1 Peter 1.
BEFORE we enter on the 1st Epistle of Peter, we will look for a moment at Peter himself. There is one very comforting thing to see, in looking at the Apostles: there were three classes among them;-those who were unnoticed but by name, as Thaddeus and Bartholomew; others who were occasionally named, and some who are always prominent, as Peter, James, and John. We find these distinctions still in the Church. We find some very active, and others coming only occasionally forward. Then there were other distinctions. Thomas was a very reasoning man; Peter a very uncalculating man. Peter, again, was a very social man; John very retiring. It is very happy to find these modern distinctions in what passed under the eye of Christ.
Among the Apostles we get three very prominent persons; and, even among these three, we get Peter greatly distinguished. Peter was ecclesiastically the first, and as long as the apostleship was the apostleship of the twelve, he was the primate. Now, we have lost sight of the apostleship of the twelve and are under the irregular Gentile apostleship. And not only so, but Peter was brought into special exercises. He was separated by mistakes and by affection, and we find him distinguished by the Father and by Christ. "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father." The rock of the Church was disclosed to Peter by the Father. Then he was distinguished by the Lord at the close. " Simon, Simon, behold Satan bath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee." This is very striking. " And when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren." And now let me ask, did
Peter fulfill this -Commission? He did, eminently. We see Peter, in the first twelve chapters of the Acts, strengthening the brethren, and feeding the sheep. In the opening of the Acts, he is the man in the gap, as we say. " In chapter 1. he shows the secret of the 109th Psalm. In chapter 2. he interprets the day of Pentecost for the strengthening of the brethren. in chapter 3. he stands in the face of Jewish persecutors; and so on to chapter 12. When we look at these. things, there is something very comforting in them. If we see our brethren more signalized than ourselves let us rejoice. We see in the Lord's dealings with the Apostles, the same variety that we see among ourselves. Are there not social Peters among us, and retiring Johns? Thaddeus was as evangelically dear to Christ as John, but the Lord was training John for special service. But as to His love from everlasting to everlasting, it is a common affection, though in the midst of its commonness we find this beautiful variety. Peter gives place, when we find God about further to unfold His purposes. The Apostle of the flesh gives place to the Apostle of the glory. Those who say Peter was not the chief of the twelve, are ignorantly contending for a piece of protestant truth. But you and I are under a ministry that began from the glorification of the Son of Man (see Acts 9).
Having said this, we will address OURSELVES to our chapter. The first twelve verses of chapter 1 are the foundation of the epistle; because we enter then on hortatory matter at once. The Apostle addresses himself to strangers. Now the moment you get God looking at Israel as a stranger, you get everything on earth out of order. That is the secret of James's epistle. We get the twelve tribes exhorted to poverty and patience. If things were in order, the twelve tribes would be at home. Now things are out of order in the earth, and while they are so, the saints should be prepared for poverty and patience. And they should be prepared for heaven. Heavenly calling is a relief. It is more than a relief, because it is God's necessary way to bring a better thing out of a ruin; but it is a relief. Consequently Peter addresses us as having "an inheritance reserved in heaven."
He is looking at strangership,-a terrible condition. Shall Israel be in Babylon and I not mourn? No, but God is working in grace all the time. All that the earth can give to the foot of the people of God, is a traveling place, the scene of wearied traveling pilgrims, looking for an inheritance reserved in heaven. And we see they are separated unto two things, obedience and the blood of sprinkling. Then he blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has begotten us again "according to His abundant mercy." It is abundant mercy, because, let man fail as he may in the earth, mercy abounds over it all. We are glancing back here over man's constant failure, and looking for God to be weary. Is He wearied? No, by His abundant mercy, He is still at work, and He has now established a lively hope-a hope secured by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. It is not now the garden committed to Adam, the new world committed to Noah, or the land of Canaan committed to the Israelites. It is a lively hope through the Lord risen from the dead. God has now found eternal relief in Christ, and He invites you to partake in that relief. That is faith. Christ now has secured in heaven for you " an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." A rich exposition of the divine mind Peter gives us here! His very communications are lively and abundant. Then he says, as the inheritance is kept for you, you are kept for it. It is now unrevealed-it is kept for you, and you are kept for it. Then he gives us an individual thing. The inheritance is a common property, there are no eldest sons in this family estate. But now he looks a little at individuals. " That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." The trial of faith does not work the incorruptible inheritance; Christ worked that. The trial of faith works praise and glory. Let the dear martyr company go on to that! We must distinguish, things that differ. We shall have an inheritance in common, and we shall rejoice to see the crown of glory that may, never be on our own heads:
Then He comes to look at us again in our proper place. Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of " your souls." You have got to the end of your faith, but not to the end of your hope. There are two salvations. The first is the end of your faith, you are at peace with God. The salvation which is the end of your hope is to be revealed in the day of His appearing. There is a salvation already accomplished, and a salvation about to be revealed.
