SECOND PETER
Theme: First Peter deals with a
danger without the church -
persecutions; Second Peter, with
one within - false doctrine.
The first was written to
encourage; the second, to warn.
In the first, Peter is seen
fulfilling his commission to
“strengthen the brethren” (Luke
22:32); in the second he is seen
fulfilling his commission to
shepherd the sheep, leading them
past lurking and insidious
dangers, to walk in the paths of
righteousness (John 21:15-17).
In the second Epistle, the
writer gives a graphic
description of the false
teachers who would threaten the
faith of the Church, and as an
antidote to their false doctrine
and tainted life, he exhorts the
Christians to avail themselves
of every means for growing in
grace and in the experiential
knowledge of Jesus Christ. The
theme may be summed up as
follows: a full experiential
knowledge of Christ is the
stronghold against a false
teaching and an unholy life.
Why Written: To give a prophetic
picture of the apostasy of the
last days, and to urge upon
Christians that preparedness of
heart and life which alone can
fit them to meet its perils.
When Written: Probably A. D. 66.
Contents:
I. Exhortation to Growth in
Divine Grace and Knowledge. Ch.
1.
II. Warning Against False
Teachers. Ch. 2.
III. Promise of the Lord’s
Coming. Ch. 3.
I. Exhortation to Growth in
Divine Grace and Knowledge. Ch.
1.
1. Salutation (vv. 1, 2). The
grace and peace that Peter asks
for the saints should issue in
experiential knowledge of God
and of Christ.
2. The basis of saving knowledge
- the promises of God (vv. 3,
4). 3. The growth in
experiential knowledge (vv.
5-11).
There is no standstill in
Christian experience, there must
be either progress or falling
back. The believer has a
foundation, faith; but he must
be continually building on that
foundation a superstructure of
Christian character and virtue.
Notice -
(a) The result of this spiritual
“addition” (v. 5): fruitfulness
in experiential knowledge of
Divine things and the acquiring
of an abundant entrance into the
kingdom of the Lord Jesus (vv.
8, 10, 11).
(b) The result of neglect of
spiritual growth - spiritual
blindness and backsliding (v.
8).
4. The sources of saving
knowledge:
(a) The testimony of the
apostles who were eye witnesses
of Christ’s glory (vv. 12-18).
(b) The testimony of the
prophets (vv. 19-21).
“Moreover the apostle appeals to
the inspiration of the prophets
in the confirmation of his
teaching: ‘no prophecy of the
scripture is of any private
interpretation. For the prophecy
came not in old time by the will
of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost.’
“He recognizes this as a primary
truth, that prophecy is not of
one’s own origination, nor is it
to be tied up to the times of
the prophet. The prophecy was
brought to him as it is brought
to us. Peter and his fellow
believers did not follow
cunningly devised fables; they
were borne along in their
prophetic utterance by the Holy
Spirit.”
II. Warning Against False
Teachers. Ch. 2.
1. The conduct of false teachers
(vv. 1-3).
They will stealthily and
cunningly introduce fatal
heresies, even denying the Lord
Himself. Covering their true
motives with plausible arguments
they will lead many astray.
2. The certain doom of these
false teachers as set forth by
ancient examples of retribution
(vv. 4-9).
3. The character of these false
teachers (vv. 10-22).
The apostle probably has in mind
the future rise of Gnostic
sects, who combined tainted
morals with tainted living.
The following sects arose in the
second century:
- The Ophites, who worshiped the
serpent of the Garden of Eden as
their benefactor;
- The Cainites, who exalted as
heroes some of the vilest
characters of the Old Testament;
- The Carpocratians who taught
immorality;
- The Antitactae, who regarded
it as a duty to the supreme God
to violate the Ten Commandments
on the ground that they were
promulgated by a wicked
mediating angel.
III. Promise of the Lord’s
Coming. Ch. 3.
1. Scoffers and the promise of
the second coming (vv. 1-4).
“Presumptuous skepticism and
lawless lust, setting nature and
its so-called laws above the God
of nature and revelation, and
arguing from the past continuity
of nature’s phenomena that there
can be no future interruption to
them, was the sin of the
antediluvians (those living
before the flood), and shall be
that of the scoffers in the last
days.”
2. Answers to their objections
(vv. 5-9.
(a) “They obstinately shut their
eyes to the Scripture record of
the Creation and the Deluge; the
latter is the very parallel to
the coming judgment of fire . .
. ‘All things continue as they
were from the beginning of
creation.’ Before the flood the
same objection to the
possibility of the flood might
have been urged with the same
plausibility: the heavens and
the earth have been from old.
How unlikely then that they
should not continue so! But,
replies Peter, the flood came in
spite of their reasonings; so
will the final conflagration of
the earth come in spite of the
scoffers of the last days.”
(b) God’s delays are due to His
mercy.
3. The certainty, suddenness,
and effects of the Lord’s coming
(vv. 10-13).
The “day of the Lord” here
mentioned refers to a whole
series of events beginning with
the premillennial advent and
ending with the destruction of
the wicked and the final
conflagration and general
judgment. “As the flood was the
baptism of the earth,
eventuating in a renovated earth
partly delivered from the curse,
so the baptism by fire shall
purify the earth so as to be the
renovated abode of the
regenerated man wholly delivered
from the curse.”
4. Concluding exhortations:
(a) To live blamelessly in the
light of their great Hope (v.
14).
(b) To remember that reason for
the Lord’s delay is to give men
an opportunity to repent (v.
15).
(c) To beware of being led
astray by false doctrine (v.
17).
(d) To grow in grace (v. 18).
~ end of II Peter ~
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