Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Peter 3:11
[Seeing] then [that] all these things shall be dissolved, what manner [of persons] ought ye to be in [all] holy conversation and godliness,
11. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved ] Literally, Seeing therefore that all these things are being dissolved. The Greek participle is in the present tense, and is probably used to convey the thought that even now the fabric of the earth is on its way to the final dissolution. If with some of the better MSS. we read “shall thus be dissolved,” instead of “then,” the participle must be taken as more definitely future, being coupled, as in that case it must be, with the manner as well as the fact of the dissolution.
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness ] It should be noted, though it cannot well be expressed in English, that both the Greek nouns are in the plural, as expressing all the manifold forms in which holy living (see note on 1Pe 1:15) and “godliness” shew themselves. The verb for “be” is that which emphatically expresses a permanent and continuous state. The thought implied is that the belief in the transitoriness of all that seems most enduring upon earth should lead, as a necessary consequence, to a life resting on the eternal realities of truth and holiness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved – Since this is an undoubted truth.
What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness – In holy conduct and piety. That is, this fact ought to be allowed to exert a deep and abiding influence on us, to induce us to lead holy lives. We should feel that there is nothing permanent on the earth that this is not our abiding home; and that our great interests are in another world. We should be serious, humble, and prayerful; and should make it our great object to be prepared for the solemn scenes through which we are soon to pass. An habitual contemplation of the truth, that all that we see is soon to pass away, would produce a most salutary effect on the mind. It would make us serious. It would repress ambition. It would lead us not to desire to accumulate what must so soon be destroyed. It would prompt us to lay up our treasures in heaven. It would cause us to ask with deep earnestness whether we are prepared for these amazing scenes, should they suddenly burst upon us.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
2Pe 3:11-18
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved.
Immortality and science
It is a singular fact that these words have far more probability of truth than they had a generation ago. Then, the stability of the physical universe was held to be a settled fact of science; it is not so regarded now. If this world and the universe of worlds are to undergo at times such catastrophes as science and Scripture indicate, even to possible destruction, where shall immortal man abide? Physical science chiefly touches human destiny at two points of what is technically known as the principle of continuity; namely, the resolution of thought and feeling into molecular changes, and the development of man from preceding lower orders of life. The principle is thought to militate against immortality, as it implies that all the potency of life is within matter, and that all mental and moral activities are but the operation of organised matter. Under this hypothesis thought and feeling are resolved into the whirl of molecules and the formation and destruction of tissue, a wholly material process, necessary in its character and admitting of no permanent personality. To find anything outside of this all-comprehending law of which immortality can be predicated, anything that survives when the bond breaks that holds the whirling atoms together, is an impossibility under this conception. On the contrary, its analogies seem to point to an opposite result. It is not strange that the dreariness of such conclusions repels the mind towards some better hope, and that physicists are working other veins of truth if for no other end than to escape the horror of desolation their own triumphs have compelled them to face. Mr. Fiske says: There is little that is even intellectually satisfying in the awful picture which science shows us of giant worlds concentrating out of nebulous vapour, developing with prodigious waste of energy into theatres of all that is grand and sacred in spiritual endeavour, clashing and exploding again into dead vapour balls, only to renew the same toilsome process without end a senseless bubble-play of Titan forces, with life, love, and aspiration brought forth only to be extinguished. Such sentiments characterise the ablest physicists of the age. We reach at last either nothingness, or a cinder, or a ceaseless clash and repulsion of vapour-balls called worlds, with possible moments of life amidst vast cycles of lifeless ages. We reach the end of a road, but find nothing to tell us why it exists. The question forces itself upon us, if by looking in other directions we cannot; reverse this process and find some worthy end of creation, something instead of nothing, the play of mind instead of the whirl of molecules, life instead of death. The recent verdict of science as to the fate of the material universe drives us with irresistible force to belief in an unseen, spiritual world–not the belief of religious faith, but of cold, hard reason. The other main point at which physical science touches human destiny is in connection with that part of the doctrine of physical evolution which holds that all forms of life are developed from preceding forms under the impulse of some unknown force–a theory not yet exactly defined, and far from being fully proved. Take the extremest form of evolution–matter having all the potency of life within itself–it does not necessarily exclude future existence. If matter can attain to mind that longs for immortality, may not its potentiality be able to achieve it? If it can develop the conception, may it not be able to develop the fact? If the question still recurs, at what point in the process of evolution, granting its truth for the moment, the principle of immortality is inserted, or gets possession?–a question of great pungency under the principle of continuity, we answer it by instancing an analogy. At what point of its growth does a plant acquire the power of self-perpetuation? As a shoot it utterly perishes if cut down; the lusty after-growth of stem and branches also withers into nothingness; the flower is not a self-reviving thing of power; but the flower, gathering light and dew into its glowing bosom, intermingles with them its own life essence and so bears a seed around which it folds its faded petals as a shroud, and falls into the dust, no longer to perish, but to live again. This is more than illustration, it is an argument. A living thing under the law of development comes to have a power of self-perpetuation that it did not have at first; why should it not be so with the life that has culminated in man? He is the flower of life, and in his heart alone may there be found the seed of eternal existence. But this phase of the subject is unsatisfactory; it is not necessary to consider it under these suppositions, and we turn to another. We want not mere continuance, but some solid ground for belief in personality after death. Evolution cannot impair the fact of personality here or hereafter, simply because man transcends nature, which is the field of evolution. Man may comprise all that has gone before him in nature, but he is not summed up by it. As the grand proof of this, we adduce the fact of the moral nature with its prime characteristic of freedom. Mr. Darwin himself admits that free-will is a mystery insoluble to the naturalist. Necessity, which is the equivalent of law, never could evolve freedom. But choice, or freedom, is the constituting characteristic of man, upon which is built the whole fabric of his life and moral nature. It makes him a person; it is the basis of his history. It puts him above the order and on-going of nature. Professor Tyndall says that the chasm between brain-action and consciousness is impassable, that here is a rock upon which materialism must split whenever it pretends to be a complete philosophy of the human mind. The admission is valuable, not merely because of its origin, but for its impregnable truth. With such a chasm between the two parts of mans nature–molecular processes and perpetual flux on one side, and conscious identity, moral sense, and freedom on the other side–we need not feel troubled at anything physical evolution may assert of man: it simply cannot touch him. We may now build our argument as to his destiny, unhindered by any clamour that may reach us from the other side of this chasm–a chasm that science itself recognises in our composite nature. But other difficulties may arise, such as the thought that this sense of personal identity may be temporary, that as our life was drawn out into separateness from the great ocean of being, so, having some cycle within itself, it will sink back into it, as a star rises and sets. Age and infancy are very like, especially when each is normal; sleep and unconsciousness mark both. As there is no identity before infancy, is there any after age? The fact that, notwithstanding the extreme plausibility of this familiar analogy, the human mind has never accepted the suggestion, has great significance; it has instinctively felt that this resemblance does not indicate a reality. Descartes argued: I think, therefore I am. Had he continued, I am, therefore I shall continue to be, he would have uttered as cogent logic. Granted the consciousness of personality, and it is impossible to conceive of non-existence. If self is a unit, and not a conglomerate of atoms, how is it to be got out of existence? But it may be said, if there is another life, there must be another world. Where is it? Of what composed? If it is within the limits, or under the laws of matter, it can have no endurance. The soul must have a sphere like itself, permanent, unfluctuating. Surely if philosophy may create a universe in which to float the worlds, and convey those quiverings of burning suns that we call heat and light, it will not withhold a fit sphere for the soul when it breaks away from the bonds of matter. We base our proof, however, not on mere analogy, but on the simple ground that the nature of the soul demands a proper and answering sphere, as wings demand air, and fins water. Otherwise, creation is without order and coherence. Were we to search for this sphere of the soul, we would not look for it in any refinement of matter, nor in any orb beyond the flaming walls of the world, but rather in an order over against this visible order, as mind stands over against the body. If, however, it be said that the mind must always have a body, or something like it, to hold it up, a sub-sto–a something like quicksilver upon a mirror, to take up and turn back its operations, something to sustain reaction and perhaps necessary to yield consciousness–we may follow a hint dropped by science in its latest suggestions. Physicists of the highest rank hold to the existence of a pure or non-atomic fluid filling all space, in which the worlds swim, a sort of first thing to which atomic matter is a second thing. But while science thus acknowledges a non-atomic fluid filling the inter-stellar spaces as a basis upon which the universe is a cosmos, or a united whole, it cannot impugn the analogy of a non-atomic soul fluid, or ether, as the basis or body upholding the mind, if we care to claim it. As we can imagine all the worlds from Blue-eyed Lyras topmost star to the smallest asteroid, swept together into some far-off corner of space–a not improbable result–and leave it clear of atomic matter yet filled with ether ready to float and unite another universe, so the material atomic body may be swept away and gathered to its original dust, leaving the immaterial body intact, a basis for the mind and its action as it had been before. Science and Revelation here draw very near to each other, science demanding a non-atomic substance as the only possible basis of conscious identity, and Revelation asserting there is a spiritual body, and God giveth it a body even as it pleased Him. (T. T. Munger, D. D.)
Disturbances in nature an argument for holy living
Nothing preaches to us such a sermon of the vanity of man, his works, his ambition, his art, his fashion, his pleasures, his proud over-weening science, as the instability of earth and of its final dissolution. But these extraordinary movements of Nature have for us a vastly higher argument than this.
1. In these terrific convulsions of the natural world there are found motives of unusual moment for highest, holy living. The force of this argument will perhaps be most felt when we consider, first, the vital relation which exists between this dissolution of nature and the sin of man. The fatal effects of sin were not limited to the boundaries of human nature, but they reach out into all the boundaries of creation, everywhere bringing blight and derangement. The imperfect and abnormal growths in tree and plant; the pains, diseases, death, which riot among these mute, inanimate things; the distempers and sorrows of the inferior animals; the drear waste of deserts, the thawless regions of ice, the fierce and fitful agitations in nature, the internal fires and ferments, ocean tempests and distractions, are palpable symptoms of organic difficulty and incurable sickness throughout the whole natural world. Ought we not to find in this exhibition of natures unrest and discord an irresistible argument for holiness of life? How can we delay to forsake that against which nature from the first rebels, against whose influence the very earth protests in her volcanic thunders and her profound shudderings.
2. Again we find an argument for holy living when we consider the vital relation which exists between this dissolution of nature and the restoration of man. Dissolution is not annihilation, it is simply transformation. These are not the death-pangs, but the birth-throes of nature. They clearly foretell a new creation, in which all that so terribly blights and mars the present one shall be absent. Does not the thought of all this come at last to press home upon us as with a tremendous argument to live in all godliness of life? No man of impure habits or misshapen character and deformed repulsive life shall range through that fair region, for there the river of life flows pure from the eternal throne, and instead of the thorn there is the fir tree, and instead of the brier there is the myrtle tree. (G. B. Spalding, LL. D.)
