been stored up for fire._ The Apostle now turns away from what the Old
Testament Scriptures relate as history of the past to what the same
records teach us concerning the future; and he deals partly with
promise, partly with prophecy. The earth will not be destroyed again
by a deluge. God hath made His covenant: "I will establish My covenant
with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of
a flood, neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth"
(Gen. ix. 11). But there will be a judgement; and then not, as in the
days of Noah, will the κόσμος, the beautiful order of
nature, alone be destroyed, but heaven and earth alike shall be
involved in the common overthrow. Here the Apostle is but the
expositor of the words of psalmists and prophets of the older times.
He who sang, "Of old Thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and
the heavens are the work of Thy hands," was inspired to add, "They
shall perish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old
like a garment: as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be
changed" (Psalm cii. 25). Isaiah, the evangelist among the prophets,
saw more, and connects this mighty change with the day of the Lord's
vengeance: "Then shall all the host of heaven be dissolved, and the
heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll" (Isa. xxxiv. 4); and in
another place he foresees how "the heavens shall vanish away like
smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell
therein shall die in like manner, ... for Mine arms shall judge the
people" (Isa. li. 6); and yet again in more solemn wise, "The Lord
will come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render
His anger with fury and His rebuke with names of fire, for by fire and
by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh" (Isa. lxvi. 15). And
this he proclaims as the preparation for "the new heavens and the new
earth which He will make." Daniel also tells us of God's "throne of
judgement to be set, which is like the fiery flame, and His wheels as
burning fire" (Dan. vii. 9).
With such light from the lamp of prophecy, the Apostle in his exegesis
proclaims the nature of the final judgement. Like other New Testament
writers, he has attained, since the day of Pentecost, a deeper
insight and a firmer grasp of the purport of what Moses in the Law
and the prophets did write. We can see how on that very day thoughts
like these which he expresses in his letter were borne in upon his
mind. For not only does he apply the prophecy of Joel to the events
which then struck the multitude with wonder, but he carries on the
lesson further to the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord,
and reminds his hearers that then God "will show wonders in heaven
above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapour of
smoke, when the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into
blood" (Acts ii. 19). And the like illumination had been bestowed on
St. Paul. For he too tells (1 Cor. iii. 13) of a day when each man's
work shall be proved by fire; and more definitely he assures the
Thessalonians, to whom he wrote much concerning the day of the Lord,
that there will come a "revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with
the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them
that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. i. 8).
In such wise did the Apostles read the utterances of prophecy; and
thus did they apply them as lessons for their own and all future
times. They felt that not unto themselves, but unto us, did the
prophets minister. And St. Peter does but put their message into his
own words when in his bold figure he says that the heavens that now
are and the earth are stored up for fire.
The Revised Version on its margin renders the last words "stored with
fire." And when we reflect on the storing of the waters at the
Creation, afterwards to be let forth to destroy the world which
hitherto they had made fruitful and lovely, the parallelism is very
suggestive. God has stored the earth within with fire, which from
time to time makes its mighty presence and power for destruction
known. The visitations of earthquakes may therefore well remind us
that He who used the treasures of waters in the Deluge for His
ministers may in like manner hereafter employ this treasury of fire.
_Being reserved against the day of judgement and destruction of
ungodly men._ When God no longer waits for sinners to repent, then
will come the judgement and destruction of the ungodly. At that day
the heavens that now are and the earth shall be exchanged or
transformed. God will prepare a new heaven and a new earth wherein the
righteous may find a congenial home with their Lord. Here they can
never be other than pilgrims and sojourners, seeking to be clothed
upon with their house which is from heaven. What the destruction of
the ungodly shall be we can only judge and speak of in the terms of
Scripture. The language of St. Paul to the Thessalonians seems to
teach us that the very advent of the Judge shall bring their penalty:
"They shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction" (the word is
not the same which St. Peter uses) "from the face of the Lord and from
the glory of His might" (2 Thess. i. 9), in the presence of which
nothing that is defiled can dwell. So God, of His mercy, still
reserves the heavens and the earth, and thus to every new generation
offers His mercy, saying continually through their silent witness, in
the spirit in which He spake to Israel at the close of the volume of
prophecy, "I am Jehovah"--that is, the merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin--"I change not;
therefore ye sinners are not destroyed."
