PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. Peter
Lumby, J. Rawson (Joseph Rawson) · 97,959 words · 133 reading sections
Third Series, 1889-90.
Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. In the bo…
281 wordsSECTION 2Preface
Ecclesiastes. By Rev. SAMUEL COX, D.D. St. James and St. Jude. By Rev. A. PLUMMER, D.D. Proverbs. By Rev. R. F. HORTON, M.A. Leviticus. By Rev. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D. The Gospel of St. John. By Prof. M. DODS, D.D. Vol. I. The Acts of the Apostles. By Prof. STOKES, D.D. Vol. I. The Psalms. By A. MACLAREN, D.D.…
782 wordsSECTION 3Preface
Now in this first letter of St. Peter there is unquestionably much that corresponds in tone with the Epistle to the Romans, especially with the twelfth and thirteenth chapters. In both letters Christians are exhorted to offer their bodies as spiritual sacrifices, to shun conformity with the world, to study to be sober …
661 wordsSECTION 4Preface
This was likely enough even had St. Peter never visited the districts to which his letter was addressed. But we seem to find traces of him in Corinth (1 Cor. ix. 5; cf. also xv. 5), and he certainly was not unknown by name to the Christians of that city. And if so, why need we question his journeying through Asia Minor…
712 wordsSECTION 5Preface
Again, the writer makes you feel without quoting that he has the words of Jesus constantly in his mind. Thus in the exhortation, "Cast all your anxiety upon God, for He careth for you" (v. 7); when he says, "If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye" (iv. 14), or "Be sober; be vigilant" (v. 8), or "Be…
677 wordsSECTION 6Preface
But when the Church entered on the settlement of the New Testament Canon at the Council of Laodicæa (366), the Second Epistle of St. Peter was accepted; and no doubt there was evidence then before the assembled Fathers which time has now destroyed. Yet in the letter itself there are points which no doubt weighed with t…
855 wordsSECTION 7Preface
But there are two or three features of resemblance between the style of St. Peter's first epistle and the second which support strongly the genuineness of the latter. The First Epistle has a large proportion of words found nowhere else in the New Testament. There are a score of such words in this short composition. Now…
687 wordsSECTION 8Preface
The discovery last year in Egypt of some fragments of the Gospel and Apocalypse once current under the name of St. Peter has drawn attention once more to the genuineness and authenticity of the Second Epistle in our canon. But the difference in character between it and these apocryphal documents is very great. The Gosp…
370 wordsSECTION 9_The Work Of The Trinity In Man'S Election And Salvation_
I PAGE THE WORK OF THE TRINITY IN MAN'S ELECTION AND SALVATION 3 THE UNITY AND GLORIOUSNESS OF THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION 29 CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD: ITS CHARACTER AND DUTIES 55 "Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, …
823 wordsSECTION 10_The Work Of The Trinity In Man'S Election And Salvation_
But it would be a mistake to restrict the word "dispersion" here to the Jewish converts. The Apostle speaks more than once in his letter to those who had never been Jews, to men who (i. 14) had been fashioned according to their former lusts in ignorance; who had in times past (ii. 10) no share with God's people; who (i…
652 wordsSECTION 11_The Work Of The Trinity In Man'S Election And Salvation_
Of the election of believers the Apostle here speaks in its origin, its progress, and its consummation. He views it as a process which must extend through the whole life, and connects its various stages with the Three Persons of the Trinity. But, with the same practical instinct which has already been noticed, he enter…
681 wordsSECTION 12_The Work Of The Trinity In Man'S Election And Salvation_
To limited human knowledge the course of the world has ever been, must ever be, full of darkness and perplexities. Men gaze upon it as they do upon the wrong side of a piece of tapestry as it is woven. To such observers the pattern is always obscure, many a time quite unintelligible. For full knowledge we have to wait …
764 wordsSECTION 13_The Work Of The Trinity In Man'S Election And Salvation_
In this daily enlightenment must God's faithful ones live, a life whose atmosphere is the hallowing influence of the Holy Ghost. But it is to be no mere life of receptivity, with no effort of their own. The Apostle makes this clear elsewhere, when he says, "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" (iii. 15)--make them fit…
678 wordsSECTION 14_The Heavenly Inheritance_
In this prayer the same thought is with him as when he spake of the stages of the Christian election. There must ever be growth as the sign of life. Let them hold fast the grace already received, and more would be bestowed. Grace for grace is God's rule of giving, new store for what has been rightly used. This one word…
722 wordsSECTION 15_The Heavenly Inheritance_
[1] 2 Cor. i. 3, xi. 31; Eph. i. 3, with which may be compared Rom. xvi. 6. That these gifts are purely of God's grace he also implies: _He begat us again_. Just as in natural birth the child is utterly of the will of the parents, so is it in the spiritual new birth. _According to God's great mercy_ we are born again…