Then he closes this beautiful preface by another wonderful communication-that the things of which we are talking have been the gaze of prophets and angels. We have been carried along in a current of most wonderful revelation. A traveling company of Gentiles are bound for glories, into which prophets have searched diligently, and angels have desired to look! Verse 12 closes the foundation of the Epistle.
Now if we were to read from chap. 1:13 to chap. 2: 3, that is the way I should separate it. Here the hortatory part begins. We have had the didactic teaching in the first twelve verses.
Peter is eminently a nourisher of hope. Paul establishes the conscience in peace and the certainty of faith. Peter opens to the eye of hope the glory to be revealed. Well, the girdle (ver. 13) suits a hoper, because the girdle is the symbol of the thing that denies present enjoyment. The girdle and the lamp are the symbols of an expectant. The girdle refuses to let the affections dally with present objects; the lamp signifies that I am a traveler along a dark road till the day dawn. So the first exhortation is, "gird up the loins of your mind." Do you and I daily do that business; or do we think we may let the eye and the thoughts and the imagination sport themselves as they please? I am sure I have no business to be a servant to my thoughts and imaginations. They may surprise us, but we are not to serve them. Then, "hope to the end." Not till to-morrow or the next day; but till the journey is over; because the object of hope lies the other side of the journey.
We are addressed here in three relationships. As children, as brethren, and as newly born. We are to be
obedient as children (ver. 14). That refers to ver. "Sanctified unto obedience." The Holy Ghost has separated you to obedience, as well as to sprinkling, and what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Consequently, in ver. 14, He addresses us in the character which He had attached to us in ver. 2-as " children of Obedience," which is the force of the word in the original; a well-behaved family. " And, if ye call on the Father, etc. pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." In that fear which would become a child; walking in reverential love in his father's house.
As children, we are to walk as knowing we are under discipline; as brethren we are to love one another; and in our persons, as newly born, we are to lay aside those poisonous ingredients that would hinder the action of the unmixed milk of the word.
So we have had a preface and a first series of exhortations, and there we will stop. It is the first section of the Epistle.
Chapter 2
WE read to chap. 2. 3, and now if we go on to chap: 3, 9, I think we shall find there is a connection. There are two things here. It begins by a wondrous and beautiful piece of teaching, and, upon that, a very distinct exhortation. From ver. 1 to ver.. 10, is a profound piece of teaching, that lets you into dispensational light, but it, does not touch on what we have in the Ephesians, the elect body.
This mystery of the stone occupies the whole book of God. We find it in Genesis, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Evangelists, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse. A mystery is a divine revelation. I will just remind you of the passages. Jacob's words to Joseph, in Gen. 49, begin this great subject. He says in a kind of parenthesis: "From thence is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel." The moment he was looking at the sorrows and glories of Joseph, the Holy Ghost takes him, in a kind of rapture, to look at Christ as reflected in Joseph. We see here the quarry out of which the stone was formed; the sorrows and glories of Joseph. This mighty rock was formed in the death and resurrection of Christ. The moment the Spirit touched on the story of Joseph, He thus glances forward to Christ.
In the Prophet Isaiah, we find the stone again taken up, "Behold I lay in Sion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." There is no sure foundation that is not a tried stone. The true stone was tried to the uttermost, and glorified to the uttermost. When Isaiah takes Him up, he goes beyond; Jacob had spoken of Him as a stone. Isaiah tells you additionally that the tried stone is laid down as foundation. Now what did Israel do with the stone. This tried stone was laid down as a foundation, and they disallowed it. This the Lord tells us in Matt. 21 He is quoting Psa. 118 So the Psalmist tells me something of this wonderful stone. It was rejected by the builders; and the Lord quotes that, and says, " Here I am, and you have rejected me."
Then, what did God do with this disallowed stone? He took Him up and exalted Him to the highest heavens. That is the meaning of " the head-stone of the corner."
Psa. 118 anticipates this, and Peter speaks of it in Acts 4 And there we see the stone, at this very moment. How blessed and delightful an operation it is to be tracing out these things, picking up the mystery at these distant parts of the Book, bit by bit. And how wonderfully exact it is! God is net afraid of showing His perfect, blessed mind thus in parts.: He is not afraid of making a mistake. If I taught in that way, how I should be looking back, to see that I had made no mistakes! But these scattered rays at last shine as the noon-day sun in glory and brightness. It is as if the Spirit had written a treatise on the very subject.
So we have traveled with the stone from the quarry where it was formed, in death and resurrection (it would never have been anything without that), till God takes up the rejected stone, setting Him in the highest place of dignity in heaven. And what is God doing with Him now? Having been rejected by Israel or Zion, He is offering Him to all the world as a stone of foundation.
