virtue_. Here virtue means the best development of such power as a man
possesses. It may be little or great, but in its kind it is to be made
excellent. And here it is that the Christian workers in every sphere
must surpass others. They work from a higher motive. What they do is
a constant attestation of their faith, is done as in God's sight, and
in the confidence that in every act it is possible to give Him glory.
There can be no carelessness in such lives, for they are filled with a
sense of responsibility, which is the first-fruit of a living faith.
And in St. Peter's figurative word the believer is said to supply each
grace in turn because he contributes by his careful walk to wake it
into life, to make it active, and let it shine as a light before men.
_And in your virtue knowledge_, he continues. For, with duty rightly
done, there comes illumination over the path of life: men understand
more of God's dealings, and hence bring their lives into closer
harmony with His will. And we have Christ's own assurance, "If any man
willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching" (John vii. 17).
And the same is true not only of the Lord's own lessons, but of all
the promptings of the Spirit in men's hearts. If they hearken to the
voice which whispers, "This is the way," it will become at every stage
plainer, and there will be shown to them not only the how, but the
wherefore.
_And in your knowledge temperance._ There is a knowledge which puffeth
up, giving not humility, which is the fruit of true knowledge, but
self-conceit. Of the evil effects thereof the Apostle knew much. Out
of it grew extravagance in thought, and word, and action; and its
mischief was threatening the infant Churches. Against it the
temperance which he commends is to be the safeguard, and it is a
virtue which can be manifested in all things. He who possesses it has
conquered himself, and has won his way thus to stability of mind and
consistency of conduct. "His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord,"
and so he can go forward to the Apostle's next stage of the
heavenward journey: _And in your temperance patience_. This is the
true sequence of spiritual self-control. Life is sure to supply for
the godly man trials in abundance. But he is daily striving to die
unto the world. The effort fixes his mind firmly on the Divine
purposes, and lifts him above the circumstances of time. He is a
pilgrim and sojourner amidst them, but is in no bondage to them, nor
will he be moved, even by great afflictions, to waver in his trust. He
can look on, as seeing Him that is invisible, and can persevere
without being unduly cast down.
_And in your patience godliness._ The mystery of godliness--that is,
Godlikeness--was made known by the Incarnation. The Son of God became
man, that men might through Him be made sons of God. And godliness in
the present world is Christ made manifest in the lives of His
servants. Toward this imitation of Christ the believer will aspire
through his patience. He takes up the cross and bears it after his
Master, and thus begins his discipleship, of which the communion with
Christ waxes more intimate day by day. Such was the godliness of St.
Paul. It was because he had followed the Lord in all that He would
have him to do that the Apostle was bold to exhort the Corinthians,
"Be ye imitators of me;" but he adds at once, "as I am of Christ" (1
Cor. xi. 1). And when he sends Timothy to recall his teaching to their
minds he says, "He shall put you in remembrance of my ways which are
in Christ." By such a walk with Christ His servants are helped forward
towards the fulfilment of the two tables of the moral law, to which
St. Peter alludes in his next words: _And in your godliness love of
the brethren; and in your love of the brethren love_. The
last-named love (ἀγάπη) is that highest love, the love of
God to men, which is set up as the grand ideal towards which His
servants are constantly to press forward; but from this the love of
the brethren cannot be severed, nay it must be made the stepping-stone
unto it. For, as another Apostle says, "he that loveth not his
brother, whom he hath seen, cannot love God, whom he hath not seen" (1
John iv. 20). But love of the brethren is not to be narrowed in the
verse before us or elsewhere to love of those who are already known to
the Churches as brethren in the Lord. The Gospel of Christ knows no
such limits. The commission of the Master was, "Go ye forth into all
the world." All mankind are to be won for Him; all are embraced in the
name of brethren. For if they be not so now, it is our bounden duty to
endeavour that they shall be so. And in thus interpreting we have the
mind of Christ with us, who came to seek and to save them that were
lost, to die for the sins of the whole world, and who found His
brethren among every class who would hear His words and obey them. We
have with us, too, the acts of God Himself, who would have all men
come to the knowledge of the truth, and who, with impartial love,
maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth His
rain upon the just and the unjust, that thus even the evil and unjust
may be won to own His Fatherhood. Such Divine love is the end of the
commandment (1 Tim. i. 5), and terminates the list of those graces the
steps whereto St. Paul has more briefly indicated when he says the
love which is most like God's springs from a pure heart, a good
conscience, and faith unfeigned. In this way shall men be borne upward
into the hill of the Lord.
