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* * * * *
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
EDITED BY THE REV.
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D.
_Editor of "The Expositor"_
THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER
BY
J. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
London
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCIII
THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. each vol._
FIRST SERIES, 1887-8.
Colossians.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D.
St. Mark.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
Genesis.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
1 Samuel.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
2 Samuel.
By the same Author.
Hebrews.
By Principal T.C. EDWARDS, D.D.
SECOND SERIES, 1888-9.
Galatians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Pastoral Epistles.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Isaiah I.--XXXIX.
By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. I.
The Book of Revelation.
By Prof. W. MILLIGAN, D.D.
1 Corinthians.
By Prof. MARCUS DODS, D.D.
The Epistles of St. John.
By Rt. Rev. W. ALEXANDER, D.D.
THIRD SERIES, 1889-90.
Judges and Ruth.
By Rev. R. A. WATSON, D.D.
Jeremiah.
By Rev. C. J. BALL, M.A.
Isaiah XL.--LXVI.
By G. A. SMITH, M.A. Vol. II
St. Matthew.
By Rev. J. MONRO GIBSON, D.D.
Exodus.
By Very Rev. the Dean of Armagh.
St. Luke.
By Rev. H. BURTON, M.A.
FOURTH SERIES, 1890-1.
Ecclesiastes.
By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D.
St. James and St. Jude.
By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D.
Proverbs.
By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A.
Leviticus.
By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I.
FIFTH SERIES, 1891-2.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. I.
1 and 2 Thessalonians.
By JAMES DENNEY, B.D.
The Book of Job.
By R. A. WATSON, D.D.
Ephesians.
By Prof. G. G. FINDLAY, B.A.
The Gospel of St. John.
By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. II.
The Acts of the Apostles.
By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. II.
SIXTH SERIES, 1892-3.
1 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Philippians.
By Principal RAINY, D.D.
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.
By Prof. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
Joshua.
By Prof. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. II.
The Epistles of St. Peter.
By Prof. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
SEVENTH SERIES, 1893-4.
2 Kings.
By Ven. Archdeacon FARRAR.
Romans.
By H. C. G. MOULE, M.A.
1 Chronicles.
By Prof. W. H. BENNETT, M.A.
2 Corinthians.
By JAMES DENNEY, B.D.
Numbers.
By R. A. WATSON, D.D.
The Psalms.
By A. MACLAREN, D.D. Vol. III.
THE
EPISTLES OF ST. PETER
BY
J. RAWSON LUMBY, D.D.
LADY MARGARET PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
CAMBRIDGE
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
27, PATERNOSTER ROW
MDCCCXCIII
_Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
PREFACE
The two letters which bear the name of St. Peter have from the
earliest times met with very different degrees of acceptance. The
genuineness of the First Epistle is attested by the unanimous voice of
primitive Christendom. As it is addressed to Christians dwelling in
different parts of Asia Minor, it is natural to look for a knowledge
of it in those countries. And nowhere is it earlier noticed. Polycarp,
Bishop of Smyrna, a contemporary of the last surviving Apostle, and
whose martyrdom took place about the middle of the second century, has
repeated quotations from this Epistle. It was known also to Papias (+
163), Bishop of Hierapolis, and to Melito (170), Bishop of Sardis.
That it was known to the Greeks is seen from the Epistle to Diognetus,
which for a long time was attributed to Justin Martyr (+ 165), while
the "Shepherd" of Hermas, written at Rome, testifies that it was known
there also at about the same date. The inclusion of it in the
Peschito-Syriac Version bears witness to its early circulation in the
Eastern Church, as also does its quotation in the writings of
Theophilus of Antioch (178). Heretics, no less than the faithful,
regarded it as a portion of authoritative Christian literature.
Basilides in Alexandria and the Marcosians and Theodotus in Syria all
knew of and cited this Epistle. The Latin Church of Africa accepted
it, as we can see from a few quotations in Tertullian (+ 218) and a
greater number in the writings of Cyprian (+ 258). In the Alexandrian
Church it is often quoted by both Clement (+ 218) and Origen (+ 254);
while for Gaul we have the testimony of the Church of Vienne in the
touching letter sent by the Christians there to their "brethren in
Asia and Phrygia" (177), and of Irenæus, who was Bishop of Lyons
shortly afterwards, and who, coming from Asia to fill that see, is a
witness both for the East and the West. From the Christian Church of
the early centuries it is hardly possible to produce stronger
attestation.
But although so abundantly vouched for in ancient days, the Epistle
has not been exempt from the assaults of modern criticism. Primitive
Christendom regarded St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul as heralds of
one and the same Gospel, founded on the same promises, strengthened by
the same faith. They were at one in what they taught and what they
opposed. But some modern thinkers, taking as a thesis that the Gospel
as set forth by the Apostle of the circumcision differed widely from
the doctrines of St. Paul, have proceeded to make an eclectic
Christian literature, out of which the First Epistle of St. Peter has
been rejected. Its language is too much in harmony with accepted
writings of St. Paul. It can only have been compiled by some later
hand to promote the opinion that there was no discord between the
teachings of the first Christian preachers. Moreover, it is
inconceivable, they consider, that a letter should be addressed by St.