664 wordsSECTION 16_The Heavenly Inheritance_
Nor are these the only things which make the heavenly to differ from the earthly inheritance. In this life, ere a son can succeed to heirship, the parent through whom it is derived must have passed away; while the many heirs to an earthly estate diminish, as their number increases, the shares of all the rest. From such…
750 wordsSECTION 17_The Heavenly Inheritance_
But it seems less forced to consider the Apostle as speaking with some knowledge of the circumstances of these Asian Christians, a knowledge of the trials they had to undergo, and how hope was animating them to look onwards towards their inheritance, which was but a little while in reversion, towards the salvation whic…
754 wordsSECTION 18_The Heavenly Inheritance_
This is the revelation of Jesus Christ of which St. Peter speaks. This is the praise which through His atonement His servants shall find, and shall become sharers of the glory and honour which the Father has bestowed upon Him. To Christ then turns every affection. _Whom not having seen ye love._ This is the test since …
353 wordsSECTION 19_The Unity And Gloriousness Of The Plan Of Redemption_
"Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that _should come_ unto you: searching what _time_ or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should fol…
808 wordsSECTION 20_The Unity And Gloriousness Of The Plan Of Redemption_
But how imperfectly God's design was comprehended by the best among them we can see from the last words of David himself (2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7). In them we have an instance of the searching which must have occupied other hearts beside that of the king of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord had spoken by him, and a promise of f…
679 wordsSECTION 21_The Unity And Gloriousness Of The Plan Of Redemption_
Of the same character are those words of Joel, which St. Peter quoted in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, "It shall come to pass _afterward_" (ii. 28). Beyond this was not yet revealed. But it was the voice of God which spake through the prophet: "In those days I will pour out My Spirit." And the Divine voice spake …
810 wordsSECTION 22_The Unity And Gloriousness Of The Plan Of Redemption_
But the things which prophets and psalmists ministered _have now been announced unto you through them that preached the Gospel unto you_. You, St. Peter would say, are now not heirs expectant, but possessors of the blessings which former ages of believers foresaw and foretold, just as in his pentecostal address he test…
700 wordsSECTION 23_The Christian'S Ideal, And The Steps Thereunto_
[4] παρακύψαι is the word employed to describe the stooping of the disciples and Mary that they might look into the grave of Jesus (Luke xxiv. 12; John xx. 5, 11). And if such be the aspiration of angels, sinless beings who feel not the need of rescue, shall the tongues of men be dumb, men who know, each from the ex…
1,182 wordsSECTION 24_The Christian'S Ideal, And The Steps Thereunto_
And this obedience is the next precept for which they are to be made ready by the girding up of the loins of their minds, _as children of obedience_, the obedience not of slaves, but of sons. Children they are become by virtue of the new birth, and obedience it is which gives them a claim upon God's Fatherhood. They mu…
749 wordsSECTION 25_The Christian'S Ideal, And The Steps Thereunto_
_And if ye call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear._ But the fear which St. Peter means is a fear which grows out of love, a fear to grieve One who is so abundant in mercy. Who can call on God as Father but the children of obed…
878 wordsSECTION 26_The Christian'S Ideal, And The Steps Thereunto_
But the price which has been paid for their ransom may convince them how precious they are in the eyes of a Father in heaven. They are redeemed _with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot_, even the blood _of Christ_. For ages the offering of sacrifices had kept before the minds of Israel the ne…
791 wordsSECTION 27_Christian Brotherhood: Its Character And Duties_
"Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently: having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glo…
830 wordsSECTION 28_Christian Brotherhood: Its Character And Duties_
Such souls must be filled with the Spirit; a steadfastness like this comes only of the new birth. And of this the converts are reminded in the words which follow: _having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God_. It is true they are but at the outset of their Christia…
774 wordsSECTION 29_Christian Brotherhood: Its Character And Duties_
And we of to-day can see what ground there was for the Apostle's faith and for his teaching, how true the prophetic word has been found in the events of history. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower falleth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ev…
862 wordsSECTION 30_Christian Brotherhood: Its Character And Duties_
