THE PAROUSIA IN THE EPISTLES OF ST. PETER
THE PAROUSIA IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. PETER.
It is evident that this epistle,
like that of St. James, belongs to the period called ‘the last times.’ Like his
fellow-witness and brother-apostle James, St. Peter addresses his exhortations
to Hebrew Christians of the dispersion; for this is the only natural
interpretation of the title give to them in the first verse. The contents
sufficiently evince that the epistle was written in a time of suffering for the
sake of Christ. The disciples were ‘in heaviness through manifold temptations;’
but a far severer time of trial was approaching, and for this they are exhorted
to prepare: ‘Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is
to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you’ (1 Pet. iv. 12).
They are comforted, moreover, with the prospect of final and speedy
deliverance.
It is necessary to read this epistle in the light of the
actual circumstances of the time when, and of the persons to whom, it was
written. Whatever may be its uses and lessons for other times and persons, its
primary and special bearing upon the Jews of the dispersion in the apostolic age
must not be lost sight of.
SALVATION
READY TO BE REVEALED IN THE LAST TIME.
1 Pet. i. 5.---‘You, who are kept
by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed I the
last time.’
Every word in this opening address is full of meaning, and
implies the near approach of a great and decisive crisis. In ver. 4 we have a
very distinct allusion to the ‘inheritance,’ which is the theme of so large a
portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that is to say, the true Canaan, ‘the
rest remaining for the people of God.’ In very similar language St. Peter
styles it ‘the inheritance reserved in heaven,’ and represents the entering
upon it by believers as now very near. Salvation is ‘ready to be revealed.’
What this ‘salvation’ means is very evident; it is not the personal
glorification of individual souls at death, but a great and collective
deliverance, in which the people of God generally are to participate: such a
salvation as God wrought for Israel on the shores of the Red Sea. In the same
way St. Paul uses the same word with reference to this same approaching
consummation: ‘Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed’ (Rom. xiii.
11).
This great general deliverance was not a distant
event, it was now ‘ready to be revealed,’ on the very eve of being made
manifest. As Alford remarks, the word e t o i m h n [ready] is stronger than m e l l o u s a n . To understand this as
referring to individual believers entering into heaven one by one at the hour
of death, or as an admission into a heavenly state which has not yet been
granted, is utterly repugnant to the plain sense of the words.
The salvation is ready to be revealed in ‘the last time,’
that is to say, ‘now,’ the time then present. We have already had
occasion to notice that the apostles call their own time ‘the last time.’ They
believed and they taught that they were living in the last times, and this must
be reconcilable with fact, if their credit as faithful and authorised witnesses
for Christ is to be maintained. They were justified in their belief: they were
living in the last times, in the closing period of the Jewish aeon or age. In
the twentieth verse of this chapter we find the same designation given to the
time of Christ’s incarnation: ‘Who was manifested in these last times [at the
last of the times] for you.’ To say that the apostle regards the whole period
from the beginning of the New Testament dispensation till Christ’s coming in
glory, in some future and possibly still distant age, as one short time called
the last days, is a most unnatural and forced interpretation. The apostle is
evidently speaking of a period of crisis, and to make a crisis extend
over thousands of years is to do violence not only to the grammatical sense of
words but to the nature of things.
At the risk of repetition we may here observe, that,
according to New Testament usage, we are to conceive of the period between the
incarnation of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem as the close of an epoch
or aeon. It was in the end of the age [e p i s u n t e l i a t w n a i w n w n = close upon the end of
the ages] that ‘Christ appeared to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself’
(Heb. ix. 26). This whole period of about seventy years is regarded as ‘the
last time;’ but it is natural that the phrase should have a sharper
accentuation when the Jewish war, the beginning of the end, was on the eve of
breaking out, if it had not already begun.
THE APPROACHING REVELATION OF JESUS
CHRIST.
1 Pet. i. 7.---‘That the trial of your faith . . . may be
found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the revelation of Jesus Christ.’
1 Pet. i. 13.---‘Hope conclusively [t e l e i w z ] for the
grace which is being brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.’
Everything in the apostle’s exhortation conveys the idea of
eager expectancy and preparation. The salvation is ready to be revealed; the
tried and persecuted believers are to ‘gird up the loins of their mind;’ the
expected boon, the grace, is on its way,---it is being brought unto
them. Alford properly remarks that the word f e r o m e n h n [being brought] signifies
‘the near impending of the event spoken of; q.d. which is even now
bearing down on you.’ Does not this plainly prove that St. Peter understood,
and wished his readers to understand, that this apocalypse of Jesus Christ was
just at hand? It would have been mockery to tell suffering and persecuted men
to get ready to receive a salvation which was not due for hundreds and
thousands of years.
THE RELATION OF THE REDEMPTION OF
CHRIST TO THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD.
1 Pet. iii. 18-20.---‘For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring
us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit: in
which he also went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which were once
disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while
the ark was preparing.’ etc.
The common interpretation of this difficult passage given by
the majority of Protestant expositors is, that Christ, in effect, preached to
the antediluvians by His Holy Spirit through the ministry of Noah. This no
doubt asserts a truth, and has besides the advantage of keeping within the
lines of well-known historical facts, and avoiding what seems dark and doubtful
speculation. Nevertheless, as a question of grammar, this interpretation is
wholly untenable. First, it is reasonable to expect a chronological sequence in
the various parts of the apostle’s statement, describing what Christ did after
‘being put to death in the flesh.’ What would be more harsh and abrupt than the
sudden transition from the narrative of what Christ did and suffered in the
flesh to what He had done, in a sense, some thousands of years before, in the
days of Noah? Further, the rendering ‘being quickened by the Spirit,’
and ‘by which also,’ implying that the Holy Spirit was the agent by whom
Christ was made alive, and by whom He preached, etc., is clearly wrong. It
ought to be, ‘Being put to death in [his] flesh, but made alive in [his]
spirit,’---the flesh being His body, and the Spirit His soul.
Then the apostle adds, ‘in which also,’ viz. in his soul, or human
spirit. Further, as Ellicott has pointed out, p o r e u q e i z [having gone] ‘suggests a
literal and local descent.’