Peter to the Christians in those very lands where the missionary
labours of St. Paul had been specially exerted, where the converts
were in a peculiar sense his "little children."
Now in this first letter of St. Peter there is unquestionably much
that corresponds in tone with the Epistle to the Romans, especially
with the twelfth and thirteenth chapters. In both letters Christians
are exhorted to offer their bodies as spiritual sacrifices, to shun
conformity with the world, to study to be sober in mind, and to use
duly all the gifts which they possess; the same unfeigned love of the
brethren is inculcated, the same patience under suffering. Christians
are not to retaliate, but to overcome evil with good; they are to be
in subjection to all lawful authority, and this for conscience' sake,
to avoid all excesses, rioting, drunkenness, chambering, and
wantonness, and to be ever looking forward to the coming of the Lord.
In like manner there will be found numerous passages in St. Paul's
Epistle to the Ephesians which in spirit and tone greatly resemble the
words of St. Peter. At the very outset St. Paul addresses his converts
as "chosen of God in Christ before the foundation of the world, that
they should be holy and without blemish before Him in love"; tells
them that they were "foreordained unto adoption as sons through Jesus
Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise and
glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on them in the Beloved"
(Eph. i. 3-6). Similarly St. Peter writes to "the elect ... according
to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the
Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,"
and presently he adds that "according to God's great mercy they were
begotten again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (i.
1-3). In both epistles there is the same teaching, the same election
in love, the same sonship, the same progress in holiness, the same
free gift through Jesus Christ. But in neither is there a word that
can be taken to militate against independent authorship. And the same
remark applies to all the resemblances which exist between the two
epistles in the exhortations to servants, wives, and husbands; in the
commendations of humility, pity, courtesy; in the entreaties to the
believers to gird up the loins of the mind and to lay aside all malice
and hatred; in those passages which speak of them as strangers and
pilgrims, as called from darkness to light, as being a spiritual
house, built upon Christ as the head corner-stone. Of all these
exhortations undoubted parallels are to be found; but they are only
evidence of the common character which would pervade all the teaching
of the apostolic missionaries where the people addressed were the
same, the times not far apart, and the dangers and temptations known
alike to all the writers. Hence parallels to St. Peter may be found in
St. James too, but they are no proof that the one Apostle (or, as some
critics say, some one writing under his name) copied from the other.
Nor is it easy to see reason why St. Peter might not be expected to
write a letter to the congregations formed first by St. Paul. No
Evangelist or Apostle could publish the message of the Gospel--that
is, the life and works--of Christ without telling of His chosen
followers; and amongst them, if our Gospels be a true picture, St.
Peter must ever have filled a prominent place. The Churches in Asia
assuredly had heard much of him, and in a time of persecution or
impending trial nothing could be more fit than that the Apostle who
had been most prominent amid Christ's companions should write from
Babylon or from Rome, it may be, where the signs of the times would
proclaim most clearly the sufferings for which the Christian
inhabitants of the provinces should be prepared, to encourage the
believers in Asia to steadfastness and to remind them that the same
afflictions were being accomplished in their brethren that were
elsewhere in the world.
This was likely enough even had St. Peter never visited the districts
to which his letter was addressed. But we seem to find traces of him
in Corinth (1 Cor. ix. 5; cf. also xv. 5), and he certainly was not
unknown by name to the Christians of that city. And if so, why need we
question his journeying through Asia Minor? And he was aware of the
labours of his fellow-apostle. From personal intercourse and
discussion, especially in connexion with the council at Jerusalem, he
would be sure that they were of one mind. It may be that he had learnt
something of St. Paul's letters to the Churches. Under such
circumstances it is not foreign to St. Peter's character, nay rather
quite in harmony with it, that he should fulfil the Lord's command to
"strengthen the brethren"; that he should send them an earnest
assurance that, spite of sufferings and trials, this was the true
grace of God, in which they should rejoice to stand.
But there are internal tokens in the Epistle which seem more powerful
evidence of its genuineness than anything else. The writer calls
himself "Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ"; and he declares his
personality by touches and allusions which a forger would never have
fabricated. Thus he says, "All of you _gird yourselves_ with humility,
to serve one another" (v. 5). The verb which he employs here indicates
a sort of girding about with some towel or apron, which a slave put
on for doing some menial service. It is almost impossible that the
writer had not in his thoughts the act of Christ when He gave His
great lesson of humility: "If I have washed your feet, ye ought also
to wash one another's feet."
So, too, the Master's exhortation, "Feed My sheep," "Feed My lambs,"
comes to mind as we read, "Tend the flock of God which is among you,
exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly" (v. 2).
And St. Peter's own words spoken in the house of Cornelius are
reproduced when the Father is declared to be One "who, without respect
of persons, judgeth according to each man's work" (i. 17).
