Book of 2 Peter - Bible Survey

This Second Epistle of Peter may be looked upon as an appendix or complement of the First Epistle. It introduces a testimony as to the future, connected with the coming of the Lord, which the First Epistle so frequently mentions. While the First Epistle is silent as to the coming evils preceding the coming of the Lord, this Second Epistle sounds the warning and gives, as already stated in the preceding introduction, a prophetic picture of the conditions of Christendom when the age closes. Here, too, we find the exhortations of Peter, similar to those in the first letter. Peter himself states the purpose when he wrote: "This second Epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance." While the language may differ in some respects from the language of the First Epistle, the style and development of the Epistle is just like the first, which is even noticeable in our English version. He writes first of the gracious provisions, which are made for those of like precious faith through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, which includes present provisions in precious promises, and the gift of all things that pertain unto life and godliness, as well as the gift of the Word of Prophecy.

The second chapter unfolds the coming dangers of the last days of this age. The false teachers and their pernicious doctrines are revealed with the corresponding warnings to beware of them. The concluding chapter is prophetic; it reveals the future, including the coming great transformation when the physical earth will pass through a judgment by fire, to come forth in an eternal resurrection glory as a new earth, surrounded by new heavens. We follow, therefore, in our annotations the division of the Epistle in three chapters as we have it in our Bibles.

This epistle maintains still the principles of God's government, though being a second epistle it contemplates conditions of failure and breakdown for which special grace is needed. The provision of Ch.1 is of vital value in view of pressures of corruption and falsehood prophesied of in Ch.2 (which are prevalent today), and of the awesome judgment of God and His great power in His creation of a new heaven and new earth, as declared In Ch.3.

In his second Epistle the Apostle Peter, led by the Spirit of God, predicts with great plainness of speech the appalling present-day conditions of the Christian profession. Furthermore, he not only warns us of the corruption of Christendom in these last days, but, for our comfort and encouragement as believers, he sets before us the practical life of godliness which will alone enable us to escape the corruptions, and gain an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

In 2 Peter 1, the Apostle first sets before us the life of godliness and the glory of the kingdom to which it leads. In 2 Peter 2 and 2 Peter 3, down to verse 10, he brings before us the different forms of corruption and the judgment to which they lead. Also, in chapter 3, we are warned not to be carried away by scoffers, who, taking advantage of the longsuffering grace of God, pursue their lusts and deny that any judgment is coming. Finally, having been thus warned, we are again exhorted to live the life of godliness and to grow in it.

The second epistle of Peter is even more simple than the first. Like those of Jude and John, it is written essentially with a view to the seducers, who, with large promises of liberty, beguiled souls into sin and licentiousness, denying the coming of Christ, and in fact disowning all His rights over them. The epistle admonishes the same Christians to whom the first was written, pointing out the characteristic features of these false teachers; denouncing them with the utmost energy; explaining the long-sufferance of God, and announcing a judgment which, like His patience, would befit the majesty of Him who was to execute it.

In this second Epistle, which he writes to the same persons who have received (not the Messiah in glory, but) precious faith as the apostle had through God's righteousness, he shews that in the midst of incoming evil God's divine power had given everything necessary to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who had called them by glory and virtue. He then urges them to all diligence in everything that would give them an abundant entrance into the kingdom, and without which they would be purblind as Christians. He shews them that he must shortly put off this tabernacle; and writes that they might have the testimony after he was gone. He shews them that the transfiguration had confirmed prophetic testimony of the kingdom they were waiting for, and asserts that all scripture tends to one common purpose, being the fruit of one Spirit, and not of the will of man.

He then warns them of false teachers, denying the authority of Christ, whom many would follow, insisting on their wickedness, but shewing that God could deliver the righteous, and reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished. He gives their character, specially in the working of the will of man in lasciviousness and insubordination; adding to this another characteristic - their scoffing at the doctrine of the Lord's return. He thereupon refers to the deluge as a judgment already once executed, and the day of the Lord, in which the judgment by fire would come, and all that nature trusted in disappear, pressing this as a motive of holiness upon the saints.

Having, in the first part of the Epistle, set before us the practical life of godliness whereby we can resist the corruptions of the world, the Apostle passes on to expose, and warn us against, these corruptions. Having sought to establish us in “the present truth” (2 Peter 1:12), he can proceed to warn us against present error. In the remainder of the Epistle, therefore, we are definitely warned against the two forms of evil that characterise Christendom in the days in which we live. First, in 2 Peter 2, the Apostle warns us against the destructive errors of false teachers; secondly, in 2 Peter 3, we are warned against the unbelief of scoffers who deny the return of the Lord, and the setting up of His kingdom.

Nor is there a part of the N.T. more pregnant with wise and holy counsels, suited to the wants of the saints, or more characteristic of him that wrote it, following up his former letter. For as his First set forth God's righteous government of His children, founded on His grace which called unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, so his Second adds that righteous government about to fall on the corrupt false teachers, such as bring in by the bye heresies of perdition (2 Peter 2), as well as on the sceptics that rest on the world's stability to mock at the coming of the Lord (2 Peter 3). The Second accordingly is needed to complete the First; just as that to Colossian saints from the apostle Paul completes what he wrote to Ephesians (the fulness of the Head, and the body His fulness). It is to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Second Epistle of Peter is written in the prospect of his departure, and of the flowing in of evil. It exhorts them to press forward. On the one hand it gives the picture and the assurance of the glory of the coming kingdom in its heavenly aspect, but manifested on the earth; on the other, the corruption which would degrade and swallow up Christianity, and the consequences of this in judgment. Peter never represents the church as one body in heaven, as Paul does; he views her, or rather her members, as on the earth, and as pilgrims there. The exact correspondence of every detail with this point of view, even in the manner of presenting the glory (2 Peter 1), manifests a perfection which proves its divine origin.

2 Peter is a provision of God in view of the dread corruption of Christendom in its bold defiance of the authority of the Lord Jesus and the government of the Father. False teachers would not only ignore, but systematically undermine every true principle of God's government.