MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— 2 Peter 3:14-18
The Common Teaching of the Apostles.—St. Peter’s reference to St. Paul brings the relations of these two men to mind. At one time they were very strained, and from the human point of view the strain can be very simply explained. To St. Peter was entrusted the work of opening the privilege of the gospel to the Gentiles; but he could not see more than their being allowed to become Jewish Christians, holding the Christian faith, but ordered in religious conduct by Jewish regulations. St. Paul was called to extend and to liberalise his work. When the gospel was preached to men who had no Jewish associations, it was found practically impossible to put them under formal Jewish regulations, and the question immediately arose, “Are we justified in making this particular demand upon our Gentile converts?” Judaism was right enough for Jews, but was it a yoke to be put on everybody? St. Paul took a bold line. So far as Judaism represented great human principles, and broad universal expression of those principles, so far as it concerned man as man, it must be imposed on Gentiles. But so far as it was exclusive, adapted to the education, religious well-being, and ministry, of a particular race, it need have no permanence and no general applications. This was clear to St. Paul, and to his school of thought; and it must always be borne in mind that St. Paul was, throughout his life, a faithful adherent of the Jewish faith and practice. For himself he maintained a loyal allegiance to the customs of his fathers; but since he apprehended Christianity as a Divine life in the soul, rather than as a religion, he saw clearly that a particular dress in which the life must clothe itself, could not be forced upon everybody. But St. Peter never could quite grow out of his Jewish thought-bondages, and consequently the time came when St. Paul had openly to reprove him for what looked very much like a piece of time-serving (Galatians 2:14). The passage now before us shows plainly that the estrangement had been removed, though its remarkable sentence, “in which are some things hard to be understood,” etc. (2 Peter 3:16) indicates that there were still some things of St. Paul’s teaching which he had to leave. His confidence in him, as a loyal and faithful fellow-servant of Jesus Christ, had been fully restored, if it had been temporarily destroyed, but concerning his teachings be had still to say, “Many men, many minds.” Here St. Peter’s point is, that St. Paul and he were absolutely agreed in their teachings concerning Christ’s second coming, and the attitude which the Christian Church should take in relation to it.
I. St. Paul’s references to the coming of Christ.—These are chiefly to be found in the epistles to the Corinthians and Thessalonians, and they are in some respects more minute than those of St. Peter. It might, however, be shown that St. Paul conceived the coming and the issues of the coming, from such a spiritual point of view as at least prepares for the spiritual apprehension of it which is more and more being revealed to Christ’s Church.
II. St. Paul’s teaching concerning Divine delay.—That is one great point present to St. Peter’s mind; on it the doubting of the scoffers rested. He could safely plead that all the apostles had taught, that any seeming delay in the fulfilment of God’s promise was but incitement to persistency and trust.
III. St. Paul’s perplexing things.—See the hints given in the introductory portion of this Homiletic Note.
IV. The apostolic persuasion to maintain faith, and keep on in Christian growing (2 Peter 3:18).—See outline on “The double Christian growth.” The “grace of our Lord” must mean the grace of which He is the Giver; while the “knowledge of our Lord” must mean the knowledge of which He is the object.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
2 Peter 3:18. Never Satisfied.—The artist who is satisfied with his transcript of his ideal will not grow any more. There is a touching story told of a modern sculptor, who was found standing in front of his masterpiece, sunk in sad reverie; and when they asked him why he was so sad, “Because,” he answered, “I am satisfied with it.” “I have embodied,” he would say, “all that I think and feel. There it is. And because there is no discord between what I dream, and what I can do, I feel that the limit of my growth is reached.”—A Maclaren, D.D.