_Guile_ was the sin of Jacob, a sin which brake the bond of brotherhood between him and Esau, and wrought so much misery in the whole of Jacob's family history. Guile was not found in Nathanael. The searching eye of Jesus saw that the sin of the "supplanter" was not in him. Hence he is pointed out as an example of the …
1,077 wordsSECTION 31_The Priesthood Of Believers_
"Unto whom coming, a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief …
739 wordsSECTION 32_The Priesthood Of Believers_
[7] Παρὰ θεῷ ἐκλεκτόν speaks of Christ in His glory, in that place where the reward of the faithful is kept in store. Cf. the words of Matt. vi. 1. _Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house._ Not because they are living men does the Apostle speak of them as living stones. They may be full of the vig…
966 wordsSECTION 33_The Priesthood Of Believers_
[8] For illustration of what is here said, Matt. xxi. 16 may be compared with Psalm viii. 2, Acts xv. 15-17 with Amos ix. 11, 12, and Eph. iv. 8 with Psalm lxviii. 18; and the list might be largely increased. [9] Hence the New Testament writers quote from the LXX. in a very large proportion. The writer of the Epis…
798 wordsSECTION 34_The Priesthood Of Believers_
A hardening in part hath befallen Israel, and to the Church of Christ there is offered the blessedness which aforetime was to be the portion of the chosen people. But the offer is made on like terms of obedient service, and involves large duties. St. Peter marks the likeness of the two offers by choosing the words of t…
666 wordsSECTION 35_Christians As Pilgrims In The World_
The opportunities for winning men to Christ differ in modern times from those which were open to the earliest Christian converts; but there is still no lack of adversaries, no lack of those by whom the hope of the believer is deemed unreasonable: and now, as then, the good works which the opponents behold in Christian …
891 wordsSECTION 36_Christians As Pilgrims In The World_
Yet the Apostle does not counsel the new-made Christians to run away from this battle. They owe a duty to those who are out of the way, and must not shrink from it, be it ever so painful: _having your behaviour seemly among the Gentiles_. Their lives are to be led in the sight of their fellow-men, to be so led as to ha…
669 wordsSECTION 37_Christians As Pilgrims In The World_
The Apostle now turns to one illustration of Christian behaviour wherein the converts might be tempted to think themselves absolved from some portion of their duty. They were living under heathen rulers. Did their freedom in Christ release them from obligations to the civil powers? The question was sure to arise. St. P…
989 wordsSECTION 38_Christians As Pilgrims In The World_
The first part of the Apostle's exhortation in our verse had in view, it may be, more especially the Gentile converts. Their past life had been one of evil-doing in the sight of God; those whom they had left, and who were most likely to be their adversaries, were still walking in the same ways, and were to be won over …
564 wordsSECTION 39_Christian Service_
"Servants, be in subjection to your masters, with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is acceptable, if for conscience toward God a man endureth griefs, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye sin, and are buffeted _for it_, ye shall take it patiently? but if…
692 wordsSECTION 40_Christian Service_
Men wonder nowadays that there is so little said by any of the Apostles about freeing slaves from their bondage. The best men in those times and long before appear to have regarded slavery as one of the institutions with which they were bound to rest content. It flourished everywhere; it was countenanced in the Scriptu…
740 wordsSECTION 41_Christian Service_
_For hereunto were ye called._ Strange invitation to be dictated by love, a call to suffering! And yet the Master at first promises nothing else to His followers: "If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matt. xvi. 24). And what can a Christian wish for but to be lik…
838 wordsSECTION 42_Christian Service_
To this teaching, that Christ's suffering wrought man's rescue, St. Peter adds emphasis by another quotation from that chapter of Isaiah which he has so much in mind: _by whose stripes ye were healed_. Christ was stricken, and God grants to His sufferings a power to heal the souls of those whom He loves because they st…
409 wordsSECTION 43_Christian Wives And Husbands_
"In like manner, ye wives, _be_ in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behaviour of their wives; beholding your chaste behaviour _coupled_ with fear. Whose _adorning_ let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing…
829 wordsSECTION 44_Christian Wives And Husbands_
There is much gentleness in the Apostle's next words. He knows that there may arise cases where believing wives have husbands who are heathen. But he speaks hopefully, as thinking they would not be of frequent occurrence: _even if any obey not the word_. Wives, especially if they be of such a character as the Apostle w…
919 wordsSECTION 45_Christian Wives And Husbands_
Let these be the feelings which regulate womanly adornment, and it may be made a part of the culture of the heart, the inner man, which St. Peter urges the Christian wives to be careful to adorn: Let your adorning _be the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible apparel of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the …
