2 Peter 2 and 3.
THAT which we get in the foreground of these chapters is corruption. In the middle we have the judgments which are to clear the scene, and the kingdom that is to succeed shines in the distance. Because God is Holy, judgment must come after corruption; and because He is God, glory must follow the judgment. If we doubt this necessity, we have not, as Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15, “the knowledge of God.” The corruption that is to fill Christendom is not doctrinal merely. In Galatians the Apostle lifts up a standard against doctrinal corruption; but that would not dispose of the history of Christendom. Here we have apostacy from the godliness of the truth. The promises of Scripture have reared one class of watch-towers, and the admonitions have erected another. We must build various watch-towers, and plant ourselves on each of them.
The most prevalent form of corruption in these days is moral relaxation: “turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.” We do not read here of a denial of grace, or of the value of the blood, but of the lordship of Christ (vs. 1), as though it were not fitting that those who have refuged in Him as Saviour should bow down to Him as Lord! There is a character in these days which should put us all on the watchtowers that Peter builds for us. We see terms made with the flesh, vanities, covetousness, and the various spirits of the world; corruption intruding into the place of holiness. “They promise them liberty.” Aye, and the liberty of the gospel, too! But am I to be the servant of my eye, my imagination, my covetous nature? Do we not know that we have a present Christendom before us when we read the 2nd of Peter! It has been remarked from a comparison of the Romans 1 and the 2nd Epistle of Timothy, that the same pollutions attach to corrupt Christianity as to heathenism.
“For, if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world” (i.e., escaped from heathenism into Christianity) “through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour” (i.e., through the Christendom knowledge)— the 22nd verse showing that the nature (dog and sow, not sheep) was still unchanged.
The opening of ch. 3 sets down the saints to the cultivation of their pure minds―the new, not the old nature. There was plenty abroad to stir up the impure mind; so he would put remembrances before them.
Scoffers should come, wise in their own conceits, their own wisdom and conclusions―taking their own analogies. “Since the fathers fell asleep, things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Why should any interruption be looked for? All is simple cause and effect. For this they willingly are ignorant of―that God interferes how and when He pleases; that, by the word of God, first came the flood, and secondly, “By the same word” the world is “reserved unto fire.”
When we look at things, are we in company with God’s word or with our own wisdom? “But, beloved, be not ignorant,” etc. We ought to know how to interpret the long-suffering of God. (Long-suffering is patience under injuries.) The delay is not indifference. How beautifully He puts out human thoughts, and brings in divine! It is not slackness; it is long-suffering―it is grace. He is not imputing trespasses to the world, in order that this aspect of Him may lead sinners to repentance. Grace is gratifying itself now. Amid all the expressions of what God is, the Cross is the greatest. Love gratified; righteousness satisfied.
(Ven. 10). “But the day of the Lord will come”―as the great surprise. “The coming of the Lord’ is as a bridegroom. “The day o: the Lord” is as a thief. As a bride. groom He will come to the Church; as a thief He will come to the world. These are the correspondences. Could the cry of “Come, Lord Jesus,” be answered as by the coming of a thief in the night? Assuredly not!
(Vers. 11 and 14). Two things are looked at here: the dissolving of the present world, and the coming in of the new world. And we are to be looking for and hasting unto the day that is to consummate this―the glory that is to be, the eternity of God and us.
J. G. B.