanness belonging to them cleansed away, or their guilt removed. The phrase carries us back to the Old Testament custom of sprinkling blood on objects which had become defiled, and so relieving them of the disadvantages of their ceremonial uncleanness. The ‘having forgotten ‘is expressed in a way of which we have no other instance in the New Testament, but which resembles the phrase rendered ‘call to remembrance' in 2 Timothy 1:5. It means literally ‘having taken (or, incurred) forgetfulness,' It gives a graver character to the condition, representing it perhaps as one which is voluntarily incurred or willingly suffered, or, it may be, as one which is inevitable where there is neglect to cultivate grace. The sentence is introduced as a further explanation of the blindness. The man is ‘blind,' in the sense of having eyes only for what is near and tangible, as the consequence or penalty of his forgetting the great change effected in the past, and living as if he had never been the subject of such grace.