There seems no escape therefore, according to the true and
natural sense of words, from the interpretation---that our Lord, after His
death on the cross, went in His disembodied state into Hades, the place of
departed spirits, and there made proclamation [preached] to the spirits in
prison, viz. the antediluvians, who in the days of Noah disbelieved the
prophet’s warnings and perished in the flood. This, which is the most ancient
interpretation, is now generally conceded by the most eminent critics. It is
that which is embodied in the Apostle’s Creed; it has the sanction of Luther
and Calvin; and it seems to be supported by other passages in Scripture which
are in harmony with this explanation. In St. Peter’s sermon on the day of
Pentecost (Acts ii. 27-31) there is a distinct allusion to the soul of Christ
having been in Hades; also in Ephes. iv. 9,---‘Now that he ascended, what is it
but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?’ It is
difficult to suppose that the burial of the body is all that is meant by His
descending into the lower parts of the earth.
The more important question remains,---What was the object
of our Lord’s descent into Hades? It can hardly be doubted that it was a
gracious one. The apostle says, ‘He preached [e k h r u x e n ] to the spirits in
prison,’---and what could He preach but glad tidings? This fact gives a new and
larger significance to the terms of our Lord’s commission: ‘He hat sent me to
proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound’ (Isa. lxi. 1). The hypothesis of Bishop Horsley and others that
those spirits in prison were in fact saints, or at least penitents, awaiting
the period of their full salvation, scarcely requires refutation. If any thing
is clear on the face of the question, it is that they were the spirits of those
who had perished for their disobedience, and in their disobedience. As Bishop Ellicott
remarks, a p e i q h s a s i n means, not ‘who were
disobedien,’ but ‘inasmuch as they were disobedient.’
But it may be said, Why should the disobedient antediluvians
have been selected as the objects of a gracious mission? Were there no other
lost souls in Hades, and why should these find grace beyond others? Bishop
Horsley owns this to be a difficulty, and the greatest by which his
interpretation is embarrassed. Alford finds a reason, if we rightly apprehend
him, in the manner of their death. ‘The reason of mentioning here these sinners
above other sinners, appears to be their connection with the type of baptism
which follows;’ but surely this is to ascribe an efficacy to that institution
beyond the boldest theories of baptismal regeneration. We venture to suggest
that the true reason lies in the nature of that great judicial act which took
place at the deluge. That was the close of an age or aeon, and ended in a
catastrophe, as the aeon then in progress was just about to terminate. The two
cases were analogous. As the deluge was the close and consummation of a former
aeon, or world-period, so the destruction of Jerusalem and the abrogation of
the Jewish economy were about to close the existing world-period or aeon. What
more natural on the eve of such a catastrophe as the apostle anticipated, than
to advert to the catastrophe of a former aeon? What more pertinent than to note
the fact that the ‘coming salvation’ had a retrospective effect upon those
bygone ages? It is not difficult to see the connection of the ideas in the
apostle’s train of thought. The deluge was the s u n t e l e i a t o u a i w n o z of Noah’s time; another s u n t e l e i a was just at hand. The ‘old
world, that then was,’ perished in the baptismal waters of the flood; the
‘world which now is’---the Mosaic order, the Jewish polity and people---was
about to be submerged in a baptism of fire (Mal. iv. 1; Matt. iii. 11, 12; 1
Cor. iii. 13; 2 Thess. i. 7-10). Was it not appropriate to show that the
redemptive work of Christ joined, and indeed covered, both these aeons, and
looked backward on the past as well as forward to the future?
Notwithstanding, then, the mystery and obscurity which
confessedly overhand the subject, we are led to the conclusion that the apostle
in this passage does plainly teach that our blessed Lord, after His death upon
the cross, descended as a disembodied spirit into Hades, the place of departed
spirits, and there proclaimed the glad tidings of His accomplished redemption
to the multitudes of the lost who perished at the catastrophe or final judgment
of the former aeon; and though we have in the present passage no express affirmation
that those who heard the announcement made by our Saviour were in consequence
delivered from their prison-house, and introduced into ‘the glorious liberty of
the sons of God,’ yet it seems not incredible, it is even presumable, that this
emancipation was both the object and result of Christ’s interposition. We have
already referred to Ephes. iv. 9 as lending support to this view. ‘Now that he
ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of
the earth?’ Bishop Hersley shows that the phrase ‘the lower parts of the earth’
in the proper and customary designation of Hades. In the same passage
the apostle speaks of the triumphant ascension of Christ in these words: ‘When
he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.’
Does not the teaching of St. Peter with reference to ‘the spirits in prison’
throw light on this ‘leading of captivity captive?’ Does it not suggest that
the returning Saviour, having fought the fight and won the victory, enjoyed also
the triumph---that He brought back with Him to heaven a great multitude whom He
had rescued from captivity; the spirits in prison to whom He carried the glad
tidings of redemption achieved; and who, being brought out of their
prison-house, accompanied the returning conqueror to His Father’s house, at
once the ransomed by His blood and the trophies of His power?
Before quitting this subject it may be well to quote some
opinions of Biblical critics in reference to it.
Steiger, who treats the whole passage in a most candid and
scholarly manner, says,---
‘The plain and literal sense of the words in this verse
(19), viewed in connection with the following one, compels us to adopt the
opinion that Christ manifested Himself to the unbelieving dead.’ ‘We
must admit that the discourse here is of a proclamation of the Gospel
among those who had died in unbelief, but we know not whether it found an
entrance into many or few.’ ‘The expression e n f u l a k h (which the Syriac renders
by Sheol; the fathers use it as synonymous with Hades) shows that the
discourse can only be respecting unbelievers.’ ‘He who lay under death,
entered into the empire of the dead as a conqueror, proclaiming freedom to its
imprisoned subjects.’
Dean Alford’s opinion is very decided:---
‘From all, then, that has been said, it will be gathered
that, with the great majority of commentators, ancient and modern, I understand
these words to say that our Lord, in His disembodied state, did go to the place
of detention of departed spirits, and did there announce His work of
redemption, preach salvation, in fact, to the disembodied spirits of those who
refused to obey the voice of God when the judgment of the flood was hanging
over them. Why these rather than others are mentioned---whether merely as a
sample of like gracious work on others, or for some special reason unimaginable
by us,---we cannot say.’
In an interesting discourse on ‘The Intermediate State,’ by
the Rev. J. Stratten, the following observations occur:---
‘If this passage mean no more than that the Holy Spirit
assisted Noah in preaching to the antediluvians, it is a most obscure,
entangled, and unaccountable manner of expressing a most clear and simple
principle. Would any of us employ this language, or any at all like it, to
express that sentiment? I think not, and it seems to be only the refuge of a
mind that does not understand the apostle, or seeks to misinterpret him.’