XXVIII
_THE LORD IS NOT SLACK_
"But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the
Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The
Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count
slackness; but is long-suffering to youward, not wishing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance."--2 PETER
iii. 8, 9.
"All things continue as they were from the from the beginning of the
creation," said the mockers. It was foolish therefore to believe in,
or to think of, a judgement to come. In the words before us the
Apostle not only supplies an answer to the scorners, but gives a
precious lesson to Christians for all time on the nature of God and
His government of the world. It is but a single thought, but when the
mind of the believer has grasped its significance, he will look out
upon the world untroubled. No mockery will disturb his faith.
_But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day._ Here the
Apostle quotes some words from that psalm (xc.) which is entitled "A
Prayer of Moses, the Man of God." In it the Psalmist is contrasting
God's eternity with the frailty of man and the shortness of human
life. "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is
past." But St. Peter not only adopts, but adapts, the words for his
own purpose. He wants to teach the Christians in their trials that,
while what is long in man's estimation may in God's providence be
counted but little, yet through God's decree what to man appears
little may be big with mightiest consequences. He therefore first
inverts the words of the Psalmist. One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, while a thousand years may be as one day. One day of
His deluge swept a whole generation out of the world, while His day of
Pentecost remains potent in the history of His grace for all the ages
which are yet to come. Through a mistaken literalness, men have
sometimes expounded the lesson as if Jehovah's dealings were a
question of arithmetic. Nothing could be farther from the Apostle's
thought, who would have us know that of great and little God's work
makes no account. With Him there is no short or long in time. What He
does is not to be measured by the petty standards of humanity.
Men _must_ take note of time, for they feel its lapse and its loss.
They are ever conscious that a period is coming after which what is
undone must continue undone. Again, the length of time is known to
them by the recurrence of the various acts of life, and by the
weariness which comes of continued labour, and by the grief of
protracted waiting. These things force them to speak of short and
long, but with God it is not so. For Him all time is one. He knows
nothing of toil. Whatsoever He pleaseth, that doeth He in heaven and
in earth, in the sea and in all deep places (Psalm cxxxv. 6). The
Psalmist had attained a true conception. The whole world and all
worlds were in His control, and their order the working of His eternal
will. He needs no rest; He slumbereth not, nor sleepeth. To Him there
is no waiting, no weariness. Hence the past, the present, and the
future are for Him one unbroken now.
This is the one thing which the Apostle offers to the Christian
brethren for their support and consolation against the scoffers. And
the knowledge is mighty for those who grasp it. It helps them to cast
themselves securely upon the almighty arms, convinced that God's
working is not to be estimated according to man's days and years, but
is certain in its effect. One generation passeth away, and another
cometh; but death, they learn, does not take men out of the knowledge
or the hand of God, be it for mercy they are reserved, or for
judgement. God does not defer His action because He lacks power to
perform, neither does He tarry because He is unmindful of His servants
or insensible to what they endure.
Such thoughts can minister to the faithful abundant consolation, and
this was the desire of the Apostle. But they raise for all time large
questions which can find no answer here, questions concerning the lot
of those who pass from this brief day of life into the eternal world
and have not known God's will, that they might do it; questions
concerning a discipline which may yet be reserved for some who have
not bent themselves to it here, perhaps from want of light; questions
of how far hope may extend itself beyond the veil which divides this
world from the next. Such questions rise within many earnest souls,
often rather for the sake of others than themselves; but God has
vouchsafed us no answer, lest men should wax presumptuous.
_The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count
slackness._ Many things conspire to make the doings of men to tarry.
At one time pledges are given beyond what foresight would warrant;
and when the day of performance arrives, they are forced to plead that
events have falsified their expectation, and they cannot do the things
that they would. Again, men, with the most earnest zeal, attempt a
work beyond their powers, and of necessity have to delay the
fulfilment of their promises; while some are taken away untimely from
the midst of their fellows, ere life has enabled them to achieve what
they counted on once as certain. Want of knowledge, of time, and of
power is the heritage of the sons of men; and therewith conspires not
seldom a change of mind and consequent want of will. But He with whom
is no variableness, the omnipotent, omniscient, eternal Lord of all,
is subject to no hindrance. Whether events appear to men to linger or
to be sudden, all move under the control of the same unchanging will.