The dissolution of the world
I. The certainty of the dissolution of the world. That all these things shall be dissolved is a doctrine expressly delivered in Scripture, and by many impressive allusions brought home to the human heart. The day no sooner dawns and gains its meridian splendour than it begins to decline and ends in night. Spring no sooner introduces the bloom of summer than autumn assumes its reign, and then the devastations of winter desolate all the beauties of the year. Around us all things continually change, and life itself is ever passing away; grey hair and the faded look soon remind us that old age is at hand. Nothing is stable on earth. Cities, states, and empires have their period set. The labours of men perish; the monuments of art moulder into dust; even the works of nature wax old and decay. The world was created for the pleasure of God; and, when its destined course is fulfilled, He commands its destruction. He saw it meet that when the probationary course of the generations of men was finished, their present habitation should pass away. Of the seasonableness of that period He alone can judge. But amidst this great revolution of nature our comfort is that it is a revolution conducted by Him, the measures of whose government are all founded on goodness. Over the shock of the elements and the wreck of nature eternal wisdom presides. It is the day of the Lord, and from the terrors His faithful subjects shall have nothing to dread.
II. The sudden and unexpected coming of this great event. How miserable they whom it shall overtake in the midst of dark conspiracies, criminal deeds, or profligate pleasures!
III. The consequences of the dissolution of the world to man.
IV. The influence which the dissolution of all things ought to produce upon our lives. It ought to produce a seriousness of thought, at all times, upon the mind. (D. Malcolm, LL. D.)
The end of all things
We think it quite unnecessary to travel into the question whether these words mark an annihilation of matter, or only its purification preparatory to its re-appearance in some better form; it is sufficient for our purpose that the effect shall be the same as if the whole were taken down, and star after star and system after system departed from the vast fields of space.
I. There are two ways in which the assertion as to the dissolution of all material things may be considered and applied; we may speak of them as to be dissolved, either as they are in themselves, or as they are possessed by us.
1. And first as to the fact, literally taken, that all these things shall be dissolved. We must pause to note the sublimity and augustness of the fact that the Almighty is to remain unchanged and unchangeable, whilst the very heavens and suns and stars are dim with age. We find His eternity before the series commenced, and we find it when the series shall have passed. Who amongst us does not feel rebuked by the truth now presented to his attention, if indeed he be living in the preference of the objects of sight? Man of pleasure! go on delighting thyself with things which gratify the senses; man of learning! continue to neglect the wisdom which is from above; man of avarice! persist in digging for gold, and consume thy days and nights in heaping up riches; man of ambition! still toil for distinction, and spare no sacrifice which may gain the honour of this world. But now, all ye worshippers of visible things, that immortal yourselves ye choose for your portion what is infinite and perishable. Appointed yourselves to an endless duration, ye place your happiness in objects that are to last for a time and then wholly disappear. All, yea all these things shall be dissolved.
2. But we observed to you-that there was another sense in which this declaration might be taken–regard being had to the shortness of our own lives, rather than finite duration of all visible things. Even if there were never to come an appointed change over the visible universe, if the sun were never to be extinguished nor the earth consumed, ye cannot deny that so far as ye yourselves are concerned all these things would have to be dissolved. We will not argue with the sensualist in the midst of the fascinating objects wherein he delights; we will not argue with the miser whilst the gold glitters and sparkles before him; we will not argue with the philosopher as the broad arch of the heavens fixes his study; but we will argue with them amidst the graves of a churchyard, and our reasoning shall be its inhabitants of all ages and all ranks. We need not continue our progress through the melancholy spot; but will any of you go away from the churchyard unimpressed with the feeling that all created good can be enjoyed but for a short time, and therefore that it is not the good which should engage the affections of creatures appointed for immortality?
II. But let us endeavour to place before you this inference in a somewhat clearer point of view. The apostle argues that forasmuch as all visible things are to be dissolved they ought not to engage our affections; in other words, he argues from the transitoriness of all that earth can give to the folly of making it our chief good; and we wish to prove to you that the argument is in every way sound and logical. You must admit in the general that the worth or the value and possession depends in great measure on the length of time for which it is to be enjoyed. The objects of human pursuit are for the most part precious in mens eyes in proportion to their probable duration, and you take the most effectual way of depreciating them by proving them transitory in respect to themselves, or transitory in respect to their possessor. And if this be true, there ought to be needed nothing but an actual consciousness of the shortness and uncertainty of life, in order to our estimating at their true worth the riches and honours and pleasures of the world. It would cause the gold that ye covet to look dim, and the honours that ye envy to fade in your estimation, and the knowledge for which ye toil to seem of little worth, and the pleasures which ye crave to appear to you insipid, were ye indeed in the habit of expecting your decease, and were ye really to count yourselves strangers and pilgrims upon earth. It is only because there is no such feeling, and practically no such computation that ye are yet so fascinated and engrossed with what the world can bestow on its votaries.
III. If there be one effect which more than another this consideration of the dissolution of all visible things is adapted to produce, it is a willingness to do good and to communicate. Shall we, if indeed it be only for a brief time that we can have possession of earthly things–shall we either selfishly hoard them or squander them on our own gratification, when we may make to ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and secure, by our acting as stewards rather than proprietors, unfading riches in that day when the earth and heavens shall flee from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
What manner of persons ought ye to be.—
Things and persons, here and hereafter
I. An important classification: Things and persons.
1. Things. We call the visible universe the great system of things. We need sometimes to remember that they are things only. The uplifted mountains which awe us with their sublimity are simply things. The animal and vegetable creations belong to the same category. There are endless varieties of life, instinct, structure, and form; but all are things. The possessions on which men so much pride themselves, and which attract such consideration from their fellows, are things, and nothing more. Our very bodies, so closely related to ourselves–inseparably united with us for this life–are yet not ourselves. They are but things. Youthfulness, elasticity, and bloom; age, debility, and decay, are not ourselves, nor our friends; they are things only–frail and changing things.
2. Persons. Persons are endowed with intelligence and will; they discern both right and wrong; they love and loathe. What a tremendous prerogative, to be a person! What high fellowship! God is a Person. So are angels. Man is the image of his Maker. What a pinnacle of danger is this! What a fall is possible from hence! Things exist for persons, not persons for things. Creation is for God, not God for creation. Nature, like the Sabbath, is for man, not man for nature, not man for the Sabbath. The popular philosophy of our day reverses this order. Its practical teaching is, that persons exist for things. As long as you court men, not for what they are, but for what they have, you put things above persons. In the Divine intention things are subordinate to persons. Business, riches, competence, poverty, are tests of men. They are instruments of education and discipline. None of these things are for themselves; they are ordained for persons–for the development of the mind and conscience and heart of man. The solemn question about every one is–ought to be now–will be hereafter–not, What has the man made by business? but, What has business made the man? The worlds creed is–Man exists for business, not business for man. The same perversion is visible in the misuse of the human body. One needs sometimes to ask, Which is the man, the body or the soul? The outer man is designed to be the hourly test of the inner man. The end of the thing is answered, when the intellectual, moral, and spiritual habits of the person inhabiting and using it are expanded and perfected. The husk is shed when stem and leaf appear.
II. An instructive contrast: Things shall be dissolved; persons must continue to be.
1. Things shall be dissolved. The globe is but our larger habitation, and, like the body which we occupy, it will not survive its uses. It is not shall be dissolved. It is, are being dissolved. Future events are close to the vision of the seer. There is something of the remotest future in every immediate present. We all do fade as the leaf. The elements of death, to which we must succumb at the last, work in us through childhood, youth, and maturity. So, too, the seeds of the final ruin are sown in the world now, and grow from hour to hour.
2. Persons continue to be. Persons cannot dissolve. The consciousness of existence and the sense of responsibility are indestructible. They may be bedimmed, but not extinguished. The intellectual and moral energies of the soul are a fire which may be buried, and, for a while, be constrained to smoulder; but, uncovered to the air, it will break forth once more into dazzling flame. Ah! what changes persons can pass through, and still remain the same! What differences there are between childhood and age, and yet the individual continues as before! A man may so alter his earthly condition that the past may become a dream, and will no more be realised in the present. He may modify and even cancel all the judgments which he ever held, and may reverse all his moral principles and religious hopes. But not even a suspicion will ever cross his mind to confuse the unquestioned conviction that, as a person, he is unaltered and the same. Life and death, the grave and judgment, heaven and hell, immortal activity and endless years will never bedim the individuality of a single soul. Personality in every deathless spirit shall stretch in a line of unwavering light to all eternity.
III. A solemn inference: Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be.
1. Ye ought to live in the hallowed discharge of all duty towards God and man.
(1) In all holy conversation. The word is plural, conversations. As usual in our version, conversation means conduct. The plural indicates no particular conduct, but all conduct without exception.
(2) And godliness. The plural occurs here also, godlinesses. Godliness is all thought, feeling, and conduct which are possible to a man towards God. This is mans action towards heaven, as the former is mans action towards earth. Penitence for sin; faith in Christ, whose blood was shed; the eager pursuit of the Holy Spirits grace, that godliness with you may be likeness to God; these and all emotions, resolutions, and actions which can cleanse the conscience, pacify the heart, and refine the character, are to distinguish men who recognise that all things are dissolving, that persons are immortal, and may be for ever blessed.
2. In the holy fulfilment of all duty to man, and in the sacred enjoyment of all hallowed privilege from God, ye are to expect the grand consummation, and by the same conduct to hasten it on.
(1) Looking for the coming of the day of God. The word means watching and waiting. It is looking, not doubtfully, but in expectancy. This state of mind is the fruit of all holy conversations and godlinesses. It cannot be projected by a wish. It can no more be extemporised in the Christian life than can an elaborate Corinthian capital or an ethereal group of sculpture be flung off and finished with a blow. Languishing piety and increasing worldliness will not attain it. If you would reap the harvest, you must sow the seed, and protect the rising growth from all blight and injury.
(2) And hasting the coming of the day of God. All holy conversations and godlinesses, not only create the state of expectancy, but in the design of the Almighty they bring on the day. The great system of things is passing to dissolution, let holy persons, who will mount above the ruin and live for ever, hasten the blissful hour. (H. Batchelor.)
