The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Peter — Section 65

Ver. 19.-Slaves promi6e liberty I 1. In denouncing the delnsionn promoted by false teachers, St. Peter passes from invective to irony. He exhibits in this verse, not merely the impiety, but the very absurdity, of sinners, who, themselves enslaved to sin, are so unreasonable as to offer freedom to their dupes and victims! The lan- guage which he uses gives an insight into religious truths of the highest practical importance. I. THE TRUE CHRISTIAN IS FREE FROM BIN, AND IS IN IlONDAGE TO CHRIST. There was a time when he was the c11ptive, the thrall of error, perhaps of vice or of crime. From that bondage Divine grace delivered him. But, in renouncing the serfdom to sin, he became the Lord's freedman. Yet the bighe,t use the Christian makes of his freedom is to submit himself to the holiest and the kindest of Masters. Even apost.les felt it an honour to subscribe themselves bondservants of the Lord Christ. The will of the Saviour is the law of the saved. II. 'l'HE FALSE CHRISTIAN 18 FREE FROM CrrmsT, AND IN BONDAGE TO SIN. He whose religion is only a name may call himself Christ's, but in fact be bas renounced the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light; he has given himself over to work the will of the tyrant who has usurped the throne which is by right Divine the proper inheritance of the Son of God. He may boast his liberty, but the boast is empty and vain. III. THE PROMISE OF LIBERTY ON THE PART OF srn's SLAVES IS FALLACIOUS AND VAIN. In politics it bas always been common for those bound by their own lusts and vanity to make loud professions of liberty, and to invite men to partake of its delights. These were the men of whom Milton said they "Bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, And still revolt when truth would set thP.m free. Licence they mee.n when they cry,• Liberty I' For who loves that must first be wise and good." These were the men who led Dr. Johnson to denounce "pat.riotism as the last refuge, of a scoundrel." These were the men whose conduct during the French Revolution led to the famous exclamation," 0 Liberty, what crimes have been wrou~bt in thy name! " It has been, and is, the fashion with socialists and communists, anarchists and nihilists, to sing the praises of freedom; but the" mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty," will have 110 homage from such professed admirers as these. What they want is licence for their own sins and scope for their own vanity. So has it ever been, and so is it still, in religion. In the early ages of the Church the Gnostics professed to be wise, to have found the secret of spiritual freedom; but in too many cases these pro- feRsions were a cloak for licentiousness. Again and again in the history of Christendom l1ave there occurred outbursts of fanaticiEm, of which the text supplies explanation. The antinomian is a "bondservant of corruption;" but who so loud as he in the pro- clamation of liberty, in the promise to all men of a life of spiritual freedom? But freedom is worthless unless it be freedom from sin's vile, debasing chains, unless it be the practical repudiation of the tyranny of the prince of darkness. There is a servitude which it is an honour for a free man to accept; it is the service of Christ, which is "perfect liberty."-J. R. T. Ver. 21.-" The way of righteousness." By this expression the Apostle Peter denotes the same course of moral life as he desigue.tes in previous verses "the way of truth" and "the right way." 'l'he epithet "righteous" here employed to define and describe what in the New 'l'ostament is sometimes called" the way," is peculiarly suggost.ive and instructive. I. IT 1s THE wAY DESIGNED BY A RIGHTEOUS GoD. There is nothing that more sianally distin"'nisbes the true G )d from the deities of the heathen than his inflexible 0 righteousness. His character is righteous; his works and the administration of his moral government are righteous; the laws which he promulgates for the direction of 60 THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF rE'l'ER. [cri. u. 1-22.