The very care which the apostle takes to write a second time to these Hebrew believers, giving them instructions as to their own pathway, and warning them of the evils coming, is a striking proof that he did not look for a continuance of the apostolic order. The broad outline of the epistle and the details also forbid the thought. Indeed, in the second chapter he shows the terrible state that is coming in, and then that. God is going to judge the whole scene.
The difference between Jude and this epistle is, that by Peter the Spirit of God speaks a great deal about corruption, but it is in the world, whereas Jude gives you corruption in what bears the name of the Lord: ecclesiastical corruption. You get apostacy in both especially in Jude.
The careful way in which the apostle seeks to help and guide these believers, shows he did not look for any continuation of apostolic authority; he throws them on the Lord and His word.
He takes up the whole question of God dealing with the earth in manner and majesty that suits God’s character. He addresses them as a servant and an apostle, and speaks to Jewish believers as in the first epistle. “To them that have obtained like precious faith.” While it has a particular application to those to whom he wrote the first epistle, yet it has a little wider bearing than the first.
Peter is fond of the word. “precious.” “Precious blood,” “He is precious,” and here, “precious faith.” He speaks of faith on the one hand, the thing that is believed, and also the fact that you believe, but whichever it is, he says you get it on the ground of the righteousness of God, “Our God and Saviour.” You have this faith through the faithfulness of Him who was the Jehovah of Israel, and who was likewise the Saviour who came down and walked in this world. God has been righteous and faithful, and as the result, spite of the sin of the nation, you have this faith in God’s own blessed Son.
Verse 2. A very customary salutation. Grace, the present favor of God, and peace, the present standing place of the soul. He wishes it multiplied. There is where the soul stands, in perfect peace with God; and in the present acceptance of God, and favor with God, and Peter wishes their apprehension of it multiplied. It is not mercy here, and why? Because you only find mercy brought in where it is an individual who is addressed, because though I may have grace and peace as an individual, yet I need mercy for my soul day by day, as I go through a scene where everything is against me. When it is the Church that is addressed, mercy does not come in because the Church is always viewed as in relation to Christ, and as having received mercy because of her connection with Christ.
In the epistle to Philemon Paul writes to him and to the Church which is in his house, and that is why mercy is left out there.
How is this grace and peace to be multiplied? Through the knowledge of God. The intensification of that grace and peace can only come as we walk with God. You shew me a person who is walking with God, and I will show you one who gets grace multiplied day by day. You walk closely by Christ, and you will get the peace that He came to give multiplied day by day.
There is nothing so difficult as to walk in grace, for on the one hand there is the tendency to looseness, and on the other the tendency to legality. Going as these believers were through a scene of difficulty, no wonder that the apostle wished that it might be multiplied.
Verse 3. See how beautifully you get divine power in vs. 3., and divine nature in vs. 4. In vs. 3 we are the subjects of divine power, a divine operation working in us, and giving us all things that pertains to life and godliness. Eternal life, a life that enjoys God, and is suited to God, and godliness, a character that is like God in all its ways down here, a moral likeness to Him. The first thing is a life that is from Himself, and is never occupied with anything but Himself, and godliness, God-likeness.
“Through the knowledge of him that has called us by glory, and virtue.” It is the deepening acquaintance with the blessed One who has given to our souls a distinct call, and if there be one thing we are apt to forget, it is our calling. We do not forget our gifts, our blessings, but the thing we are so apt to forget is our calling; and what is our calling? He has called us to glory. We are called to heaven in the first chapter of the first epistle, and here he says the God of glory has come out and called us.
The contrast is very striking between the Christian now, and Adam in innocence. Adam in innocence was responsible to obey God and stop where he was, but our responsibility is, not to stop where we were, for we were in the world and sin and lust was our nature, but God says, “I have called you out of that, called you by glory, and virtue.” Abraham was called to be a pilgrim; Moses to be a law-giver; Joshua to be a leader; our call is to glory. See, the apostle says, that you have your faces set thither. Glory is the end of the road, and what by the way? Virtue, or spiritual energy on the road of which glory is the end.
What we have to manifest, and express is what he calls virtue, spiritual energy. There is nothing more difficult, because it calls on us to refuse the flesh, to refuse the world; like Moses, “who refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.”
The man who has this spiritual energy, knows how to say No, to the thousand things in him, and about him, that appeal to his flesh. We give way too often; lack this energy, and the result is, we often fall.
Moses refused earth and its delights, refused the highest place in this world, said No! to the allurements of the flesh and the world, and took his place outside with the few despised ones of God’s people. It needs this virtue, this courage, to do this! Moses refused what nature would have chosen, and chose what nature would have refused, namely, to be in company with a set of brick-making slaves!
How much we need this courage to refuse the world in all its shapes and forms, and to fling ourselves in with a little company of those who love the Lord, and are united to Him.
There is nothing more difficult than to break away from the old things that everybody goes on with, for the power that tradition has over us is wonderful, and it needs this courage to break away. These Jewish believers had separated from their religion, their temple, their ordinances, their observances—from everything that their nation and their forefathers had gone on with.
If we do not keep alive in our souls this virtue, this courage and energy, we slip back into the things which once we gave up.
Verse 4. All the promises are connected either with this life, or the glory where we shall be by-and-bye, and as the promises coupled us with Christ, the effect should be that “Ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” We are partakers of the divine nature in conversion, by being born again, but he shows what is the sweet result of tasting what the Lord is, and walking with the Lord. He gives you to be a partaker morally of the divine nature, i.e., we are brought into the atmosphere that suits God, breathe the atmosphere He breathes, become spiritual. The soul gets enlarged in its sense of what God is. There comes the capacity for the enjoyment of God, and then the deepening enjoyment of God.
Just as much as we enter into the word, and the things of our Lord Jesus Christ, we become the partakers morally of this divine nature. If you live with the Lord, and walk with the Lord, this will be the result; and you escape the corruption that is in the world through lust: What is lust? Man’s will. The apostle is talking here of this state, and of the walk of a saint, who escapes it. You have every thought of the heart brought into captivity to Christ; you are delivered from your own will, you are not even carried off by the imaginings of your own heart, you breathe the holy, pure atmosphere of God’s presence, an atmosphere where the soul finds its delight in doing God’s will. You once were in the world doing your own will; now you have been delivered, and you do God’s will. What a sweet thought it is that when we get up there in the glory all taint of sin will be gone! “Oh, but,” says Peter, “you may know a great deal of that clown here. You have the new nature that delights in God, and this new nature having room to expand, your peace grows, and your grace, and you escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
Paul preaches the same thing, “If ye live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit.” And if a man lives in the Spirit, how will he walk? Like Christ! Every thought of Christ’s heart was Godward. What will it be by-and-bye when every thought, every turn of your hearts will be Godward! When we get up there we shall breathe the atmosphere our souls delight in, and we shall breathe it freely, without thought or fear lest any Philistine or Amalekite intrude. “Well,” says Peter, “you may know something of this down here.” Thus he gives them what would cheer and refresh their hearts.