Possibilities of Goodness.—No man knows how much of goodness, nobleness, and wisdom, are possible for any man, or for himself. No bounds can be set to that progress of growth. There is no point on that happy voyage, beyond which icy cliffs and a frozen ocean forbid a passage; but before us, to the verge of our horizon of to-day, stretch the open waters. And when that farthest point of vision lies as far astern as it now gleams ahead, the same boundless, sapphire sea will draw our yearning desires, and bear onwards our advancing powers.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Growing in Grace.—Standing in the portico of the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, at Rome, and looking across into a convent of Maronite monks, one sees lifted against the beautiful blue of the Italian sky a magnificent palm-tree. It is very tall. It is straight as any arrow. Its stem is thick, but tapering and exquisitely graceful. And upon its summit there rests, with a real solidity, and yet at the same time with a quite external lightness, a vast and swaying coronal of leaves. As we look at it the images of the Scripture come thronging through the mind—“the righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree.” And if we analyse a little the method of the flourishing of the palm, we shall find it full of analogies of what ought to be the method of advance for a righteous life. It is a tree singularly independent of external circumstances. When, in winter, there fall the copious rains, it is not greatly stimulated; when, in the summer, the fiercest heats beat down, it does not droop and wither. It maintains its uprightness. You cannot shove it much out of a straight line of growth from the earth upwards toward the heavens. The strongest tempests cannot keep it bent out of this straight line, and sometimes men have tried to hinder it from its straightness by hanging heavy weights upon it; but this has failed. It is perfect in its uprightness. Then, too, the palm is a fruitful tree. Always, in its season, does it hang out the rich clusters of its dates. Constantly does it scatter down its benefactions. Also, the palm is a tree which keeps on growing. It grows on from century even into century. It may be slow in growth, but it is sure and steady. And thus constantly, as the years pass, it is more in height and heavenwardness. It is more in bulk. It is firmer fixed in straightness. It is more affluent of shade and fruit. It is more in beauty, more in strength, more in blessing. Thus, full of growth in all directions, it is full of flourishing. Says the Scripture, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree.” Grow thus in grace—that is the Divine injunction. How much have you grown during the past year? How may we flourish in grace, as the palm flourishes?
I. If we would grow thus in grace, it must be the supreme idea of our lives to do it.—As a man thinks, etc., in his heart, so is he. There are such people in the Churches as minimum Christians. Here is the main secret of much of our puny and miserable spiritual growth. We are not, and hardly want to be, maximum Christians. Unless it be our idea to be such, we can never be such.
II. We must grow in grace by prayer.—Prayer in its results is subjective; it brings us into harmony and relation with God. But prayer is more than this, what Dr. Bushnell calls “dumb-bell” notion of it. Prayer is a real grasping of objective benefits. We get by Divine gift what we pray for—chiefly grace.
III. We must grow in grace by knowledge.—The Bible is the sustenance and nutriment of spiritual growth. There are too many spiritual fasters from this Divine nutriment.
IV. We must grow in grace by actual resolving to grow, and by pressing resolution into action.—We dream too much toward nobler grace; we do not enough strenuously do toward nobler grace.—Anon.