What manner of persons Christian professors ought to be
I. zealous and in earnest as to the concerns of religion. What shall it profit a man, if, etc.
II. Penitent and broken-hearted (Psa 51:17).
III. Believing on Christ as set forth in the word (Joh 6:27-29).
IV. Patient and resigned. Because–
1. Their sufferings less than they deserve.
2. Christ suffered more for them.
3. They suffer for their profit.
V. Benevolent, condescending, and merciful. Because Christ has been so to them (2Co 8:9; 1Jn 3:16-17),
VI. Circumspect. Because their danger is great.
VII. Grateful. Because all their blessings are undeserved.
VIII. Hopeful. Because what God has done for them ensures everything.
IX. Ready for the dissolution of their present state, and the commencement of that to come. Learning hence-
1. Christianity, when reduced to practice, is beneficial to others as well as to our selves.
2. Christianity at a low ebb amongst us.
3. God will help those who are seeking to be what they should be (Php 4:13).
4. The consideration of what we should be teaches us our need of Christ in everything (Gal 2:19-20). (H. Foster, M. A.)
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God.—
Desire for the day of God
I. The privilege and duty enjoined. Christians should live and walk as on the borders of eternity, dying daily. This looking for the coming of Christ is similar to that of the watchman who waits with earnest solicitude for the dawn of day. It is the look of desire, not of regret; of hope, not of fear; and hence it is added, hasting to the coming of the day of God. The Christian ought to do this in two ways–
1. In desire. As he approaches the heavenly country he ought to breathe more of its atmosphere; to become more and more engrossed with those foretastes which faith gives him of its blessedness.
2. In preparation.
II. The means by which we may attain to the exercise of this duty and the enjoyment of this privilege.
III. The blessed consequences which would result from our habitually looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God.
1. It would make us watchful and circumspect.
2. It would support us under the trials of life.
3. It would make us bold in our Masters cause.
4. It would lead us to form proper notions of worldly things.
5. It would cause our light to shine brighter amongst men. (W. C. Wilson, M. A.)
Advancing the Second Advent
From the Bibles that have marginal readings it will appear that these words admit of a different construction–Looking for and hasting the coming of the day of God. Practically it comes to the same, whether we hasten to Christ or cause Christ to hasten to us. But the intention is that we should do both–Hasting unto, and ourselves hastening, the coming of the clay of God. But now the question presents itself–Can anything which a man does really hasten, by a single moment, the Second Coming of Christ? It is a question which, in fact, loses itself in a far greater one–Can the acts of the Almighty, which are all pre-determined from all eternity, be affected by anything which His creatures do? In every age Christians are to be praying and labouring for the extension of the gospel over the whole earth. And so labouring and so praying they may command results. The Church shall grow, souls shall be saved, God shall be glorified. But, nevertheless, all this is only the earnest of a better dispensation–the falling drops which tell that the shower is coming. But can mortal wishes, or mortal feelings, accelerate that day of God? Assuredly. God has oftentimes, in His mercy, changed His times for His peoples sake. Many things have gone back. Death has retired for fifteen years. The destruction of a city has been postponed indefinitely. Great calamities, threatening a king and his people, have been handed down to the third and fourth generations. But, has anything, with God, gone forward? In those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. And except that the Lord had shortened those days. What does that shortening mean? That the day of deliverance was put forward for the elects sake. Then here is a great and happy event hastening on for man! What, then, must we do to hasten the day of God?
1. Pray for it. What is the promise, ought always to be, emphatically, the prayer of the dispensation.
2. Let the Church live in love and union, in order that a united Church may attract her Lord to come.
3. Make great efforts for the evangelisation of the world.
4. Cultivate personal holiness. Will He come until His Bride has put on her jewels? And when she is decked, and when she is meet indeed, can He stay away? (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The day of God
Can it be that God has left large tracts of present time to themselves; that He has retreated into some distant future, when He will exert a jurisdiction that does not now belong to Him? Certainly not. This were irreconcileable with any true idea of the Omnipresent and the Eternal. All days most assuredly are His, who is the Lord of time. Each hour, each minute, as it passes by, is passed beneath His eye, or rather within His encompassing presence.
I. By the day of God is meant a day which will not merely be his, as all days are His, but which will be felt to be His–a day in which His true relation to time and life, which is, in the case of the majority of men, only dimly perceived, will be unreservedly acknowledged; a day which will belong to Him, because in the thoughts of every reasonable creature of His hand, whether it will be for weal or for woe, He will have no rival.
II. The day of God means, again, a time when all human things will be rated at their true value; when mans life, and all that belongs to it, will be seen in the light of the infinite and the eternal, and therefore in its relative insignificance. The day of God thus tacitly implies a contrast; it means that the days of mans earthly life and all that concerns it will have passed away (Isa 2:12-17). Most men who have lived until middle life have experienced something that will enable them in part to understand this. You have gone on for years without any shock to the even tenour of life. You may have fallen under the empire of nature and the empire of your bodily senses, and everything belonging to this world may have come to be seen in exaggerated proportions, because you have lost sight of a higher. Now, a state of mind like this is abruptly broken in upon by a great trouble, by a loss of income, by a loss of reputation, by the death of a dearly loved relative, by a break-up of your health. He finds that he has made too much of it, both in detail and as a whole, and he wakes up to see that there is another world beyond it, compared with which, at its very best, it is poor and worthless indeed. This is for him a true day of the Lord; and in the light of that day he learns this truth, that all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field, and that while the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, the Word of our God shall abide for ever. And every such experience in life is a preparation for the awful day, when we shall learn, as never before, the insignificance of all that only belongs to time.
III. The day of God means the day of universal judgment. Certainly God is always judging us. Moment by moment we live beneath His all-seeing eye; He registers each act, each word, each thought, each movement of passion, each truancy of the will, each struggle by His grace to live for Him, each victory over the craft and subtlety of the devil or man. Yes, He is always on His throne of judgment, but this does not prove that no time is coming when He will judge as never before. The predicted day of judgment will differ from the continuous judgment that always is exercised by the Divine Mind as it gazes upon a moral world in two respects–in its method and in its finality. It will be carried out, that last judgment, by the Man Christ Jesus in person. And as the last judgment will be administered by a visible judge, by our dear Lord, who was crucified for us, and who rose from the grave, and who ascended into heaven, so it will be final. There will be no appeal, no rehearing, no reversal possible. Every grace responded to, or neglected, will be taken into account. Every thought, word, act, habit, all that has gone to make up our final self–and everything from the cradle to the dying hour, most assuredly, contributes something–all will be taken fully, unerringly into the reckoning. And thus, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is called an Eternal Judgment, meaning a judgment from which there is no appeal, in the new and everlasting age. We cannot picture to ourselves this judgment; but that does not prove that it will not take place. (Canon Liddon.)
The influence of belief in tire coming of the day of God
I. The expectation of a coming day of God affects Christian thought, in the first place, by reminding us of what human life really is and means. Springing, as it does, out of the very idea of duty, being, as it is, the inseparable concomitant of a reasoned conception of right and wrong as the law planted within us by some moral being, who must have the will and the power to enforce it, the expectation of a coming judgment at once raises man into his true place as the first of created beings here below; and yet, withal, it keeps him there. In short, the knowledge that we have to be judged at once guarantees our dignity and defines our subordination. It is only as moral beings having free-will that we are capable of undergoing judgment at all; and, as having to undergo it, we are necessarily and infinitely below Him whose right and whose duty it is to judge us.
II. A second way in which the expectation of the coming of the day of God powerfully affects Christian thought is that which illuminates the sense of responsibility. The sense of responsibility is as wide as the moral sense of man; that is to say, it is as wide as the human race. This primal idea, rooted in our first instinctive perceptions of moral truth, that we are responsible beings, necessarily implies that some one exists to whom this responsibility is due. Who is it? We look around us, and we see, most of us, some fellow creatures to whom we have to answer for our conduct. The child knows that he must answer for it to his parents–to his mother in early, to his father in later years. The schoolboy thinks of his master, the clerk of his employer, the soldier of his commanding officer. As we get higher in the scale of society, it may seem at a distance that there are personages so exalted as to be subject to no human masters to whom their responsibility is due; but in reality it is quite otherwise. Those who govern us are answerable to what is called public opinion for their conduct of public affairs. That is to say, they have to give an account, not to one, but to many millions of their countrymen. But if conscience speaks to us at all with clearness and honesty, it tells every one of us one thing about such responsibilities we owe to our fellow-creatures, and that is that such responsibility covers only a very small part indeed of our actual conduct. A great deal goes on in every life which is either right or wrong, yet for which a man feels in no way accountable to any human critic or authority whatever. Is he, therefore, not accountable for such acts and words as do not fall within human jurisdiction? And this knowledge obliges us to look often and beyond this human world to One to whom our responsibility is really due. As He only can take account of that which is withdrawn from the eyes of our fellow-men, so He assuredly does take account of all in which others may have a right to do so. We are responsible to God–yes, all who seriously believe that He exists as the moral Governor of this world which He has made must admit this responsibility. But, then, the question arises: When is the account to be rendered? That God keeps His eye upon it day by day in the case of every one of us is as certain as that He exists. It is faith in a future judgment which makes the sense of responsibility living and operative, by making the prospect of a real reckoning definite and concrete.
III. Belief in a coming day of God affects our whole view of human history and of human life. When we take up a volume of ancient history, or of the history of our own country, of what does it mainly consist? It describes royal and noble personages succeeding one another–their birth, their training, their coronations, their deaths. It describes the varying fortunes of multitudes of human beings associated together as what is called a nation, their privations, their conquests, their gradual improvement, the crimes for which they are collectively responsible. In short, we read history too often as though it told us all that was to be said about man, as though when man had done with this earthly life there was really an end. Ah! we forget the truth which makes history so inexpressibly pathetic, that all is not really over with those whom it describes, that they have only ceased to be visible, that the most important part of their career yet awaits them, viz., the account they have to give of it. Our Saxon forefathers, and the Britons whom they so ruthlessly exterminated, and Alfred, and Edward the Confessor, and William the Conqueror, and Rufus, and Coeur de Lion, and John, and the great Plantagenets, the Edwards and the Henrys, and Elizabeth, and Mary Stuart, and Charles, and Cromwell, and the Georges, and the Pretenders, and the great statesmen who fill the canvas of the first half of this century, and the men of the first Revolution, and the Napoleons, down to those who left us but yesterday–depend upon it they are no mere names; they are still living beings; and this is the fact, the pathetic fact, common to all of them, that they are waiting for the final judgment, and they already know enough to know what it will mean to each one of themselves. This view of history, considered in the light of a coming day of judgment, extends itself at once and inevitably to human life in our own day and immediately around us. Our first and, so to call it, our natural view of human beings around us takes note of their positions in this world, and of the points wherein they differ from or resemble ourselves. We think of them as better or worse off, as more or less educated, as friendly or as distant acquaintances, as belonging to a past or to a younger generation, or to our own, as standing in this or in that relation to the public life of the country, as belonging to this or to that profession, as occupying this or that or a third position in the social scale; but once let us have steadily thought out the truth that, like ourselves, every human being is certainly on his trial and his judgment before Him, and how insignificant do all those considerations about our fellow-creatures appear in the light of this tremendous fact! Yes, those possessors of vast influence, which they use, if at all, for selfish ends; those owners of accumulated wealth, which they spend so largely, if not altogether, upon themselves; those men of cultivated minds, who regard cultivation as an end in itself, and without a thought of what it may be made to do for others or for the glory of God; yes, the consideration that all, all will be judged, and that every hour that passes brings them nearer to the judgment, makes us think of human life around us in quite a new light. (Canon Liddon.)