We may here, in passing, notice that such a deliverance from
Hades serves vividly to illustrate the saying of St. Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 26:
‘The last enemy, death, shall be destroyed.’
NEARNESS OF JUDGMENT AND OF THE END OF
ALL THINGS.
1 Pet. iv. 5, 7.---‘Who shall give
an account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. . . . But the end
of all things is at hand, be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.’
In these passages we find again, what we have so often found
before, the clear apprehension of the judgment and of the end as nigh at hand.
In ver. 5 the apostle intimates that God was about to sit in
judgment upon the living and the dead. This cannot possibly refer to that
particular act of judgment which is, as we believe, always near to every man,
in the same sense as death and eternity are always near. It is obviously a
solemn, public, general adjudication, in which the living and the
dead were together to answer for themselves before the tribunal of God.
This approach of judgment follows course from the approach of the Parousia,
which is so distinctly intimated in chap. i. 5. All that has been stated in
regard to that passage applies with equal force to this; e t o i m w z e c o n t i = having it in readiness
to judge, is a stronger expression than m e l l o n t i , and can by no means
refer to any but an almost immediate event.
No less decisive is the statement in ver. 7, ‘The end of all
things is at hand.’ Whatever that end may mean it is certain that the
apostle conceives of it as near, for he urges it as a motive to vigilance and
prayer. To comprehend the full force of the exhortation we must place ourselves
in the situation of these apostolic Christians. As year after year lessened the
distance to the passing away of the generation that saw and rejected the Son of
man, the anticipation of the arrival of the great predicted consummation must
have become more and more vivid in the minds of Christian believers. What their
conceptions were as to the nature and extent of that consummation; whether they
imagined that it involved the dissolution of the whole frame and fabric of the
material world or not, it is not for us to determine. What we have to do with
is not the private opinions of the apostles, but their public utterances. But
that the consummation designated by our Lord ‘the end,’ and ‘the end of the
age,’ was rapidly approaching, is not an open question, but a point of faith
involving the truth of all His claims. There can be no doubt that in a Judaic
or religious sense, that is, so far as the national polity and ecclesiastical
system of Judaism were concerned, ‘the end of all things was at hand.’ All that
lay beneath the eye of our Lord as He sate on the brow of Olivet was swiftly
hurrying to destruction. This is the key to the meaning of St. Peter in this
passage, and furnishes the only tenable and scriptural explanation.
We quote with entire satisfaction and approval the
observations of a judicious expositor on the passage now before us:---
‘After some deliberation I have been led to adopt the
opinion of those who hold that "the end of all things" here is the
entire and final end of the Jewish economy in the destruction of the city and
the temple of Jerusalem, and the dispersion of the holy people. That was at
hand; for this epistle seems to have been written a very short while before
these events took place, not improbably after the commencement of the
"wars and rumours of wars" of which our Lord spake. This view will
not appear strange to any one who has carefully weighed the terms in which our
Lord had predicted these events, and the close connection which the fulfilment
of these predictions had with the interests and duties of Christians, whether
in Judea or in Gentile countries.
‘It is quite plain that in our Lord’s predictions the
expressions "the end," and probably "the end of the world,"
are used in reference to the entire dissolution of the Jewish economy. The
events of that period were very minutely foretold, and our Lord distinctly stated
that the existing generation should not pass away till all things respecting
"this end" should be fulfilled. This was to be a season of suffering
to all; of trial, severe trial, to the followers of Christ; of dreadful
judgment on His Jewish opposers, and of glorious triumph to His religion. To
this period there are repeated references to the apostolical epistles.
"Knowing the time," says the Apostle Paul, "that now it is high
time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand." "Be patient," says
the Apostle James; "stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord
draweth nigh." "The Judge standeth before the door." Our Lord’s
predictions must have been very familiar to the minds of Christians at the time
this was written. They must have been looking forward with mingled awe and joy,
fear and hope, to their accomplishment: "looking for the things which were
coming upon the earth;" and it was peculiarly natural for Peter to refer to
these events, and to refer to them in words similar to those used by our Lord,
as he was one of the disciples who, sitting with his Lord in full view of the
city and temple, heard these predictions uttered.
‘The Christians inhabiting Judea had a peculiar interest in
these predictions and their fulfilment. But all Christians had a deep interest
in them. The Christians of the regions in which those to whom Peter wrote
resided were chiefly converted Jews. As Christians they had cause to rejoice in
the prospect of the accomplishment of the predictions, as greatly confirming
the truth of Christianity and removing some of the greatest obstructions in the
way of its progress, such as persecutions by the Jews, and the confounding of
Christianity with Judaism on the part of the Gentiles, who were accustomed to
view its professors as a Jewish sect. But while they rejoice, they cause to
"rejoice with trembling," as their Lord had plainly intimated that it
was to be a season of severe trial to His friends, as well as of fearful
vengeance against His enemies. "The end of all things," which was at
hand, seems to be the same thing as the judgment of the quick and the dead,
which the Lord was ready to enter on---the judgment, the time for which was
come, which was to begin with the house of God, the unbelieving Jews, in which
the rigteous should scarcely be saved, and the ungodly and wicked should be
fearfully punished.
‘The contemplation of such events as just at hand was well
fitted to operate as a motive to sobriety and vigilance unto prayer. These were
just the tempers and exercises peculiarly called for in such circumstances, and
they were just the dispositions and employments required by our Lord when He
speaks of those days of trial and wrath: "Take heed to yourselves,"
says our Lord, "lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with
surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day come
on you unawares; for as a snare shall it come upon all who dwell on the earth.
Watch, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape
all these things that are about to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of
man." It is difficult to believe that the apostle had not these very words
in his mind when he wrote the passage now before us.’---Expository Discourses
on 1 Peter, by Dr. John Brown, Edinburgh, vol. ii. pp. 292-294.
THE GOOD TIDINGS ANNOUNCED TO THE
DEAD.
1 Pet. iv. 6.---‘For, for this
cause was the gospel preached to the dead also [k a i n e k r o i z e u h g g e l i s q h ], that
they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God
in the spirit.’
Perhaps the passage above cited can scarcely be said to fall
within the scope of this discussion, as it does not seem to have any direct
bearing upon the time of the Parousia; and its extreme difficulty might be a
good reason for avoiding its examination altogether. Nevertheless, as it
manifestly belongs to the eschatology of the New Testament, and as we have no
right to look upon it as hopelessly insoluble, it seems better not to pass it
by in silence.