But it is in the allusions to Christ's passion and resurrection, those
events which marked the deep fall and the rising again of St. Peter,
that the personality of the Apostle becomes most manifest. He has been
himself "a witness of the sufferings of Christ" (v. 1). He can speak
as an eye-witness of the Lord's death in the flesh (iii. 18; iv. 1)
and His quickening in the spirit; can exhort men to courage because
they are partakers of the sufferings of Christ (iv. 13). Who does not
feel that the writer of the words, "Let them also that suffer
according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a
faithful Creator" (iv. 19), is thinking of the scene on the cross, of
the Saviour's finished work, of the dying cry, "Father, into Thy hands
I commend My spirit"?
Perhaps the most striking instance of this peculiarity, this tendency
to dwell on the events of the Passion, is found in ii. 19-24. Speaking
to servants, he argues, "What glory is it if when ye sin and _are
buffeted_ for it ye shall take it patiently?" And having used the
word by which the Evangelists describe (Matt. xxvi. 67; Mark xiv. 65)
the insults heaped upon the Lord at His trial, the writer is carried
away in mind to the whole scene: "He did no sin, neither was guile
found in His mouth; when He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He
suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth
righteously; in His own self He bare our sins in His own body upon the
tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto righteousness,
by whose stripes ye were healed." And in the last clause especially we
see traces of one who had been present through the painful history.
The word rendered "stripes" means "bruises" or "weals," such as come
from savage blows, and is just the word which would occur to one who
had seen the bruised body taken down from the cross, but hardly to any
one else.
Again, the writer makes you feel without quoting that he has the words
of Jesus constantly in his mind. Thus in the exhortation, "Cast all
your anxiety upon God, for He careth for you" (v. 7); when he says,
"If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye" (iv.
14), or "Be sober; be vigilant" (v. 8), or "Be sober unto prayer" (iv.
7), or commends "not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for
reviling, but contrariwise blessing" (iii. 9), at each of the
sentences--and the letter abounds with examples--there rise in the
reader's mind some similar words of Christ, making him feel that he is
perusing a writing of one to whom the Lord's language was abundantly
familiar.
With the marks of personal character and associations meeting us
constantly, and with the unbroken consensus of antiquity in favour of
St. Peter's authorship, we shall not lightly allow speculations about
hypothetical differences between the teaching of the Apostles of the
Gentiles and of the circumcision to disturb our acceptance of this
letter for what it proclaims itself to be: the work of the Apostle St.
Peter, of one who was himself a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
* * * * *
Of the Second Epistle the whole history is very different. It appears
to have been little known in the early Church, and is included by
Eusebius (330) among the ἀντιλεγόμενα, "books to which
objection was raised" as late as his day. It is true that in Clement
of Rome there is a sentence (Ep. i., chap. xi.) which many have
accepted as containing a clear allusion to the passage (2 Peter ii. 6,
7) which speaks of Lot and the destruction of Sodom. And if this could
be demonstrated with certainty, it would be most valuable testimony.
It would prove the Epistle to have been accepted at a very early date
and by the important Church in Rome. But we have so far to go before
we come upon any other notice that the silence makes us doubtful of
the evidence from Clement. Moreover, such other witness as we do find
is not of a very direct character. Firmilian, Bishop of Cæsarea, in
Cappadocia, about 256 A.D., in a letter of which a Latin version is
preserved among the writings of Cyprian, uses words which probably
indicate that he knew both the epistles of St. Peter; but he gives no
quotation. The Second Epistle was no doubt meant for the same readers
as the First; and that is addressed, among others, to the Christians
of Cappadocia, so that there is no improbability in supposing the
letter to have been early known there. Theophilus of Antioch (170)
uses the comparison of the word to a lamp shining in a dark place in
such a way as to give the impression that he knew the Epistle, and a
similar possible reference is found in the writings of Ephrem Syrus
(+ 378). Palladius (400), who was a friend of Chrysostom, and wrote at
Rome, makes a clear allusion to 2 Peter; and in the Apology of Melito,
Bishop of Sardis, there is a passage concerning the destruction of the
world by fire at the last day which is strikingly parallel to 2 Peter
iii. 5-7, and can hardly have been written without a knowledge of the
Epistle.
This is a very small amount of early evidence, and among the more
voluminous writers of the first three centuries we find no mention of
the Epistle. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that by Eusebius it is
classed among the works of less acceptance. But the same fate befell
larger and more important writings than this Epistle. The Apocalypse
and the Epistle to the Hebrews stand in the same list in Eusebius. And
St. Peter's second letter has not the same general interest as the
first, and therefore is likely to have been less widely circulated;
and this is all that Eusebius's classification means. The books were
not generally received because there was a less general knowledge of
their existence and history.
But when the Church entered on the settlement of the New Testament
Canon at the Council of Laodicæa (366), the Second Epistle of St.
Peter was accepted; and no doubt there was evidence then before the
assembled Fathers which time has now destroyed. Yet in the letter
itself there are points which no doubt weighed with them, and which
are patent to us as they were then. The writer claims to be St. Peter,
an Apostle and the writer of a previous epistle. He speaks solemnly of
his death as near at hand; and still more solemn, when viewed as
evidence, is the declaration that he had been one of the witnesses of
Christ's transfiguration. It is almost inconceivable that a forger,
writing to warn against false teachers, writing in the interest of
truth, should have thus deliberately assumed a name and experience to
which he had no claim. These statements must have influenced the
opinion of the Laodicæan Council, and we know that they did not act on
light evidence; they did not on the strength of a name accept into
their canon, but excluded, works at the time widely circulated and
passing for histories or letters of some of the Apostles.
