Preached at Budock, 1864.
“Simon Peter, a servant and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”— 2 St. Peter i. 1, 2.
This is all we know about the persons to whom St. Peter’s Epistle was written. They might be Jews, like Simon Peter himself. Probably most of them were, for his work was chiefly among Jews. But they might be Gentiles, for he had been the first to tell the Gentiles that God was no respecter of persons, and that in every nation those who feared Him and wrought righteousness should be accepted of Him. Whatever they were, they had obtained that blessing which St. Peter thought the most precious that he or any man could obtain.
What was it? They certainly had not obtained ease or quietness. Neither they nor the Apostle were leading more tranquil prosperous lives than their fellowmen. They had many troubles which other men had not. They were not to escape the troubles which other men had. St. Peter writes this letter especially to prepare them for great calamities which were coming upon the world, and in which they would have their full share.
And they had not obtained freedom from the temptations to evil which beset their neighbours. If they fancied they had that freedom, they would soon find how terribly they had deluded themselves.
This Epistle will show you how carefully and earnestly the Apostle warned his fellow-disciples that they might have a deeper fall, and sink into worse crimes than those who had never been sealed with the name of Christ. St. Peter had thought that he could go to prison and death for his Master. He had denied Him thrice. He certainly had not obtained the privilege of trusting himself. What he had obtained was the privilege of distrusting himself; the privilege of believing in God. That faith he calls precious; that faith he, as an apostle and servant of Jesus Christ, had invited Jews and Gentiles to claim as their treasure, just as it was his. He writes to those who had heard His Gospel, who had confessed it to be true. He writes to remind them what their confession meant; to show them how every event which befell them, every experience of their lives, was a confirmation of it; how they might act upon it; how they might bear witness of it to their fellows.
The verses which I have read to you are the beginning of what we call a general Epistle. Very general it is, not limited by the circumstances and the character of those to whom it was addressed; very general it is, not limited to the first ages, but carrying a message to this age. And yet I think also it is very special. It speaks to each man according to his own circumstances, according to his own deepest necessities; it tells each of us what need he has and what right he has to claim the like precious faith with the Apostle. Let us think first of the need, then of the right; afterwards we may see how St. Peter binds them together in his benediction.
I. How the Apostle found his need of faith I have told you already. He had been full of self-conceit; he had been chosen by One whom he regarded as the Son of David and the Son of God to be a minister in His kingdom. I do not know that he actually thought himself the greatest of those ministers, as some in later days have said for him that he was, but at least he wished to be the greatest. He disputed, as his brother disciples disputed, whether when the kingdom was established he should not have the highest place in it. He had been often told by his Master that in that kingdom the chief of all was the servant of all. A little child had been set before Him. ‘You must become,’ Jesus said, ‘like that child if you would be great in my kingdom!’ But such words did not at the time he heard them carry much meaning to his mind. Had he not been chosen—poor fisherman as he was—to be near the King? Had it not been said that he should sit on a throne judging the twelve tribes of Israel? Had it not been said that he should open the doors of the kingdom of heaven? These words were remembered, the others were forgotten.
Then came the explanation of them. The great man found how little he was, how contemptible he was. What then did his grand calling mean? How could he be a minister of the King? how could he reign or judge? how could he open the kingdom of heaven? He could be a minister of the King when he knew that he was good for nothing; he could judge the tribes of Israel for their unbelief in the righteous God and for their refusal to bless all the families of the earth with the knowledge of Him, when he had cast away his own unbelief and learned to trust Him altogether; he could open the kingdom of heaven to men by declaring Him to them, by saying to them ‘Behold your God; behold Him in whom you may trust.’