There can be little doubt that the present is one of a class
of difficult passages which, though obscure to us, were intelligible and easy
to the original readers of the epistles. (See 1 Cor. xi. 10; xv. 29.) A passing
allusion might bring up a whole train of thought in their minds, so that they
easily comprehended what hopelessly embarrasses us. Paley, in his Horae
Paulinae, chap. x. No. 1, adverts to this difficulty in a real correspondence
falling into the hands of a third party.
The general scope of the argument is sufficiently plain. The
apostle begins the chapter by calling upon the suffering and persecuted
disciples to imitate the example of their once suffering but now victorious
Lord : ‘Arm yourselves with the same resolution,’ i.e. suffer as He did,
even unto death, if need be. In the next verses he alludes to their former
godless and sensual life, and the offence which the change to the purity of a
Christian behaviour gave to their heathen neighbours (vers. 2, 3, 4). This
silent but living protest against the immorality of heathenism appears to have
been one cause of the general antipathy to the Gospel which found vent in
slanderous imputations against the unoffending Christians,---‘Speaking evil of you’
(blasfhmountez). But these calumniators
and persecutors would soon be called to account by Him who was about to judge
both the living and the dead (ver. 5).
It will be found very important to bear in mind this opening
of the apostle’s argument, as leading up to the statement in ver. 6.
Let us now look at that statement. ‘For, for this cause was
the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged
according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.’
It may be truly said that there are here as many
difficulties as there are words. When, where, and by whom was the Gospel
preached to the dead? Who were the dead to whom the Gospel was preached? Why
was it preached to them? How could the dead be judged according to men in the
flesh? How could they live according to God in the spirit? And how did the
preaching of the Gospel to the dead bring about this result,---‘that they
should live according to God in the spirit’?
It would answer no good purpose to pass in review the multitude
of explanations of this obscure passage proposed by different commentators. Let
is suffice to look at one or two of the most plausible.
To the question, Who were the dead to whom the Gospel is
said to have been preached? some think it a sufficient answer to reply, They
are those, now dead, who were alive in the flesh when the Gospel was
preached unto them. This would be an easy solution if it were permissible so to
construe the words of the apostle; but it is a fatal objection to this
explanation that it makes the apostle state a very simple and obvious fact in
an unaccountably obscure and ambiguous way. The words themselves reject such an
explanation. Alford does not speak too strongly when he says,---
‘If kai nekroiz euhggelisqh may mean "the gospel was preached to some during their
lifetime who are now dead," exegesis has no longer any fixed rule, and
Scripture may be made to prove anything.’
Others suppose that by the ‘dead’ in ver. 6 are to be
understood the spiritually dead; but to this there are two
insurmountable objections: first, this does not discriminate a particular
class, for all men are spiritually dead when the Gospel is first preached to
them; and, secondly, it gives to the word nekroi [the dead] in ver. 6 a different meaning from the same word
in ver. 5---‘the living and the dead.’ According to this interpretation, the
word ‘dead’ is used in a literal sense in ver. 5, and in an ethical sense in
ver. 6. But, as Alford justly says,---
‘All interpretations mus be false which do not give nekroiz in ver. 6 the same meaning
as nekrouz in ver. 5, i.e. that
of dead men, literally and simply so called; men who have died, and are
in their graves.’
But probably the most common opinion is that the apostle
here alludes again to the preaching of Christ to the spirits in prison referred
to in chap. iii. 19, 20; and at first this seems the most natural explanation.
That was, no doubt, a preaching of the Gospel to the dead, and also to a
particular class of the dead, the antediluvians who formerly were disobedient
in the days of Noah, and who were overtaken by the judgment of God.
But when we come to examine more closely the statement of
the apostle we find that this application of his words will by no means suit
the persons designated ‘the spirits in prison.’ How could the antediluvians be
said to be ‘judged according to men in the flesh’? They perished by the
visitation of God, and not by the judgment or act of man; and it appears
evident that the succeeding clause---‘that they might live according to God in
the spirit’---implies the reversal of the human condemnation which had been
passed upon the dead while still in the body.
None of the ordinary explanations, therefore, seems to meet
the requirements of the case. Those requirements are, to find a class of the
dead to whom the Gospel was preached after their death; who were condemned to
death when in the flesh by the judgment of men, but who are destined to live in
the spirit, according to the judgment of God, and this is consequence of the
Gospel being preached to them after death.
We are at once led to conclude that this particular class,
judged or condemned by human judgment, must refer to persecuted disciples of
Christ. It is to such and of such that the apostle is speaking, as is
evident from the opening verses of the chapter. It would be quite proper to say
of such, that though (unjustly) condemned by man they would be vindicated by
God. It is also proper to say of such (especially, if martyrs for the faith)
that they had ‘suffered in the flesh’---had been put to death by human
judgment, but were made alive in spirit, or as to their spirits, and this
according to God, or by the divine judgment. But there still remains the
formidable difficulty presented by the words ‘the gospel was preached to them that
are dead.’ We have no account in the New Testament of any such preaching to
Christian martyrs after their death. But are we necessarily obliged to give
this sense to the word euhggelisqh? It is here, we believe, that the key to the true
explication of this passage will be found; and it is the wrong interpretation
of this word that has misled commentators. Though it is very commonly used in
the technical sense of preaching the Gospel, this is by no means its invariable
use in the New Testament. It is employed to signify the announcement of any
good news, and not exclusively the glad tidings of the Gospel. Thus in Heb. iv.
2, improperly rendered in our Authorized Version ‘to us was the gospel
preached, as well as unto them,’ there is no allusion to the preaching of the
Gospel in the technical sense of the phrase, but simply to the fact that ‘to us
as well as to the ancient Israelites good news have been brought’ [esmen enhggelismenoi], the good news in both
cases being the promise of entering into God’s rest. So in a still more general
sense the word is used to denote any pleasing intelligence, as in 1 Thess. iii.
6: ‘When Timotheus brought us good tidings of your faith,’ etc. [euaggelisamenou hmin]. So also in Rev. x. 7:
‘As he hath declared [euhggelisen = made a comforting declaration] to his servants the prophets.’ (See
also Gal. iii. 8).
But the question still recurs, Where have we in the New
Testament any allusion to such good news, pleasing intelligence, or comforting
declarations, made to any Christian confessors or martyrs after their death?