He is not slack, as men are slack, either to rescue the righteous or
to punish the ungodly. Of this the son of Sirach spake: "The Lord will
not be slack, neither will the Almighty be patient, ... till He have
taken away the multitude of the proud and broken the sceptre of the
unrighteous, ... till He have judged the cause of His people and made
them to rejoice in His mercy" (Ecclus. xxxv. 18).
Here is a medicine for fainting souls, of whom there must have been
many among these Asian Christians. And it is a solace furnished, too,
by the teachings of prophecy. "The vision," says one, "is yet for an
appointed time" (Hab. iii. 3). God's will has ordered when and how it
shall be accomplished; all moves by His decree. "At the end it shall
speak, and not lie." There is no disappointment to those who wait upon
the purposes of God. "Though it tarry, wait for it," even though the
waiting may last beyond this life, "because it will surely come; it
will not tarry. The just shall live by his faith."
The order of the words in the original (ὅ κύριος
τῆς ἐπαγγελίας) and the unwonted construction of the verb, of which no
other example is forthcoming, have suggested to some to render thus:
"The Lord of the promise is not slack." Even so the words give a
powerful sense. God, who makes the promise to men, is supreme over all
on which its faithfulness depends, supreme both as Maker and Fulfiller
of His word. He sees and controls the end from the beginning. Blessed
are all they that put their trust in Him.
_But is long-suffering to youward._ The Authorised Version heads "to
usward". And some have thought it more in accord with the Apostle's
manner and humility to include himself with the brethren. The other
reading is better supported, and none will doubt on that account St.
Peter's sense of God's long-suffering towards himself. The term which
he here employs to describe the Divine character implies the holding
back of wrath. God might justly punish, but He stays His blow. Men
have sinned, and still sin; but His love prevails above His anger. The
word is formed by the LXX. translators to render one expression in
that passage (Exod. xxxiv. 6) where God proclaims unto Moses the
attributes by which He would be known unto men. Through all the list
mercy is the dominant feature. Term upon term seems devised to magnify
the tenderness of Jehovah towards His people, though at last, if the
continual offers of mercy are despised, He "will by no means clear the
guilty." No other language furnishes such a word, for no other people
had such a knowledge of the God of all grace.
_Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance._ We are wont to connect statements like this with the
gracious messages of the New Testament. Yet some saints of earlier
time felt all that St. Peter here teaches. The writer of
Ecclesiasticus has some striking words. He is connecting God's mercy
with the shortness of man's life, and his language anticipates in the
main this teaching of the Apostle: "The number of a man's days at the
most are a hundred years. As a drop of water unto the sea, so are a
thousand years to the days of eternity. Therefore is God patient with
them, and poureth forth His mercy upon them. The mercy of man is
toward his neighbour, but the mercy of God is upon all flesh; He
reproveth, and nurtureth, and teacheth, and bringeth again as a
shepherd his flock" (Ecclus. xviii. 9-14). In such wise had some who
waited for the consolation of Israel grasped God's promises by
anticipation, seeing them afar off and being persuaded of them. Such
men owned themselves, equally with the Apostle, to be strangers and
pilgrims, and sought for that inheritance which Christ sent him to
preach.
The word "wishing" (βουλόμενος) implies deliberate consent.
This God does not give to the death of any sinner. If any perish, it
is not because God so desired or designed. But some will ask, "Why,
then, should any perish?" St. Peter in this sentence, full of grace,
supplies the answer. They continue in sin, and repent not. Even offers
of mercy are of no avail. But why does not the Almighty Father drive
them to repentance by His judgements? Because He has made His children
free, and asks from them a willing service. They are to _come_ to
repentance. The invitation is full and free. Christ says, "Come unto
Me, all ye that labour." Nay, God makes at times a less demand: "Look
unto Me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth." Could words
breathe more of mercy? To come, to look--that is the sole demand. God
bestows all besides. Let men but manifest a desire, and His grace is
poured forth. He wisheth not that any should perish.
And Christ, too, when He speaks of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, has
the same lesson. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all conspire
to further the work of man's salvation. "All things," said our Lord,
"whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine. Therefore said I, He shall take
of Mine, and shall show" (R.V. declare) "it unto you." But the eye to
see what He shows, the ear to hear His declarations--these He asks
from men. He willeth that they should _come_ to repentance, and
through that gate should come to Him.
XXIX
"_WHAT MANNER OF PERSONS OUGHT YE TO BE?_"
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works
that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing that these things are
thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be
in _all_ holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly
desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat? But, according to His promise, we look
for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness."--2 PETER iii. 10-13.