The knowledge of Christ is a lesson in which we cannot be perfected
till we behold Him as He is, but yet through it from the first we
receive the earnest and pledge of all that is meant by life and
godliness, and the culture of the Divine gifts will yield a rich
increase of the same knowledge. _For if these things are yours and
abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ._ Men in this life can draw nearer unto this
full knowledge, and the bliss of each new gain prompts to more zealous
exertion. There can be no relaxation of effort, no remissness, in such
a quest. For hope is fostered by the constant experience of a
deepening knowledge, and receives continual pledges that the glory to
be revealed is far above what is already known. The enlightened vision
grows wider and ampler; and the path, which began in faith, shineth
more and more unto the perfect day. The world offers other lights to
its votaries, but they lead only into darkness. _For he that lacketh
these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the
cleansing from his old sins._ He who has taken no heed to foster
within him the light which is kindled by faith, and which can only be
kept alive by the grace of the Divine Spirit, is blind, yea blind
indeed, for he is self-blinded. He has quenched the inward light which
was of God's free gift, and made the light within him to be darkness,
a darkness, like Egypt's, which may be felt. Such a man has no insight
into the glories of the celestial vision, no joy of the widening
prospect which captivates the gaze of the spiritual man. He can see
only things close at hand, and is as one bowed downward to the earth,
groping a dreary way, with neither hope nor exaltation at the end. For
he has forgotten--nay, St. Peter's words are stronger and very
striking--λήθην λαβὼν--he has taken hold upon
forgetfulness, made a deliberate choice of that course which
obliterates all remembrance of God's initial gift of grace to cleanse
him from his old sins. Unmindful of this purification, he has admitted
into the dwelling where the Spirit of God would have made a home other
spirits more wicked than those first cast out. They have entered in,
and dwell there. There is a marked contrast between this expression
and the word used for God's gift of faith (ver. 1). That a man
receives (λαχὼν) as the bounty of his Lord's love; and if
treasured and used, it proves itself the light of life for this world
and the next. The wrong path he chooses for himself (λαβὼν),
and its close is the blackness of the dark.
_Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and
election sure._ "Wherefore, brethren"--because such terrible blindness
as this has fallen upon some, who left their first grace unimproved
and allowed even the memory of it to fade away--do you give the more
diligence in your religious life. The true way to banish evil is to
multiply good, leaving neither room nor time for bad things to spread
themselves. When the peril of such things is round about you, it is no
time for relaxed effort. Your enemy never relaxes his. He is always
active, seeking whom he may devour, and employs not the day only, but
the night, when men sleep, to sow his tares. Let him find you ever
watchful, ever diligent to hold fast and make abundant the gifts which
God has already bestowed upon you. In the foreknowledge of the Father,
you are elect from the foundation of the world; and your call is
attested by the injunction laid upon you, "Ye shall be holy, for I am
holy." Your inheritance is in store where nothing can assail it. God
only asks that you should manifest a wish, a longing, for His
blessings; and He will pour them richly upon you. He has made you of
a loftier mould than the inanimate and irrational creation. The flower
turns to the sun by a law which it cannot resist. From the Sun of
righteousness men can turn away. But the Father's will is that your
eyes should be set on the hope which He offers. Then of a certainty it
will be realised. Lift up your eyes to the eternal hills, for from
thence your help will come. The promise is sure. Strive to keep your
hope equally steadfast. For now you belong to the household of Christ;
now you are through Him children of the heavenly Father: to this
sonship you are elect and have been called, and to it you shall attain
if you hold fast your boldness and the glorying of your hope unto the
end.
_For if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble._ The way will be
hard, and may be long, the obstacles in your path many and rugged,
heaped up by the prince of this world to bar you from advancing and
make you faint-hearted; but down into the midst of the danger there
shall shine from the Father of lights a ray which shall illumine the
darkness and make clear for you the steps in which you ought to tread,
and the rod and staff of God's might will support and comfort you.
_For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the
eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ._ In his first
words in this passage the Apostle exhorted the believers to supply
something, as it were, of their own towards their spiritual
advancement; but when the demand was fully understood, behold God had
made ready the means for doing everything which was asked for! Within
the precious faith which He bestowed was enfolded the potentiality of
every other grace. There they lay, as seeds in a seed-plot. All that
men were bidden to do was to give them culture. Then God's Spirit
would operate as the generous sunshine, and cause each hidden power to
unfold itself in its time and bloom into beauty and strength. In this
verse the Divine assistance is more clearly promised. What men bestow
shall be returned unto them manifold. Do your diligence, says the
Apostle, and there shall be supplied unto you from the rich stores of
God all that can help you forward in your heavenward journey. The
kingdom of God shall begin for you while you are passing through this
present life. For it can be set up within you. It has been prepared
from all eternity in heaven, and will be enjoyed in full fruition when
this life is ended. But it is a state, and not a place. The entrance
thereto is opened here. The believer is beckoned into it; and with
enraptured soul he enjoys through faith a foretaste of the things
which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived,
the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. Over those
joys Christ is King, but He is also the door; and those who enter
through Him shall go in and out, and shall surely find pasture, even
life for evermore.