The apostle seems to speak of some fact familiarly known to the persons to whom
he wrote, and which he had only to allude to in order that they should at once
recognise his meaning. Now, we actually have a historical representation in the
New Testament in which we find all these circumstances present. We have a scene
depicted in which Christian martyrs, who had been condemned and put to death in
the flesh by the judgment of man, appeal to the justice of God against their
persecutors, and a comforting declaration is brought to them, after their
death, giving them the assurance of speedy vindication and of a glorious
heavenly recompense.
We allude of course to the striking representation given in
the Apocalypse of the martyred souls under the alter, appealing to God for the
vindication of their cause against their persecutors and murderers---‘them that
dwell in the land’---and which is thus described in Rev. 9-11:---
‘And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the
alter the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the
testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long,
O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that
dwell on the earth [the land]? And a white robe was given to every one of them;
and it was said unto them [erreqh = euhggelisqh] that they should rest yet for a little season, until
their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed as they
were, should be fulfilled.’
This seems exactly to meet all the requirements of the case.
Here we find the nekroi,
the Christian dead; they were judged or condemned in the flesh, by man’s
judgment, or ‘according to men;’ they had been put to death ‘for the word of
God, and for the testimony which they held.’ We find a comforting declaration
made to them in their disembodied state, and we have the lacuna in the epistle
filled up in the apocalyptic vision, for we are informed what led to this euaggelion being brought to them;
they are assured that in a little while their cause should be vindicated,
according to their prayer; meanwhile ‘a white robe,’ the symbol of purity and
victory, ‘is given unto every one of them,’ which is surely equivalent to their
being justified by the divine judgment.
But this correspondence, striking as it is, is not the
whole; the apostle’s statement is not only elucidated by the Apocalypse on the
one hand, but by the gospel on the other. Most commentators have noticed the
obvious relation between the scene of the martyrs’ souls under the alter in the
apocalyptic vision and the remarkable parable of our Lord in Luke xviii.; but,
so far as we have observed, none of them have seized the true analogy between
the parable and the vision. In the seventh and eighth verses of that chapter we
find the moral of the parable, ‘And shall not God avenge his own elect, which
cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he
will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he
find faith on the earth [in the land]?’ The parable and the vision are, in
fact, counterparts of each other, and both serve to explain the passage in this
epistle of St. Peter. As in the Apocalypse, so in the parable, we find all the
elements of the statement in the epistle. We have Christian disciples suffering
unjustly; condemned in the flesh by man’s judgment; appealing to God to judge
their cause; we have the assurance of their speedy vindication by God, and we
find in the gospel an additional feature which brings it into more perfect
correspondence with the statement in the epistle; for it is evidently suggested
that this vindication is to take place at the Parousia,---‘when the Son of man
cometh.’
Lastly, we may point out the intimate connection between the
statement of the apostle as thus interpreted and the argument which he is
carrying on. It was appropriate to assure persecuted believers that their cause
was safe in the hands of God; that, even if called to suffer unto blood and
unto death by the unjust sentence of men, God would vindicate them speedily,
for He was about to summon their persecutors before His tribunal. This was the
lesson of the parable of the importunate widow, and perhaps still more of the
vision of the martyrs’ souls under the altar, to which the language of the
apostle seems more particularly to allude,---‘For to this end a comforting
declaration was brought even to the dead, that though they had been condemned
in the flesh by the unjust judgment of men, yet they should in their spirit enjoy
eternal life, according to the righteous judgment of God.’
This interpretation assumes that the Apocalypse was written
and widely circulated before the destruction of Jerusalem. It is a reflection
upon the critical acumen of many eminent English commentators that they should
have leaned so long upon the broken reed of tradition in regard to the date of
the Apocalypse. The internal evidence of that book ought to have prevented the
possibility of their being misled by the authority of Irenaeus. But we must
reserve any further remarks on this subject until we come to the consideration
of the Apocalypse.
THE FIERY TRIAL AND THE COMING GLORY.
1 Pet. iv. 12, 13.---‘Beloved,
think it not strange concerning the fiery ordeal which is taking place for a
trial to you, as though some strange thing were happening unto you; but
rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that when his
glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.’
These words clearly indicate that Christians everywhere were
at this time passing through a severe sifting and testing---‘a fiery ordeal.’
And not merely a fiery trial, but the trial, long predicted and
expected, viz. the great tribulation which was to precede the Parousia.
The apostles warned the disciples that the ‘must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of God’ (Acts xiv. 22). They had themselves been taught
this by the Lord Himself, especially in His prophetic discourse.
The predicted tribulation had evidently set in; they were
actually passing through the fire. It is impossible here not to be reminded of
the words of St. Paul,---‘It shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try
every man’s work, of what sort it is’ (1 Cor. iii. 13). It is highly probable
that the fierce persecution under Nero was raging at this juncture, and we have
good authority for believing that it extended beyond Rome to the provinces of
the Empire.
Another indication of time is found in ver. 13,---‘That when
his glory shall be revealed.’ The Parousia is always represented as bringing
relief from persecution, and recompense to the suffering people of God. We have
already seen that the glory was ‘ready to be revealed,’ and we shall find the
same assurance repeated in chap. v. 1.
THE TIME OF JUDGMENT
ARRIVED.
1 Pet. iv. 17-19.---‘For the time
is come when the judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin
at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if
the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
Wherefore let them suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of
their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.’
It is worthy of remark how different the tone of St. Peter
in speaking of the day of the Lord is from St. Paul’s in the Second Epistle to
the Thessalonians. That day of which St. Paul speaks as not yet present, and as
not possible until the apostasy first appeared, is declared by St. Peter to be
come. The catastrophe was now imminent. ‘God was ready to judge the quick and
the dead;’ ‘the time was come for judgment to begin.’ The significance of these
words will be apparent if we consider that this epistle was written close upon
the outbreak of the Jewish war, if not after its actual commencement.
That this is ‘the judgment which must begin at the house of
God’ there can scarcely be a doubt. There is a manifest allusion in the
language of the apostle to the vision seen by the prophet Ezekiel (chap. ix.).