He is offered to you and me for life and salvation, and Peter comes to tell me what He will be to me if I receive Him. He tells me two things about myself. I shall become a living stone as He is, and a precious stone as He is. " Unto you who believe is the preciousness." He communicates his preciousness to us as well as His life. I become a living stone; but I become also a precious stone; and when we come to the. Apocalypse, we find these precious stones glittering in the, New Jerusalem. So I see Christ, first, formed in the quarry of death and resurrection; secondly, offered as a foundation; thirdly, rejected by Sion; fourthly, seated in the highest heaven by God; fifthly, offered for life and salvation to every poor sinner; and sixthly, what He will be to those who accept Him. He will impart His life and He will impart His glory. He will make them pearls, topazes, emeralds, &c. But now, what of those who still reject Him? He will fall from the elevation where He now is, and grind them to powder. The blessed God offers Him to sustain you for eternity. You say, " I will not have Him." Then He says, " You must meet me from my head of the corner-place, and I will grind you to powder." Then, this stone not only crushes the unbelieving sinner, but it smites the nations, as I read in Daniel. He will fall, in the day of wrath, on the whole image. This is national, not individual. Then this stone is to become a great mountain, and with its glory fill the whole earth. Now, what defect is there in the story? You carry it on from the quarry to its character of a mountain-kingdom to fill the whole earth; and you are carried along with it. Every individual has to do with the stone-in preciousness or in crushing. But now I must speak a little particularly of the chapter before us. The Peter of Matt. 16 re-appears here. In Matt. 16 he owned the person of the Lord Jesus. He was given of the Father to own Him as Head of Life. The moment Peter acknowledged Him thus, Christ said, " On this rock I will build my Church." Peter now, as it were, went beyond his Master. Christ did not say what He would do with His Church. Peter goes on to tell us that we are built up a spiritual house a holy priesthood-" to offer up spiritual sacrifices." Is it not exquisite to see the Holy Ghost's light advancing on the teaching of the Lord Jesus? The time had not come when He was here for letting out all these divine secrets. "I have many things to say unto you; but ye cannot bear them now." Peter, by the Holy Ghost, advances beyond the Son's teaching,' and tells us what He will do with His house.
There is another thing. We find that Peter stumbled in Matt. 16 He made a beautiful confession; but he could not understand the disallowance. "They will cast me aside," said the Lord. "Oh, Lord, that be far from Thee? Would we allow them to do such a thing?" "Get thee behind me, Satan."
Now, that same Peter who, with decision and strength, denied that the Lord should ever be rejected, delights in the thought of the disallowed stone, and, with decision and strength, he takes Him up as such, and tells us that we shall never build on Him aright if we do not build on Him as a disallowed stone.
Peter addresses us in the beginning as strangers and pilgrims, and now, in the hortatory part, he cannot look at us in any character that 'he does not tell us to have a subject spirit. That is the very quality that suits strangers. If I am a king in my kingdom, I may exercise authority and dominion; but, if I am a cast-out stranger, the temper that suits me is a spirit of subjection all my life through. Put the stranger in company with what relationship you please, the Spirit of God expects this spirit of subjection, as James challenges a spirit of poverty and patience. How we mistake Christianity in its moral qualities! We play the hero when we should play the part of a girded servant. Christendom has mistaken Christianity; and I boldly say, if I do not understand dispensational truth, I shall never build aright on the foundation-stone. So here begins: " Abstain from fleshly lusts." Is not that a spirit of control? Then, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man." Do not be talking of your rights. As one has said, "If you talk of your rights, I tell you your only right is to go to hell. Then, "as free," but not using your freedom for anything but service. How beautiful to see the free man bound as a servant! Then you are told to love the brethren. If you love another, will not you serve him? Then, " Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not." Is not all that a spirit of subjection-putting a rein on the ways and tendencies of nature? Then, "Ye wives be in subjection to your own husbands." "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them, according to knowledge." The husband should be the bearer of light in the domestic circle. "Giving honor unto the wife." The husband is in the place of authority; yet he is to gird himself this spirit, and to be the informing principle of the house. So, whatever the relationship we are in, this is the spirit He girds us with. Will that be the style when Christ is on the throne of glory?. We may then. engird our loins and give loose to our affections; but now, in company with a rejected Christ, we are to behave ourselves in a holy spirit of restraint. " Finally, be ye all of one mind: love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but, contrariwise, blessing, knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing." That brings us to ver. 9 of chap. 3, and there we, will leave it. The Lord give us light in these things! They are written for our learning. I would rather love Christ than know a great deal about Him. But it is beautiful to love Him in the light of His own mind-to know the person that we love.
Chapter 3
WE will read now from chap. 3: 10 to chap. 4: 11.
This Apostle is eminently carrying on the education of the saints. He does not take us as Paul does to heavenly places, and tell us to look around, and see the place in which God has put us; but he is educating the saints for their passage onwards, and charging them to exercise patience, -wherever the pressure may come from. He opens the epistle by speaking of the trial of their faith. That is the general way in which trial comes. Then, in chap. 2 he begins to look at trial in the details of life, as in the case of servants with froward masters. In chap. 3 it is trial arising from righteousness, and in chap. 4. trial for the name of Christ. In chap. 5 it is trial arising from the immediate pressure of Satan himself. So, from beginning to end, the Apostle keeps you in company with trials. He is educating a stranger people; and a stranger people passing through the earth should count on passing from wave to wave.
