1.—(2 Peter 3:9.) “Not DESIRING that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
It is very important to distinguish between “will” and “desire.” The former denotes fixed and resolute purpose, and therefore the will of God can never be frustrated. “His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure.” It is expressed in the scripture by βουλη του θεληματος., (Eph. 1:11) or, ωῤσμενη βουλη, (Acts 2:23) or ευδοκια του θεληματος. (Eph. 1:5) or by βουλη alone, as in Acts 13:36. It is therefore unscriptural to say that He willeth that all should come to repentance, though it is most true that it is His desire; βουλεται, for “He is a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.” Man has the responsibility of frustrating His desire, but he never will be able to frustrate or impede His will. He wills the salvation of His Church, and they are saved.
2.—(John 17:24.) “Father I DESIRE that those whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.”
The Lord Jesus was always one with the Father; but as Jesus of Nazareth, He was the “servant” doing His Father’s “will.”— Accordingly we never find any word of authority used by Him in His addresses to the Father, but words which fully recognize His position as having “taken upon Himself the form of a servant.” “Will” is a word of authority: He does not say “I will,” but “I desire.” (θελω) Father, with respect to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am, there might they be also with me.
It seems to me that the word “desire” gives peculiar sweetness to the passage, as though He felt that the very circumstance of its being His desire, something that would give pleasure to Him would be more than a sufficient plea to the Father’s abundant love, and therefore He neither says “I will,” which is a word of authority, nor “I pray,” which implies more distance and less nearness of connection than the word which He uses simply to express the wishes of His heart. Although the Lord Jesus carefully disclaimed the exercise of all independent authority, yet He is always represented as the administrator of all the purposes of the Father. The 23rd of the 20th of Matthew, strikingly marks this— “To sit on my right and on my left is not mine to give, EXCEPT to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” Toplady has noticed the mistranslation of these words in our version. They are there translated— “It is not mine to give, but it shall be given,” &c., as though Jesus were in no sense the giver.
3.—(2 Cor. 5:9.) “Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent we may be WELL PLEASING unto Him.”
According to our present Version, “We labor that we might be accepted of Him.” This is not true: for believers are “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6.) “without money and without price.” They labor only that they may be “well pleasing” unto their heavenly Father as dear children; and when the Lord comes, every one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. The same word is used in Col. 3:20, “Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” See also Heb. 13:2;1,. and Titus 2:9. In all these places it is rendered rightly, as also in the Vulgate and French Versions.
4.—(Phil. 1:22) “To me to live is Christ, and to die, gain; but if life in the flesh is my portion, this is to me fruit of labor.”
This passage is very obscurely translated in our Version. It strikingly refers to the fruit which comes from faithful service. Under all circumstances death is gain to a believer; but there are different degrees of gain. “We wish to bring our sheaves with us.” The apostle says, increased days return increased fruit of labor. In this sense only can length of days be a blessing.
5.—(Heb. 4:3.) “We that have believed ARE ENTERING into rest!”
It is necessary to give the full force of the present tense of the verb in this passage. The whole force of the chapter depends on it. It is often quoted as if it meant, the rest as to salvation into which believers have already entered by faith, and so the chapter is headed in some bibles, “rest attained by faith.” But the very object of the chapter is to show that the position of believers is precisely analogous to that of the Israelites in the wilderness, viz., engaged in entering into their rest. The final rest was not the rest of the seventh day, as some Jew might be inclined to say; neither was it the rest of Canaan; for then David would not have spoken of a future rest: therefore there remaineth a still future rest to the people of God. If they had entered already into their rest, they would have ceased from their labors, as God did from His. But they have not ceased from their labors, for we have still to say to them “labor to enter,” therefore their rest is future.
6.—(2 Cor. 5:15.) “Because we thus judge that if one died on behalf of all then have the whole died (vicariously in Him.) And that He died for all with this object—that they who live (by virtue of this vicarious death and resurrection) might no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who died and rose again for them.”
This passage appears to refer entirely to the death and resurrection of the Church in Christ. They have died (απεθανον) in Him; they are “a new creation” (καινη κτισις) in Him. Therefore the responsibility rests on them, of living as those who have died and risen. It is I think, in reference to this “new creation” in Christ, that baptism is termed the laver of regeneration, because it is the sign of death and resurrection in Jesus.
7.—(Rom. 8:19.) “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected it, in expectancy, because the creation also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now; and not only so, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
This passage is most important as connecting the deliverance of creation, with the resurrection of the saints. Επ’ελπιδι (in expectancy) is a Hebraism, denoting the state in which the creation is now sustained, viz., a state of hope or expectancy. It answers to לבמח which occurs in Psa. 4:9, on which Bythner has the following note.
With the prefix ל this word becomes an adverb, signifying “confidently,” “in secure trust.” In the Targum it is rendered, “in hope,” in the Septuagint “επ’ελπιδι.” The use of the Hebrew prepositions ב, ל, מ often throws light upon the use of εν, επι, & εκ, in the New Testament.
8.—(Acts 3:19) “Repent and be converted, for the blotting out of your sins, that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Christ, whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restoring of all things.”
The correction in this passage is important. Οπως is never used in the New Testament to signify “when,” and not often in other writings. When it is so used, it is an adverb always followed by an Indicative Mood. When, as in the present passage, it is followed by an Optative or Subjunctive, it is a Conjunction, and uniformly signifies “that.” It is so used more than fifty times in the New Testament, and in every place except the present is rightly translated. The difficulty of attaching any intelligible meaning to the words, “repent in order that,” appears to have distressed the translators, and to have led them to violate the grammar. But the sense becomes quite plain, when we see the connection between the “deliverance of the Jews,” and the “deliverance of creation.”
It is said in Hosea, that the Lord has retired into His place till they (the Jews) shall acknowledge their offense. “In their affliction they will seek me early.” (Hos. 5:10.) When the priests, the ministers “shall (as they by and by will) weep between the porch and the altar, and say, spare thy people O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach; THEN will the Lord be jealous for His land and pity His people.” (Joel 2:17,18.) “He will send Jesus.” (Acts 3) “There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” The receiving of them back will be life from the dead unto the world; (Rom. 11:15,26.) and so we find it written in the 67th Psalm, “Lord be merciful unto us (i.e., Israel) and bless us, (Israel) and cause thy face so shine upon us, THAT thy name may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.” “God shall bless us, (the Jews) and (as a consequence) all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.” Therefore “pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”