2 Peter 3

2 Peter 3:1

No evil, but every good gift - Whatever tends to holiness. And every perfect gift - Whatever tends to glory. Descendeth from the Father of lights - The appellation of Father is here used with peculiar propriety. It follows, “he begat us.” He is the Father of all light, material or spiritual, in the kingdom of grace and of glory. With whom is no variableness - No change in his understanding. Or shadow of turning - in his will.

He infallibly discerns all good and evil; and invariably loves one, and hates the other. There is, in both the Greek words, a metaphor taken from the stars, particularly proper where the Father of lights is mentioned. Both are applicable to any celestial body, which has a daily vicissitude of day and night, and sometimes longer days, sometimes longer nights. In God is nothing of this kind. He is mere light. If there Is any such vicissitude, it is in ourselves, not in him.

2 Peter 3:2

Of his own will - Most loving, most free, most pure, just opposite to our evil desire, James 1:15. Begat he us - Who believe. By the word of truth - The true word, emphatically so termed; the gospel. That we might be a kind of first - fruits of his creatures - Christians are the chief and most excellent of his visible creatures; and sanctify the rest. Yet he says, A kind of - For Christ alone is absolutely the first - fruits.

2 Peter 3:3

Let every man be swift to hear - This is treated of from James 1:21 to the end of the next chapter. Slow to speak - Which is treated of in he third chapter. Slow to wrath - Neither murmuring at God, nor angry at his neighbour. This is treated of in the third, and throughout the fourth and fifth chapters.

2 Peter 3:4

The righteousness of God here includes all duties prescribed by him, and pleasing to him.

2 Peter 3:5

Therefore laying aside - As a dirty garment. All the filthiness and superfluity of wickedness - For however specious or necessary it may appear to worldly wisdom, all wickedness is both vile, hateful, contemptible, and really superfluous. Every reasonable end may be effectually answered without any kind or degree of it. Lay this, every known sin, aside, or all your hearing is vain. With meekness - Constant evenness and serenity of mind. Receive - Into your ears, your heart, your life. The word - Of the gospel. Ingrafted - In believers, by regeneration, James 1:18 and by habit, Hebrews 5:14. Which is able to save your souls - The hope of salvation nourishes meekness.

2 Peter 3:7

Beholding his face in a glass - How exactly does the scripture glass show a man the face of his soul!

2 Peter 3:8

He beheld himself, and went away - To other business. And forgot - But such forgetting does not excuse.

2 Peter 3:9

But he that looketh diligently - Not with a transient glance, but bending down, fixing his eyes, and searching all to the bottom. Into the perfect law - Of love as established by faith. St. James here guards us against misunderstanding what St. Paul says concerning the “yoke and bondage of the law.” He who keeps the law of love is free, John 8:31, &c. He that does not, is not free, but a slave to sin, and a criminal before God, James 2:10. And continueth therein - Not like him who forgot it, and went away. This man - There is a peculiar force in the repetition of the word. Shall be happy - Not barely in hearing, but doing the will of God.

2 Peter 3:10

If any one be ever so religious - Exact in the outward offices of religion. And bridleth not his tongue - From backbiting, talebearing, evilspeaking, he only deceiveth his own heart, if he fancies he has any true religion at all.

2 Peter 3:11

The only true religion in the sight of God, is this, to visit - With counsel, comfort, and relief. The fatherless and widows - Those who need it most. In their affliction - In their most helpless and hopeless state. And to keep himself unspotted from the world - From the maxims, tempers, and customs of it. But this cannot be done, till we have given our hearts to God, and love our neighbour as ourselves.

2 Peter 3:13

My brethren - The equality of Christians, intimated by this name, is the ground of the admonition. Hold not the faith of our common Lord, the Lord of glory - Of which glory all who believe in him partake. With respect of persons - That is, honour none merely for being rich; despise none merely for being poor.

2 Peter 3:14

With gold rings - Which were not then so common as now.

2 Peter 3:15

Ye look upon him - With respect.

2 Peter 3:16

Ye distinguish not - To which the most respect is due, to the poor or to the rich. But are become evil - reasoning judges - You reason ill, and so judge wrong: for fine apparel is no proof of worth in him that wears it.

2 Peter 3:17

Hearken - As if he had said, Stay, consider, ye that judge thus. Does not the presumption lie rather in favour of the poor man? Hath not God chosen the poor - That is, are not they whom God hath chosen, generally speaking, poor in this world? who yet are rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom - Consequently, the most honourable of men: and those whom God so highly honours, ought not ye to honour likewise?

2 Peter 3:18

Do not the rich often oppress you - By open violence; often drag you - Under colour of law.