The prophet sees a band of armed men commissioned to go through the city
(Jerusalem), and to slay all, whether old or young, who had not the seal of God
upon their foreheads. The ministers of vengeance are commanded to begin the
work of judgment at the house of God,---‘Begin at my sanctuary.’ The apostle
sees this vision as about to be fulfilled in reality. The judgment must begin
at the House of God, and the time is come. It may be a question whether by ‘the
house of God’ the apostle intends the temple of Jerusalem, as the prophecy in
Ezekiel would suggest, or the spiritual house of God, the Christian church. It
may be that both ideas were present to his mind, as well they might, for both
were being verified at the moment. The persecution of the church of Christ had
already begun, as the epistle testifies, and the circle of blood and fire was
narrowing around the doomed city and temple of Jerusalem.
It is perfectly clear that all this is spoken with reference
to a particular and impending event, a catastrophe which was on the eve of
taking place; and there is not other explanation possible than that which lies
visible and palpable on the page of history, the judgment of the guilty
covenant nation, with the destruction of the house of God and the dissolution
of the Jewish economy.
The following remarks of Dr. John Brown well express the
sense of this passage:---
‘There seems here a reference to a particular judgment or
trial, that the primitive Christians had reason to expect. When we consider
that this epistle was written within a short time of the commencement of that
awful scene of judgment which terminated in the destruction of the
ecclesiastical and civil polity of the Jews, and which our Lord had so minutely
predicted, we can scarcely doubt of the reference of the apostle’s expression.
After having specified wars and rumours of wars, famines, pestilences, and
earthquakes, as symptoms of "the beginning of sorrows," our Lord
adds, "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you;
and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake." "They shall
deliver you up to councils and to synagogues, and shall be beaten," etc.
(Matt. xxiv. 9-13, 22).
‘This is the judgment which, though to fall most
heavily on the Holy Land, was plainly to extend to wherever Jews and Christians
were to be found, "for where the carcase was, there were the eagles to be
gathered together;" which was to begin at the house of God, and which was
to be so severe that "the righteous should scarcely," i.e. not
without difficulty, "be saved." They only who stood the trial should
be saved, and many would not stand the trial. All the truly righteous should be
saved; but many who seemed to be righteous would not endure to the end, and so
should not be saved, etc. Some have supposed the reference to be to the
Neronian persecution, which by a few years preceded the calamities connected
with the Jewish wars and destruction of Jerusalem.---Dr. John Brown on 1 Peter,
vol. ii. p. 357.
THE GLORY ABOUT TO BE
REVEALED.
1 Pet. v. 1.---‘The elders which
are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory about to be revealed.’
1 Pet. v. 4.---‘And when the chief Shepherd is
manifested, ye shall receive the unfading crown of glory.’
Everything in this chapter is indicative of the nearness
of the consummation. This is the motive to every duty, to fidelity, to
humility, to vigilance, to endurance. The glory is soon to be revealed [thz melloushz apokaluptesqai doxhz]; the
unfading crown is to be received by the faithful undershepherds when the chief
Shepherd is manifested; the sufferings of the persecuted church are to continue
only ‘a little while’ (ver. 10). All is suggestive of a great and happy
consummation which is on the very eve of arriving. Would the apostle speak of
an expected crown of glory as a motive to present faithfulness if it were
contingent on an uncertain and possibly far distant event? Yet if the chief
Shepherd has not yet been manifested, the crown of glory has not yet been
received. It is quite clear that to the apostle’s view the revelation of the
glory, the manifestation of the chief Shepherd, the reception of the unfading
crown, the end of suffering, were all in the immediate future. If he was
mistaken in this, is he trustworthy in anything?
On this passage (ver. 11) Alford observes:---
‘It would not be clear from this passage alone whether St.
Peter regarded the coming of the Lord as likely to occur in the life of these
his readers or not; but as interpreted by the analogy of his other expressions
on the same subject, it would appear that he did.’
Doubtless he did; and so did St. Paul, and St. James, and
St. John, and all the apostolic church; and they believed it on the highest
authority, the word of their divine Master and Lord.
THE PAROUSIA IN THE SECOND
EPISTLE OF ST. PETER.
It is no part of our plan to discuss the difficult and still
unsettled questions respecting the genuineness and authenticity of the Second
Epistle of Peter and the unsolved problem of the second chapter. We might perhaps,
in view of the difficulties which it presents in its eschatological teaching,
decline to accept its authority, but we accept it as it stands, honestly
believing that it bears indubitable internal evidence of apostolic origin. It
appears to have been written at no great interval after the first epistle, and
very shortly before the death of the apostle (chap. i. 14). Alford gives the
date conjecturally, A.D. 68.
SCOFFERS
IN ‘THE LAST DAYS.’
2 Pet. iii. 3, 4.---‘Knowing this
first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own
lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation.’
The scoffers referred to in this passage are no doubt
the same persons whose character is described in the preceding chapter.
Disbelief of God’s promises and threatenings, and especially of His coming
judgment, is the characteristic of these evil men of ‘the last times.’ We are
reminded by this description of these unbelievers, of our Lord’s prediction
with reference to the same period,---‘Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh,
shall he find faith in the land?’ (Luke xviii. 8.) It is worthy of notice also
that the apostle, in replying to their argument derived from the stability of
the creation, refers to the catastrophe of the deluge as an illustration of the
power of God to destroy the wicked: the very same illustration employed by our
Lord in referring to the state of things at the Parousia (Matt. xxiv. 37-39.)
It must not be forgotten that St. Peter is speaking, not of
a distant, but of an impending, catastrophe. The ‘last days’ were the days then
present (1 Pet. i. 5, 20), and the scoffers are spoken of as actually existing
(chap. iii. 5),---‘This they willingly are ignorant of,’ etc.
ESCHATOLOGY OF ST. PETER.
2 Pet. iii. 7, 10-12.---‘But the
heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men . .
. . But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up.
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting
unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we,
according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness.’