Moreover, when we consider the kind of teaching against which St.
Peter's epistle is directed, it is difficult to place it anywhere
except at about the same date as St. Paul's epistles. It speaks of the
"fables" mῦθοι, i. 16), the groundless, baseless fancies,
of the early heretics in the same manner which we find in St. Paul
(cf. 1 Tim. i. 4; iv. 7). The same greed and covetousness (πλεονεξία)
is noted by both the Apostles in the teachers against whom their voice
is raised (cf. 2 Peter ii. 3; 1 Tim. vi. 5; Titus i. 11). There are
the same beguiling promises of liberty (cf. 2 Peter ii. 19; 1 Cor. x.
29; Gal. v. 13), a perversion of the freedom of which St. Paul speaks
so much to the Galatian converts; and just as he warns against "false
brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our
liberty" (Gal. ii. 4), so does St. Peter condemn those "who privily
bring in heresies of destruction" (2 Peter ii. 1). With so many common
features in the two pictures, we can scarcely be wrong in referring
them to the same times. No other period in early Church history suits
the language of St. Peter so well as the few years before his
martyrdom. The First Epistle may be dated eight or ten years earlier.
There is another morsel of evidence from the New Testament which is
worth notice. St. Peter describes the heretics against whom he writes
as following the error of Balaam the son of Beor, and notes this among
the tokens of their covetousness. In the Apocalypse (ii. 14, 15) the
same people are described, and in the same terms, but with an
addition. They have received a definite name, and St. John terms them
several times over "the Nicolaitanes." Such a distinctive title marks
a later date than St. Peter's descriptive one, which is drawn from the
Old Testament. The Apocalypse was assuredly written before the
destruction of Jerusalem. If then we may take the mention of the
Nicolaitanes by that designation as an indication of a later date than
2 Peter, we are again brought to the time to which we have already
referred the Epistle: some time between 68 and 70 A.D.
Considerable discussion has arisen about the passages in 2 Peter which
are like the language of St. Jude. There can be no doubt that either
one Apostle copied the words of the other, or that both drew from a
common original. But this point, in whatever way it be settled, need
not militate against St. Peter's authorship. It is nothing unworthy of
the Apostle, if he find to his hand the words of a fellow-teacher
which will serve his need, to use what he finds. Nay, the letter
itself tells us that he was prepared to do this. For he refers his
readers (iii. 15) to the writings of St. Paul for support of his own
exhortations. St. Peter's seems, however, to be the earlier of the two
epistles, if we compare his words, "There _shall be_ false teachers,
who _shall bring_ in heresies of destruction," etc. (ii. 1), with St.
Jude, who speaks of these misleading teachers as already existent and
active: "There _are certain men crept in_ unawares"; "_These are_
spots now existing in the feasts of charity"; "_They are feasting
among the brethren_ without fear." And St. Jude seems clearly to be
alluding to St. Peter's words (2 Peter iii. 3) when he says, "Remember
ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord
Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be _mockers_"
(ἐμπαῖκται) "in the last time." This word for "mockers" is
found only in St. Peter's epistle. It is nowhere else in the New
Testament; and while St. Peter's words are a direct utterance, St.
Jude's are a quotation.
But there are two or three features of resemblance between the style
of St. Peter's first epistle and the second which support strongly the
genuineness of the latter. The First Epistle has a large proportion of
words found nowhere else in the New Testament. There are a score of
such words in this short composition. Now the Second Epistle presents
us with the same peculiarity in rather larger abundance. There are
twenty-four words there which appear in no other New Testament
writing. It seems to have been a peculiarity of the writer of both
letters to use somewhat uncommon and striking words. Now take the
Second Epistle to have been the work of an imitator. He would be sure
to notice such a characteristic, and sure also to repeat, for the sake
of connexion, some distinctive expressions of the first letter in the
second. But the case is much otherwise. There is the same abundance of
unusual words in both epistles, but not a single repetition; the same
peculiarity is manifest, but displays itself in entirely new material.
This is an index of authorship, not of imitation.
There are one or two differences between the two epistles which in
their way are of equal interest. The first letter was one of
encouragement and consolation; the second is full of warning. Hence,
though the coming of the Lord is dwelt on alike in the two, in the
former it is set forth as a _revelation_ (1 Peter i. 5), as a day for
which believers were looking, and in which their hopes would be
realised, and their afflictions at an end; in the second letter the
same event is called a coming (παρουσία), an appearing, a
presence, but one which will usher in the great and terrible day of
the Lord, and be the prelude of judgement to them that have fallen
away.
Again, the sufferings of Christ are a theme much dwelt on in the First
Epistle, where they are pointed to as the lot which Christians are to
expect, and the Lord is the pattern which they are to imitate; in the
Second they are hardly noticed. But was there not a cause for such
reticence? Was it a time to urge on men the imitation of Christ when
the danger was great that they would deny Him altogether?
