'An entrance ... my decease.'--2 Peter i. 11, 15.
I do not like, and do not often indulge in, the practice of taking
fragments of Scripture for a text, but I venture to isolate these two
words, because they correspond to one another, and when thus isolated
and connected, bring out very prominently two aspects of one thing. In
the original the correspondence is even closer, for the words, literally
rendered, are 'a going in' and 'a going out.' The same event is looked
at from two sides. On the one it is a departure; on the other it is an
arrival. That event, I need not say, is Death.
I note, further, that the expression rendered, 'my decease,' employs the
word which is always used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament
to express the departure of the Children of Israel from bondage, and
which gives its name, in our language, to the Second Book of the
Pentateuch. 'My exodus'--associations suggested by the word can scarcely
fail to have been in the writer's mind.
Further, I note that this expression for Death is only employed once
again in the New Testament--viz., in St. Luke's account of the
Transfiguration, where Moses and Elias spake with Jesus 'concerning His
decease--the exodus--which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.' If you
look on to the verses which follow the second of my texts, you will see
that the Apostle immediately passes on to speak about that
Transfiguration, and about the voice which He heard then in the holy
mount. So that I think we must suppose that in the words of our second
text he was already beginning to think about the Transfiguration, and
was feeling that, somehow or other, his 'exodus' was to be conformed to
his Master's.
Now bearing all these points in mind, let us just turn to these words
and try to gather the lessons which they suggest.