XXI
_THE VOICE HEARD IN THE HOLY MOUNT_
"Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of
these things, though ye know them, and are established in the
truth which is with _you_. And I think it right, as long as I am
in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly,
even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me. Yea, I will give
diligence that at every time ye may be able after my decease to
call these things to remembrance. For we did not follow cunningly
devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of His
majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory,
when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory,
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: and this voice
we _ourselves_ heard come out of heaven, when we were with Him in
the holy mount."--2 PETER i. 12-18.
Up to this point the Apostle has spoken of God's abundant grace and
the consequent duties of believers. And he has set forth these duties
in the most encouraging language. He has pictured first the gift of
Divine power, and the precious promises of God, whereby men may be
helped to walk onward and upward; and when the labour is ended he has
pointed to the door of Christ's eternal kingdom, open to admit the
saint to His everlasting rest. Now he turns to describe the duty which
he feels to be laid upon himself, and faithful is he in the discharge
thereof. "Strengthen thy brethren," is constantly ringing in his ears.
_Wherefore_, he says, _I shall be ready always to put you in_
_remembrance of these things_. He dreads that taking hold of
forgetfulness--that λήθην λαβὼν--of which he has spoken
before, and against which constant diligence is needed. So far as in
him lies, the perilous condition shall come upon none of them. The
verb in the best texts expresses far more than that which is rendered
in the Authorised Version, "I will not be negligent." It implies a
sense of duty and the intention of fulfilling it; it bears within it,
too, the thought (which is strengthened by the word _always_) that
there may be need for such reminding, if not from internal weakness,
yet by reason of external dangers. And to bring to the mind of the
Churches the gracious bounty of God in Christ, and to set down the
steps whereby the graces bestowed should be fostered and increased, is
a subject worthy of an Apostle, a theme which no amount of exhortation
can exhaust, and one which ought to prompt the hearers to gratitude
and obedience.
_Though ye know them, and are established in the truth which is with
you._ Knowledge of things that pertain unto godliness is barren unless
it be wrought out in the life. Yet knowledge and practice do not
always go hand in hand. This was one of the lessons taught by Jesus as
He washed the disciples' feet: "If ye know these things, blessed are
ye if ye do them" (John xiii. 17). St. Peter longs that the converts
should make this blessedness their own. His life's work is to watch
for them, that they be not remiss in doing. To none can such a duty
more peculiarly belong than to him who holds Christ's special
commission to feed the flock. By "the truth which is with you" the
Apostle appears to be alluding to the varying degrees of advancement
which there must be among the members of the Churches. All have
travelled some way along the road which he has shown them; all have
some of the truth within their grasp. They have set their feet on the
path, though they be planted with different degrees of firmness. What
is needed for each and all is to press forward, not to rest in the
present, but to hasten to what lies beyond. For the truth of God is
inexhaustible.
Perhaps, too, he thought, as he spake of the truth present with them,
that he was of necessity absent and would soon be removed altogether,
and the only way by which he could serve them was by his epistle. He
could never forget that among those to whom he was writing were the
Galatians, over whose falling back from the truth St. Paul had so
greatly lamented: who had run well, but had fainted ere the course was
over; who had received some truth to be present with them, even the
faith of the crucified Jesus, but had been beguiled into letting it
slip. Thought of these things shapes his words as he writes, "I shall
be ready _always_ to put you in remembrance." He rejoices that they
are "established," but yet sends them an admonition. Let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
_And I think it right._ The word marks the solemn estimate which the
Apostle takes of his duty. It is a just and righteous work. Danger is
abroad, and he has been made one of Christ's shepherds. Many motives
prompt him to write his words of counsel and warning. First, his love
for them as his brethren, some of them, perhaps, his children in
Christ. Like St. Paul, he has them in his heart. Then, he will fulfil
to the utmost the charge which the Lord gave him. He is conscious,
too, that opportunities for the fulfilment of his trust will soon come
to an end. _As long as I am in this tabernacle_, he says. It is but a
frail home, the body; and with St. Peter age was drawing on. He saw
that the time of his departure could not be far off, and this left no
excuse for remitting his admonitions. He must be urgent so long as he
can. _To stir you up by putting you in remembrance._ The work of the
Apostle will be thoroughly done (διεγείρειν), and be of that
nature for which the Holy Ghost was promised to himself and his
fellows. "He shall bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you"
(John xiv. 26). Thus would St. Peter, like St. Paul, impart unto the
converts some spiritual gift, that he, with them, may be comforted,
strengthened, each by the other's faith. So he proceeds to dwell on
that Divine manifestation by which his own belief had been confirmed.