The day of God
I. The solemn event we should anticipate. The day of God, wherein, etc.
1. The day of His glory.
2. The day of His power.
3. The day of His wrath.
II. The practical influence it should produce. Looking for and hasting unto, etc.
1. It should duly interest our minds.
2. It should duly influence our conduct. Looking for and hasting unto the day of God comprehends earnest desire and diligent preparation.
III. The important reflections it should suggest.
1. The awful nature and effects of sin.
2. The emptiness and vanity of the world.
3. The necessity of seeking an interest in Christ. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. All these things shall be dissolved] They will all be separated, all decomposed; but none of them destroyed. And as they are the original matter out of which God formed the terraqueous globe, consequently they may enter again into the composition of a new system; and therefore the apostle says, 2Pe 3:13: we look for new heavens and a new earth-the others being decomposed, a new system is to be formed out of their materials. There is a wonderful philosophic propriety in the words of the apostle in describing this most awful event.
What manner of persons ought ye to be] Some put the note of interrogation at the end of this clause, and join the remaining part with the 12th verse, 2Pe 3:12 thus: Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be? By holy conversation and godliness, expecting and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, c. Only those who walk in holiness, who live a godly and useful life, can contemplate this most awful time with joy.
The word , which we translate hasting unto, should be tendered earnestly desiring, or wishing for which is a frequent meaning of the word in the best Greek writers.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved; seeing the coming of the Lord will be so terrible, as to bring with it the consumption of the world, and the destruction of these things here below, upon which we are so apt to set our affections.
What manner of persons ought ye to be; how prudent, accurate, diligent, zealous, and every way excellent persons! The Greek word is often used by way of admiration of some singular excellency in persons or things, Mat 8:27; Mar 13:1; Luk 1:29.
In all holy conversation and godliness: the words in the Greek are both in the plural number, and may imply not only a continued course of holy walking throughout our whole time, but likewise diligence in the performance of all sorts of duties, and exercise of all those various graces wherewith the Spirit of God furnisheth believers in order thereto.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. Your duty, seeing that thisis so, is to be ever eagerly expecting the day of God.
thenSome oldestmanuscripts substitute “thus” for “then”: a happyrefutation of the “thus” of the scoffers, 2Pe3:4 (English Version, “As they were,” Greek,“thus”).
shall beGreek,“are being (in God’s appointment, soon to be fulfilled)dissolved”; the present tense implying the certainty asthough it were actually present.
what manner of menexclamatory. How watchful, prayerful, zealous!
to benot the mereGreek substantive verb of existence (einai), but(huparchein) denoting a state or condition inwhich one is supposed to be [TITTMANN].What holy men ye ought to be found to be, when the event comes! Thisis “the holy commandment” mentioned in 2Pe3:2.
conversation . . .godlinessGreek, plural: behaviors (towards men),godlinesses (or pieties towards God) in their manifoldmodes of manifestation.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
[Seeing] then [that] all these things shall be dissolved,…. By fire; the heaven with all its host, sun, moon, and stars, clouds, meteors, and fowls of the air; the earth, and all that is upon it, whether of nature, or art; and, since nothing is more certain than such a dissolution of all things,
what manner [of persons] ought ye to be in [all] holy conversation and godliness? not as the scoffers and profane sinners, who put away this evil day far from them, but as men, who have their loins girt, and their lights burning, waiting for their Lord’s coming; being continually in the exercise of grace, and in the discharge of their religious duties, watching, praying, hearing, reading; living soberly, righteously, and godly; guarding against intemperance and worldly mindedness, and every worldly and hurtful lust.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Solemn Exhortations. | A. D. 67. |
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 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? 13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 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. 15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 16 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. 17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. 18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
The apostle, having instructed them in the doctrine of Christ’s second coming,
I. Takes occasion thence to exhort them to purity and godliness in their whole conversation: all the truths which are revealed in scripture should be improved for our advancement in practical godliness: this is the effect that knowledge must produce, or we are never the better for it. If you know these things, happy are you if you do them. Seeing all these things must be dissolved, how holy should we be, that are assured of it, departing from and dying to sin, that has so corrupted and defiled all the visible creation that there is an absolute need of its dissolution! All that was made for man’s use is subject to vanity by man’s sin: and if the sin of man has brought the visible heavens, and the elements and earth, under a curse, from which they cannot be freed without being dissolved, what an abominable evil is sin, and how much to be hated by us! And, inasmuch as this dissolution is in order to their being restored to their primitive beauty and excellency, how pure and holy should we be, in order to our being fit for the new heaven and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness! It is a very exact and universal holiness that he exhorts to, not resting in any lower measure or degree, but labouring to be eminent beyond what is commonly attained–holy in God’s house and in our own, holy in our worshipping of God and in our conversing with men. All our conversation, whether with high or low, rich or poor, good or bad, friends or enemies, must be holy. We must keep ourselves unspotted from the world in all our converses with it. We must be perfecting holiness in the fear of God, and in the love of God too. We must exercise ourselves unto godliness of all sorts, in all its parts, trusting in God and delighting in God only, who continues the same when the whole visible creation shall be dissolved, devoting ourselves to the service of God, and designing the glorifying and enjoyment of God, who endures for ever; whereas what worldly men delight in and follow after must all be dissolved. Those things which we now see must in a little while pass away, and be no more as they now are: let us look therefore at what shall abide and continue, which, though it be not present, is certain and not far off. This looking for the day of God is one of the directions the apostle gives us, in order to our being eminently holy and godly in all manner of conversation. “Look for the day of God as what you firmly believe shall come, and what you earnestly long for.” The coming of the day of God is what every Christian must hope for and earnestly expect; for it is a day when Christ shall appear in the glory of the Father, and evidence his divinity and Godhead even to those who counted him a mere man. The first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he appeared in the form of a servant, was what the people of God earnestly waited and looked for: that coming was for the consolation of Israel, Luke ii. 25. How much more should they wait with expectation and earnestness for his second coming, which will be the day of their complete redemption, and of his most glorious manifestation! Then he shall come to be admired in his saints, and glorified in all those that believe. For though it cannot but terrify and affright the ungodly to see the visible heavens all in a flame, and the elements melting, yet the believer, whose faith is the evidence of things not seen, can rejoice in hope of more glorious heavens after these have been melted and refined by that dreadful fire which shall burn up all the dross of this visible creation. Here we must take notice, 1. What true Christians look for: new heavens and a new earth, in which a great deal more of the wisdom, power and goodness of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ will be clearly discerned than we are able to discover in what we now see; for in these new heavens and earth, freed from the vanity the former were subject to, and the sin they were polluted with, only righteousness shall dwell; this is to be the habitation of such righteous persons as do righteousness, and are free from the power and pollution of sin; all the wicked shall be turned into hell; those only who are clothed with a righteousness of Christ, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, shall be admitted to dwell in this holy place. 2. What is the ground and foundation of this expectation and hope–the promise of God. To look for any thing which God has not promised is presumption; but if our expectations are according to the promise, both as to the things we look for and the time and way of their being brought about, we cannot meet with a disappointment; for he is faithful who has promised. “See therefore that you raise and regulate your expectations of all the great things that are to come according to the word of God; and, as to the new heaven and new earth, look for them as God has allowed and directed by the passages we have in this portion of scripture how before you, and in Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22, to which the apostle may be thought to allude.”
II. As in v. 11 he exhorts to holiness from the consideration that the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved, so in v. 14 he resumes his exhortation from the consideration that they shall be again renewed. “Seeing you expect the day of God, when our Lord Jesus Christ will appear in his glorious majesty, and these heavens and earth shall be dissolved and melted down, and, being purified and refined, shall be erected and rebuilt, prepare to meet him. It nearly concerns you to see in what state you will be when the Judge of all the world shall come to pass sentence upon men, and to determine how it shall be with them to all eternity. This is the court of judicature whence there lies no appeal; whatever sentence is here passed by this great Judge is irreversible; therefore get ready to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ: and see to it,”
1. “That you be found of him in peace, in a state of peace and reconciliation with God through Christ, in whom alone God is reconciling the world to himself. All that are out of Christ are in a state of enmity, and reject and oppose the Lord and his anointed, and shall therefore be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power. Those whose sins are pardoned and their peace made with God are the only safe and happy people; therefore follow after peace, and that with all.” (1.) Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (2.) Peace in our own consciences, through the Spirit of grace witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God. (3.) Peace with men, by having a calm and peaceable disposition wrought in us, resembling that of our blessed Lord.