But there is a form of trial that we should not encounter. Did not Lot incur a trial in Sodom that Abraham could look down upon? Lot fell into trials that Abraham escaped, because Lot had his eye on Sodom and the more you and I handle pitch the more we shall be defiled by it. He tells us to count on trial; but there is a trial we ought to escape. Do not suffer for anything morally wrong. There is a way in which we may love life, and that is by not making trouble for ourselves. Then he shows us that two things will attach to this way of loving life. The eyes of the Lord will be over us, His ears open to us; and no one will harm. us. These two things will rest on us if we avoid these self-made trials.
In ver. 14 he looks on us as asserting righteousness. We ought to be both practicing what is good and asserting righteousness. H you only practice what is good, you will get loved and respected in the world. Who is he that will harm you if you give all your goods in charity? But we must take care to be righteous as well as good-that is, we must stand in fidelity to Christ, and assert the rules Of Christian righteousness as well as practice the ways of Christian goodness. The Spirit here tells that righteousness will provoke suffering. The moment we assert the peculiarities of Christianity, and stand apart for righteousness, we shall suffer.
Well, suppose you suffer, what are you to do? "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." Do not be troubled. It only presses you a little more closely into God's presence; and, forth from that sanctuary, be ready to come and give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you. What an exquisite attitude for a saint of God to take! Pressure from around forces him into the sanctuary of the divine presence, and forth he comes in full peace of conscience to answer every man " with meekness and fear." Meek in carriage, giving respect to others, and carrying all through a good conscience before God.
" For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing." It is well to suffer for evil-doing. Do not you count it so? If you go astray, would not you rather God visited you than that He let it all pass? It is among our privileges that He should visit us for it, but it is better to suffer for well-doing. There is no honor if I suffer for evil-doing, though there may be healthful discipline; but in suffering for well-doing the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Then he brings forward the Lord Jesus, who is the grand prototype of suffering for well-doing. The first order and character of it is seen in Him, having this great purpose in His sufferings, "that He might bring us to von." " Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.' He died in the flesh, as thoroughly as any of us, but He was quickened because of what He was in the spirit. And then the Apostle directs your attention to what He was doing of old in this resurrection-character. This glance back at Noah is exceedingly beautiful. Two things occupied Noah for 120 years. He was preaching to His fellow sinners, and, in his own person, he was getting everything ready to pass into the new world. Every knock of the hammer had that in it. Could anything be finer than to see a saint of God undistractedly going on with these two businesses? And it was the Spirit of Christ in Noah preaching righteousness. Noah in himself had no capacity. It was the Spirit of Christ that animated him, and he preached to the spirits in prison. It was an imprisoned generation-that is, it was under sentence of death, though the sentence was not executed for 120 years.
" The like figure whereunto, baptism, doth now save us." But there He checks. Baptism is a beautiful figure of death and resurrection; but here the Spirit puts in that check-" not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." Now let me ask, have you been simply and undistractedly put into that secret,-" that the resurrection of Christ has given you an answer to God?" What was the resurrection of Christ? It was deliverance from death. Death is the wages of sin. Would death ever have been conquered if sin had not been put away? When the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, He rose as a divine witness that sin was put away; and, if sin is put away, I have a good conscience. Does not guilt make cowards of us all? It is the very opposite of a good conscience. Now if I read in the resurrection of Christ that sin has been put away, I read in it my title to a good conscience before God. I can look up now without being abashed, in the blessed sense that God has settled every matter between Him and me. This is divinely magnificent, yet simple to the plainest understanding.
Then an uncommonly fine thought attaches to this. " Who is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and principalities and powers being made subject unto Him. He has your conscience there with Him. He has not got your person there yet. Paul teaches me that I shall be there by-and-bye. Peter, in his more homely epistle, teaches me that everything that might startle me is rolling under my, feet, and that my conscience is up in the highest heavens with Christ; and there I sit, smiling at every accuser, taking up the language of Rom. 8-" Who shall condemn "—" who shall separate." Angels, principalities, and powers are rolling under. This is a state of justification. There will be a state of glorification by-and-bye. There is a moral glory in the gospel we know very little about. God comes, in the gospel of His grace, and answers the necessity of sinners. He will come, by-and-bye, in the kingdom of His glory, to answer the expectation of saints.
Now we come, in chap. iv., to another form of trial, the trial of holiness. "Forasmuch then as Christ bath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind," etc. There is a cultivation of holiness. And do not we all know what it is to contend with our lusts and vanities, and the spirit of this carnal world? We could not be saints of God if we were not conscious of the battle. It is a trial within,-a trial that everyone knows for himself. " For the time past may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles "-he is talking in Jewish language here a bit. " Who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead." Nothing is indifferent to God. You may say, " it is over and gone." There is nothing that is over and gone. There is not a scintilla of moral activity that God as a Judge will look over. He is perfect in every glory that attaches to Him-perfect as a Savior—perfect as a Judge.
" 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." We ought to let the flesh know, as we go along, that it is a doomed thing already.