No doubt many other points of evidence, which are lost to us, were
presented to the Fathers of the Laodicæan Council, and with the result
that the Second Epistle of St. Peter was received into the Canon side
by side with the first. But the three centuries of want of
acknowledgement have left their mark on its subsequent history, and
many earnest minds have treated it as of less authority than other
more accepted portions of the New Testament. Among these is Luther,
who speaks of the First Epistle as one of the noblest in the New
Testament, but is doubtful about the claims of the Second. Similar was
the judgment of Erasmus and of Calvin.
We cannot, however, go back to the evidence produced at Laodicæa. Time
has swept that away, but, while doing so, has left us the result
thereof; and the acceptance of the Epistle by the Fathers there
assembled will be judged by most men to stand in lieu of the evidence.
No court of law would permit a decision so authenticated and of such
standing to be disturbed or overruled.
And we ourselves can observe some points still which draw to the same
conclusion. The letter harmonises in tone with the other New Testament
writings, and some of its linguistic peculiarities are strikingly in
accord with the universally accepted letter of St. Peter. We are
therefore not unwilling, though we have not the early testimony which
we could desire, and though the primitive Church held its genuineness
for doubtful, to believe that ere this second letter was classed with
the other New Testament writings these doubts were cleared away, and
would be cleared away for us could we hear all the evidence tendered
before those who fixed the contents of the Canon.
The discovery last year in Egypt of some fragments of the Gospel and
Apocalypse once current under the name of St. Peter has drawn
attention once more to the genuineness and authenticity of the Second
Epistle in our canon. But the difference in character between it and
these apocryphal documents is very great. The Gospel ascribed to Peter
seems to have been written by some one who held the opinion, current
among the early heretics, that the Incarnation was unreal, and that
the Divine in Christ Jesus had no participation in the sufferings at
the Crucifixion. Hence our Lord is represented as having no sense of
pain at that time. He is said to have been deserted by His "power" in
the moment of death. The stature of the angels at the Resurrection is
represented as very great, but that of the risen Christ much greater.
To these peculiar features may be added the response made by the
cross to a voice which was heard from heaven, the cross having
followed the risen Christ from the tomb. In the fragments of the
Apocalypse we have a description of the torments of the wicked utterly
foreign to the character of the New Testament writings, in which the
veil of the unseen world is rarely withdrawn. The circumstance and
detail given in the apocryphal fragment to the punishments of sinners
mark it as the parent of those mediæval legends of which the "Visions
of Furseus" and "St. Patrick's Purgatory" afford well-known examples.
The study of these fragments, of which the Gospel may be dated about
170 A.D., sends us back to the contemplation of the Second Epistle of
St. Peter more conscious than before at what a very early date errors,
both of history and doctrine, were promulgated among the Christian
societies, while at the same time we are impressed more strongly with
the sense that the accord of the Second Epistle with Gospel history,
where it is alluded to, as well as the simplicity of Christian
doctrine which it enforces, mark it as not unworthy of that place in
the Canon which was accorded to it in the very earliest councils which
dealt with the contents of New Testament Scripture.
CONTENTS
_THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER_
I
PAGE
THE WORK OF THE TRINITY IN MAN'S ELECTION AND
SALVATION 3
II
THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE 17
III
THE UNITY AND GLORIOUSNESS OF THE PLAN OF
REDEMPTION 29
IV
THE CHRISTIAN'S IDEAL, AND THE STEPS THEREUNTO 41
V
CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD: ITS CHARACTER AND
DUTIES 55
VI
THE PRIESTHOOD OF BELIEVERS 69
VII
CHRISTIANS AS PILGRIMS IN THE WORLD 83
VIII
CHRISTIAN SERVICE 95
IX
CHRISTIAN WIVES AND HUSBANDS 107
X
THEY WHO BLESS ARE BLESSED 119
XI
THE REWARDS OF SUFFERING FOR WELL-DOING 133
XII
THE LESSONS OF SUFFERING 149
XIII
CHRISTIAN SERVICE FOR GOD'S GLORY 163
XIV
THE BELIEVER'S DOUBLE JOY 177
XV
THE RIGHTEOUS HAVE JUDGEMENT HERE 189
XVI
HOW TO TEND THE FLOCK 201
XVII
BE CLOTHED WITH HUMILITY 213
XVIII
THROUGH PERILS TO VICTORY 223
_THE SECOND EPISTLE OF ST. PETER_
XIX
THE SAVING KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 235
XX
WHO SHALL ASCEND INTO THE HILL OF THE LORD? 245
XXI
THE VOICE HEARD IN THE HOLY MOUNT 257
XXII
THE LAMP SHINING IN A DARK PLACE 271
XXIII
THE LORD KNOWETH HOW TO DELIVER 283
XXIV
"BY THEIR FRUITS YE SHALL KNOW THEM" 297
XXV
ALTOGETHER BECOME ABOMINABLE 313
XXVI
AS WERE THE DAYS OF NOAH 325
XXVII
JUDGEMENT TO COME 335
XXVIII
THE LORD IS NOT SLACK 345
XXIX
"WHAT MANNER OF PERSONS OUGHT YE TO BE?" 355
XXX
BE YE STEDFAST, UNMOVABLE 365
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER
I
_THE WORK OF THE TRINITY IN MAN'S ELECTION AND SALVATION_
"Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are
sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace
be multiplied."--1 PETER i. 1, 2.