2. That you be found of Christ without spot, and blameless. Follow after holiness as well as peace: and even spotless and perfect; we must not only take heed of all spots which are not the spots of God’s children (this only prevents our being found of men without spot), we must be pressing towards spotless purity, absolute perfection. Christians must be perfecting holiness, that they may be not only blameless before men, but also in the sight of God; and all this deserves and needs the greatest diligence; he who does this work negligently can never do it successfully. “Never expect to be found at that day of God in peace, if you are lazy and idle in this your day, in which we must finish the work that is given us to do. It is only the diligent Christian who will be the happy Christian in the day of the Lord. Our Lord will suddenly come to us, or shortly call us to him; and would you have him find you idle?” Remember there is a curse denounced against him who does the work of the Lord negligently, Marg. Jer. xlviii. 10. Heaven will be a sufficient recompence for all our diligence and industry; therefore let us labour and take pains in the work of the Lord; he will certainly reward us if we be diligent in the work he has allotted us; now, that you may be diligent, account the long-suffering of our Lord to be salvation. “Does your Lord delay his coming? Do not think this is to give more time to make provision for your lusts, to gratify them; it is so much space to repent and work out your salvation. It proceeds not from a want of concern or compassion for his suffering servants, nor is it designed to give countenance and encouragement to the world of the ungodly, but that men may have time to prepare for eternity. Learn then to make a right use of the patience of our Lord, who does as yet delay his coming. Follow after peace and holiness, or else his coming will be dreadful to you.” And inasmuch as it is difficult to prevent men’s abuse of God’s patience, and engage them in the right improvement thereof, our apostle quotes St. Paul as directing men to make the same good use of the divine forbearance, that in the mouth, or from the pen, of two apostles the truth might be confirmed. And we may here observe with what esteem and affection he speaks of him who had formerly publicly withstood and sharply reproved Peter. If a righteous man smite one who is truly religious, it shall be received as a kindness; and let him reprove, it shall be as an excellent oil, which shall soften and sweeten the good man that is reproved when he does amiss. What an honourable mention does this apostle of the circumcision make of that very man who had openly, before all, reproved him, as not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel! (1.) He calls him brother, whereby he means not only that he is a fellow-christian (in which sense the word brethren is used 1 Thess. v. 27), or a fellow-preacher (in which sense Paul calls Timothy the evangelist a brother, Col. i. 1), but a fellow-apostle, one who had the same extraordinary commission, immediately from Christ himself, to preach the gospel in every place, and to disciple all nations. Though many seducing teachers denied Paul’s apostleship, yet Peter owns him to be an apostle. (2.) He calls him beloved; and they being both alike commissioned, and both united in the same service of the same Lord, it would have been very unseemly if they had not been united in affection to one another, for the strengthening of one another’s hands, mutually desirous of, and rejoicing in, one another’s success. (3.) He mentions Paul as one who had an uncommon measure of wisdom given unto him. He was a person of eminent knowledge in the mysteries of the gospel, and did neither in that nor any other qualification come behind any of all the other apostles. How desirable is it that those who preach the same gospel should treat one another according to the pattern Peter here sets them! It is surely their duty to endeavour, by proper methods, to prevent or remove all prejudices that hinder ministers’ usefulness, and to beget and improve the esteem and respect in the minds of people towards their ministers that may promote the success of their labours. And let us also here observe, [1.] The excellent wisdom that was in Paul is said to be given him. The understanding and knowledge that qualify men to preach the gospel are the gift of God. We must seek for knowledge, and labour to get understanding, in hopes that it shall be given us from above, while we are diligent in using proper means to attain it. [2.] The apostle imparts to men according as he had received from God. He endeavours to lead others as far as he himself was led into the knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel. He is not an intruder into the things he had not seen or been fully assured of, and yet he does not fail to declare the whole counsel of God, Acts xx. 27. [3.] The epistles which were written by the apostle of the Gentiles, and directed to those Gentiles who believed in Christ, are designed for the instruction and edification of those who from among the Jews were brought to believe in Christ; for it is generally thought that what is here alluded to is contained in the epistle to the Romans (ch. ii. 4), though in all his epistles there are some things that refer to one or other of the subjects treated of in this and the foregoing chapter; and it cannot seem strange that those who were pursuing the same general design should in their epistles insist upon the same things. But the apostle Peter proceeds to tell us that in those things which are to be met with in Paul’s epistles there are some things hard to be understood. Among the variety of subjects treated of in scripture, some are not easy to be understood because of their own obscurity, such are prophecies; others cannot be so easily understood because of their excellency and sublimity, as the mysterious doctrines; and others are with difficulty taken in because of the weakness of men’s minds, such are the things of the Spirit of God, mentioned 1 Cor. ii. 14. And here the unlearned and unstable make wretched work; for they wrest and torture the scriptures, to make them speak what the Holy Ghost did not intend. Those who are not well instructed and well established in the truth are in great danger of perverting the word of God. Those who have heard and learned of the Father are best secured from misunderstanding and misapplying any part of the word of God; and, where there is a divine power to establish as well as to instruct men in divine truth, persons are effectually secured from falling into errors. How great a blessing this is we learn by observing what is the pernicious consequence of the errors that ignorant and unstable men fall into–even their own destruction. Errors in particular concerning the holiness and justice of God are the utter ruin of multitudes of men. Let us therefore earnestly pray for the Spirit of God to instruct us in the truth, that we may know it as it is in Jesus, and have our hearts established with grace, that we may stand firm and unshaken, even in the most stormy times, when others are tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.
III. The apostle gives them a word of caution, 2Pe 3:17; 2Pe 3:18, where,
1. He intimates that the knowledge we have of these things should make us very wary and watchful, inasmuch as there is a twofold danger, v. 17. (1.) We are in great danger of being seduced, and turned away from the truth. The unlearned and unstable, and they are very numerous, do generally wrest the scripture. Many who have the scriptures and read them do not understand what they read; and too many of those who have a right understanding of the sense and meaning of the word are not established in the belief of the truth, and all these are liable to fall into error. Few attain to the knowledge and acknowledgment of doctrinal Christianity; and fewer find, so as to keep in the way of practical godliness, which is the narrow way, which only leadeth unto life. There must be a great deal of self-denial and suspicion of ourselves, and submitting to the authority of Christ Jesus our great prophet, before we can heartily receive all the truths of the gospel, and therefore we are in great danger of rejecting the truth. (2.) We are in great danger by being seduced; for, [1.] So far as we are turned from the truth so far are we turned out of the way to true blessedness, into the path which leads to destruction. If men corrupt the word of God, it tends to their own utter ruin. [2.] When men wrest the word of God, they fall into the error of the wicked, men without law, who keep to no rules, set no bounds to themselves, a sort of free-thinkers, which the psalmist detests. Ps. cxix. 113, I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. Whatever opinions and thoughts of men are not conformable to the law of God, and warranted by it, the good man disclaims and abhors; they are the conceits and counsels of the ungodly, who have forsaken God’s law, and, if we imbibe their opinions, we shall too soon imitate their practices. [3.] Those who are led away by error fall from their own stedfastness. They are wholly unhinged and unsettled, and know not where to rest, but are at the greatest uncertainty, like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. It nearly concerns us therefore to be upon our guard, seeing the danger is so great.
2. That we may the better avoid being led away, the apostle directs us what to do, v. 18. And, (1.) We must grow in grace. He had in the beginning of the epistle exhorted us to add one grace to another, and here he advises us to grow in all grace, in faith, and virtue, and knowledge. By how much the stronger grace is in us, by so much the more stedfast shall we be in the truth. (2.) We must grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Follow on to know the Lord. Labour to know him more clearly and more fully, to know more of Christ and to know him to better purpose, so as to be more like him and to love him better.” This is the knowledge of Christ the apostle Paul reached after and desired to attain, Phil. iii. 10. Such a knowledge of Christ as conforms us more to him, and endears him more to us, must needs be of great use to us, to preserve us from falling off in times of general apostasy; and those who experience this effect of the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will, upon receiving such grace from him, give thanks and praise to him, and join with our apostle in saying, To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
To be dissolved (). Present passive participle (genitive absolute with , these things all) of , either the futuristic present or the process of dissolution presented.
What manner of persons (). Late qualitative interrogative pronoun for the older as in Mt 8:27, accusative case with agreeing with (you). See 1:8 for .
In all holy living and godliness ( ). “In holy behaviours and pieties” (Alford). Plural of neither word elsewhere in N.T., but a practical plural in in 1Pe 1:15.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
To be dissolved [] . So Rev. But the participle is present; and the idea is rather, are in process of dissolution. The word and all therein is essentially transitory.
Ought ye to be [] . See on ch. 2Pe 1:8.
Conversation [] . See on 1Pe 1:15. Rev., living. Godliness [] . See on ch. 2Pe 1:3. Both words are plural; holy things and godliness.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolve. (Greek touton houtos) these things thus or even” (panton luomenon) “all being dissolved, disintegrated,” (as above described, to end in laser-beam burning.)
2) “What manner of people ought ye to be” (potapous dei huparcheis) “What sort (of being) it behooves(humas) “you” to be.
3) “In all holy conversation and godliness.” (en hagiais anastrophais) “in holy behavior, conduct, or turning from one activity to another” (Kai eusebeiais) and piety.” Gal 5:25.
FAREWELL, VAIN WORLD
David Brainerd, under the date of April 25, 1742, wrote in his journal:
“Farewell, vain world, my soul can bid adieu; Your Saviour taught me to abandon you. Your charms may gratify a sensual mind, But cannot please a soul for God designed.
Forbear to entice, cease then my soul to call; ‘Tis fixed through grace — my God shall be my all. While He thus lets me Heavenly glories view, Your beauties fade; my heart’s no room for you.
–Gospel Herald
LIVINGSTONE’S DEDICATION
When Henry M. Stanley found Livingstone, the great missionary who spent thirty years in darkest Africa, and who had been lost to the world for over two years, he wanted him to come back home to England with him, but Livingstone refused to go. Two days later he wrote in his diary, “March 19th, my birthday. My Jesus, my King, my life my, All, I again dedicate my whole self to Thee. Accept me, and grant, 0 gracious Father, that ere the year is gone I may finish my work. In Jesus’ name, I ask it, Amen”. A year later his servants found him on his knees dead. It was said of him:
He needs no epitaph to guard a name
Which men shall prize while worthy work is known: He lived and died for good — be this his fame;
Let marble crumble: this is Living Stone.
–Hugh T. Kerr, DD
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Heaven and earth, he says, shall pass away for our sakes; is it meet, then, for us to be engrossed with the things of earth, and not, on the contrary, to attend to a holy and godly life? The corruptions of heaven and earth will be purged by fire, while yet as the creatures of God they are pure; what then ought to be done by us who are full of so many pollutions? As to the word godlinesses ( pietatibus ,) the plural number is used for the singular, except you take it as meaning the duties of godliness. (180) Of the elements of the world I shall only say this one thing, that they are to be consumed, only that they may be renovated, their substance still remaining the same, as it may be easily gathered from Rom 8:21, and from other passages. (181)
(180) The previous word is also in the plural number, “in holy conversations.” What seems to be meant is, that every part of the conduct should be holy, and that every part of godliness should be attended to: “In every part of a holy life, and every act of godliness;” that is, we are not to be holy in part or pious in part, but attend to every branch of duty towards man, and every branch of duty towards God. — Ed.
(181) All that is said here is, that there will be new heavens and a new earth, and not that the present heavens and the present earth will be renovated. See Rev 20:11. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
2Pe. 3:11-12 Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Expanded Translation
Realizing that these things [the earth, 2Pe. 3:10; and the skies, 2Pe. 3:12] are all to be broken apart, unfastened, and dissolved in the manner of which I speak, what kind of persons it is necessary and proper for you to be in all things which are manifestations of holy (pure, sanctified, dedicated) living and godliness (devotion, reverence toward God)? looking for (anticipating) and earnestly desiring (eagerly expecting) the coming (appearance, presence) of the day of God. On account of this manifestation of his presence, the heavens, being set on fire and burning shall be caused to disintegrate (break apart, dissolve) and the elements (basic) or primary components of matter, as in 2Pe. 3:10) burning intensely and with great heat, shall be liquefied and melted.
