The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Peter — Section 79

vast change; it wae a mighty interposition of Divine power. "In the beginning Go,] created the heaven and the earth." We are not concerned here with the scientific, interpretation of phenomena. The Bible was not intended to teach us that knowledge which men may by patient labour obtain for themselves, but to reveal to us the- relations between man and God, so far ae those relations are within our comprehension. and to show ue the duties which arise out of those relations. We are not told how manv ages, or what processes of evolution, may have their place between the second and th~ third verses of the first chapter of GenesiR. It is the great fact of creation which is forcibly declared in those emphatic words with which the first of the sacred books begins. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear," This is the great truth: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." It was he who said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear." The scoffers wilfully forget this; even if they do not formally deny the possibility of creation, they shut their eyes to it, and forget that he who made the worl<l. can also destroy it, that the great change of creation may be preparatory for other changes as great in the future. (2) One such catastrophe was the Deluge. The earth, which God had oner pronounced to be "very good," had become corrupt, and was filled with violence. Then God brought in the Flood upon the world of the ungodly. By his Word" were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth." That awful visitation was a warning cf coming judgments. All things did not go on in the same unvarying course as the scoffers said. When all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth, then God inter- posed in his awful justice, and the earth was, by a baptism of water, restored and purified, prepared for a new beginning. (3) All things will not always continue as they are. By God's Word the heavens and the earth were made at the first; by hi,; Word they are now maintained in being. But as the old world contained in itself the element which swept away the ungodly race of men, so the world that now is contains in itself the agent of its own destruction. It is stored with fire; there are stores ot fire hidden within it, which are to work the last most awful change, which are to destroy the present order of things, and by their purifying and refining power to work, as by a baptism of fire, the regeneration of the universe into a new life. And it is stored up for fire, reserved unto the day of judgment, when the Lurd Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire. '!'hat great day is presented to us in Holy Scripture as a day of terror with surroundings most awful and overwhelming. It will be a day of destruction to the ungodly; it will sweep them into utter death-that death of the soul which is so much more dreadful than the death of the body, for it is death eternal, a state of separation from the life of God, separation from light and joy and love, felt in all its blank and utter misery. Then all things will not continue as they are; he who made the world at the first, he who interposed when that world had become corrupt, and swept away the wicked wilh the waters of the Flood,-he will come again, but this time "in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." The mockers may mock; but the Word of God abideth; it must be fulfilled-he will surely come. II. EXPLANATION OF THE DELAY OF THE JUDGMENT. 1. With the Eternal t-ime is not. We think under the laws of time; time is an essential element in our thought- we cannot think without recognizing it. It is not so with God; the thought of God is not subject to the law of time. He is eternal; past, present, and future are all within the sphere of his immediate knowledge. 'fo him one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. To him that inhabiteth eternity the longest time that human thought can conceive is but as a speck. Even we can understand that real life is measured not by mere time, but by action. How much of life was there con- centrated in the three yeard of our Lord's ministry, those years filled full with works of love and holy teaching I while, on the other hand, the seventy years or more of many men pass by in careless living, in listless idleness, without energy either of thouaht or action, without any good results either for themselves or for others. It is thought, love, action, that measures life, not the hand of the clock, not the mere lapse hours and years. "He, being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time'  74 THE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. [cu. rn. 1-18.