"When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke xxii. 32),
was the Lord's injunction to St. Peter, of which this Epistle may be
considered as a part fulfilment. So richly stored is it with counsel,
warning, and consolation that Luther, the conflicts of whose life will
bear some comparison with the trials of these Asian converts, calls it
one of the most precious portions of the New Testament Scriptures. Its
value is further enhanced because in so many places the Apostle
reverts in thought or word to his own life-history, and draws his
teaching from the rich stream of personal experience. Even the name
which he sets at the head of the letter had its lesson in connexion
with Jesus. Most Jews took a second name for profaner use in their
commerce with the heathen; but to Simon, the son of Jonas, Peter must
have been a specially sacred name, must have served as a watchword
both to himself and to all others who had learnt the story of its
bestowal and the meaning which was bound up with it.
That a letter by St. Peter should be, as this is, of a very practical
character is no more than we might expect from what we know of the
Apostle from the Gospels. Prompt in word and action, ever the
spokesman of the twelve, he seems made for a guide and leader of men.
What perhaps we should not have expected is the very definite
doctrinal language with which the Epistle opens. Nowhere in the
writings either of St. Paul or St. John do we find more full or more
instructive teaching concerning the Holy Trinity. And herein St. Peter
has been guided to choose the only order which tends to edification.
Sound lessons for Christian life must be grounded upon a right faith,
and a brother can afford no strength to his brethren unless first of
all he point them clearly to the source whence both his strength and
theirs must come.
Of the previous intercourse between St. Peter and those to whom he
writes we can only judge from the Epistle itself. The Apostle's name
disappears from New Testament history after the Council of Jerusalem
(Acts xv.), but we feel sure his labours did not cease then; and
though the first message of Christianity may have been brought to
these Asiatic provinces by St. Paul, the allusions which St. Peter
makes to the trials of the converts are such as seem impossible had he
not himself laboured among them. The frequent reminders, the special
warnings, could come only from one who knew their circumstances very
intimately. Allusions to the former lusts indulged in in their days of
ignorance, to the reproaches which they now have to suffer from their
heathen neighbours, to their going astray like lost sheep, are a few
of the unmistakable evidences of personal knowledge.
He writes to them as _sojourners of the dispersion_. In the minds of
the Jews this name would wake up sad memories of their past history.
It told of that great break in the national unity which was made by
the tarrying in Babylon of so many of the people at the time of the
return, then of those painful periods in later days when their nation,
as the vassal now of Persia, now of Greece, of Egypt, of Syria, and of
Rome, was made the sport of the world-powers as they rose and fell,
times in which Israel could see few tokens of the Divine favour, could
hear no voice of the prophet to encourage or to guide. But now to
those who had accepted the Gospel of Christ those dark years would be
seen to have been in no wise barren of blessing and of profit. The
scattered Jews had carried much of their faith abroad among the
nations; schools of religious teaching had arisen; the chosen people
in their dispersion had adopted the language best known among the
other nations; and thus the outcome of those sorrowful times had been
a preparation for the Gospel. Proselytes had been made in the
countries of their exile, and a wider field opened for the Christian
harvest. The dispersion of Israel had been made, as it were, a bridge
over which the grace of God passed for publishing the glad tidings of
the Gospel, and to gather Jew and Gentile alike into the fold of
Christ.
But it would be a mistake to restrict the word "dispersion" here to
the Jewish converts. The Apostle speaks more than once in his letter
to those who had never been Jews, to men who (i. 14) had been
fashioned according to their former lusts in ignorance; who had in
times past (ii. 10) no share with God's people; who (iv. 13) had
wrought the will of the Gentiles, walking in lasciviousness, lusts,
and abominable idolatries. To these too since their conversion the
name "dispersion" might be fitly applied. They were but a few here
and there among the multitudes of heathendom. And their acceptance of
the faith of Jesus must have given to their lives a different aspect.
It must often be so with the faithful. Their life is from the world
apart. It must have been specially thus with these Christians in Asia.
They could be verily only strangers and sojourners; their true home
could never be made among their heathen surroundings. As the Jew in
old days sighed for Jerusalem, so their hope was centred on a
Jerusalem above.
Yet God had a mission for them in the world. This is a special portion
of St. Peter's message. As the scattered Jews of old had opened a door
for the spreading of the Gospel, so the Christians of the dispersion
were to be its witnesses. Their election had made them a peculiar
people; but it was that they might show forth the praises of Him who
had called them out of darkness into His marvellous light, and that by
their good works the heathen might be won to glorify God when in His
own time He should visit them too with the day-star from on high.
But beside the words which speak of severance and pilgrimage, the
Apostle uses one of a different character. With that large charity and
hope which is stamped upon the whole of the New Testament, he calls
these scattered Christian converts the _elect_ of God. Just as St.