And there would be memories of St. Paul's lessons also to call to
their minds, and many of these would be awakened by an appeal like
this. The falling away of the Galatians had been from a different
cause, but the memory of the past would warn, and might strengthen,
them all in the future against their new dangers.
_Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly, even as
our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me._ Such a motive makes the
appeal most touching. He will soon be removed. To this he looks
forward without alarm. His concern is for them, not for himself. He
regards his death as the stripping off of a dress: when its use is
past it is parted with without regret. To him, as to his brother
Apostle, to die would be gain. But he must have had constantly in mind
the Master's prophecy, "When thou art old, thou shalt stretch forth
thine hands, and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou
wouldest not" (John xxi. 18). And in the word "swiftly" he no doubt
alludes, not only to the old age in which the end would naturally
come, but also to some sharp stroke by which his departure would be
brought to pass. The stretching out of his hands would be a
preliminary to the prison and the cross. In the Gospel it is said that
Christ's words give the sign (σημάινων), the indication, by
what death he should die. The Apostle employs a stronger word (ἐδήλωσε)
here: "made it evident." The English version renders both
verbs by "signify," but St. Peter's own expression marks how growing
age had made clearer to him the manner in which his death should be
accomplished. And the mention of Jesus brings vividly before him the
thought of the scene he is about to describe, so vividly that some of
the language of the Transfiguration scene is reproduced by him.
_Yea, I will give diligence that at every time ye may be able after my
decease to call these things to remembrance._ Jesus is related (Luke
ix. 31) to have conversed with Moses and Elias of His decease
(ἔξοδος) which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. The word is rare
in this sense, being commonly used, as in Heb. xi. 22, of the
_departing_ of the children of Israel from Egypt. But it is deeply
printed in St. Peter's mind; and he, who looks forward to drinking of
his Master's cup and dying somewhere as He died, employs the same word
concerning his own end. And the word is another indication of the calm
with which he can look forward to his death. As with Christ, there is
no reluctance, no shrinking. The change will be but a departure, a
passing from one stage to another, the putting off the worn garment of
mortality to be clothed upon by the robe which is from heaven.
His letters are the only means whereby he can speak after he has been
taken from them. Hence his earnestness in writing. "I will give
diligence." I have urged diligence on you; I will apply the lesson to
myself, and make it possible that afterwards on every occasion you may
have it before you. When dead, he will yet speak to them; so that in
each new trial, in each time of need, they may strengthen their faith
or be warned of their danger. "At every time," he says; and thus his
strengthening words of admonition are a legacy through the ages to the
Church for evermore.
_For we did not follow cunningly devised fables._ Here the Apostle
speaks in the plural number, and it may well be that he means to
include St. Paul with himself and James and John. For the evidence
which converted that Apostle, though not the same as that vouchsafed
to St. Peter, was of the same kind. The Lord had appeared unto him in
the way, had made His glory seen and felt, and fixed for ever in the
Apostle's heart the reality of His power and presence. His cry, "Lord,
what wilt Thou have me to do?" came from a heart conquered and
convinced. He too followed no cunningly devised fable.
By the word (σεσοφισμένο) which is rendered "cunningly
devised" we are reminded of the (σοφία) wisdom which St.
Paul so earnestly disclaims in his first letter to the Corinthians. "I
came not with excellency of speech or of _wisdom_," he says; "my
preaching was not in persuasive words of _wisdom_, that your faith
should not stand in the _wisdom_ of men, but in the power of God." The
_wisdmom_ which he speaks is not of this world, but God's _wisdom_ in
a mystery (1 Cor. ii. 1-7). St. Paul also warns against giving "heed
to fables, which minister questionings rather than a dispensation of
God which is in faith" (1 Tim. i. 4; cf. also iv. 7 and 2 Tim. iv. 4).
In another place (Titus i. 14) he calls them "Jewish fables," a name
which is of the same import as the "Jewish vanities" of Ignatius,[13]
a name by which he intimates that they darken and confuse the mind.
The legends of the Talmud, the subtleties of the rabbinical teaching,
and the allegorising interpretations of Philo are the delusions to
which both the Apostles refer. The evidence on which they ask credence
for their teaching is of another kind. "That which was from the
beginning," is the testimony of another Apostle, "that which we heard,
that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our
hands handled, concerning the word of life, ... that declare we unto
you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us" (1 John i. 1-3).
St. Peter had seen, and so had St. Paul; and they constantly appealed
to, and rested their teaching on, facts and the historic reality of
Christ's life and work.
[13] _Ep. ad Magn. 8._