The Christian’s Double Growth.—At the starting of the religious life of a new year what word may fittingly recall to our minds the responsibilities of our Christian profession? Will this one be helpful which I would suggest as our motto? We want one that at once suggests an estimate of our past, and inspires us to more watchful and earnest endeavour in the days to come. We want one that, during the year, will recall to us our solemn obligations. This text says to each one of us, Have you been growing in the spiritual life this year? And it says to each one of us, Remember, you must grow in the spiritual life, or that life will surely shrivel, and fade, and die. The Revised Version reads the sentence, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” But the Greek is not quite clear, and the idea suggested by the Authorised Version, on which we now dwell, is fully in accord with the teachings of both Peter and Paul. The growth should be in character, which is the soul’s health, and in knowledge, which is one side of the nourishment of the soul’s health. Grow like your Divine Master, grow in graciousness and grow in wisdom. So growing, grow in favour with God and man. In the Christian life growth is essential, and healthy growth will take two directions, the line of character, and the line of knowledge. Like the trees, there will be growth in the branchings of character, and growth in the rootings of knowledge, and there never can be healthy growing of the one apart from the harmonious, healthy growing of the other. “That we may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head.” Peter, in this epistle, gives the details of character-growth: “Adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge; and in your knowledge temperance; and in your temperance patience; and in your patience godliness; and in your godliness love of the brethren; and in your love of the brethren, love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful”. Paul, in the epistle to the Colossians, gives suggestions concerning growth in spiritual knowledge: “And to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
I. In the Christian life growth is essential.—It is in all life. We are troubled about our garden plants if they do not grow. There must be something wrong with them. The child that does not grow in body cannot be in health. We call the poor creature an idiot that does not grow in mind. All around us everything is growing, and we share a life whose sign of activity is growth. That must be true of spiritual life which is true of the physical. As a man in Christ, I may say, “While I live I grow, and while I grow I know that I live.” It may be that soul-growth cannot be watched, and sometimes cannot even be discerned. It may even be better for us that it should be impossible for us to trace it, and that we can only get an idea of our progress at long and distant intervals. Something may happen to surprise us by revealing what growth and progress we have made in the spiritual life, just as moments of surprise come to us when we realise that the girl we so long have watched is no longer a child.
“The child is a woman.
The book may close over; now all the lessons are said.”
It is but reminding of familiar things to say that growth depends on nourishment and exercise. And that must be as true of soul-growth as it certainly is of body-growth. There is appropriate soul-food, and suitable soul-exercise; and there cannot be spiritual health and development where these are neglected or misused. And we have been reminded that growth depends upon healthy surroundings, sanitary atmospheres, and inspiriting daily conditions. Growth depends on cherished cheerfulness of spirit, pleasant toil, kept within wise limitations, and the brightening influence of daily friendships. Pure homes, judicious and well-ordered measures, help to secure both physical and moral growth; and spiritual atmospheres, surroundings, and associations are in every way as essential for securing soul-growth. This is very familiar truth, but we may set it before us once again. It is not so familiar to say that moral and spiritual growth depend on will and effort. We grow if we want to grow. The athlete who wants to grow muscle for the strain of the coming contest, puts his will into the matter, makes the necessary effort, and grows by force of will. You remember how one of our greatest novel writers makes one of his characters die simply because “she would not make an effort.” It would help us if we clearly realised that the soul-growth which is essential to soul-life is no happy accident, no unconscious process, going on in a natural way, whether we will it or not. It is a growth under conditions, just as truly as is the growth of the vines you are training in the glass houses, and the arrangement of those conditions is a matter of our will and effort. A man who means to ensure the growth of his soul must use the means, and he has no right to complain of flaccid spiritual muscles, and the terrible feeling of soul-weakness, if he makes little or no effort to ensure the conditions of spiritual growth. “If we be living Christians—true men—we are growing.” What happens when living things cease to grow? You can see what happens in the trees. Deadly fungus comes upon the branch that will not grow. There is no possible halting place for us. To stop is to go back. Fail to use power and you must lose the power; and losing our power is but death in its beginnings. Sometimes one inclines to ask, Do old people cease to grow bodily? I think not. They grow right on to the end, only there are forces of decay at work which mate and master the forces of growth. Certainly it is true spiritually that growth never ceases, but while “the outward man perisheth, the inward man is renewed day by day.” Never, while we tarry amid these mortal scenes, do we cease soul-growth. Never do we cease to need the means of soul-growth. Shall we look seriously at this matter? We are alive unto God. The sign of life is growth. Growth depends on conditions. Those conditions are largely within our control. And therefore the word of the apostle comes close home to us, and should be an inspiration. “Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”