726 wordsSECTION 46_Christian Wives And Husbands_
The Apostle now addresses Christian husbands. In his counsel to subjects and slaves he has not dwelt on the duties of rulers and masters. Perhaps he judged it unlikely that his letter would come to the hands of many such, or it may be he thought the lessons which he had to give were more needed by the subject people, i…
512 wordsSECTION 47_They Who Bless Are Blessed_
"Finally, _be_ ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing; for hereunto were ye called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that would love life, and see good days, let him refrain his …
787 wordsSECTION 48_They Who Bless Are Blessed_
It is manifest that if such harmony, kind feeling, attachment, affection, and humility flourished among believers, these virtues would put discord to the rout, and leave no occasion for rending the oneness of the Christian body. They would also be proof against evil from without, both in deed and speech, neither tempte…
650 wordsSECTION 49_They Who Bless Are Blessed_
And the actions need watchfulness also. They must not only possess the negative quality of abstinence from evil, but the positive stamp of good deeds done. "By their fruits ye shall know them." And the work will be no light one. Peace is to be sought, and the Apostle uses a word which implies that a chase is needful to…
886 wordsSECTION 50_They Who Bless Are Blessed_
Isaiah's message to disheartened Judah was, "The Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify." On His word shall ye rely, assured that He, the holy God, will fail neither in wisdom nor power. To think otherwise is not to sanctify Him. The Lord knoweth how to deliver out of temptation. St. Peter, who knew Christ as the Son of …
1,052 wordsSECTION 51_The Rewards Of Suffering For Well-Doing_
"For it is better, if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in which also He went and preached unto…
1,310 wordsSECTION 52_The Rewards Of Suffering For Well-Doing_
[10] The LXX. translators use the word θέλω very frequently to translate such expressions as "to delight in," "to have pleasure in." Cf. Deut. xxi. 14; 1 Sam. xviii. 22; 1 Kings x. 9. _Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit._ The suffering of Jesus went thus far, that there might be nothing in …
652 wordsSECTION 53_The Rewards Of Suffering For Well-Doing_
Up to the sixteenth century the latter exposition and application of the words found most favour, but at the time of the Reformation the chief authorities[11] expounded them of the preaching of Christ's Spirit through the ministry of the patriarch. For the main argument with which St. Peter is dealing these application…
791 wordsSECTION 54_The Rewards Of Suffering For Well-Doing_
And were they few in number? Fewer still were those who stood with Noah in the world's corruption. But God was with him; he walked with God, and found grace in His eyes; and God blessed him when the Flood was gone, and by the sign of the covenant, the faithful witness in heaven (Psalm lxxxix. 37), has placed a memorial…
865 wordsSECTION 55_The Rewards Of Suffering For Well-Doing_
Others have rendered ἐπερώτημα "an appeal," and have joined it very closely with the words _toward God_. These have found in the Apostle's explanation the recognition of that power to draw nigh unto God which the purified conscience both feels, and feels the need of. There are daily stumblings, the constant want of hel…
714 wordsSECTION 56_The Lessons Of Suffering_
"Forasmuch then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that ye no longer should live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past may suffice to have wrought the de…
732 wordsSECTION 57_The Lessons Of Suffering_
Christ bare willingly all that was laid upon Him that He might bring men unto God. This is the spirit, this the purpose, the intent, with which His followers are to be actuated: to have the same strenuous abhorrence of sin, the same devotion in themselves to goodness, which shall make them inflexible, however fiercely …
875 wordsSECTION 58_The Lessons Of Suffering_
And as he strives to fulfil God's intent by crucifying the old man and ceasing from sin, the Christian rejoices in a growing sense of freedom. To follow the lusts of men was to serve many and hard taskmasters. Riches, fame, luxury, sensual indulgences, riotous living, are all keen to win new slaves, and paint their lur…
724 wordsSECTION 59_The Lessons Of Suffering_
_Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them into the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you._ The godless love to be a large company, that they may keep one another in heart. Hence they who have been of them, and would fain withdraw, have no easy task; and to win new comrades sinners are ever most solic…
673 wordsSECTION 60_The Lessons Of Suffering_
Such has been the mercy of God even from the days of Eden. In the first temptation Eve adds one sin upon another. First she listens to the insidious questioning which proclaims the speaker a foe to God: then without remonstrance she hears God's truth declared a lie; hearkens to an aspersion of the Divine goodness; then…
765 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.