_______________________
Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved
See 2Pe. 3:10. Everything burnable and capable of being dissolved shall be dissolved on that day! How this ought to sober every thoughtful mind! The fine estates, the beautiful homes, the lovely gardens, the expensive clothes, the chrome-laden automobilesALL shall be dissolved at the command of God. How foolish it is, then, for us to make material things the object of primary interest and concern in life.
In view of the certainty of this worlds doom, the apostle argues
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness (?)
The word all is in the plural number in the Greek, as is shown in the Expanded Translation, See godliness (eusebeia) defined under 2Pe. 1:6.[80]
[80] The impersonal verb dei (ought) generally implies necessity, and is frequently rendered must. See, for example, Luk. 2:49, Joh. 3:7, Act. 4:12; Act. 5:29; Act. 9:6; Act. 16:30; Heb. 11:6.
looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God
That is, the day I am now describing to you. The day of God and the day of the Lord (2Pe. 3:10) are synonymous in these verses.
The worldly man, after reading this account, has every right to fear and tremble! But the man who is living as he should, looks into the future with the hope that that day is not far distant. He is looking for it (prosdokao): to expect, wait for, anticipate. And he is earnestly desiring it (speudo): literally, to hasten; hence to be eager for, etc. (But some, preferring to hold to the more primary meaning, believe something like urge on or accelerate to be the proper definition here.)
by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Compare 2Pe. 3:10 and note the difference in wording. Whereas in that passage we are told the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, here we are also told they shall be on fire and dissolved (the latter word, luo, is discussed under 2Pe. 3:10). And whereas in that passage we are told the elements shall be dissolved, here we are told they shall melt (teko, to melt, melt down, liquefy; hence, to perish or be destroyed by meltingThayer).
The only possible picture one can draw from these words is that of a mighty, flaming, searing holocaust, enveloping the earth itself and all the atmosphere about it. A day of anticipation and expectation? Yes, indeed, for those who are ready to live with Christ! When the last trump shall sound, it shall strike terror into the heart of many. But to the righteous that day shall be a day of joy, and we may comfort one another with these words! (1Th. 4:18).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(11) Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved.For then we ought probably to read thus, seeing that all these things are thus to be dissolved. The original is present in form, but rightly translated by the future, being the prophetic present, i.e., the future prophetically regarded as present.
What manner of persons.Not so much a question as an exclamation. In any case, the sentence should run on to the end of 2Pe. 3:12. To put an interrogation at to be or at godliness, and make what follows an answer to the question, would be stiff and frigid, and very unlike the fervour of this Epistle.
Ought ye to be.We might fairly translate, ought ye to be found. The Greek implies that the state is one that has continued for some time before the day comes.
In all holy conversation and godliness.Literally, in holy behaviours and godlinesses. (See Notes on 2Pe. 1:3 and 2Pe. 2:7.) The plurals indicate a variety of acts. They occur in this passage only.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. Two verses our apostle now interposes to warn his readers of the personal holiness they ought to maintain in view of so great a destruction.
Conversation Conduct.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy manner of living and godliness,’
And what should be the response of believers to these facts? They are to live in the light of its reality by concentrating all their efforts on holy living and godliness. For holy living and godliness are things which will not be part of the heavens and the earth and the works, which will be ‘dissolved’ (luow – ‘set free, break down, demolish, destroy’). They will survive the holocaust. But the works of earth will be ‘laid bare’ or ‘burned up’ (2Pe 3:12). They will no longer be found in their original environment on earth. They will await the judgment. That is why we are to lay up our treasures in heaven and not on earth (Mat 6:19-21).
‘In holy manner of living and godliness.’ Compare 1Pe 1:15-16. Here the idea is of a life devoted to God and to eternal things:
1) In terms of the excellencies that he has described in 2Pe 1:5-8; compare also 1Pe 5:5..
2) In terms of good works which will bring glory to the Father (1Pe 2:12; 1Pe 4:8-9; Mat 5:16; Mat 6:19-21), which are in contrast with the works which will be burned up (2Pe 3:10).
3) In terms of constant prayer (1Pe 3:12; 1Pe 4:7; 1Pe 5:7; Luk 18:7-8; Eph 6:18; 1Th 5:17) and feeding on the word (1Pe 2:2; Eph 5:26 ; 1Co 3:1-2; Heb 5:12-14).
4) In terms of faithful testimony to Christ (1Pe 3:15).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Our Call to Perseverance – 2Pe 3:11-13 calls us to persevere in the faith in light of the Coming of the Lord.
2Pe 3:11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
2Pe 3:11
2Pe 3:12 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?
2Pe 3:12
2Pe 3:12 Word Study on “hasting” BDAG says the Greek word “hasting” ( ) (G4692) means, “strive for.”
2Pe 3:12 Comments – This world is not permanent.
Illustration –
2Pe 3:13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
2Pe 3:13
2Pe 3:13 Scripture References – There are a number of references to the righteousness that will characterize the new heavens and earth.
Isa 60:21, “Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.”
Mat 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Rev 21:27, “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The attitude of the Christians:
v. 11. Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
v. 12. 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?
v. 13. Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The apostle here applies the lesson of the facts adduced by him to the situation of the believers: Since, then, all these things are to be dissolved, what kind of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, waiting for, and hastening toward, the coming of God’s day, in which the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements in burning will melt. The thoughts and minds of the Christians are under no circumstances to cling to the things of this world, to the riches of this earth, for they know that this world with all it contains will not remain forever, but will certainly be destroyed. In view of this certainty the minds of the Christians are, on the other hand, ever busy with the question as to what effect their knowledge of the coming catastrophe should have on their whole moral and religious life. The apostle gives the answer, telling us that our conduct should be holy and unblamable, that our behavior at all times should express true godliness and reverence of His holy will. In this state of mind we should eagerly await the coming of God’s great day, be concerned about being acceptable to the Lord in His Judgment, bend every effort to keep the simple faith and trust in Jesus in our hearts and to show the fruits of this faith in a life of love toward Him and our neighbor. Ever and again we Christians repeat to ourselves the fact that this world is not our home, that all the things in which men trust at the present time will be dissolved in fire and reduced to a condition where the elements themselves will be in a fluid state, having not the slightest resemblance to their present form. The present heavens and the present earth will pass away, not in utter destruction, but to be changed into a new form of existence.
That is what the apostle now proceeds to show for our consolation: But new heavens and a new earth we expect according to His promises, in which righteousness will have its abode. After this old earth has passed away according to the apostle’s description, there will be new heavens and a new earth. That is not a vain hope, a mere day-dream on the part of the Christians, but our faith is based upon God’s promises, Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22. Since our expectation is founded on the Word of God, therefore we shall not be ashamed. This old earth is filled with sin and unrighteousness, the very creatures, the dumb animals groaning with the pain of the curse of sin, Rom 8:22. But after the last day there will be no more sin; in the new earth there will live only righteousness and joy and peace. That is our hope, our comfort and consolation. We know that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us and to us, Rom 8:18.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
2Pe 3:11. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved Some would read this and the following verse thus; As then all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be?Even such, as by a holy conversation and pious life shew that you expect, and eagerly desire, or aspire after the coming, &c. These words are St. Peter’s practical improvement of the foregoing doctrine concerningthecertain,sudden,andterriblecoming of Christ to judgment. If the whole frame of heaven and earth shall be so wonderfully changed, and a new world made, how great a degree of purity should they labour to attain, who expect to live in this new world? The word rendered melt, is a metaphor taken from metals dissolving in the fire, or wax before the flame: so will the fierce and spreading fire of the last day melt down this globe, and its surrounding atmosphere. Dr. Burnet in his Theory, vol. 2: p. 30 having considered the antiquity and universality of this opinion, “That the world is at last to be destroyed by fire,” says, “We have heard, as it were, a cry of fire, throughout all antiquity, and throughout all the people of the earth: let us then examine what testimony the prophets and apostles give to this ancient doctrine of the conflagration of the world. The prophets see the world on fire at a distance, and more imperfectly; as a brightness in the heavens, rather than a burning flame: but St. Peter describes it as if he had been by, and seen the heavens and earth in a red fire, heard the cracking flames, and the tumbling mountains: the heavens shall pass away, &c. This is as lively as a man could express it, if he had the dreadful spectacle before his eyes.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Pe 3:11-12 . ] refers to all the things before mentioned, and not only, as Hofmann thinks, to the immediately preceding . As regards the reading , instead of the Rec. , it is indeed not supported by the preponderance of authorities; it deserves, however, the preference because it (equivalent to: “as has before been stated”) is more significant than the reading . The present is explained by Winer, p. 321 [E. T. 430]: “since all this is in its nature destined to dissolution; the lot of dissolution is, as it were, already inherent in those things” (thus also Dietlein, de Wette-Brckner, Wiesinger); but it is more correct to find expressed in the present the certainty of the event, which is, no doubt, as yet future (similarly Schott), especially as the passing away of all things, as it is formerly described, is in consequence not of their nature, but of the will of God as Judge. Hofmann denies, indeed, any reference to the future, remarking: the present participial clause brings out that this is the fate of the subject; but this fate is one which is realized only in the future.
. . .] As regards its arrangement, this period, as far as the end of 2Pe 3:12 , is divided by many into two portions, of which the first closes either with (Pott, Meyer in his translation) or with (Griesbach, Fronmller), and forms a question to which the second half supplies the answer. But opposed to this construction is the word: , which in the N. T. is never used as indirect interrogation, but always in exclamation. Consequently the whole forms one clause, which has a hortative sense (so, too, Hofmann), [100] and before which may be supplied for the sake of clearness: “consider therefore.” The sense is: “since all that passes away, consider what manner of persons you ought to be;” Gerhard: quam pie, quam prudenter vos oportet conservari; yet (in classical writers generally ) is not equivalent to quantus (Bretschneider, de Wette-Brckner), but to qualis.
] The plural marks the holy behaviour and the piety in their different tendencies and forms of manifestation. These words may be taken either with what precedes (so most commentators) or with what follows (thus Steinfass); the latter is to be preferred, since the force of would only be weakened by this adjunct.
] not: “so that,” but: “ since ye in holy walk look for .”