" And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins." James uses that word, " hide a multitude of sins," in connection with justification. Preaching and restoring; of souls hides a multitude of sins from God, and you and I should so walk, one with another, that charity should do the same office between us.
Then he 'goes on still to keep us in the place of service. " Use hospitality one to another without 'grudging," and it should be used in a spirit of service. A great deal of hospitality is the hospitality of vanity. It ought to be used in the spirit of those that cordially Wish well one to another.
Then be a servant in your gifts. The Corinthians were making a display of their gifts. Many of us (as I remember one sister used to say) array ourselves and adorn ourselves in the gifts of God. How pure and searching the word is!. It is " gold, seven times tried." Things sometimes may look very like one another to us, but try them by the seven times refined gold!
" If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." I believe there ought to he the authority of an oracle. What was an oracle? It was a mere voice. " The voice of one crying in the wilderness." An oracle is the mere utterance of the mind of God. " If any man ministers let him do it as of the ability that God giveth,. that God in all things may be glorified, through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and. ever. Amen." He could not let the Lord Jesus pass as a medium, without giving Him His full divine honors. He is the channel to bring down every blessing to us;: and He is also the source, from which all blessings flow; and when the Apostle mentions Him as the channel, he ascribes to Him His divine glory. And there he pauses for a moment.
What moral glory attaches to us in our calling! When we think of it we may well cry, "Ah, my leanness, my leanness, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously."
Chapter 5
WE have reached chap. 4: 12, so we will read from that the end. This Epistle we find, maintains its own character to the very end, and as we have said, it is the Epistle of the girdle and the lamp, and, we may add to these, of the furnace, that being the symbol for trial; as the girdle is for holy self-government, and the lamp. for hope.
When we come to look at the furnace, we get it in very large detail. In chap. 1., it is shown you in the general way, " The trial of your faith;" but when he. goes on, he shows you the peculiar heat of the furnace from day to day. In chap. 4., he shows us a heating of the furnace by martyrdom, and in the last chapter, by the direct assaults of Satan himself. It is very important to see what the Spirit is about here and there.. When a writer shows me that he keeps his original intent in view, and is true to it from beginning to end, I say-that man's heart is in his subject. In this Epistle it is. eminently so. If we come to read the second Epistle, we shall not find anything of the kind as we have here. It is not a time of suffering, but a time of seduction, so that while the Spirit is true to His object, His subject may be very different at different times.
Now we see in chap. 4: 12, we are in the furnace as heated by the fires of martyrdom, not by the maintenance of integrity or holiness, but by direct putting to trial as the test of faithfulness to Christ. Then, " Count it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you." I have often said that a saint does not die a natural death, if he dies in his bed; because the saint is to be an unresisting witness against the world, and do you think the world will be insulted without resenting it? If we properly behaved ourselves as saints, we should die at the stake. " If any man will live godly" -not if any man is a saint, but " if any man will live godly-in Christ Jesus, he must suffer persecution;" that is, if a saint will behave as a saint ought to behave. Therefore the Spirit says, "Do not count the fiery trial strange." No, indeed, I may be very little prepared for it, but I do not count it strange. Pray what was the death of the Lord? He was a martyr as well as a victim. The world that crucified Him knew nothing of His victim character. They put Him to death just because they hated Him, and in that martyr character of the Cross it is that Paul gloried. " We preach Christ crucified." I believe he meant the Cross fully understood, as the place where the martyr bled, and where the victim bled. Are you prepared to glory in the Cross as the place of rejection? Paul had communion with the Cross, as one in companionship with the rejected Christ. We want to have communion with it as those whose sins have been blotted out and as those who are the companions of a rejected Christ.
Then we have spoken, again and again of that which is common and that which is peculiar in Scripture. For instance-the glorification of the body is common property to me, and to all who are in Christ. Yet the New Testament abundantly tells us of that which is peculiar. We get it in Peter's 2nd Epistle, where he speaks of the " abundant entrance." Do you think that that is common property? So here. " That when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." This is a thing peculiar to those who have known the fiery trial. What poor things we are! How little divine ambition we have! Will not it be something to rejoice before Him by-and-bye with exceeding joy? No, it is not common; entrance is common, but abundant entrance is not common.
So in the next, " The Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." If at any time we suffer reproach for Christ, suppose we were just by a simple act of faith to say, " Is God now impressing on me some pledge of the coming glory?" These things stand out before us as living realities; should we read them as the fiat page of the book?
Then in ver. 15, he shows out what we saw before in chap. 3., after speaking of the dignity and glory attaching to certain kinds of trouble. Now, he says, "Do not suffer as an evil doer." We instanced Lot as having made trouble for himself. Do let us encourage one another to avoid self-wrought sorrow.