The Apostle, ever earnest to put the brethren in mind of the things
they had heard or read, never fails to follow his own precept. His
thoughts perpetually go back to the words of Jesus, of which the
passage before us is but one example out of many. "If the master of
the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have
watched" (Luke xii. 39). So spake Christ to the disciples when urging
them to be like unto servants that look for the coming of their lord.
To the Master's parable St. Peter now gives its application: _But the
day of the Lord will come as a thief_. He means first to mark the
unexpected advent, which steals upon men when they least think of it.
Sinners will have lulled themselves into security, and the thought
farthest from their minds will be the all-important preparation. St.
Paul uses the same figure in speaking of the same subject (1 Thess.
v. 2), from which passage the words "in the night" have found their
way into the text of St. Peter, to which, as the Revised Version
indicates, they do not belong. And in the Epistle to the Hebrews the
Apostle has defined the preparation which, joined with patience,
should keep men in readiness for the certain advent: "Exhorting one
another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching" (Heb. x.
25).
St. Peter passes on to tell of the terrors which shall attend on that
day. Here also he has in mind the words of his Master, who, after a
prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, spake of that greater coming
of the Son of man of which the overthrow of the Holy City was to be
but a partial type: "There shall be signs in sun and moon and stars,
and upon the earth distress of nations, in perplexity for the roaring
of the sea and the billows, men fainting for fear and for expectation
of the things that are coming on the world, for the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken" (Luke xxi. 25; Matt. xxiv. 29). With the
Lord's language for his warrant, he paints, largely in the words of
the prophets of old, the things which shall befall the world in that
great and notable day: _In the which the heavens shall pass away with
a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat,
and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up_.
Isaiah had used like words of old: "All the host of heaven shall be
dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll" (Isa.
xxxiv. 4); and in another place he speaks (xxiv. 19) of the earth as
utterly broken, clean dissolved, moved exceedingly; Micah has to
proclaim the coming of the Lord, and he pictures it thus: "The
mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft
as wax before the fire" (Micah i. 4); and Nahum, describing the day of
the Lord which he foresaw was coming upon Nineveh, says, "The
mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt; and the earth is upheaved
at His presence, yea the world and all that dwell therein." It is St.
Peter's, by the light of the words of Jesus, to read their full
purport into these prophetic messages, and to teach those upon whom
the ends of the ages are come that all these things will have their
consummation in that coming of the Lord which shall be the close of
these latter days.
When thus considered his description contains many striking details.
"The heavens will pass away." Christ Himself had so spoken, not of
heaven only, but of the earth also. His word was the same which Peter
employs, but He used it in the same sentence thus: "My word will not
pass away" (Matt. xxiv. 35). That is the one thing to which we may
trust. All else will be destroyed or changed. Only those who are in
Christ will be fit for the new order. For them old things are passed
away; behold, they are become new (2 Cor. v. 17). They have been
purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and so can abide the day of
Christ's coming.
To describe the dread process he has a striking word, which, like so
many of the Apostle's expressions, is used nowhere else in the New
Testament: "With a great noise" (ῥοιζηδόν). It is applied
to many sounds of terror: to the hurtling of weapons as they fly
through the air; to the sound of a lash as it is brought down for the
blow; to the rushing of waters; to the hissing of serpents. He has
chosen it as if by it he would unite many horrors in one.
Then the thought of nature's dissolution. All that was bound together
at the Creation, and then received a law of cohesion which sustained
it thenceforth, will be cast loose, the compacted world dissolved.
These things have been thought of as emblems of stability. God hath
made the round world so fast that it cannot be moved (Psalm civ. 5),
but He who made can also unmake. How foolish then must they be who
bound their thoughts and aims by what the world can give, making
themselves thereby of the earth, earthy, and so sure to fail when that
is destroyed. And what are those works that are in the earth of which
the Apostle speaks? Do the words mean no more than "the world and all
that therein is," a phrase so common in Scripture? At first sight it
appears so. But some most ancient manuscripts, instead of "shall be
burned up," read "shall be discovered." Of this the Revised Version
takes note on its margin. From this reading the mind goes to the words
of the Preacher, "God shall bring every work into judgement, with
every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil" (Eccles.
xii. 14). The sense is thus bound closer with the coming of the day of
the Lord.