Most of the earlier interpreters arbitrarily supply to ; Vulg.: exspectantes et properantes in adventum; Luther: “hasten to the day.” Others attribute to the word the meaning: “to expect with longing,” but this force it never has; in the passages quoted in support of it the word rather means: “to prosecute anything with zeal,” e.g. Pind. Isthm. v. 22: ; Isa 16:5 , LXX.: . ; but then the object is always something which is effected by the action of the ; the original signification of hastening, hurrying, is to be kept hold of here. That by which this hastening is to be accomplished is to be gathered from 2Pe 3:11 , namely, by an holy walk and piety. The context nowhere hints that it is to be accomplished only by prayer [101] (Hofmann, following Bengel).
The expression: , occurs nowhere else; with . ., cf. 2Pe 3:10 and Tit 2:13 ; to Steinfass arbitrarily supplies “ .”
. . .] A resumption of what is said in 2Pe 3:10 .
may be referred either to (Steinfass, Hofmann) or to . . ; in both cases the sense remains substantially the same. It is to be taken neither as equivalent to per (like , c. gen.), nor in a temporal sense (Luther: “in which”); but it denotes here, as it always does, the occasioning cause, equal to “on account of” (Brckner, Wiesinger, Schott; cf. Winer, p. 373 [E. T. 498]). Dietlein translates correctly, but arbitrarily explains the phrase by: “in whose honour as it were.”
] cf. Eph 6:16 ; Dietlein falsely: “in that they will burn;” the part. is present, not future.
] de Wette: “ must not be taken strictly as meaning to be melted , as if . were to be conceived of as a solid mass, it can be regarded as synonymous with ;” the reference to Isa 34:4 , LXX.: (cf. Mic 1:4 ), cannot fail to be recognised. [102] Gerhard: cum tota mundi machina, coelum, terra et omnia quae sunt in ea sint aliquando peritura, ideo ab inordinata mundi dilectione cor nostrum abstrahentes coelestium bonorum desiderio et amore flagremus.
[100] Hofmann, however, does not urge the N. T. usage of in favour of this construction, but “the want of purpose and coldness of dividing the thought into question and answer.”
[101] De Wette gives substantially the correct interpretation: “They hasten the coming of the day, in that by repentance and holiness they accomplish the work of salvation, and render the , ver. 9, unnecessary;” and Wiesinger further adds: “and positively bring it on by their prayers” (Rev 22:17 ).
[102] Although this passage does not finally settle the dispute, whether an entire destruction, an annihilation, or only a transformation of the state of the world is to be looked for, whether the world is to be destroyed by fire, quoad substantiam suam, or quoad qualitates suas, still it gives more support to the second than the first idea, since, in spite of the strong expressions which the writer makes use of, it is not decidedly stated that the world will be dissolved into nothing.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, (12) 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? (13) Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (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. (15) And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; (16) 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. (17) Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.”
I beg the Reader not to overlook the tender solicitude of the Apostle, directed by the Holy Ghost, towards the Church. Like the pillar of cloud in the camp of Israel, which became light to God’s chosen, and darkness to their foes; so here the great day of God, whichever, for a moment, if thought on, damps all the prosperity of sinners, is, and must be, to every justified child of God in Jesus Christ, a subject of endless and unceasing joy. Reader! I never can say enough to you, (under the presumption that the Lord hath wrought a saving work of grace upon your soul,) on this great point of faith and assurance in the Lord’s promise. Depend upon it, Peter could never have said, that he was looking for, and hasting unto, the coming of the day of God, had he entertained the least doubt, or been at any uncertainty as. to the issue of his own everlasting happiness in that day. The Apostle knew the certainty of the ground on which he stood. He had already passed from death unto life. He had gone under the sentence of God’s holy law, which he had broken. He had found redemption in the blood of the cross, and stood perfectly, freely, and fully justified in the righteousness of Christ, his Head and Surety. Hence, he had long maintained through grace, fellowship, interest, and communion with God in Christ; and he now only waited for that great day of God, when Jesus would confess him before God and men, among all his redeemed in glory. Reader! is it so with you? Peter’s privilege was not singular. All Christ’s redeemed ones are the same. And every child of God who hath been saved, and called with an holy calling, is supposed to be daily, and hourly, living in the faith and enjoyment of it. Yea, the Church is said to be risen with Christ, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ. Eph 2:6 . And very sure I am, that it is not only among the triumph’s of faith, so to live, and so to walk with God, in full assurance of hope; but it is a duty they owe to God in giving the credit of believing him as God, in accepting and trusting to the record which the Lord hath given of his dear Son. And this is the record, that he hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life. And this, as surely in the life that now is, as in that which is to come. 1Jn 5:11-12 ; Joh 3:36 , Oh! for grace then, that, like Peter, yea, like all the faithful gone before, to be always looking for, and hasting unto, the coming of the day of God. And, as the Apostle saith, to be diligent in the use of all the appointed means of grace, that agreeably to our God and Father’s original and eternal purpose, who hath chosen us in Christ, we may then be found in Christ, having peace in the blood of his cross, and being washed from sin, and robed in Him, we shall be without spot, and blameless.
And, Reader! what a sweet note on long suffering the Apostle dwells upon. And what child of God, but in his own experience, can, and doth, sing the same. Oh! the long suffering of my God, in the long, long years of my unregeneracy! Was not this salvation and observe also the love of Peter to Paul. How sweetly hath he here endeared Paul’s writings to the Church, and how delightfully doth he determine concerning the supposed difficulties in Paul’s writings. Hard to be understood, he saith. But by whom? Not by any who are taught of God. None of those who are come to Christ for Jesus saith, that every man who hath heard and learned of the Father cometh to him. Joh 6:45 . None of those taught of God the Spirit. For John saith, that the regenerate have an anointing from the Spirit, and know all things, 1Jn 2:27 . Who then are these, the unlearned, and unstable, spoken of? Namely, the self-taught, the wise, and learned of this world, from whom divine truths are hidden, and who wrest the word of God, yea, all the scriptures to their own destruction. Hence Jesus thanked the Father when upon earth, Mat 11:25 . And all the faithful thank him now,
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
Ver. 11. What manner of men ] , even to admiration, quales et quanti, as the word signifies, Mar 13:1 . How accurate, and how elevated above the ordinary strain!
In all holy conversation and godliness ] Gr. , in holy conversations and godlinesses, in the plural; to show that godliness should run through our whole conversation, as the warp runs through the woof.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
11 18 .] EXHORTATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE APPROACH OF THE DAY OF GOD.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
11 13 .] In direct reference to what has just been said, waiting and eager expectation is enjoined .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
11 .] These things being thus to be dissolved ( , this heaven and earth which surround us. According to the reading in the text, there is no particle of inference: but the inference is all the more vivid. : viz. in the manner just described. , the present implying destiny, as , He that should come: cf. Winer, 40. 2. a. It might be, with , a present proper , “are in course of dissolution;” but forbids this: for they are not in course of dissolution by fire &c.), what manner of men (if we take interrogatively, we must not, as some (Pott, Meyer in his translation), put our interrogation at , or as others (Griesb., al.) at : far better carry on the question to the end of 2Pe 3:12 , as more like the fervent style of our Epistle. But (reff.) seems in the N. T. never directly to ask a question, but always to belong to an exclamation. Certainly reff. Luke are close approaches to the interrogatory sense, so that I would not, as Huther, altogether exclude it, but only protest against dividing the sentence. Still I prefer the non-interrogatory form, as in the other reff. On the word, see note, 1Jn 3:1 ) ought ye to be (when the event comes: seems to imply some fact supervening upon the previously existing state: see Act 16:20-21 ; Act 16:37 and notes) in holy behaviours and pieties (the plurals mark the holy behaviour and piety in all its different forms and examples. The words may be referred to : but thus the strong would only be weakened, and it stands far better alone. So that I would join . . . with what follows)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
2Pe 3:11-16 . The ethical value of the Parousia expectation . “Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, how great an effect it ought to exercise on our whole moral and religious life, as we look forward to and hasten the coming of the day of God. The skies shall be set on fire and dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fiercest heat, but we look for new skies and a new earth according to His promise, in which righteousness shall find a home. Wherefore, beloved, with such expectations, endeavour to be found in peace, spotless and blameless. Do not reckon the long-suffering of our Lord as an opportunity for licence, but as a means of salvation, as our beloved brother Paul wrote you in the wisdom granted to him. He indeed spoke in all his letters of these things, in which there are some things hard to be understood, which ignorant and unstable persons wrest, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
2Pe 3:11 . . Present used for a future. Mayor translates “are in process of dissolution,” as though the principle of were already at work; but this is a conception foreign to the mind of the writer, who uses it only in a moral significance. Nature is “reserved” ( ) for destruction. Dissolution is the goal in sight. . “What sort of men.” A later form of . implies not merely existence, but existential character. . The use of the plural in cases of abstract nouns is peculiar to the writer and to 1 Peter. He emphasises once more the close connexion between morality and religion.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 2Pe 3:11-13
11Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
2Pe 3:11 “what sort of people ought you to be” The false teachers de-emphasized morality and lifestyle godliness, so Peter continues to hold these things up.
“in holy conduct and godliness” The term “godliness” is an important concept in 2 Peter as it is in the Pastoral Letters. I am reproducing my notes from 1Ti 4:7 (cf. Vol. 9, p. 53). 2 Peter uses the noun in 2Pe 1:3; 2Pe 1:6-7; 2Pe 3:11 and the adverb in 2Pe 2:9.
Notes from my commentary on 1 Timothy
“godliness” This is a pivotal term in the Pastoral Letters. It refers to the doctrinal and daily lifestyle implications of the gospel (cf. 1Ti 3:16). It describes not the exceptional, but the expected. It is a compound term from “good” (eu) and “worship” (sebomai). True worship is daily living by means of proper thinking (cf. 1Ti 4:16 a). Notice the number of times this word is used in the Pastoral Letters:
1. Noun (eusebeia), 1Ti 2:2; 1Ti 3:16; 1Ti 4:7-8; 1Ti 6:3; 1Ti 6:5-6; 1Ti 6:11; 2Ti 3:5; Tit 1:1
2. Adverb (eusebs), 2Ti 3:12; Tit 2:12
3. Verb (eusebe), 1Ti 5:4
4. The related term theosebeia, 1Ti 2:10
5. The negated term (alpha privative, i.e., asebeia), 2Ti 2:16; Tit 2:12
2Pe 3:12
NASB, NKJV”looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God”
NRSV”waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God”
TEV”as you wait for the Day of God and do your best to make it happen soon”
NJB”while you wait for the Day of God to come, and try to hasten its coming”
These are both present active participles, which describe two aspects connected to the Second Coming, here uniquely called “the day of God.” The first term basically means “to look for expectantly” (cf. Act 3:5; Act 10:24) or “to wait with apprehension” (cf. Luk 21:26; Act 27:33; Act 28:6). It is used three times in 2Pe 3:12-14. Believers wait expectantly, but unbelievers fear this day of reckoning.