II. In the Christian life growth takes two directions.—
1. In grace. It is said of the Divine Youth of Nazareth, that he “grew in grace,” and that sums up the development of amiable, high-principled, beautiful, and gracious character. In something of that sense we may venture to take the word “grace” in our text. Bodily life has a tone, a character. Spiritual life has a tone, a character. Sometimes the Christian virtues and graces are spoken of as if they were the garments which the soul was required to put on. Thus the apostle Paul says, “Put on, therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. And above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness.” And Peter would have us “be clothed with humility.” But here character is rather thought of as something which we are to grow into. We know how our boys and girls, under the varied influences of their childhood and youth, grow into their characters; get this and that corrected or removed, and this and that settled in, and made their own. We watch the process with the intensest interest, ready with all wise training and gracious help. In the little child we note the possibilities; in the growing boy we see them unfolding; in the young man stepping forth into life we expect to see principles established, and virtue and grace confirmed. And if we get a deeper view of mature life, we find it is still a growing into character, up into the ideal character set before us in the Lord Jesus Christ. What are we with the weight of years upon us but the Lord’s—the Eternal Father’s—boys and girls, who are growing up into our heavenly character? But the word “grace” seems to suggest the characteristic feature of Christian character. It is dominated by the passive virtues. The character-fruits wrought by the Spirit are quiet, modest, patient, gentle things, such as these: “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” If natural character develops well, we have all the characteristics of the high-souled gentleman. If the spiritual character develops well, we have all the characteristics of the Christ-toned Christian. And there is no more beautiful thing upon this sin-stained earth of ours than the sanctified, amiable man, unless it be the sanctified, amiable woman. I have known such, and never have lost, and never shall lose, their holy power upon me; women who grew into such lovely, saintly characters that they seemed to have caught the fragrance of Christ, and you breathed it whenever you came near to these lovely flowers. If we could only grow in grace like that! But what a business this character-growth is! Some of us have got very weary of trying to keep it up. It has seemed to be no use trying, so we have let the thing go, become careless about the means of grace which would have helped it, and half said to ourselves, “Never mind if we are no better Christians to end the year than we were to begin it.” I can sympathise with you. More than once I have been almost giving up the struggle, and contentedly letting things go. So we may say to one another, “Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those that are before, let us press toward the mark, for the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.” Let us begin again, fully resolved that we will grow in grace, grow into the Christly character, and so win, for Christ’s service, the highest power, the sanctified power that we are—that we have become. Good growth is always slow. So we will not be disheartened if the goal of our hope keeps far away. The very growing is healthy.
2. In knowledge. And the sphere of the knowledge is very clearly defined. “In the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Ward Beecher says, “While sense is the source of physical or scientific knowledge, disposition is the source of the knowledge of moral truth: it depends upon the exercise of moral feelings.” The apostles constantly urge this growth in the knowledge of God. And their doing so indicated keen observation of some of the most serious perils of Christian life. Growth in knowledge is the great antidote and medicine for some of the gravest Christian diseases. Religion is feeling, and can never be dissociated from feeling; but feeling is a good slave that is always trying to become master, and then works well-nigh irrecoverable mischiefs. Separate growth in knowledge from your Christian life, and you will become sentimental or superstitious. You will take up with a routine of religious observances, or you will pine for crowded and excited religious meetings, and popular preachers, and foolishly imagine that you have gained a real blessing because you have been made to feel. One of the most universally working natural laws is this: overstrain any emotion, and you inevitably weaken, and you may destroy, the capacity of that emotion. Remember this: excited feeling never strengthens the will, never confirms principle. You may enjoy it, but the after-lassitude is the moment for which our soul-tempter keenly watches. Our Lord knew the perils of excited meetings, and studiously avoided them. The apostles never unduly arouse feeling, and they persistently urge growth in Christian knowledge as the necessary accompaniment of growth