In this school St. Peter learnt his need of faith. When he once found that he was not better than his neighbours; when his conscience accused him of sins of which he could accuse no other, then he understood that he must have faith in one who cared for him more than he cared himself. And I say, my friends, we are every one of us in this school; we are all under a discipline which is to make us feel after some one who is looking after us when we are least able to look after ourselves, who is upholding us when we stumble, who is directing us when our own way would be most crooked. All accidents and diseases are threatening my body, yet life is preserved in it. My mind becomes bewildered, incapable of judging, thinking, remembering, yet some one does put thoughts and memories into it, does enable it to exercise judgment. Often we seem unable to bear the load we have to bear, the dread of what we may have to bear. Whence comes the renewal of the mind, of the courage? Who is it that is near us in those terrible moments when we are tempted, as St. Peter was, to lie; who in the more terrible moment when we have fallen as he fell? The faith that there is such a one as this—an actual person—a living friend—it is this which we have all need of, no other will do for us. A man says to himself sometimes, ‘I blundered terribly, but luck stood my friend; I committed that crime, but I was not found out; I was a fool, but I had kinsmen or parents who stood by me and pardoned my folly.’ They say these things, but they know all the while that there is no ground of trust in any of these things. The luck may save them once or twice; it will desert them some day. The crime will not always be hidden; the folly will wear out the patience of kinsmen and parents. Sad would it be if this were not so! As long as we confide in chances what miserable beggarly creatures we are. Every hour makes us feebler and baser. We want something to trust in which there is no chance, no variableness, not the shadow of a turning. We want One to trust in who perfectly knows us, perfectly sympathises with us, understands how weak we are, that He may give us exactly the strength which answers to that weakness; bear with our evil and so raise us out of it.
II. Have we a right to this kind of trust? Is there any one in whom we may place it, any one who demands it of us? St. Peter speaks to us of the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. He tells us of One who is absolutely utterly right, right always, right without change. He tells us that this righteousness has been manifested to men in One who had their nature, who entered into all their temptations, who died their death, who conquered their death. Men had dreamed of gods who had might; of gods who could do what they liked; but they could never find the might in such gods which they knew that they had need of; the might of one contended against the might of another. The might of this god seemed to be exerted in their favour; the might of that one seemed to be exerted against them. This prevailed in one place, over one set of persons; that prevailed in another place, over another set of persons. They could not trust such gods. They only could trust them when they supposed they were better than themselves; when they supposed that they inspired what was right and trustworthy in men, and fought against whatever was wrong and treacherous. Simon Peter said the God of our Fathers, the God who revealed Himself to Abraham and called forth his faith in the God of righteousness— He has been asking in all ages for our trust. He has been complaining in all ages of our want of trust. He has been urging war with all unrighteousness; He has been raising us out of our unrighteousness. He has been the God of salvation, because He has been the righteous God. He has been delivering us from evil, because He hates evil. And now he has shown Himself as the God of all the families of the earth in his Son. He is showing Himself mighty to save all the families of the earth by that Son. The God of righteousness is the Almighty God—the God who not only rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, but who is able to convert the inhabitants of the earth from unrighteousness to righteousness, from darkness to light, from the ignorance of Him to the knowledge of Him. Here is the true might—the might of the Father who created man in his own image to show forth His righteousness and glory; the might of the only begotten Son—the might which came forth in the agony of the garden, in the death on the cross; the might which was shown forth in the uttermost weakness; the might which could conquer hatred and enmity, and therefore which could conquer death and hell; the might in which He ascended on high, leading captivity captive, glorifying our humanity at the right hand of God. Here is the might of that spirit who triumphs over rebellious wills; who has come forth that God may dwell among men, and that they may testify of a day when He shall subdue all things to Himself.