Paul so often includes whole Churches, even though he find in them
many things to blame and to reprove, under the title of "saints" or
"called to be saints," so it is here. And the sense of their election
is intended to be a mighty power. It is to bind them wherever they may
be scattered into one communion in Christ Jesus. Through the world
they are dispersed, but in Christ they constitute a great unity. And
the sense of this is to lift their hearts above any sorrowing for
their isolation in the world. For through Christ they have (i. 4) an
inheritance, a home, a claim of sonship; and their salvation is ready
to be revealed in the last time.
Later generations have witnessed much unprofitable controversy round
this word "election." Some men have seen nothing else in the Bible,
while others have hardly acknowledged it to be there at all. Then some
have laboured to reconcile to their understandings the two truths of
God's sovereignty and the freedom of the human will, not content to
believe that in God's economy there may be things beyond their
measure. St. Peter, like the other New Testament writers, enters on no
such discussions. Whether amid the full assurance of newly quickened
faith the first Christians found no room for intellectual
difficulties, or whether the spirit within them led them to feel that
such questions must ever be insoluble, we cannot know; but it is
instructive to note that the Scripture does not raise them. They are
the growth of later days, of times when Christianity was wide-spread,
when men had lost the feeling that they were strangers and pilgrims of
the dispersion, and were no longer prepared to welcome, with St. Peter
and St. Paul, every Christian brother into the number of God's chosen
ones, counting them as those who had been called to be saints.
Of the election of believers the Apostle here speaks in its origin,
its progress, and its consummation. He views it as a process which
must extend through the whole life, and connects its various stages
with the Three Persons of the Trinity. But, with the same practical
instinct which has already been noticed, he enters on no statements
about the nature of the Godhead in itself; he neither discusses what
may be known of God, nor how the knowledge is to be obtained. He says
no word to intimate that the mention of three Persons may be difficult
to understand in co-relation to the unity of the Godhead. Such
inquiries exercise the mind, but can hardly further, what was St.
Peter's special aim, the edification and comfort of the soul. That
result comes from the inward experience of what each Person of the
Godhead is to us, and on this the Apostle has a lesson. He makes plain
for us the share which Father, Son, and Spirit bear in the work of
human salvation. Christians, he teaches us, are elect, chosen to be
saints, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father; the election
is maintained when their lives are constantly hallowed by the
influence of the Holy Ghost; while in Christ they have not only an
example of perfect obedience after which they must strive, but a
Redeemer whose blood can cleanse them from all the sins from which the
most earnest strivings will not set them free. Of these things the
Christian soul can have experience. It is thus that the life of the
elect believer begins, grows, and is perfected.
It begins _according to the foreknowledge of God the Father_. Here St.
Peter may be his own interpreter. In his sermon on the day of
Pentecost he employs the same word, "foreknowledge," and he is the
only one who uses it in the New Testament. There (Acts ii. 23) he says
that Christ was delivered up to be crucified by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. And on the same subject in this very
chapter (i. 20) he speaks of Jesus as _foreknown_, as a Lamb without
spot and blemish before the foundation of the world. In these passages
we are carried back beyond the ages into the Divine council-chamber,
and we find the whole course of human history naked and open before
the eyes of the All-seeing. God knew even then what the history of the
human race would be, saw that sin would find an entrance into the
world, and that a sacrifice would be needed, if sinners were to be
redeemed. Yet He called the world and its tenants into being, and
provided the ransom in the person of His only Son. Why this was
well-pleasing unto Him it is not ours to discuss; whether for the
uplifting of humanity by providing an opportunity for moral obedience
or for the greater manifestation of His infinite love. But whatever
else is mysterious, one thing is plain: the counsel of the Holy One is
seen to be a counsel of mercy and of love; and though its operation
may not seldom be perplexing to our finite powers, the Apostle teaches
us that this determination from all eternity was made with infinite
tenderness. He tells us it was the ordinance of our Father. The
beginning and the end thereof are hidden from us. We learn only a
fragment of His dealings during the brief period of a human life. But
men may rest content with the proof of their election in the sound of
the Gospel message which they hear. They who are thus called may count
themselves for chosen. This call is the Divine testimony that God is
choosing them. Concerning His intention towards others who may seem to
have passed away without hearing of His love, or who are living as
though no loving message of glad tidings had ever been proclaimed, we
must rest in ignorance, only assured that the Eternal God is as truly
their Father as we know Him to be ours.
To limited human knowledge the course of the world has ever been, must
ever be, full of darkness and perplexities. Men gaze upon it as they
do upon the wrong side of a piece of tapestry as it is woven. To such
observers the pattern is always obscure, many a time quite
unintelligible. For full knowledge we have to wait to the end. Then
the web will be reversed, God's designs and their working
comprehended; we shall know even as we are known, and, with hearts and
voices tuned to praise, shall cry, "He hath done all things well." Of
such a revelation the poet (Shelley, _Adonais_, Stanza lii.) sings, a
revelation of the all-seeing, unchanging Jehovah and of the glorious
enlightenment that shall be in His presence:--
"The one remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly:
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity,
Until death tramples it to fragments."