Then he enters on a very serious matter; judgment beginning at the house of God; and he asks, " What then shall the end be of those that obey not the Gospel of God?" This proves to me very much that the spirit of Peter was impregnated by Jewish associations. If you read the prophets you will find that God deals in that way. He begins His judgments with Israel for purifying, and ends with the Gentiles for destruction. " Though I make an end of all nations, yet not of you;" and again in Jer. 25, where the prophet says, "I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and shall ye be utterly unpunished?" That is judgment beginning at the house of God, and here the Spirit turns round and applies it to you. So Peter's mind was eminently formed on a Jewish model. "Well, it passes on to us, and I am perfectly sure that many a child of God as soon as he is quickened, finds the hand of God dealing with him in a way it never was before. " For if the righteous scarcely" or with difficulty (that is through these purifying judgments), " be saved"- therefore, the beautiful close is, " Commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator." As much as to say, Do you believe, that. God has re-created you for final destruction? No; but He purifies the vessels He has formed for Himself. That word " Creator," there, is very beautiful. What, were you created in Christ Jesus for? You were created. for final glory. Though the vessel may pass through the potter's hand in a certain skilful way, that which his hand was dealing roughly with in forming, the potter's eye will rest on by-and-bye with satisfaction and delight.
Well, he tells the Elders to feed the flock of God. This is the first business of an Elder. The combination here is beautiful. When a teacher can stand out as a. witness of the suffering of Christ, that is to be an Elder indeed. " Not for filthy lucre-neither as being lords over God's heritage." The Spirit of God has no eye for such nobility. There is no more attraction to Him in it, than in the seeker for filthy lucre. The two-edged sword does not spare corruption. And would you have your corruptions spared? Do not you rather say,
Make inquiry between joint and marrow, search me and try me." I do not understand a saint of God wishing to have his corruptions spared. Then there is something peculiar, "Ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." There is nothing more fruitful than to be looking into the world of glories. If now we Want intimacy with the Lord Himself, we want next to that, intimacy with His home. If we love a person, he himself is our first thought; our next is the things that surround him.
Then he comes to the girdle again in ver. 5; "Likewise ye younger submit yourselves unto the elder; yea, all of you be subject one to another." He will have the girdle on every one. The flight his spirit takes here is beautiful. He could not be satisfied with telling only the younger to submit themselves; " Yea, all of you put it on."
Then in ver. 6 there is another form of humbling. We are not merely to humble ourselves to one another, but to humble ourselves "under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time; casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you." That reminds me of Joseph. He treated his brethren roughly enough; he kept them in hold for a day and a night. Yet all the time his heart was yearning over them and taking a very different direction from what his hand was.. doing. So God has a mighty hand which seems to be pressing you, but all the time His heart is making your sorrow its care. And there is the deepest consistency in a mighty hand working in company with a careful, heart.
Verse 8 opens the furnace for the last time. There it is heated by the devil, who " as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." What are you to do with this? ' Be sober, be vigilant, resist the devil, take (as Paul tells you) the shield of faith to quench these fiery darts, that come at times we know not from where. Hold up the shield of faith. As that fine hymn says, " What though the accuser roar of ills that I have done;" and then the answer, " I know them all and thousands more, Jehovah findeth none." Then he beautifully closes. " The God of all grace, who bath called us unto. His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." The doubt here attaches not to God being the God of all grace, or to His having called us to eternal glory, but to the strengthening. He prays that' we may have grace so to use the furnace, that we may find it strengthening. That God is a God of all grace is an eternal verity; and that He has called us to eternal glory. But there is a condition attached to this; whether by being thrown into the furnace, we shall come out perfected, stablished,. strengthened.
" By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you as I suppose." Silvanus was a constant companion of Paul. ' " Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the Church,' etc. Peter does not pretend to know more of him than he does; and he speaks of him, not at all in the way Paul would, who knew him better.
" The thing in Babylon." What! is it possible that Peter, who represented the circumcision, can for a single, moment strike alliance with Babylon, the sworn enemy of Jerusalem. Ah! this is the true grace in which we stand. For this age Jerusalem has lost its sanctity and Babylon has lost its apostacy.
Then he says: " Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen."
It is a deep and precious Epistle, true to itself, keeping constantly before our souls the furnace, the girdle, and the lamp. Ah! we are rebuked. The Lord teach us, strengthen us, and help us to get a little bit outside the camp, and blessedly, sweetly, inside the vail! Amen.
2 PETER. CHAP I.
THE second epistle of Peter takes us into a different character of truth from the first. Of the first the symbols were, the lamp, the girdle, and the furnace. In this we have (ch. 1.) the husbandry which is to be our security against corruption; then (ch. 2.) the corruptions unfolded ' and finally (ch. 3.) the judgments which follow and the glory. We live in the midst of the second chapter. If there are different forms of glory, so there are different forms of corruption, and they fill the present world. That is what is anticipated here, and the story of Christendom has verified it all.
We shall find the structure of this epistle to be less evangelic than moral and prophetic, as in verse 3, "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us unto glory and virtue." Observe, also, that the promises in verse 4 are the occasion, not of gladness but of purification. Thus does the Spirit keep Himself true to His purpose.
"Exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature." See what beautiful instruments God is using to fashion you to His hand I "Divine nature" here is the moral nature of God. If He puts us down to our husbandry, it is not at our own charges. (Ver. 8) " If these things," etc., that is, these features of godliness; and mark what they are. You need not go to the end of the world to be fruitful to Christ. (Ver. 9) " But he that lacketh these things," etc. If he is feeble in present things, he has neither an eye to apprehend the coming glory, nor the memory of what Christ has done for him. The whole moral man has his strength reduced.
(Ver. 10). " Give diligence to make your calling and election sure." In other words, "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." "Sure," not abstractedly; the Book of Life has done that. " If ye do these things ye shall never fail" or trip; but, instead, an abundant entrance shall be ministered. An abundant entrance is not the common property of all saints. The Spirit links it with the cultivation of " these things." An abundant entrance I believe to be a natural entrance. The more the journey savors of the end of the journey, the more easy and natural the entrance on the glory will be. The world to come has many characters. If on the way to it, as the Father's house, we are not cultivating brotherly love, is that the way to get an abundant entrance into it? Would not those that I should find there be moral strangers to me? Rest is another character. The moment I say " there remaineth a rest," I am not consistent if I take my rest now. Do not let me talk of future rest, if I am enjoying present rest. Again, it is a place of purity, and if I am careless about the cultivation of purity on the road, am I in moral company with the glory I am looking for, and can I expect an "abundant entrance" into it? Let us see to it that we are cherishing those things that have a welcome for Himself.
(Ver. 16). Now he opens the distant view. " Eye-witness of His magnificence" it should rather be. " Majesty belongs to Christ. as Son of David. What was seen on the holy mount was more than this. It was heavenly majesty.
(Ver. 18). Observe in this word "holy," how the purpose of the. Spirit breaks out. Naturally it would have been called the glorious mount, but His business here was to keep the thoughts of the saints in company with that which was to be their security against the corruptions which He was about to unfold: So (ver. 21) `Holy men of old."
(Ver. 19). " More sure " may mean as in contrast with the vision. "Till the day dawn"-till all struggles tween light and darkness be over, and prophecy gives place to that which shall be its fulfillment. Some take this as an intimation of the gospel which Paul was to bring in.
CHAPTERS 2 AND 3.
THAT which we get in the foreground of these chapters is corruption. In the middle we have the judgments which are to clear the scene, and the kingdom that is to succeed shines in the distance. Because God is holy, Judgment must come after corruption; and because He is God, glory must follow the judgment. If we doubt this necessity; we have not, as Paul speaks in 1 Cor. 15 " the knowledge of God." The corruption that is to fill Christendom is not doctrinal merely. In Galatians the Apostle lifts up a standard against doctrinal corruption; but that would not dispose of the history of Christendom. Here' we have apostacy from the godliness of the truth. The promises of Scripture have reared one class of watch-towers, and the admonitions have erected another. We must build various watch-towers, and plant ourselves on each of them.
The most prevalent form of corruption in these days is moral relaxation: " turning the grace of. God into lasciviousness." We do not read here of a denial of grace, or of the value of the blood, but of the lordship; of Christ (v. 1), as though it were not fitting that those who have refuged in Him as Savior should bow down to Him as Lord! There is a character in these days which should put us all on the watch-towers that Peter builds for us. We see terms made with the flesh, vanities, covetousness, and the various spirits of the world; corruption intruding into the place of holiness. " They promise them liberty." Aye, and the liberty of the gospel, too! But am I to be the servant of my eye, my imagination, my covetous nature? Do we not know that we have a present Christendom before us, when we read the 2nd of Peter? It has been remarked from a comparison of the Rom. 1 and the 2nd Epistle of Timothy, that the same pollutions„ attach to corrupt Christianity as to heathenism.
" For, if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world " (i. e., escaped from heathenism into Christianity) "through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior" (i. e., through the Christendom knowledge)-the 22nd verse showing that the nature (dog and sow, not sheep) was still unchanged.
The opening of chap. 3. sets down the saints to the cultivation of their pure minds-the new, not the old nature. There was plenty abroad to stir up the impure mind; so he would put remembrances before them.
Scoffers should come, wise in their own conceits, their own wisdom, and conclusions.-taking their. own analogies.. " Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Why should any interruption be looked for? All is simple cause and effect. For this they willingly are ignorant of-that God interferes how and when He pleases; that, by the word of God, first came the flood, and, secondly, " By the same word" the world is " reserved unto fire."
When we look at things, are we in company with God's word or with our own wisdom? "But, beloved, be not ignorant," etc. We ought to know how to interpret the long-suffering of God. (Long-suffering is patience under injuries.) The delay is not indifference. How beautifully He puts out human thoughts, and brings in, divine I It is not slackness; it is long suffering—it is grace. He is not imputing trespasses to the world, in order that this aspect of Him may lead sinners to repentance. Grace is gratifying itself now. Amid all the expressions Of what God is, the Cross is the greatest. Love gratified; righteousness satisfied.