The imagery here employed by the apostle naturally suggests
the idea of the total dissolution by fire of the whole substance and fabric of
the material creation, not the earth only but the system to which it belongs;
and this no doubt is the popular notion of the final consummation which is
expected to terminate the present order of things. A little reflection,
however, and a better acquaintance with the symbolic language of prophecy, will
be sufficient to modify such a conclusion, and to lead to an interpretation
more in accordance with the analogy of similar descriptions in the prophetic
writings. First, it is evident on the face of the question that this universal
conflagration, as it may be called, was regarded by the apostle as on the eve
of taking place,---‘The end of all things is at hand’ (1 Pet. iv. 7). The
consummation was so near that it is described as an event to be ‘looked for,
and hastened unto’ (ver. 12.) It follows, therefore, that it could not be the
literal destruction or dissolution of the globe and the created universe
concerning which the spirit of prophecy here speaks. But that there was at the
moment when this epistle was written an awful and almost immediate catastrophe
impending; that the long-predicted ‘day of the Lord’ was actually at hand; that
the day did come, both speedily and suddenly; that it came ‘as a
thief in the night;’ that a fiery deluge of wrath and judgment overwhelmed the
guilty land and nation of Israel, destroying and dissolving its earthly things
and its heavenly things, that is to say, its temporal and spiritual
institutions,---is a fact indelibly imprinted on the page of history. The time
for the fulfillment of these predictions was now come, and when the apostle
wrote it was to declare that it was the ‘last time,’ and the very taunts of the
scoffers were verifying the fact. We are therefore brought to the inevitable
conclusion that it was the final catastrophe of Judea and Jerusalem, predicted
by our Lord in His prophecy on the Mount of Olives and so frequently referred
to by the apostles, to which St. Peter alludes in the symbolic imagery which
seems to imply the dissolution of the material universe.
Secondly, we must interpret these symbols according to the
analogy of Scripture. The language of prophecy is the language of poetry, and
is not to be taken in a strictly literal sense. Happily there is no lack of
parallel descriptions in the ancient prophets, and there is scarcely a figure
here used by St. Peter of which we may not find examples in the Old Testament, and
thus be furnished with a key to the meaning of like symbols in the New.
THE
CERTAINTY OF THE APPROACHING CONSUMMATION.
2 Pet. iii. 8, 9.---‘But, beloved,
be not ignorant of this one thing, 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 men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’
Few passages have suffered more from misconstruction than
this, which has been made to speak a language inconsistent with its obvious
intention, and even incompatible with a strict regard to veracity.
There is probably an allusion here to the words of the
psalmist, in which he contrasts the brevity of human life with the eternity of
the divine existence,---‘A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday
when it is past’ (Ps. xc. 4). It is a grand and impressive thought, and quite
in unison with the sentiment of the apostle,---‘One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years.’ But surely it would be the height of absurdity to regard this
sublime poetic image as a calculus for the divine measurement of time, or as
giving us a warrant for wholly disregarding definitions of time in the
predictions and promises of God.
Yet it is not unusual to quote these words as an argument or
excuse for the total disregard of the element of time in the prophetic
writings. Even in cases where a certain time is specified in the prediction, or
where such limitations as ‘shortly,’ or ‘speedily,’ or ‘at
hand’ are expressed, the passage before us is appealed to in justification
of an arbitrary treatment of such notes of time, so that soon may mean late,
and near may mean distant, and short may mean long, and
vice versa. When it is pointed out that certain predictions must,
according to their own terms, be fulfilled within a limited time, the reply is,
‘One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day.’ Thus we find an eminent critic committing himself to such a statement as
the following: ‘The apostles for the most part wrote and spoke of [the
Parousia] as soon to appear, not, however, without many and sufficient
hints of an interval, and that no short one, first to elapse.’ Another,
alluding to St. Paul’s prediction in 2 Thess. ii., remarks that ‘it tells us
that while the coming of the Lord was then near, it was also remote.’
These are specimens of what passes for exegesis in not a few commentators of
high repute.
It is surely unnecessary to repudiate in the strongest
manner such a non-natural method of interpreting the language of Scripture. It
is worse than ungrammatical and unreasonable, it is immoral. It is to suggest
that God has two weights and two measures in His dealings with men, and that in
His mode of reckoning there is an ambiguity and variableness which makes it
impossible to tell ‘what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in the prophets
may signify.’ It seems to imply that a day may not mean a day, nor a thousand
years a thousand years, but that either may be the other. If this were so,
there could be no interpretation of prophecy possible; it would be deprived of
all precision, and even of all credibility; for it is manifest that if there
could be such ambiguity and uncertainty in respect to time, there might
be no less ambiguity and uncertainty in respect to everything else.
The Scriptures themselves, however, give no countenance to
such a method of interpretation. Faithfulness is one of the attributes most
frequently ascribed to the ‘covenant-keeping God,’ and the divine faithfulness
is that which the apostle in this very passage affirms. To taunt of the
scoffers who impugn the faithfulness of God, and ask, ‘Where is the promise of
His coming?’ he answers, ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some
men count slackness;’ there is no fickleness nor forgetfulness in Him; the
lapse of time does not invalidate His word; His promise stands sure whether for
the near or the distant, for to-day or to-morrow, or a thousand years to come.
To Him on day and a thousand years are alike: that is to say, the promise which
falls due in a day will be performed punctually, and the promise which falls
due in a thousand years will be performed with equal punctuality. Length of
time makes no difference to Him. He will not falsify the promise which has only
a day to run, nor forget the promise which has reference to a thousand years
hence. Long or short, a day or an age, does not affect His faithfulness. ‘The
Lord is not slack concerning his promise;’ He ‘keepeth truth for ever.’ But the
apostle does not say that when the Lord promises a thing for to-day He
may not fulfill His promise for a thousand years: that would be slackness;
that would be a breach of promise. He does not say that because God is infinite
and everlasting, therefore He reckons with a different arithmetic from ours, or
speaks to us in a double sense, or uses two different weights and measures in
His dealings with mankind. The very reverse is the truth. As Hengstenberg
justly observes: ‘He who speaks to men must speak according to human
conceptions, or else state that he has not done so.’
It is evident that the object of the apostle in this passage
is to give his readers the strongest assurance that the impending catastrophe
of the last days was on the very eve of fulfillment. The veracity and
faithfulness of God were the guarantees for the punctual performance of the
promise. To have intimated that time was a variable quantity in the promise of
God would have been to stultify his argument and neutralise his own teaching,
which was, that ‘the Lord is not slack concerning his promise.’
SUDDENNESS OF THE PAROUSIA.
2 Pet. iii. 10.---‘But the day of
the Lord will come as a thief’ [in the night].
This statement fixes with precision the event to which the
apostle refers as ‘the day of the Lord.’ It is familiar to us from the frequent
allusions made to it in other parts of the New Testament. Our Lord had
declared, ‘In such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.’ He had
cautioned His disciples to watch, saying, ‘If the goodman of the house had know
in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched;’ implying that His
own coming would be stealthy and unexpected as a thief in the night (Matt.
xxiv. 43). St. Paul had said to the Thessalonians, ‘Yourselves know perfectly
that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night’ (1 Thess. v. 2).