In this wise would St. Peter have us think of the grace of election.
It has its beginning from our Father; its fulfilment will also be with
Him. The measure and the manner of its bestowal are according to His
foreknowledge, according to the same foreknowledge which provided in
Christ an atonement for sin, which appointed Him to die, and that not
for some sinners only, but for the sins of the whole world.
But in the call according to God's foreknowledge the believer is not
perfected. He must live worthily of his calling. And as his election
at the first is of God, so the power to hold it fast is a Divine gift.
He who would rejoice over God's election must feel and constantly
foster within himself _the sanctification of the Spirit_. To be made
holy is his great need. This demands a life of progress, of renewal, a
daily endeavour to restore the image which was lost at the Fall. "Be
ye holy, for I am holy," is a fundamental precept of both Old and New
Testaments; and it is a continual admonition, speaking unto Christians
that they go forward. Under the Law the lesson was enforced by
external symbols. Holy ground, holy days, holy offices, kept men alive
to the need of preparation, of purification, before they could be fit
to draw near unto God or for God to draw near unto them.
For us there is opened a more excellent way: the inward, spiritual
cleansing of the heart. Christ has gone away where He was before, and
sends down to His servants the Holy Ghost, who bestows power that the
election of the Father may be made sure. Hence we can understand those
frequent exhortations in the epistles, "Walk in the Spirit"; "Live in
the Spirit"; "Quench not the Spirit." The Christian life is a
struggle. The flesh is ever striving for the mastery. This enemy the
believer must do to death. And as aforetime, so now, sanctification
begins with purification. Christ sanctifies His Church, those whom He
has called to Him out of the world; and the manner is by cleansing
them through the washing of water with the word. Here we gladly think
of that sacrament which He ordained for admission into the Church as
the beginning of this Divine operation, as the wonted entrance of the
Holy Ghost for His work of purifying. But that work must be continued.
He is called "holy" because He makes men holy by His abode with them.
And Christ has described for us how this is brought to pass. "He shall
take of Mine," says our Lord, "and shall show it unto you. All things
that the Father hath are Mine" (John xvi. 14, 15). Every good gift,
which the Father who calls men hath, the Spirit is sent to impart. The
words speak of the gradual manner of its bestowal; all things may be
given, but they are given little by little, as men can or are fit to
receive them. He shall take a portion of what is Mine, is the literal
meaning of the Evangelist's phrase (John xvi. 15). The plural phrase
πάντα ὅσα ἔχει ὁ πατηρ marks the boundless supply,
the singular ἐκ τῦu ἐμοῦ λήμπσεται the Spirit's choice of such a
portion therefrom as best suits the receiver's needs and powers. In
this wise men may become gradually conformed to the image of Christ,
grow more and more like Him day by day. More and more will they
drink in of the whole truth, and more and more will they be sanctified.
In this daily enlightenment must God's faithful ones live, a life
whose atmosphere is the hallowing influence of the Holy Ghost. But it
is to be no mere life of receptivity, with no effort of their own. The
Apostle makes this clear elsewhere, when he says, "Sanctify the Lord
God in your hearts" (iii. 15)--make them fit abodes for His Spirit to
dwell in; lead your lives in holy conversation, that the house may be
swept and garnished, and you be vessels sanctified and meet for the
Master's use.
Thus chosen by the Father and led onward by the Spirit, the Christian
is brought ever nearer to the full purpose of his calling: _unto
obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ_. The
Christ-pattern which the Spirit sets before men is in no feature more
striking than in its perfect obedience. The prophetic announcement of
this submission sounds down to us from the Psalms: "Lo, I come to do
Thy will, O God"; and the incarnate Son declares of Himself, "My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work": and
even in the hour of His supreme agony His word is still, "Father, not
My will, but Thine, be done." Specially solemn, almost startling, is
the language of the Apostle to the Hebrews when he says of Jesus that
"He learned obedience by the things which He suffered," and that "it
became the Father, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make Christ,
the Captain of their salvation, perfect through suffering." With the
Lord as an example, obedience is made the noblest, the New Testament
form of sacrifice.
But when such obedience was connected with the sprinkling of the blood
of Jesus, the Jews among St. Peter's converts must have been carried
in thought to that scene described in Exod. xxiv. There, through Moses
as a mediator, we read of God's law being made known to Israel, and
the people with one voice promised obedience: "All the words which the
Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." Then followed a
sacrifice; and Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people,
saying, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made
with you concerning all these words"; and the Lord drew nigh unto His
people, and the sight of the glory of the Lord on Mount Sinai was like
devouring fire in the eyes of the children of Israel.
For Christians there is a Mediator of a better covenant. We are not
come unto the mount that burned with fire, but unto Mount Zion (Heb.
xii. 18-22). In that other sacrament of His own institution, our Lord
makes us partakers of the benefits of His passion. With His own blood
He constantly maketh His people pure, fitting them to appear in the
presence of the Father. There at length the purpose of their election
shall be complete in fulness of joy in the sight of Him who chose them
before the foundation of the world.