(Ver. 10). " But the day of the Lord will come"-,—as the great surpriser. " The coming of the Lord" is as a bridegroom. " The day of the Lord" is as a thief. As a bridegroom He will come to the Church; as a thief He will come to the world. These are the correspondencies. Could the cry of " Come, Lord Jesus," be answered as by the coming of a thief in the night?
(Vers. 11 and 14). Two things are looked at here: the dissolving of the present world, and the coming in of the new world. And we are to be looking for and hosting unto the day that is to consummate this-the glory that is to be, the eternity of God and us.
EPISTLE OF JUDE.
IF we travel on in the line of light that God has cast up for us in Scripture, we shall see the fitness of the arrangement by which Jude lies on the threshold of the Apocalypse-that is, as we have said before, judgment must follow corruption.
The Evangelists give us the foundation of everything. The Epistles give us Christian education-education carried on not under law, but under grace; the unfolding of grace being the great instrument used for this purpose.
Further on, as in Peter, and especially in Jude, we get notices of how Christendom will treat this grace. Judgment follows, and then glory. If we look back to the history of the Jews, we shall find it an introduction to what we get here. Apostasy, from one thing after another, characterizes it all through, let God change His hand as He may. He pleads "I have risen up early"; all is failure, corruption, and departure.
There is profit in seeing this, because we thus get to see what we are. In the face of all this, the Son is sent from the bosom of the Father; and apostasy from grace has followed it. But we have not done here. Rev. 20 tells us there will be apostasy from glory. The Amalek of Ex. 17 prepares me for this last apostasy. I find there the cloudy glory hovering over the ransomed of the Lord, and Amalek is infidel enough to come out and defy it by drawing the sword against them.
Let us now examine the Epistle somewhat more in detail.
(Ver. 1.) Jude, whose surname was Thaddæus (Matt. 10:33Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, whose surname was Thaddeus; (Matthew 10:3)), is the Judas spoken of by Luke (Acts 1:1313And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. (Acts 1:13)). He was one of the twelve, and both he and James were cousins of the Lord, called also His brothers. We find nothing of all this here. Jude simply takes his place as "servant"; for, "though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more."
(Ver. 2.) " To them that are sanctified and preserved." If it were not for this, they would be swept into the corruptions which now abound on all sides.
(Ver. 3.) He is not, so to speak, at his natural work here i.e., writing " of the common salvation." He has to turn aside and contend not for the Evangelic, but for the holy character of the faith.
(Ver. 4.) In Peter we find the Spirit anticipating and forewarning, " There shall be false teachers," etc. Jude now tells us that they "are... crept in," and are at their wretched work, talking loudly of grace, and yet practicing evil. " Ordained" here is forewritten—i, e., they read their histories in those of these fallen angels.
Vers. 5, 6, and 7 give samples of the judgments that will overtake Christendom.
(Ver. 8.) Demagogues in every age have illustrated what we get here. These deny the authority of Him by whom they profess to have been saved. You ought to write the lordship of Christ upon your eye, your ear, your thought, your everything.
(Ver. 10.) Would you have thought it possible to know the Gospel as a brute beast? That is what we get here: know in a merely natural way; know, but not in the conscience, not in broken affections, not in the moral power of the soul. All this should put us upon a sensitive and jealous watch-tower; we should be stirred up to consider how we handle the Gospel.
(Ver. 11.) We get here the three grand moral stages of Christendom: Romish times, Protestant times, and the infidelity which is to mark the last days.
Protestantism has light; so had Balaam. Balaam loved and clung to the very world the judgment of
which he was prophesying. Core gainsayed divine right, in the person of Moses.
(Vers. 12 and 13.) "Clouds," "trees," "waves," "stars," are all figures that mark apostasy from Christianity -corruption found in the place where fruit ought to be found.
(Ver. 14.) In beautiful moral fitness Enoch is brought in here.
(Ver. 20.) " Holy faith." Jude stands for its holiness, as Paul would have stood for its Evangelic simplicity.
(Ver. 21.) Is God's love to you a thing taken up and laid down at pleasure? Is it so with yourself? Would failure in your child touch your personal love to him? It would touch your complacential love; but your personal love-never. The ways of God with us are real ways.
" Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ." When Jude is looking at the corruption that is to set in, he can but speak of preservation from it-the not being borne away on its strong currents-as a special mercy.
(Ver. 22.) " Of some have compassion making a difference"; for they are rather the captives than the captors, as Paul speaks in Galatians, " There be some that trouble you"; and, again, " He that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be."
(Ver. 23.) Take care that you keep yourselves free from the evil that you are meddling with.
What a great and wonderful thing it is to be a full Christian! A half Christian is in no wise interesting or magnificent, which a full Christian is. What a wonderful thing, to walk about the world feeling that you are an object with God!
Christ, the golden key that opens the way from God even the Father to sinful man-Christ, the key that opens the hearts of sinners to God and His Father-Christ, the key that opens death and the grave, the prison where Satan keeps his prisoners-Christ, who changes all the sorrows and fears of those that serve Him to peace and cheerful courage while they follow Him.