And again, St. John, in the Apocalypse, had written, ‘Behold, I come as a
thief’ (Rev. xvi. 15). Since, then the allusions in these passages undoubtedly
refer to the impending catastrophe of Judea and Jerusalem, we conclude that
this also is the event referred to in the passage before us.
ATTITUDE
OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS IN RELATION TO THE PAROUSIA.
2 Pet. iii. 12.---‘Looking for and
hasting into the coming of the day of God.’
That ‘the day of God,’ ‘the day of Christ,’ and ‘the day of
the Lord,’ are synonymous expressions, having reference to the selfsame event,
is too obvious to require proof. Here we find again what we have so often found
before---the attitude of expectancy and that sense of the imminent nearness of
the Parousia which are so characteristic of the apostolic age. It is incredible
that all this was based on a mere delusion, and that the whole Christian
church, with the apostles, and the divine Founder of Christianity Himself, were
all involved in one common error. Words have no meaning if a statement like
this may refer to some event still future, and perchance distant, which cannot
be ‘looked for’ because it is not within view, nor ‘hasted unto,’ because it is
indefinitely remote.
THE NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH.
2 Pet. iii. 13.---‘Nevertheless we,
according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness.’
The catastrophe about to take place was to be succeeded by a
new creation. The death-pangs of the old are the birth-throes of the new. The
old Jerusalem was to give place to the new Jerusalem; the kingdom of this world
to the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. It may be a question whether by
the new heavens and a new earth the apostle means a new order of things here
among men or a holy and perfect heavenly state? It may also be asked, To what
promise does the apostle refer when he says, ‘According to his promise’? Alford
suggests Isa. lxv. 17, ‘For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,’
etc., and this may be correct. But we are rather disposed to think that the
apostle has in his mind ‘the new heaven and the new earth’ of the Apocalypse,
where we find righteousness set forth as the distinguishing characteristic of
the new aeon. The new Jerusalem is the holy city, into which ‘there
shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination, or maketh a lie.’ It is no more improbable that St. Peter should
refer to the writings of the Apostle John than to those of the Apostle Paul.
THE
NEARNESS OF THE PAROUSIA A MOTIVE TO DILIGENCE.
2 Pet. iii. 14.---‘Wherefore,
beloved, seeing that ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found
of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.’
This exhortation clearly indicates the expectation of the
Parousia as at hand. Its nearness is a motive to diligence, preparedness to
meet the Lord. It is not death that is here anticipated, but to be found
by the Lord watching, ‘with their loins girt, and their lamps burning.’
BELIEVERS
NOT TO BE DISCOURAGED ON ACCOUNT OF THE SEEMING DELAY OF THE
PAROUSIA.
2 Pet. iii. 15.---‘And account that
the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation.’
The apparent long delay of the anxiously looked-for coming
of the Lord must have been disquieting to persecuted Christians longing for the
expected hour of relief and redress. Their cry went up to heaven, ‘How long, O
Lord, holy and true?’ Yet this very delay had a gracious aspect; it was
‘long-suffering,’ makroqumia; not ‘slackness,’ but ‘unwillingness that any should perish.’ Exactly in
accordance with this is our Lord’s parable of the importunate widow, which has
relation to this very case. There were have the same delay in the execution of
judgment through the long-suffering [makroqumia] of God; the consequent trial of the faith and
patience of the saints; their appeal to the judgment of God for redress; and
the exhortation to diligence: ‘Men ought always to pray, and not to faint’
(Luke xviii. 1-8).
ALLUSION
OF ST. PETER TO ST. PAUL’S TEACHING CONCERNING THE PAROUSIA
2 Pet. iii. 15, 16.---‘Even as our
beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written
unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in
which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and
unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own
destruction.’
This allusion to the epistles of St. Paul suggests several
important inferences.
- It proves the
existence and general circulation of many epistles written by St. Paul.
- It recognizes their
inspiration and co-ordinate authority with the scriptures of the Old
Testament.
- It adverts to the fact
that St. Paul, in all his epistles, speaks of the coming of the Lord.
- It specifies one
epistle in particular in which distinct allusion is made to the subject.
- It acknowledges
certain difficulties connected with the eschatology of the New Testament,
and the perversion of the apostolic teaching by some ignorant and
fickle-minded persons.
We may consider briefly one or two questions,---
- To which epistle of
St. Paul is reference here made as specially bearing upon the subject of
the Parousia? (Ver. 15.)
We are disposed to concur with Dr. Alford in the
opinion that the reference is to the Epistles to the Thessalonians. The only
difficulty lies in the statement ‘hath written unto you,’ for there is
no reason to think that St. Peter addressed this epistle to the Thessalonians.
But perhaps the expression means no more than that all the epistles of St. Paul
were the common property of the church at large; otherwise the Epistles to the
Thessalonians answer well to this description of their contents by St. Peter.
We find in them allusions to the coming of the Lord; to the suddenness of His
coming; to the nearness of His coming; to the deliverance and rest which His
coming would bring to the suffering disciples of Christ; and to the duty of
diligence and vigilance in the prospect of the event.
- What are the ‘things
hard to be understood,’ either in the epistles or in the matters now under
consideration?
It has often been pointed out that the proper antecedent to which
in the second clause of the sixteenth verse is not ‘epistles,’ but ‘things;’ en oiz agreeing, not with epistoluz, but with toutwn. Now, however, it appears,
since Tischendorf’s discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, that the reading of the
three most ancient MSS. is aiz and not oiz, making epistles the proper antecedent to ‘which.’ It
does not, however, greatly affect the sense which of the two readings we may
adopt. It is quite clear that the difficulties alluded to by St. Peter were in
those portions of St. Paul’s epistles which treated of the Parousia. We know
how much the subject was misapprehended by the Thessalonians themselves; and we
have abundant experience since then to prove how much the whole eschatology of
the New Testament has been ‘hard to be understood,’ and has been ‘wrested’ by
many even to this day. It is no marvel, then, that much difficulty should have
been felt by the primitive Christians as to the true interpretation of many of
the prophetic declarations respecting the coming of the Lord, the close of the
age, the changing of the living, the resurrection of the dead, the end of all
things, etc. That some should distort and pervert the apostolic teaching
on such subjects was only too probable, and we know as a matter of fact that
they did. It was needful, therefore, to exhort believers to beware of being
‘led away with the error of the wicked.’
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