The second term has two senses related to the grammatical structure in which it is found:
1. If it is a transitive verb (i.e., passes the action on to a direct object) it means “to urge,” “to be eager for” (cf. footnotes of NRSV, ASV, NEB, NIV, Peshitta, and New Century Version, similar in meaning to the early church’s maranatha).
2. If it is an intransitive grammatical construction (i.e., it describes a state of being or focuses on the agent of the action) it means “to hasten” (cf. Luk 19:5; Act 22:18). The theology that believers’ actions can hasten the Lord’s return is found in Mat 6:10 (prayer) and Act 3:19-20 (revival); Romans 9-11 (full number of Gentiles and Jews are saved). In this context the godly lifestyle of believers is encouraged by an imminent eschatological hope.
This is a difficult expression because of our modern mind-set which depreciates paradox. God is sovereign and has set the date for Christ’s return, but the actions of believers (i.e., prayer, witness, godliness) may change the date (i.e., sooner or later). This is the covenant aspect of biblical truth which is so confusing to modern western people. God is affected by His children (both negatively and positively)! However, this very truth is why intercessory prayer works.
“because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat”The interpretive question is, “Are these allusions literal or apocalyptic?” These OT-type statements have much in common with Isa 10:10-13; Isa 34:4; Isa 51:6; Joe 2:28-32; Mic 1:4. This context has referred several times to this physical realm of time and space ending in connection with heat. This cleansing sets the spiritual stage for the new heavens and the new earth. Will they be physical (Eden restored) or spiritual (cf. 1Co 15:35-58)? It is hard to describe ultimate and spiritual realities in earthly human terms. The reality is not affected by the genre!
2Pe 3:13 “But according to His promise” (cf. Isa 65:17-25; Isa 66:22-24)
“new heaven and a new earth” (cf. Isa 11:6-9; Isa 65:17; Isa 66:22; Rev 21:1-27)
“in which righteousness dwells” God desires a setting and a people commensurate with His own character (cf. Isa 45:24-25). A holy God demands a holy people (cf. Isa 60:12; Mat 5:48). It is the new creation because it is contrasted with the fallen creation (cf. Genesis 3).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
dissolved. See “melt”, 2Pe 3:10.
be. See Luk 9:48.
conversation. See 1Pe 1:15.
godliness. See 1Ti 2:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
11-18.] EXHORTATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE APPROACH OF THE DAY OF GOD.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
2Pe 3:11. , since they are being dissolved) The present tense; as though it were now taking place: thus in 2Pe 3:12, , are melting. On the fourth of the six days of creation, the stars also were made, Gen 1:16. They also shall be dissolved together with the earth. They are mistaken, who restrict the history of the creation and the description of this destruction only to the earth and to the quarter of the heaven which is nearer to the earth, but feign that the stars are more ancient than the earth, and that they will survive the earth. It is not to the heaven only which surrounds the earth, but to the heavens, that both dissolution and restoration are ascribed, 2Pe 3:10; 2Pe 3:13.-, ought you to be) This is the commandment mentioned in 2Pe 3:2. Others thus place the stops-;- .[22]-, in your conversations) [i.e. dealings and whole walk] as regards the affairs of men.-, in all godliness) as regards divine things.
[22] Tisch. and Lachm. read no interrogation.-E.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
all these: 2Pe 3:12, Psa 75:3, Isa 14:31, Isa 24:19, Isa 34:4
what: Mat 8:27, 1Th 1:5, Jam 1:24
in all: Psa 37:14, Psa 50:23, 2Co 1:12, Phi 1:27, Phi 3:20, 1Ti 4:12, Heb 13:5, Jam 3:13, 1Pe 1:15, 1Pe 2:12
godliness: 2Pe 1:3, 2Pe 1:6, 1Ti 3:16, 1Ti 6:3, 1Ti 6:6, 1Ti 6:11
Reciprocal: Gen 9:11 – neither shall all Exo 19:15 – Be ready Ecc 11:10 – remove Isa 16:5 – hasting Nah 2:6 – dissolved Mat 24:2 – There Mat 24:43 – had Luk 1:17 – to make Joh 6:27 – the meat Rom 8:19 – expectation 2Co 5:1 – dissolved 2Co 5:8 – and willing Phi 4:1 – Therefore 1Ti 2:10 – women 2Ti 3:10 – manner 2Ti 3:12 – live Tit 1:1 – after Tit 2:12 – live Heb 10:25 – as ye Heb 12:14 – and holiness Heb 12:15 – Looking Heb 12:27 – signifieth 1Pe 3:2 – behold
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2Pe 3:11. All these things. The things of the material universe named in the preceding verse are all to be dissolved or melt. That will be the end of man’s existence on the earth and hence the end of his opportunity to prepare for the judgment. Such is the reason for the exhortation to be holy (righteous) in conversation (conduct) by living according to godliness; live as God has directed us to live.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2Pe 3:11. Seeing that these things are thus all dissolving. The rendering which is sustained by the best authorities differs from the Received Text in omitting the these of the A. V. and inserting thus. The verb is given in the present tense,not shall be dissolved as the A. V. puts it, or even are to be dissolved as the R. V. renders it, but are dissolving or, are being dissolved. The certainty of the end is made doubly vivid by the process of dissolution being represented as having already set in and as now working towards its final revelation.
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conduct and godliness. The be is expressed, as in chap. 2Pe 1:8 and chap. 2Pe 2:19, by the verb which conveys the idea of subsistence rather than mere existence. Here it points to established character, or permanent possession of qualities. The qualities themselves are denoted by plural nouns meaning literally holy modes of living and godlinesses, in reference to all the various forms in which the holy walk and godliness exhibit themselves. They are therefore very well rendered by the A. V. all holy conversation and godliness. Some take this verse to put a question, and the next verse to give the reply. It is more consistent, however, with N. T. usage (which deals with the word rendered what manner of persons as an exclamation; cf. especially Mar 13:1; Luk 1:29; 1Jn 3:1), to take the two verses as forming together a single solemn exclamation. To give still sharper point to the expression, some of the best interpreters connect the clause in all holy living, etc., not with what precedes, but with what follows it, making the whole run thus: What manner of persons ought ye to be, looking, in all holy living and godliness, for . . . the day of God !
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
These words are St. Peter’s practical improvement of the foregoing doctrine, concerning the certain, sudden and terrible judgment of Christ to come. If the whole frame of heaven and earth shall be so wonderfully changed, and a new world made, how holy should they be, and how great a degree of purity should they labour to attain unto, who expect to live in this new world?
Learn hence, That the firm belief of Christ’s coming to judgment, and the dissolution of this sinful world by fire, should convince all Christians of the necessity of, and engage them in their pursuits and endeavours after, a life of universal holiness, and that with the utmost care and possible diligence: Seeing all these things, what manner of persons ought ye to be? – Heaven is an holy place, has holy company, holy employments, holy enjoyments; we must be qualified for it, before we can be admitted into it, and begin that life of holiness upon earth which will never end in heaven; without a present meetness for heaven, we must never expect to be admitted into it, Col 1:12
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
2Pe 3:11-12. Seeing then that all these things Which our eyes behold; shall be dissolved And we shall be spectators of their dissolution, being raised from the dead before, or at the time of, its taking place; what manner of persons ought ye to be How serious, how watchful, how free from levity and folly, how disengaged from, and dead to, this lower world, with all it contains; how unmoved by the trifling changes which are now continually occurring, the comparatively insignificant losses and gains, honour and reproach, pleasure and pain! How heavenly-minded, having our thoughts and affections set upon that world, with its riches, glories, and joys, which is durable and eternal; in all holy conversation With men; and godliness Toward God. Looking for Earnestly desiring; and hasting unto Or hasting on, (as may signify,) namely, by your earnest desires and fervent prayers; the coming of the day of God Fitly so called, because God will then make such a display of his glorious perfections as was never made before; of his power, in raising all the dead, and transforming all the living in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and in destroying the present world, and preparing for his people a new heaven and a new earth; of his wisdom, in showing that he knew, and will now bring into judgment, all the thoughts, desires, and designs, the dispositions, words, and actions of all the thousands of millions of human beings that had lived on earth in the different ages of the world; of his justice, in rendering unto every man, with infinite exactness, according to his works, and recompensing tribulation to those that troubled his saints and servants; of his mercy and love in justifying, at his judgment-seat, his believing and obedient people, and in conferring upon them an incorruptible and eternal inheritance; and of his truth, in punctually fulfilling all his promises and threatenings, and making good all his declarations. Wherein the heavens being on fire, &c. The apostle repeats his former testimony, because of its great importance. Macknight, however, thinks that, by the elements, in this verse, we are not to understand, as in 2Pe 3:10, the heavens or atmosphere, but the elements of which this terraqueous globe is composed; namely, earth and water, and every thing which enters into the composition of these substances, and on which their constitution and form depend. Hence, 1st, In speaking of them, he uses an expression which he did not use in 2Pe 3:10. There his words were, The elements, burning, , shall be dissolved; here he says, The elements, burning, , (for ,) shall melt; a word which is applied to the melting of metals by fire. Wherefore, as the elements signify the constituent parts of any thing, the expression, shall melt, applied to the constituent parts of the terraqueous globe, intimates that the whole, by the intense heat of the conflagration, is to be reduced into one homogeneous fluid mass of burning matter. Consequently, that it is not the surface of the earth, with all the things thereon, which is to be burned, as some have imagined, but the whole globe of the earth. And that he is here speaking of these elements, and consequently of the destruction of this earth, appears still further by the promise made in the next verse.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3:11 {11} [Seeing] then [that] all these things shall be dissolved, what manner [of persons] ought ye to be in [all] holy conversation and godliness,
(11) An exhortation to purity of life, setting before us that horrible judgment of God, both to bridle our wantonness, and also to comfort us, so that we are found watching and ready to meet him at his coming.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
D. Living in View of the Future 3:11-16
Peter drew application for his readers and focused their attention on how they should live presently in view of the future.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Peter believed that an understanding of the future should motivate the believer to live a holy life now. His question is rhetorical. Holy conduct refers to behavior that is separate from sin and set apart to please God. Godly means like God (2Pe 1:3; 2Pe 1:6-7; cf. 2Pe 2:7; 2Pe 2:10; 2Pe 2:12-15; 2Pe 2:18-20; 2Pe 3:3; 1Pe 1:15-16).