Second Peter

Peter’s second epistle addresses the terrible wickedness of the last days of Christendom. Unregenerate teachers, denying the Lord that bought them, would entice with vain words, promising liberty, but leading souls into the bondage of sin (ch. 2). Scoffers would make a mockery of Christianity and the hope of the believer (ch. 3).
While the second and third chapters are dark, the first is bright with encouragement. Peter exhorts them to make their calling and election sure, not in the eyes of God, for that would render the words meaningless, but in their walk. He desires that our entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ would be an abundant one, richly furnished (2 Peter 1:11). Peter recalls the mount of transfiguration; how could he forget that scene (2 Peter 1:17-18). We truly have a sure word, as we await, not the rising of the sun, but the day-star (2 Peter 1:19).
While the language of this epistle, and especially the second chapter, resembles Jude’s, there it is apostasy that is spoken of, and here it is sin. Peter in using the angels as an example says: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned” (2 Peter 2:4), while Jude, using a similar example, relates: “The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation” (Jude 6).
It was Peter’s desire that they might be mindful of the words spoken before by the apostles (2 Peter 3:1, 2). His manner of speaking offers no suggestion whatsoever of apostolic succession. Just as there were mockers in Noah’s day, their voices are today loud and clear. The world, however, is not now facing a flood, but fire, and the total dissolution of heaven and earth. Knowing this, we are to be diligent, “found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless” (2 Peter 3:14).