in grace. But let us see carefully what knowledge it is that the apostle commends. It is precisely this: the knowledge of Christ the Centre; “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Paul wants to know Him; and our Lord Himself said, “This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” In our days peculiar attention is being given to the person and mission of the Lord Jesus, and there is no sign of the times more important and more hopeful. But we Christians must throw ourselves fully into the study, and persist in it that the Christ can only be known by the quickened, sanctified, and Divinely guided intellect. This way and that men are trying to shake down our primary beliefs. Our security against criticism, on the one hand, and against religious sentimentality, on the other—the two supreme perils of our age—lies in giving ourselves fully and freely to the understanding of the beautiful and blessed earth-life of our Divine Lord. And it is the knowledge of all that circle of truth of which Christ is the centre. Everything in which Christ was interested interests us. And the circle is broader and larger than we think. Have we not something to regret in the past in relation to this growth in Christian knowledge? Have we really cared about it? Have we longed rather for something emotional, something sensational? Have we enjoyed the services, when we were only told what we knew? Then look at this text. “Grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” But it is well to face this fact: growth in Christian knowledge is a very trying thing; and so many shrink from it, or are afraid of it. It involves leaving past forms of knowledge behind, just as the boys leave behind their little school jackets when they step up into manhood; but nobody says anything evil about the forms of knowledge or the jackets; they belonged to their time, and did very well then. I know a minister who has been thirty years in the ministry, and boasts that he thinks to-day about the great religious verities exactly the same as he thought when he left college. I don’t think I could say that I would express any one of those verities as I did thirty years ago. We must grow. Let us accept the disabilities of our growth, and look kindly upon those thought-forms which properly belonged to our spiritual childhood, but were the steps up which we have passed to gain the higher apprehensions of to-day. Grow—but keep Christ the centre. The twofold growth—in character and knowledge—is essential. Both must go together. Try to conceive the case of a Christian in whom there has been growth of character without growth of knowledge. Keep that plant in the hothouse. It will not do for the workaday world. Try to conceive the case of a Christian in whom there has been growth of knowledge without growth of character. Keep that man in a study. He has no sweet brotherliness and Christly charity for the fellowships of life. Both are imperfect types. There is no fruitage to the glory of God from any tree that does not grow—and keep on growing—two ways—up and down. Let us set all our hearts upon securing the double growth? Then we shall have to mend our ways of private culture. Then we shall have to mend our ways of mutual help. How do we make things grow? Not by any direct action upon them. We do this: we try to give them the right environments, the surroundings and atmosphere which will inspire and help growth. Finding the environment in which our souls can grow is our life-work.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
2 Peter 3:16. Bible Difficulties.—An old man once said, “For a long period I puzzled myself about the difficulties of Scripture, until at last I came to the resolution that reading the Bible was like eating fish. When I find a difficulty, I lay it aside and call it a bone. Why should I choke over the bone when there is so much nutritious meat for me? Some day, perhaps, I may find that even the bone may afford me nourishment.” I remember reading that, in cutting down an oak, that must have been two hundred years old at the very least, there was found, in the very heart of the oak, a musket bullet. When it was stated to the peasants and villagers that it was so, they said it must be a trick—that the woodmen must have stuck it in, and pretended that it was found in the oak. But when men of science and practical knowledge investigated it, they found it was beyond all doubt that the bullet was in the very heart of the oak, and there was no opening by which it could be inserted, and no symptoms of a rent by which it could have been admitted. But a country gentleman in the place turned over the leaves of his history, and he discovered that in that very forest, when that tree must have been a mere sapling, a great battle was fought; that the presumption, nay, the certainty, was, that a bullet had fastened in the sapling; that, as it grew and broadened in bulk, in size, in form, for two hundred years, it had grown over the bullet, and the bullet had come to be imbedded and inserted in the very heart of it, without any opening by which it could have entered in past times; and thus the difficulty, that perplexed at first, became solved and easily explained by further and more extensive research. In the same manner, when we meet with difficulties in Scripture, when we cannot explain them today, lay them up for investigation to-morrow; and you will find that, as we grow in light, in practical experience, in research, in study, the things which seemed impossible a few years ago, will only seem difficult and hard to be understood to-day, and that, in the course of a year or two, all will be so plain that a wayfaring man can understand it, and need not err therein.—Dr. Cumming.