Here, then, is our right to the faith which St. Peter claimed for himself and for his fellow-disciples. It stands on no ground of superiority in us to other men; the moment we set up such a pretence the faith disappears. It stands on the name of God Himself; on His eternal righteousness; on the manifestation of that righteousness in Christ, on the purpose of God and the power of God to make righteousness victorious over evil, life over death. The name of the righteous God was proclaimed in this far island of the west, as it was proclaimed in the eastern lands in which St. Peter preached. Here, as there, it overcame the unrighteous gods to which men had bowed down. Here, as there, the atonement of God to mankind in Christ overcame the accursed and hateful sacrifices by which men had sought to make themselves acceptable to the tyrants whom they served. Here, as there, the spirit of truth and love showed that He could overcome the spirit of falsehood and evil that contended with Him. God called us to the like precious faith with that which the apostles had preached to hard exclusive Jews and Greek idolaters. Our right to it is affirmed by every lesson we read, by every prayer in which we join, by every sacrament which declares our union to God and to each other. The blessing of these lessons, these prayers, these sacraments, is that they express our own utter nothingness; that they bring us all to a level; that they say to us ‘Trust not in your righteousness, in your traditions, in your personal faith; if you do, your righteousness will be found to be sinfulness, your traditions will contradict themselves, your personal faith will be changed to unbelief. But trust in God’s righteousness; thank Him for having called your fathers to trust in it, and for having preserved the record of His name to your own day; ask Him to restore your faith when it is feeblest and nearest to death; ask Him to make you witnesses to all men of His will, that they should believe in Him, and your youth will be renewed like the eagle’s; all personal circumstances, all past history, will give hopes of the future, will be quickened by Him who is, and who was, and who is to come; you will find that He has known us in all our struggles, and that He will give us that knowledge of Him which is eternal life.’
III. And so we may feel in some little degree the force of that wonderful blessing which we have heard so often and felt so little. “Grace and peace be multiplied to you, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” If we only heard of such words as having been spoken by an old and venerable man eighteen hundred years ago, to a set of men some of whom he had known, some of whom he had never seen, they would be very striking. An echo of a voice that must have been very sweet would reach us through all these centuries of vicissitude and sorrow. But now suppose the old man spoke truly; suppose he did not only utter a feeble wish of his; suppose he had a warrant to say ‘There is One whose grace and peace are over you and about you; there is One whose grace and peace will be over all the generations to come. There is One who will be seeking to bless them, as He is seeking to bless you, bestowing grace and peace on them, as He bestows them on you;’—would that be a mere echo of a mortal voice? would not Simon Peter, the Apostle and servant of Jesus Christ, however good and venerable, be lost in Him of whom he testifies as the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?
And if the thought comes to us, ‘Yes, but this grace and peace are expressly for those who have like precious faith with himself, that may indeed discourage and almost crush us.’ But when we consider what his faith was, how it grew, who gave it him, in whom it rested when above all we read the words “through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord”—our spirits are carried into another region; we shall cease to dwell on what we are; we shall remember what He is who gave His Son for us; what that Son is who humbled Himself, became of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and who is therefore exalted far above all principalities and powers that all things may be put under His feet. We shall not doubt that there is a grace coming forth from Him which can make even us willing in the day of His power; we shall not doubt that there is a peace in Him which we are meant to inherit, and which no tribulations of the world, no confusion in our mind can disturb. While we trust in that grace of God, in that peace in Jesus our Lord, we shall have the like precious faith with the Apostle that faith of which he spoke in his first epistle, when he says—‘Who by Him do believe in God, which raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope may be in God.’
Here, then, my friends, let our faith and hope be. Then it will be a hope not of some happiness for ourselves, but of the revelation of God’s glory which shall fill the whole earth—that glory for which apostles and martyrs in all ages have longed, and for which they counted not their lives dear. In the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord they sought their heaven; of the grace and peace of God and Jesus our Lord they spake to their brethren on earth. If we desire what they desired, if we join in their testimony, we shall not be disappointed; every part of our discipline here will prepare us for that heaven, because it will reveal to us more of the righteousness and the forgiveness of God. And the baptism of every child, the marriage of those whose hearts are one, the grave of every friend who has been separated from us, will repeat the benediction ‘Grace and peace be multiplied to you, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.’